From h.j.stegeman at hccnet.nl Sat Jan 1 03:34:22 2005 From: h.j.stegeman at hccnet.nl (Henk Stegeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:41 2005 Subject: Defective IBM core memory UPDATE. Message-ID: <000801c4efe5$141842a0$8106a8c0@dordt.nl> Hi, UPDATE: I decided to open the core stack of my spare storage module to check if the open X wires where repairable. After opening the stack carefully at a plane with two open X wires I found out that the open spot in the X wires where located at the black 'foam' which IBM had put in between planes for airflow reasons. See white arrows in http://home.hccnet.nl/h.j.stegeman/CoreProb3.JPG The X wires where broken by a chemical reaction between the copper wires and the black 'foam'. This 'foam' becomes over the years very sticky black tar. I now also understand why only X wires where open and none of the Y wires. I also checked the tension/slack in the X/Y wires to see if shrinking (by frost) could break them. This is not the case. Conclusion: It was not the unheated storage of the system (my resposibility) but the chemical timebomb between the aging 'foam' and the X wires that caused the defect in all my core modules. I am now planning for a chip replacement of these core modules. Henk From quapla at xs4all.nl Sat Jan 1 09:55:39 2005 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (quapla@xs4all.nl) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:42 2005 Subject: Nosrk Data CAD stylus/pen Message-ID: <22760.62.177.191.201.1104594939.squirrel@62.177.191.201> Anybody interested in a stylus for the CAD tabled Norsk Data used? The stylus is unused and in it's packaging. Free, but postage applies. Ed From arlen at acm.org Sat Jan 1 10:36:04 2005 From: arlen at acm.org (Arlen Michaels) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:42 2005 Subject: Intel iPDS in general In-Reply-To: <41D60F93.2070408@mich.com> Message-ID: on 31/12/04 9:48 PM, Dave Mabry wrote: > Who was it who wanted to know more about the multimodule addon board for > the iPDS? I have a photo that I can send to him. Let me know. It was me-- I want to install iSBX bubble memory in my iPDS, but it lacks the multimodule addon board. If I can find a schematic of it, I'll try building one. Thanks, Arlen Michaels From anheier at owt.com Sat Jan 1 18:12:09 2005 From: anheier at owt.com (Norm and Beth Anheier) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:42 2005 Subject: IBM 51XX parts available Message-ID: I have the following ISA cards available from a IBM5160: 1 each 1501435 Color graphics 2 each 1503236 async 1 each 256KB memory 6449021XM $10 for all. and an unusual find from in a 5150: Twin CD ROM drives (Hitachi CDR-36006) with ISA interface card (CD-IP35A) and cables $20 for all These are as is, untested, price plus shipping from 99352 thanks Norm From dholland at woh.rr.com Sat Jan 1 19:06:34 2005 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:42 2005 Subject: Sweet.. New toy.. In-Reply-To: <1375.192.168.0.7.1103846486.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> References: <200412230036.iBN0aKjd059486@huey.classiccmp.org> <000e01c4e91a$0cb163b0$5b01a8c0@flexpc> <1375.192.168.0.7.1103846486.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: FWIW, (To restart a old thread) I stumbled across this website. http://www.mcmanis.com/chuck/computers/vaxen/vax_faq.html It appears the "upgradable" VAX-4300 backplane is part #54-19354-01 (As printed on the little sticker next to the right most Q-bus(?) slot) No serial numbers involved, but you do have to open it up. :-> Finally getting around to cleaning the VAX. The dust isn't too bad. Nicely made machine, good steel frame. Backplane is on par w/ my Crimson's backplane. :) Ciao, David On Fri, 24 Dec 2004, Witchy wrote: > >> with a ribbon cable doing the cpu/memory interconnect while > >> the later ones > >> used the zero-force type white socket blocks found on the likes of the > >> HSD/HSZ RAID controllers and Alpha 1200 CPU modules. > > > > Are you sure about that? I thouht the only difference was that > > more wires were connected on the later backplane. You were > > supposed to be able to use anything (including a KA670) in > > the later backplanes but only a KA670 in the earlier one. > > We've got several 4000 series VAXen in the workshop and one of them has > this backplane, I'm sure it's a 4000-505 or something of that ilk. I'm > back home in Newcastle for the festivities now, but I can mail the poor > saps left at work tomorrow and ask them to check :) I can also check my > own 4500 assuming the wind doesn't stop me getting to the garage tomorrow! > Oh, the levers that hold the boards in are on some sort of ratchet > arrangement from what I remember, it's been a few months since I was last > delving into the internals. > > > If the difference was physically obvious, why rely on telling > > people the serial number range to distinguish one from another > > when simply looking would have done? > > because end users weren't allowed to pull their machines apart to check? > > Cheers, > > -- > adrian/witchy > Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator > www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? > From dave04a at dunfield.com Sun Jan 2 10:08:01 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:42 2005 Subject: Waterloo MicroWAT ? Message-ID: <20050102160759.RNKE5758.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Hi Heinz, Thanks for the very useful information. >Not, it's not a SuperPet. Not even close. Noting shared >with Commodore's schematics. No memory mapped video, >no VIAS. >From what I can tell, it is/was intended to run the same Waterloo software as the SuperPET (in 6809 mode) - the document that I have describes the microWAT and SuperPET as separate hardware (which they obviously are!), but makes very little distinction once it gets into the software. >It used a bank switched eprom board (2532's ?) to run boot/ >the monitor and Waterloo Structured interpreted languages >(Which were themselves written in a weird C-like compiled > language called WSL= Waterloo Systems Language) This is probably how the microWAT and SuperPET are "the same" when the hardware is different ... It appears that WSL is used to make the same software run on both platforms. From the document I have: "SOFTWARE PORTABILITY When the 6809 was chosed as the microprocessor for the microWAT and SuperPET, we realized that microcomputers which incorporated other microprocessors such as the 68000, 8086, 8088 and Z8000 were about to be announced, and some were even available. It would, therefore, be unwise to prepare extensive software systems specifically for the 6809. The systems language WSL is ment to produce code which is portable. By using WSL to write the language interpreters, the editor, the library the assembler development system, and in fact the WSL compiler itself, it should be a relatively easy job to move or "port" the system to other machines and interface it with their operating systems." >The most interesting thing in that whole system was that >Wes Graham (of Watfor fortran compiler fame) had >written a copyrighted poem (Haiku) that was an unencrypted >key required to run the software. The designers chose the rarest, >hardest to program most obscure Harris 3 supply fuse proms to use, >so it could not be easily copied. Can you provide more information - at some point I, if I can gather enough material together, I would like to try and get the thing to run - do I need to provide this "key"? Also, can you shed any light on the 1/2 height completely potted (ie: sealed from tampering) card that I found wrapped up inside the system? (See previous posting for complete description). Any other information/resources you can point me at would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From mokuba at gmail.com Sat Jan 1 01:23:10 2005 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary G. Sparkes Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:42 2005 Subject: HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab Message-ID: <41d64fe5.68b0f574.0547.050d@smtp.gmail.com> I recently acquired one of these units and am in the process of searching for manuals or any info AT ALL on this unit! So far I've figured out how to call up addresses, store data and program it (havn't really done much since I can't figure out more then how to play with the registers, the output hardware is alien to me :/) I'd love to get a copy of the rom as it was written in the manual, comments and all. Also, if anyone has a manual and wants it scanned, I'll be more then happy to do that for you! And I'm especially keen to know how to manipulate the speaker and output LEDs From glen.slick at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 12:36:09 2005 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab In-Reply-To: <41d64fe5.68b0f574.0547.050d@smtp.gmail.com> References: <41d64fe5.68b0f574.0547.050d@smtp.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e9050102103616111c34@mail.gmail.com> I typed this in from the ROM listing in the manual. http://home1.gte.net/~gslick/5036a On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 02:23:10 -0500, Gary G. Sparkes Jr. wrote: > I recently acquired one of these units and am in the process of searching > for manuals or any info AT ALL on this unit! So far I've figured out how to > call up addresses, store data and program it (havn't really done much since > I can't figure out more then how to play with the registers, the output > hardware is alien to me :/) I'd love to get a copy of the rom as it was > written in the manual, comments and all. Also, if anyone has a manual and > wants it scanned, I'll be more then happy to do that for you! And I'm > especially keen to know how to manipulate the speaker and output LEDs > > From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 2 12:40:17 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Completely original vs. upgraded In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Dec 2004, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > I have a small NeXT collection (getting bigger ;-)) and one thing I was > wondering about was the need to maintain originality. For example, I > have one NeXT cube with an interesting pedigree (it has NeXT asset tags > on it, and some interesting bits), but it's a 68030 motherboard... the > low end cube. I have a NeXT Turbo board I can put into the case, but > then the unit wouldn't be "original" any more... does that matter? Typically, yes. You will have altered the provenance of the machine. If you appreciate the system from a functional point of view then this doesn't matter. But if you appreciate the machine from a historical point of view then it does. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 2 12:40:58 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: <5695379C-5B4E-11D9-92C9-000D93520A84@rbii.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 31 Dec 2004, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > Apart from dusting with compressed air and camel hair brushes, which > removes the dust from circuit boards, are there any recommendations for > cleaning the general grimy file from motherboards? Good question. I didn't have any luck with contact cleaner and would love to hear suggestions. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vax9000 at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 12:45:19 2005 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: <5695379C-5B4E-11D9-92C9-000D93520A84@rbii.com> References: <20041231114831.FXYQ5758.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> <5695379C-5B4E-11D9-92C9-000D93520A84@rbii.com> Message-ID: I sometimes use water to blow away dust. After that, I use a fan to blow the board for hours. vax, 9000 On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 12:06:40 -0500, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > Apart from dusting with compressed air and camel hair brushes, which > removes the dust from circuit boards, are there any recommendations for > cleaning the general grimy file from motherboards? > > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 2 12:54:59 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Completely original vs. upgraded In-Reply-To: References: <20041231114831.FXYQ5758.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <1104692099.2646.16.camel@weka.localdomain> On Fri, 2004-12-31 at 12:03 -0500, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > I have a small NeXT collection (getting bigger ;-)) and one thing I was > wondering about was the need to maintain originality. For example, I > have one NeXT cube with an interesting pedigree (it has NeXT asset tags > on it, and some interesting bits), but it's a 68030 motherboard... the > low end cube. I have a NeXT Turbo board I can put into the case, but > then the unit wouldn't be "original" any more... does that matter? Personally in situations like that I don't like doing anything that can't be put 'right' again at a later date - so if it involves drilling holes in cases and things I wouldn't do it, but if it's just a board swap I would (and hang on to the original board so I could always put things back how they were) cheers Jules From teoz at neo.rr.com Sun Jan 2 13:02:13 2005 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Completely original vs. upgraded References: <20041231114831.FXYQ5758.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> <1104692099.2646.16.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <007d01c4f0fd$9b3b8da0$eb2d1941@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jules Richardson" To: Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 1:54 PM Subject: Re: Completely original vs. upgraded > On Fri, 2004-12-31 at 12:03 -0500, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > > I have a small NeXT collection (getting bigger ;-)) and one thing I was > > wondering about was the need to maintain originality. For example, I > > have one NeXT cube with an interesting pedigree (it has NeXT asset tags > > on it, and some interesting bits), but it's a 68030 motherboard... the > > low end cube. I have a NeXT Turbo board I can put into the case, but > > then the unit wouldn't be "original" any more... does that matter? > > Personally in situations like that I don't like doing anything that > can't be put 'right' again at a later date - so if it involves drilling > holes in cases and things I wouldn't do it, but if it's just a board > swap I would (and hang on to the original board so I could always put > things back how they were) > > cheers > > Jules > That's the way I feel about it also, swapping boards is no problem as long as you keep the older ones and can put it back together the way you found it. I even keep the original HD intact on the shelf and use a newer one. It only really matters if you intend to resell the machine at a later date, or if there was something unique to the machine in the first place (pre production machine, custom prototype, etc). From jrice54 at vzavenue.net Sun Jan 2 13:14:49 2005 From: jrice54 at vzavenue.net (James Rice) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Completely original vs. upgraded In-Reply-To: <007d01c4f0fd$9b3b8da0$eb2d1941@game> References: <20041231114831.FXYQ5758.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> <1104692099.2646.16.camel@weka.localdomain> <007d01c4f0fd$9b3b8da0$eb2d1941@game> Message-ID: <41D84829.1020003@vzavenue.net> I really don't see a problem with upgrades. I'd rather see a machine upgraded and in use than a "correct" one that is a closet or warehouse queen. That being said, I never upgrade one if it alters the physical structure of the machine or involves cutting, grinding or drilling. As far as my NeXT collection, I replace drives, add memory, generally bring it up the maximum it could have been for daily use. I'm not a "ricer" that adds cold cathode lighting or led illuminated fans with glass portholes in the case. The closest I have come to something like that was installing a blue LED in the light bar of my Octane to replace the stupid little incandescent lamps that die almost immediately. As far as your cube with NeXT property tags is concerned, I'd probably set that one up as an original 68030 cube and pick up another shell cube off ebay for the turbo board. One can never have too many cubes you know. ;-) >>>I have a small NeXT collection (getting bigger ;-)) and one thing I was >>>wondering about was the need to maintain originality. For example, I >>>have one NeXT cube with an interesting pedigree (it has NeXT asset tags >>>on it, and some interesting bits), but it's a 68030 motherboard... the >>>low end cube. I have a NeXT Turbo board I can put into the case, but >>>then the unit wouldn't be "original" any more... does that matter? >>> >>> -- www.blackcube.org The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers From randy at s100-manuals.com Sun Jan 2 13:20:17 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... References: <20041231114831.FXYQ5758.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> <5695379C-5B4E-11D9-92C9-000D93520A84@rbii.com> Message-ID: <007801c4f100$19a40490$6e3cd7d1@randylaptop> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gavin Thomas Nicol" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, December 31, 2004 11:06 AM Subject: Cleaning motherboards... > Apart from dusting with compressed air and camel hair brushes, which > removes the dust from circuit boards, are there any recommendations for > cleaning the general grimy file from motherboards? Soap and water, put it in your dishwasher with cool dry. When it's finished rinsing remove it and blow dry. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From james at jdfogg.com Sun Jan 2 14:22:21 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (James) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > On Fri, 31 Dec 2004, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > > > Apart from dusting with compressed air and camel hair brushes, which > > removes the dust from circuit boards, are there any recommendations for > > cleaning the general grimy file from motherboards? > > Good question. I didn't have any luck with contact cleaner and would love > to hear suggestions. Well.... dishwasher. But I've said this before, so check the archives. From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 2 14:35:00 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... References: Message-ID: <008801c4f10a$8824b310$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written... >> Good question. I didn't have any luck with contact cleaner and would >> love >> to hear suggestions. I've used contact cleaner, in some really grungy power supplies with great results. What about it didn't work well for you? Jay From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Sun Jan 2 14:45:52 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Looking for Larscom CupreDSU Message-ID: <0501022045.AA08342@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Hi everyone and Happy New Year, This is probably OT because the piece I'm looking for is not 10 y old, however, it is an item of interest primarily to those with a passion for classic computing and seems to be absolute unobtainium, much harder to find than many older items. The CupreDSU is a unit that allows one to connect a classic router of the kind used with [F]T1 lines (in my case a MicroVAX with a DSV11 card running 4.3BSD-Quasijarus) to a Copper Mountain SDSL line. Apparently it was manufactured and sold only very briefly because it is of no use to ordinary sane people who just want to use their DSL lines like normal people do, with an Ethernet interface. It is, however, useful to crazy people like me who for non-objectively-justifiable emotional reasons refuse to use a modern DSL router with an Ethernet interface and insist on using a Quasijarus router instead, i.e., connecting the MicroVAX (via DSV11) to the SDSL line *directly*, without an intervening Ethernet. The CupreDSU is a V.35 DSU for the SDSL electrical signal and does for SDSL what typical CSUs/DSUs do for T1 and DDS lines. Copper Mountain has a page on their website listing all CPE compatible with their DSLAMs, and according to that page Larscom is the only manufacturer that ever made a simple DSU, which they called CupreDSU. All other CPE listed there are Ethernet routers or bridges. The only other unit that comes even close is the ADC Kentrox CopperSMART, which appears to be a plain DSU at first glance, but it is also too smart for me. It knows about Frame Relay frame format and has functions for tampering with the data passing through it, while I want a raw DSU that passes bits through without interpreting them in any way. So I'm running around with my tongue out looking for a Larscom CupreDSU, which apparently due to being totally useless to 99.9999% of DSL users is absolute unobtainium. So if anyone here has one they can part with, I offer $$$. If I cannot find one, the only other alternative would be to build such a DSU myself. Does anyone know anything about Copper Mountain SDSL Layer 1 electrical signal format? Has anyone ever tried to reverse-engineer a CopperEdge DSLAM or one of the routers or bridges compatible with it? Reading the manuals for various products (bridges, routers and the Larscom unit in question) I see consistent references to something called SDSL firmware, separate from the main unit firmware, which is often upgradeable. This makes me strongly suspect that all those products incorporate an SDSL Layer 1 circuit licensed from Copper Mountain, and that the SDSL firmware they are talking about is probably for a DSP used in it. The question is, how is this circuit interfaced to the rest of an a typical router/bridge product? Is this circuit implemented in separate chips and there is a TTL/CMOS-level bit-serial interface lurking in between this circuit and the rest of the router/bridge, or did they cram the entire SDSL circuit, including the DSP and flash firmware, into an ASIC together with other unrelated things? Has anyone poked inside one of those routers/bridges? TIA for any help, MS From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 2 15:39:45 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: <008801c4f10a$8824b310$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > It was written... > >> Good question. I didn't have any luck with contact cleaner and would > >> love > >> to hear suggestions. > > I've used contact cleaner, in some really grungy power supplies with great > results. What about it didn't work well for you? The grime I was trying to remove was so set in that it wasn't affected at all by the contact cleaner I use. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 2 16:11:45 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Completely original vs. upgraded In-Reply-To: from "Gavin Thomas Nicol" at Dec 31, 4 12:03:37 pm Message-ID: > > I have a small NeXT collection (getting bigger ;-)) and one thing I was > wondering about was the need to maintain originality. For example, I > have one NeXT cube with an interesting pedigree (it has NeXT asset tags > on it, and some interesting bits), but it's a 68030 motherboard... the > low end cube. I have a NeXT Turbo board I can put into the case, but > then the unit wouldn't be "original" any more... does that matter? I am, perhaps, unusual in that I _use_ my classic computers. In fact I don't own a computer that isn't a classic by the terms of this list... I am also primarily a hardware person. I don't have any problem with _reversable_ changes to machines, but I do also like to keep the original electronic design unaltered as far as possible. This includes power supplies, BTW (I object to replacing linear supplies with switchers, etc). I don't have any problems with plugging in expansion cards (even ones that aten't contemporary with the machine, provided they work -- e.g. putting a recent ISA card into an orignal PC/AT). I ahve no problems with soldering in extra components (in fact, if I could find 32 off 1103 DRAMs and a couple of the level shifter ICs, I'd be soldering them into my HP9830 tonight ;-)) I don't like drilling holes, but I will bend the rules for small screw holes and the like What I won't do is majorly change the design of the machine. I wouldn't, for example, replace the internals of one of my PDP11s with a PC running a PDP11 emulator. In the case of a motherboard-swap type of upgrade. I might well do it (it would depent on a lot of factors), but I would keep the original board, labelled, so the machine could be returned to the original state if I wanted to. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 2 16:12:52 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: <5695379C-5B4E-11D9-92C9-000D93520A84@rbii.com> from "Gavin Thomas Nicol" at Dec 31, 4 12:06:40 pm Message-ID: > > Apart from dusting with compressed air and camel hair brushes, which > removes the dust from circuit boards, are there any recommendations for > cleaning the general grimy file from motherboards? I find propan-2-ol (isopropanol, isopropyl alcohol) and kitchen paper quite efficient -tony From allain at panix.com Sun Jan 2 16:25:42 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... References: Message-ID: <005801c4f119$ffccba20$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > Well.... dishwasher. But I've said this before, so check the archives. Probably a FAQ top 10. But what happened to the FAQ? http://www.classiccmp.org/faq.html "be warned: the... FAQ hasn't been updated since 1997" Actually it's kinda sorta in there: http://www.classiccmp.org/oldfaq.txt "I find a cycle through the dishwasher does a really nice job on keyboards." I don't think the rules preclude discussing the FAQ until 2007. John A. From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 2 16:32:48 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Horses comma dead comma beating, re: drives hard Noisy old profile Reviving Message-ID: Rules of thumb are just that. They aren't meant to be Science but Craft; analysis beyond some point(*) is generally worthless. Hard drives last longer than food, but not much. Reviving for data recovery is great, but all of the commodity winchester types are of limited lifespan. If you get 25K hours, consider yourself skating on thin ice. PS: If a drive is dead due to stiction, then rotating it sharply parallel to the platter (I can't believe rotational direction matters nor that you can know which way they turn w/o opening), or rapping during power up, or taking the cover off all work "a lot". On the latter, the once or twice I've done it I just wiped everything off with a clean rag first, hit reset, rotate the platter (finger on enter hub, I forget) then xcopy (it was some DOS box) the data off. On those old ST225 type drives, sometimes the little brush (tab) finger thing that grounds the rotating spindle, on the bottom outside of the drive (under? the PCB?) squeals. Bend it. (*) I suppose you could use real methodology to determine exactly what the failure modes really are, and possibly disk manu's do that. But there's not much value in it outside disk-drive {manufacture,repair} worlds. Drive construction techniques come and go, by the time the likes of us (non-disk-drive-manu-engineers) figure one thing out, it's changed again. From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jan 2 16:32:54 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Looking for Larscom CupreDSU In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 02 Jan 2005 20:45:52 GMT." <0501022045.AA08342@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <200501022232.j02MWslO008058@mwave.heeltoe.com> Perhaps I'm confused, but why just use use one of the simple SDSL to ethernet boxes out there? I bought a few for $25 on ebay. When they die I just plug in a new one (and then debug the dead power supply at my leasure) It won't give you the v.35 but you can't beat the price and simplicity. Plus I'd rather use a delua than run ppp or cisco hdlc. I run several over a bare copper wire I lease from the phone company. Works like a champ and I get 2mbits. I never have to touch them (except when the ps dies every few years). also, didn't pairgain make a similar box? or att paradyne. I think the sdsl firmware is really bits put in an fpga. You don't want to do that unless you have the right test equipment, a test dslam and lots of time. -brad Michael Sokolov wrote: >Hi everyone and Happy New Year, > >This is probably OT because the piece I'm looking for is not 10 y old, however >, >it is an item of interest primarily to those with a passion for classic >computing and seems to be absolute unobtainium, much harder to find than >many older items. > >The CupreDSU is a unit that allows one to connect a classic router of the >kind used with [F]T1 lines (in my case a MicroVAX with a DSV11 card running >4.3BSD-Quasijarus) to a Copper Mountain SDSL line. Apparently it was From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 2 16:54:29 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Looking for Larscom CupreDSU In-Reply-To: <200501022232.j02MWslO008058@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Jan 2005, Brad Parker wrote: > also, didn't pairgain make a similar box? or att paradyne. I've got a bunch of AT&T Paradyne modems in case anyone's interested. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 2 16:58:48 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:44 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Fri, 31 Dec 2004, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > > > Apart from dusting with compressed air and camel hair brushes, which > > removes the dust from circuit boards, are there any recommendations for > > cleaning the general grimy file from motherboards? On Sun, 2 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > Good question. I didn't have any luck with contact cleaner and would love > to hear suggestions. I use: warm, soapy water and a soft clean paintbrush. Rinse it with lots of water, shake it off, let dry for a day or two. No big deal. This is an old thread, there are many other suggestions, all good, including kitchen dishwashers, though that seems a bit overkill for "normal" PCB dirt, cigarette smoke, dust, etc. Unless you have a lot of Data General 15"x15" boards to do, then it's the only sensible solution :-) From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Sun Jan 2 17:00:41 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Looking for Larscom CupreDSU Message-ID: <0501022300.AA08649@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > I've got a bunch of AT&T Paradyne modems in case anyone's interested. Do you have one with a synchronous serial hand-off (NO Ethernet, no bridge or router functionality) that's compatible with Copper Mountain DSLAMs? MS From mokuba at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 13:56:00 2005 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary G. Sparkes Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: HP 5036a microprocessor lab Message-ID: <41d851d6.54bfde78.52b3.1fd7@smtp.gmail.com> I recently acquired one of these units and am in the process of searching for manuals or any info AT ALL on this unit! So far I've figured out how to call up addresses, store data and program it (havn't really done much since I can't figure out more then how to play with the registers, the output hardware is alien to me :/) I'd love to get a copy of the rom as it was written in the manual, comments and all. Also, if anyone has a manual and wants it scanned, I'll be more then happy to do that for you! And I'm especially keen to know how to manipulate the speaker and output LEDs From gtn at rbii.com Sun Jan 2 16:54:19 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: <005801c4f119$ffccba20$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <005801c4f119$ffccba20$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <3C722EF2-5D11-11D9-93C5-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 2, 2005, at 5:25 PM, John Allain wrote: >> Well.... dishwasher. But I've said this before, so check the archives. > > Probably a FAQ top 10. But what happened to the FAQ? Well, I did check the faq, and then went out and did some more searching and came back with conflicting messages... so I figured it'd be worthwhile asking Yet Again :-) From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jan 2 17:09:44 2005 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41D87F38.4070209@jetnet.ab.ca> Tom Jennings wrote: >I use: warm, soapy water and a soft clean paintbrush. Rinse it >with lots of water, shake it off, let dry for a day or two. No >big deal >This is an old thread, there are many other suggestions, >all good, including kitchen dishwashers, though that seems >a bit overkill for "normal" PCB dirt, cigarette smoke, dust, >etc. Unless you have a lot of Data General 15"x15" boards to do, >then it's the only sensible solution :-) > > However chorinated water can wreck havoc on electrolytic capacitors. Also in my aparnment I have room for a dishwater or a vintage computer... Give me a moment to think here... :) From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 2 18:13:37 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Looking for Larscom CupreDSU In-Reply-To: <0501022300.AA08649@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Jan 2005, Michael Sokolov wrote: > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > I've got a bunch of AT&T Paradyne modems in case anyone's interested. > > Do you have one with a synchronous serial hand-off (NO Ethernet, no bridge > or router functionality) that's compatible with Copper Mountain DSLAMs? I have no idea. I'll get the model number(s) for you and then you can figure out if it's what you can use. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Sun Jan 2 18:17:51 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Looking for Larscom CupreDSU Message-ID: <0501030017.AA08766@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Brad Parker wrote: > I think the sdsl firmware is really bits put in an fpga. Hmm, if this is so, the circuit should be pretty simple, as all the digital stuff would be in the FPGA, so I would just need the FPGA firmware file. But what's between the FPGA and the copper line? MS From dwight.elvey at amd.com Sun Jan 2 19:01:36 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Intel MDS Series II poll Message-ID: <200501030101.RAA26671@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Joe Do you or anyone on the list have a programmer with the right adapter for the 8741? It almost always requires an adapter. Dwight >From: "Joe R." > >Hi Dave, > > I have a crap load of 8741s (I think!) that are just waiting for a >project like this! I already have this installed in my MDS-235. I'm sure I >have plenty of 2716s too but those are common. Hmmm, this might be a good >opportunity to try out that Stag programmer that I've never used. > > I got your other message and will call you some other time. My OL fell >and messed up her ankle and I'm having to tote and fetch for her and I'm >worn out. Also just spent three days cleaning %$^%&% HSA hijacker off my >computer! > > Joe > > >At 09:06 PM 12/30/04 -0500, you wrote: >>Ok, I've been on a kick lately to get my Intel MDS Series II systems >>working as much as I can. So my interest in them is peaking. >> >>I'd like to know who has Series II's on this list, if you don't mind >>admitting it. I know that Tony, Joe, Steve, Dwight, and a few others >>do. And Joe can probably supply anyone who wants one with a system. >>;) Just kidding Joe. You are hanging onto yours as an investment, >>right? I know I am!!! >> >>These last couple of days I copied images of the ROM code that makes up >>an upgrade for the Series II called iMDX-511. It was all new firmware >>for the IOC board (4 2716's) and a new firmware in the keyboard (8741A) >>to implement the upgrade. It turned the RPT (repeat) key into a >>"function" (FCTN) key. And along with the latest version of ISIS (4.3) >>you had the capability to hit FCTN-D for "DIR " or FCTN-T for " TO " and >>many other "soft" keys for ISIS command line shortcuts. It also added >>cursor addressability to the integral CRT and some attributes, like >>reverse video, blinking, underline, etc. All stuff that we take for >>granted today, but in those days it was a big thing!!! >> >>Anyway, if anyone is interested I can make the binaries available and >>help those of you who have these beasts get it implemented. >> >>Any takers? >>Dave Mabry >> >> >> > > From leigh at digicraft.com.au Sun Jan 2 19:03:36 2005 From: leigh at digicraft.com.au (Andrew Leigh) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Classic Computers 2005 Wall Calendar Message-ID: <01f701c4f130$10174060$0200a8c0@andy> Hi, I know this has been mentioned before on the list, but I thought people here would be interested. I have printed and produced some classic computer wall calendars for 2005. I've just reduced the price to US$5.99. You can see them and purchase one online here: http://www.digicraft.com.au/calendars I'm sorry if this is seen as spam. Andy From dwight.elvey at amd.com Sun Jan 2 19:09:28 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: S-100 Polymorphic Systems card questions Message-ID: <200501030109.RAA26676@clulw009.amd.com> Hi The zener is only needed if the keyboard you intend to use needs a negative rail. Normally most would need a 12 volt zener but some need a -15 volt level. You need to check the current of the keyboard to determine the right value for the resistor. As Randy states, the manual is available now. The keyboard is intended to be connected through this board and this board has a connection to one of the interrupt lines. The keyboard is to be a parallel out, 8 bits, w/ + or - strobe. It has memory mapped video with either characters ( including Greek ) or block graphics. The output is standard composite video. If you ever want to get it working, you can contact me and I can most likely help you some. Dwight >From: "Randy McLaughlin" > >----- Original Message ----- >From: >To: >Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 12:38 PM >Subject: S-100 Polymorphic Systems card questions > > >> I have a S-100 based system that seems to mostly run, but I have some >> questions on the video card. >> It is a Polymorphic Systems card, but looks different from all the >> examples I >> could find on the internet >> >> Markings are: Polymorphic Systems (c) 1976 I.P.C VIDEO rev 0.0, with most >> chips aligned vertically >> >> The keyboard? port is a 14 pin DIP socket in the upper R.H. corner, next >> to a >> 8212 I/O chip. >> Between this and the VIDEO marking, there are some pads with heat damage >> that >> have the symbol for Zener diode across one of them. I have no idea what >> the >> component specs are for these pads. >> >> Also, 2 questions: does anyone have the DIP switch settings table for this >> card? 7 switches, currently set at 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 >> >> and (2) the 8212 interface makes me think that the keyboard is some sort >> of >> parallel interface, but the computer came with a DIP header connected to 3 >> wires >> >> (bonus question: this card has some jumper wires and a resistor soldered >> on >> the trace side of the PCB, is this official, or is this a hack? the joints >> look >> sort of "hacky" the resistor goes between +Vcc and pin 20 of the 6571AL, >> the >> jumpers are between some of the 74XXX gates on the L.H. side of the card >> [where the 7805 V.R. is]) >> >> found it at my church garage sale several years ago, so I can't "ask the >> owner" >> >> Scott Quinn > > >You can find the manual for it on my website: > >http://www.s100-manuals.net/Harte-manuals/PolyMorphic/index.html > > >Randy >www.s100-manuals.com > > > From dmabry at mich.com Sun Jan 2 19:28:10 2005 From: dmabry at mich.com (Dave Mabry) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Intel MDS Series II poll In-Reply-To: <200501030101.RAA26671@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501030101.RAA26671@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <41D89FAA.4090008@mich.com> Dwight K. Elvey wrote: >Hi Joe > Do you or anyone on the list have a programmer with >the right adapter for the 8741? > It almost always requires an adapter. >Dwight > > > Hi Dwight, I have the 8741 adapter for the iUP-200/201. It also works in the iPDS. In fact I have been using it this weekend to make some 8741A chips for the keyboard enhancement on the MDS Series II. Can I help you with something? Dave From jgevaryahu at hotmail.com Sun Jan 2 19:50:26 2005 From: jgevaryahu at hotmail.com (Jonathan Gevaryahu) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Votrax PSS Auction almost over! Message-ID: Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:11:38 -0800 (PST) From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) Subject: Re: Votrax PSS Auction almost over! To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Message-ID: <20050101011138.738694D2F@spies.com> >>I hope to see the whole thing scanned (and I want to see the scans too). >And this information is worth how much to you? I'm working on an independent research project about the Votrax Synthesizers and their workings. For experimentation and also vintage value I purchased a Votrax PSS about a month ago from eBay, which did not include a Manual or power supply. Since then I've managed to acquire a manual, but it was the older, shorter version (the one with the 'cursive' Votrax logo on the cover). Robert Stek sent me a scan of his manual right before I got mine in the mail, and it is exactly the same as mine. I was hoping to get scans of the *ENTIRE* Votrax PSS manual (to post on one of the manuals-archive sites, since they don't seem to be available anywhere), but I realized that the shorter version of the PSS Manual doesn't include the "Operation -- Advanced Procedures" section, it only has an order form for it. (My PSS also has the older cursive logo, but it also had some sort of sticker on the front which is torn and illegible now. There was a NASA auction a few months ago where a similar PSS with an intact sticker was sold, but the sticker isn't readable from the picture.) I know the manual with that auction (and the PSS too, though its hard to see in the picture) have the newer Votrax 'V' logo on them. I contacted the seller, who sent me several scans from the manual shown with the auction, and it DOES include the "Operation -- Advanced Procedures" section! It has different page numbering throughout the manual too. So I'd like to see that version of the manual completely scanned also, as a lot of very useful information is completely left out of the shorter manual. What I'm *PERSONALLY* interested in would be to get scans from the appendix of the manual, since thats the only part which I don't already have in some form. (The seller was *very* nice, and sent me over 15 pages of scans!) But in the long run, I'd be happiest seeing the whole thing scanned and posted somewhere for future PSS owners to read. Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu_@t_hotmail.com lord_nightmare_@t_users.sf.net (replace _@t_ with @) P.S. Does anyone around here have or know where I could get a Votrax VSK or a VS6(any type) synth? I'm looking for one of those too, for experimentation. From Watzman at neo.rr.com Sun Jan 2 18:08:01 2005 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Reviving old hard drives In-Reply-To: <200501030000.j0300ZAi038666@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200501030008.j0307qlw008045@ms-smtp-01-eri0.ohiordc.rr.com> Yes, there is something that can sometimes be done in cases like this (hard drive won't spin up). SOMETIMES, the problem is that the lubricant used on the platter surface has, over time, effectively "glued" the heads to the platter, a problem called "stiction". SOMETIMES, when this has happened, you can "break the platters free" and get the drive to work again. Two things to note, not all instances of "not spinning up" are caused by this, and sometimes the adhesion is so strong that the heads will rip off of their positioning arms before they will let go of the platters. But, in any case, there is nothing to be lost by trying. The procedure is to hold the drive in your hand and give your hand (wrist) a sharp, impulsive "snap spin" centered around the axis of the platter. Sometimes, if this doesn't work with the drive powered off, it will work if the drive is powered up while doing this. The point here is to use rotational inertia to break the "bond" of the head to the platter. One other note, some early Seagate drives (esp. ST-225, 238 and 251 series) are VERY sensitive to the voltage on the 12 volt rail, and the drive won't work (either the spindle or the servo system won't work) if the +12 volt supply is even one-quarter volt low. From mokuba at gmail.com Sun Jan 2 21:03:46 2005 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary G. Sparkes Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e9050102103616111c34@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <41d8b61c.1381f379.1ac3.179c@smtp.gmail.com> Thanks for this, is there any way I might be able to get a copy of the manual? -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Glen Slick Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 1:36 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab I typed this in from the ROM listing in the manual. http://home1.gte.net/~gslick/5036a On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 02:23:10 -0500, Gary G. Sparkes Jr. wrote: > I recently acquired one of these units and am in the process of searching > for manuals or any info AT ALL on this unit! So far I've figured out how to > call up addresses, store data and program it (havn't really done much since > I can't figure out more then how to play with the registers, the output > hardware is alien to me :/) I'd love to get a copy of the rom as it was > written in the manual, comments and all. Also, if anyone has a manual and > wants it scanned, I'll be more then happy to do that for you! And I'm > especially keen to know how to manipulate the speaker and output LEDs > > From waisun.chia at hp.com Mon Jan 3 03:25:12 2005 From: waisun.chia at hp.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: <5695379C-5B4E-11D9-92C9-000D93520A84@rbii.com> References: <20041231114831.FXYQ5758.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> <5695379C-5B4E-11D9-92C9-000D93520A84@rbii.com> Message-ID: <41D90F78.8070403@hp.com> Coming in a little late...but here's my 0.02 $currency_unit.. I use those alcohol-based multi-cleaner (the ones for car-use; mine is from Johnson), a toothbrush, and a wet-vacuum cleaner.. 1. Spray multi-cleaner liberally on MB. 2. Brush vigorously with toothbrush, taking care of fragile components. 3. Use vacuum cleaner to suck up the residue grime/dust/dirt soup. I find it very effective and it leaves a very nice clean lemony (depends on the cleaner of course) smell on the MB/PCBs.. :-) /wai-sun From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Mon Jan 3 07:09:57 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: <41D87F38.4070209@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <41D87F38.4070209@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 16:09:44 -0700, woodelf wrote: > Tom Jennings wrote: > > >I use: warm, soapy water and a soft clean paintbrush. Rinse it > >with lots of water, shake it off, let dry for a day or two. No > >big deal > >This is an old thread, there are many other suggestions, > >all good, including kitchen dishwashers, though that seems > >a bit overkill for "normal" PCB dirt, cigarette smoke, dust, > >etc. Unless you have a lot of Data General 15"x15" boards to do, > >then it's the only sensible solution :-) > However chorinated water can wreck havoc on electrolytic capacitors. > Also in my aparnment I have room for a dishwater or a vintage computer... > Give me a moment to think here... :) I've mentioned this before on the list, but it bears repeating for those who might not have seen it first time round: Servisol "Foaming Cleanser" is the best thing I've seen for cleaning electronics - it's most often used on the outside of cases, but it certainly doesn't do the innards any harm IME (and a chap I know who runs a test/measurement dealership uses a LOT of this stuff - he buys it by the case on a regular basis). I'd be wary of it possibly taking delicate screen print off PCBs (check first on a piece of text you can afford to lose) but not about much else. Here is a link to the product for sale: http://www.ballistol.co.uk/html/product_foam_cleanser.html and here is the manufacturer's own page about it: http://servisol.co.uk/data/FC30_data.htm Ed. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 3 08:16:48 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... In-Reply-To: References: <41D87F38.4070209@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <1104761808.4015.5.camel@weka.localdomain> On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 13:09 +0000, listmailgoeshere@gmail.com wrote: > Servisol "Foaming Cleanser" is the best thing I've seen for cleaning > electronics - it's most often used on the outside of cases, but it > certainly doesn't do the innards any harm IME (and a chap I know who > runs a test/measurement dealership uses a LOT of this stuff - he buys > it by the case on a regular basis). > > I'd be wary of it possibly taking delicate screen print off PCBs > (check first on a piece of text you can afford to lose) but not about > much else. Watch out for any ceramic ICs. It doesn't take much at all for the black lettering to come off the gold portions! From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jan 3 08:21:48 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Looking for Larscom CupreDSU In-Reply-To: <200501022232.j02MWslO008058@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501022232.j02MWslO008058@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050103081925.052f23e0@mail> At 04:32 PM 1/2/2005, you wrote: >I run several over a bare copper wire I lease from the phone company. >Works like a champ and I get 2mbits. I never have to touch them (except >when the ps dies every few years). >also, didn't pairgain make a similar box? or att paradyne. Google for 'roll dsl pairgain' and you'll be led to many recent-ish discussions of the ADC / Pairgain DSL systems. - John From cheri-post at web.de Mon Jan 3 09:23:53 2005 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: More on PDP 11/24 (hints & Maintenance Card infos needed) Message-ID: <628450458@web.de> Thanks alot for your advices and the links, Ethan. > No. There are 1MB boards for the 11/24, but they are somewhat odd, > IIRC. I have an 11/24 at home with a KT24 (M7134?) Physical Address > eXtension (PAX) board that lets you put more than 256K of memory in > the 11/24, giving it a slight edge over the 11/34, at least in terms > of max memory (the 11/34C might be able to crunch numbers a bit > faster). > I reasonably confident that the 11/24 and 11/44 used the same memory. > For 256K boards, it should be the M8722 (MS11-MB). Grubbing around on > http://www.pdp11.co.uk/search/modules.ehtml?name=ms11&submit=Search > seems to suggest that the 1MB version is the M8743 (MS11-PB), but I > don't have my hardware close at hand to check my own machines. Max is > 4MB (as with any 22-bit address bus). My 11/24 _uses_ the KT24 Mapping Module with the suggested MS11-PB, giving it 1MB of ECC Memory. I can guarantee, that this combination works :^) There's another board, I own: a MS11-LB (M7891-BB) with 128kb. But I suppose that it doesn't make much sense to put this one together with the MS11-PB. The Ms11-PB is certainly much faster than the MS11-LB. Unfortuantely, the National Semiconductor boards can't be used, they were built for a VAX 11/750... Currently, I have some problems to get this baby work. There is a strange malfunction: When typing in some letters or digits on the keyboard (VT420), the screen turns out some sort of random characters at the @-pormpt. It's very weird ! Sometimes, when I turn it off and on to give it another try, it becomes impossible to type something. The prompt is waiting, the cursor's blinking and the machine try to bootstrap, when pushing the boot-button, but I simply can't type in anything ! The grant und bus connections are closed. The terminal works perfectly on local mode. The "Clock" LED is on, in fact, never turns off, while the 1-LED (the one next to the Clock-LED) turns on when the PROM for the CPU diagnostic is loaded (@165004g). After that, both LEDs remain on. The Maintenance Card for the 11/24 isn't on the internet (at least, I didn't find it), and there, the LEDs functions are described. Could anybody give me some help on this ? Pierre ________________________________________________________________ Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! Jetzt neu bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://freemail.web.de/?mc=021193 From quapla at xs4all.nl Mon Jan 3 09:56:50 2005 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (quapla@xs4all.nl) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: More on PDP 11/24 (hints & Maintenance Card infos needed) In-Reply-To: <628450458@web.de> References: <628450458@web.de> Message-ID: <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> I have a xerox copy of the 11/24 maintenace card (well, err.. it's more a booklet). I can give you a copy, contact me off list for further discussion. Ed > Thanks alot for your advices and the links, Ethan. > > >> No. There are 1MB boards for the 11/24, but they are somewhat odd, >> IIRC. I have an 11/24 at home with a KT24 (M7134?) Physical Address >> eXtension (PAX) board that lets you put more than 256K of memory in >> the 11/24, giving it a slight edge over the 11/34, at least in terms >> of max memory (the 11/34C might be able to crunch numbers a bit >> faster). >> I reasonably confident that the 11/24 and 11/44 used the same memory. >> For 256K boards, it should be the M8722 (MS11-MB). Grubbing around on >> http://www.pdp11.co.uk/search/modules.ehtml?name=ms11&submit=Search >> seems to suggest that the 1MB version is the M8743 (MS11-PB), but I >> don't have my hardware close at hand to check my own machines. Max is >> 4MB (as with any 22-bit address bus). > > > My 11/24 _uses_ the KT24 Mapping Module with the suggested MS11-PB, giving > it 1MB of ECC Memory. > I can guarantee, that this combination works :^) > There's another board, I own: a MS11-LB (M7891-BB) with 128kb. > But I suppose that it doesn't make much sense to put this one together > with the MS11-PB. The Ms11-PB is certainly > much faster than the MS11-LB. > Unfortuantely, the National Semiconductor boards can't be used, they were > built for a VAX 11/750... > > Currently, I have some problems to get this baby work. > > There is a strange malfunction: When typing in some letters or digits on > the keyboard (VT420), the screen turns > out some sort of random characters at the @-pormpt. > It's very weird ! > Sometimes, when I turn it off and on to give it another try, it becomes > impossible to type something. > The prompt is waiting, the cursor's blinking and the machine try to > bootstrap, when pushing the boot-button, > but I simply can't type in anything ! > The grant und bus connections are closed. The terminal works perfectly on > local mode. > > The "Clock" LED is on, in fact, never turns off, while the 1-LED (the one > next to the Clock-LED) turns on when the PROM > for the CPU diagnostic is loaded (@165004g). > After that, both LEDs remain on. > > The Maintenance Card for the 11/24 isn't on the internet (at least, I > didn't find it), and there, the LEDs functions are described. > Could anybody give me some help on this ? > > Pierre > ________________________________________________________________ > Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! > Jetzt neu bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://freemail.web.de/?mc=021193 > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jan 3 09:42:27 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab In-Reply-To: <41d64fe5.68b0f574.0547.050d@smtp.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050103104227.009112e0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Hi Gary, I got your message about this a week or so ago and I've already talked to Al Kossow to see if he already had the manuals or had scanned them and about hosting them. He doesn't have the manuals but is willing to scan and host them. I do have all the manuals including the user's manual, service manual and microprocessor course manual. I know Al is quite backed up with scanning (I send him three large boxs of manuals myself recently) so If you'd like to scan them and/or host them that's fine by me as long as I get the manuals back. Joe At 02:23 AM 1/1/05 -0500, you wrote: >I recently acquired one of these units and am in the process of searching >for manuals or any info AT ALL on this unit! So far I've figured out how to >call up addresses, store data and program it (havn't really done much since >I can't figure out more then how to play with the registers, the output >hardware is alien to me :/) I'd love to get a copy of the rom as it was >written in the manual, comments and all. Also, if anyone has a manual and >wants it scanned, I'll be more then happy to do that for you! And I'm >especially keen to know how to manipulate the speaker and output LEDs > > From cheri-post at web.de Mon Jan 3 10:19:49 2005 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: More on PDP 11/24 (hints & Maintenance Card infos needed) Message-ID: <628541068@web.de> Hello Ed, thanks alot for your quick answer ! What do you propose ? It would be very nice, if you could copy it. I would transfer some money and you could send it to me. Would that be ok ? If you don't have time for such things at the moment: It doesn't hurry, I'm studying and the exams are approaching.... Pierre > I have a xerox copy of the 11/24 maintenace card (well, err.. it's > more a booklet). I can give you a copy, contact me off list for > further discussion. > > Ed ________________________________________________________________ Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! Jetzt neu bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://freemail.web.de/?mc=021193 From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 3 10:48:46 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Reviving old hard drives Message-ID: <200501031648.IAA27122@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Barry Watzman" ---snip--- > >SOMETIMES, the problem is that the lubricant used on the platter surface >has, over time, effectively "glued" the heads to the platter, a problem >called "stiction". > Hi Actually the surfaces have no lubrication at all. I had a couple of friends that worked at Seagate during the stiction problems. It was caused by the surfaces being too smooth. When the platter stopped rotating, the air would be squeezed out from between the two and they would become stuck together. They solved the problem on later drives by making the platters surface have a specific amount of roughness. Machinist that work with gauge blocks understand the stiction issue. When stacking the blocks they become stuck together and they have to be forced apart. Dwight From aek at spies.com Mon Jan 3 11:44:20 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Votrax PSS Auction almost over! Message-ID: <20050103174420.396D64764@spies.com> >>I hope to see the whole thing scanned (and I want to see the scans too). >And this information is worth how much to you? I was hoping to get scans of the *ENTIRE* Votrax PSS manual -- Perhaps you are not a native English speaker. I just spent over $200 for something I was not particularly interstested in because you were whining on this mailing list about wanting the documentation. I am not going to put this information up on bitsavers for free. If you feel this is worth something to you, put up or shut up. From allain at panix.com Mon Jan 3 12:08:39 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> Message-ID: <003901c4f1bf$4178cd60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Hi, Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files over a com: port? I have a floppy-less laptop that I want to get Kermit.exe into. If it isn't simple then I'll just write a Hex/Bin program for each side and send the file ASCII. It would have to be .BAS on the laptop side. I realize that taking the drive out and mounting it in the host machine is a good solution, but I wanted to try this first while keeping the machine together. TIA, John A. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jan 3 12:17:26 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Reviving old hard drives In-Reply-To: <200501031648.IAA27122@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050103131726.009abba0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 08:48 AM 1/3/05 -0800, you wrote: > >>From: "Barry Watzman" >---snip--- >> >>SOMETIMES, the problem is that the lubricant used on the platter surface >>has, over time, effectively "glued" the heads to the platter, a problem >>called "stiction". >> > >Hi > Actually the surfaces have no lubrication at >all. I had a couple of friends that worked at Seagate >during the stiction problems. It was caused by the surfaces >being too smooth. When the platter stopped rotating, >the air would be squeezed out from between the two >and they would become stuck together. They solved the >problem on later drives by making the platters surface >have a specific amount of roughness. > Machinist that work with gauge blocks understand the >stiction issue. When stacking the blocks they become >stuck together and they have to be forced apart. Well you're partially correct. The blocks that you're referring to are calling gauge (or gage) blocks or Jhohassen blocks (not sure of the exact spelling). But they don't have to be "forced" apart, merely slid apart. It's difficult to pull them away from each other but they slide apart easily. If the drive problem is due to the same thing then the heads should slide (or rotate) just as easily. I've looked at a couple of drive platters that had sticktion problems and there definitely seems to be wax or something holding the heads to the platters. Joe From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Mon Jan 3 12:19:24 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: FS / FT: SGI, RS/6000, Sun, DEC Alpha Message-ID: <20050103191924.36c212f0.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Hi. I have some machines I don't need so I wan't to sell / trade them for somthing different. I have no urgent need to get rid of this machines. I will keep them warm and dry. So nobody has to be worried, this stuff will _not_ go to the dumpster. ;-) I am located in Kaiserslautern / Germany. SGI Personal Iris 4D30 (IIRC 16 MB RAM, base 8 bit GFX, no HDD) Sun Ultra 1-170 (SBus only, no RAM, no HDD) RS/6000 C10 (64 or 128 MB RAM, 2 or 3 2 GB disks) RS/6000 3BT (512 MB RAM, 4 GB disk, GXT150 GFX) RS/6000 39H (256 MB RAM, 4 GB disk, some big dual slot GFX) RS/6000 40P (??? MB RAM, 2 or 4 GB disk, P9100 GFX) AlphaServer 1000A 5/400 (192 MB RAM, 6 x 4 GB disk in internal SBB) All RS/6000 are MCA, they have a CDROM and at least one Ethernet interface. The 39H has a minor defect in the PSU. It powers up and runns perfectely. But if you switch it off for a short time it doesn't come up. You have to disconnect mains power for some hours. Then it will come up well again. The 40P doesn't run stable. Maybe it needs to be "Kreidlered". The 3BT has some additional SCSI cards, one is HVD. I need / want: UniBus Pertec tape, RL02 and SMD disk controllers for my PDP-11/34. VAX 4000-705A AlphaServer [48]x00 SGI Onyx 2 (Yes, I have dreams. ;-) If I get a VAX 4000-705A there will be a VAX 4000-400 available.) -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jan 3 12:22:34 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <003901c4f1bf$4178cd60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 01:08 PM 1/3/05 -0500, you wrote: >Hi, > Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files > over a com: port? Import from what kind of system? If it's another MS-DOS/Windows system then LapLink or FastLynx is the easiest. FastLynx has a way to install itself to disk-less machines over the cable. LL probably does too. If one is a non-MS-DOS system then Kermit is probably best. it's available for a LOT of didfferent systems. I haven't used if but Dave Mabry uses it successfully to transfer files to and from a PC and the Intel MDSs and they're very different machines. Joe I have a floppy-less laptop that I want to > get Kermit.exe into. If it isn't simple then I'll just write a Hex/Bin > program for each side and send the file ASCII. It would have > to be .BAS on the laptop side. > > I realize that taking the drive out and mounting it in the host > machine is a good solution, but I wanted to try this first while > keeping the machine together. > >TIA, >John A. > From cb at mythtech.net Mon Jan 3 12:40:14 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP Message-ID: > Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files > over a com: port? MS DOS came with a program to do that. I dont' recall the exact name, but it was something about a server (check the DOS directory it will probably spring out at you). You had to setup one side as a server and one as a client. I don't recall if you had to do it at boot time or not (I had boot disks setup for it, so I always did it at boot, but that might have just been the way I set it up). I used to use it over parallel, but I'm pretty sure it worked over serial as well (I think I did parallel simply because it was faster). If you can't find it, let me know and I'll dig up the name. -chris From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 3 12:41:23 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP Message-ID: <200501031841.KAA27181@clulw009.amd.com> Hi It seems like I remember doing something like "copy COM1: FileName" or something. It seems like I remember there being an issue with the file name extention. I recall using something other than .EXE and then changing it to .EXE with RENAME. It has been some time but it was something like that. Dwight >From: "Joe R." > >At 01:08 PM 1/3/05 -0500, you wrote: >>Hi, >> Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files >> over a com: port? > > Import from what kind of system? If it's another MS-DOS/Windows system >then LapLink or FastLynx is the easiest. FastLynx has a way to install >itself to disk-less machines over the cable. LL probably does too. If one >is a non-MS-DOS system then Kermit is probably best. it's available for a >LOT of didfferent systems. I haven't used if but Dave Mabry uses it >successfully to transfer files to and from a PC and the Intel MDSs and >they're very different machines. > > Joe > > I have a floppy-less laptop that I want to >> get Kermit.exe into. If it isn't simple then I'll just write a Hex/Bin >> program for each side and send the file ASCII. It would have >> to be .BAS on the laptop side. >> >> I realize that taking the drive out and mounting it in the host >> machine is a good solution, but I wanted to try this first while >> keeping the machine together. >> >>TIA, >>John A. >> > > From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Mon Jan 3 12:50:42 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: "John Allain" "TKermitFTP" (Jan 3, 13:08) References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <003901c4f1bf$4178cd60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <10501031850.ZM4502@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 3 2005, 13:08, John Allain wrote: > Hi, > Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files > over a com: port? I have a floppy-less laptop that I want to > get Kermit.exe into. You've obviously discovered (or knew) that MS-DOS COPY won't accept the /B switch when one of the "files" is a device. You're not the first to have this chicken-and-egg situation with Kermit; the Kermit distributions have C and FORTRAN programs to turn an EXE file into a BOO file, which can go over an ASCII link and be decoded by a smallish BASIC program called MSBPCB.BAS (there are C and Pascal version of this, too). There's a description of how it's done at http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/rsts/decus/sig88/088009/msbaaa.hlp which might save you some time. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jan 3 13:01:45 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <200501031841.KAA27181@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501031841.KAA27181@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050103130048.04ebc808@mail> At 12:41 PM 1/3/2005, you wrote: > It seems like I remember doing something >like "copy COM1: FileName" or something. > It seems like I remember there being an issue >with the file name extention. And perhaps something else about setting the mode of the COM1: port for bits and binary? - John From fernande at internet1.net Mon Jan 3 13:21:40 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41D99B44.7090105@internet1.net> intrsvr, and intrlnk, or some similar looking name. It will work over a serial port or a parallel port. I always used the parallel port. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA chris wrote: >> Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files >> over a com: port? > > > MS DOS came with a program to do that. I dont' recall the exact name, but > it was something about a server (check the DOS directory it will probably > spring out at you). You had to setup one side as a server and one as a > client. I don't recall if you had to do it at boot time or not (I had > boot disks setup for it, so I always did it at boot, but that might have > just been the way I set it up). > > I used to use it over parallel, but I'm pretty sure it worked over serial > as well (I think I did parallel simply because it was faster). > From cb at mythtech.net Mon Jan 3 13:25:01 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP Message-ID: >intrsvr, and intrlnk, or some similar looking name. Yup, that was it. -chris From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Mon Jan 3 13:44:40 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: John Foust "Re: TKermitFTP" (Jan 3, 13:01) References: <200501031841.KAA27181@clulw009.amd.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103130048.04ebc808@mail> Message-ID: <10501031944.ZM4597@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 3 2005, 13:01, John Foust wrote: > At 12:41 PM 1/3/2005, you wrote: > > It seems like I remember doing something > >like "copy COM1: FileName" or something. > > It seems like I remember there being an issue > >with the file name extention. > > And perhaps something else about setting the mode of the COM1: > port for bits and binary? You can't, in MS-DOS. COPY uses ASCII transfers for COM ports and complains if you try to force binary, because it needs to see a ctrl-Z to know where the end-of-file is. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From chenmel at earthlink.net Mon Jan 3 14:20:18 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 13:22:34 -0500 "Joe R." wrote: > At 01:08 PM 1/3/05 -0500, you wrote: > >Hi, > > Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files > > over a com: port? > > Import from what kind of system? If it's another MS-DOS/Windows system > then LapLink or FastLynx is the easiest. FastLynx has a way to install > itself to disk-less machines over the cable. LL probably does too. If one > is a non-MS-DOS system then Kermit is probably best. it's available for a > LOT of didfferent systems. I haven't used if but Dave Mabry uses it > successfully to transfer files to and from a PC and the Intel MDSs and > they're very different machines. > > Joe > > I have a floppy-less laptop that I want to > > get Kermit.exe into. If it isn't simple then I'll just write a Hex/Bin > > program for each side and send the file ASCII. It would have > > to be .BAS on the laptop side. > > > > I realize that taking the drive out and mounting it in the host > > machine is a good solution, but I wanted to try this first while > > keeping the machine together. > > I suspect that it would be just as difficult to get Laplink.exe installed on the machine as it is to get kermit.exe over there. I have one machine, an Omnibook 300, which is one of the first completely disketteless laptops. It has a mechanism built in to 'inject' llremote.exe (a tiny laplink TSR that actually works peer-to-peer well too) into any other DOS based machine. Digging into the dialogues in the 'remote install' program of Laplink on the Omnibook, it tells you to type the following two lines: MODE COM1:2400,N,8,1,P CTTY COM1 I assume that the remote end (the Omnibook 300) then seizes a console into the target system and uses some variant of 'COPY CON' to inject the laplink remote access TSR program. Can't the plain old DOS copy command be used in the same fashion, i.e.: MODE COM1:9600,N,8,1,P COPY COM1 filename.exe entered at the 'receiving' system (at the right points in time) A null modem connection would be established, and the commands: MODE COM1:9600,N,8,1,P COPY filename.exe COM1 would be issued from the machine 'sending' the file. Please update me and/or correct me if someone else on the list has more experience with this. Haven't done a lot of this kind of stuff in ages. I converted over from CP/M to DOS back in the day over a three-wire interface. I used to say 'the universal file transfer format is a piece of copper wire.' -Scott > >TIA, > >John A. > > > From tomj at wps.com Mon Jan 3 14:23:59 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <003901c4f1bf$4178cd60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <003901c4f1bf$4178cd60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Jan 2005, John Allain wrote: > Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files > over a com: port? I have a floppy-less laptop that I want to > get Kermit.exe into. Barbaric, ain't it?! THe devices default to cooked mode; there is a corresponding raw mode, accessible (sic) by the ioctl call, but it usually doesn't work. You might try: A> copy com:/b foobar.com/b (I forget where the /b goes) but it probably won't work. Here's some ideas: Tools for your mental tool box: * MSDOS debug will properly load Intel hex files. * There is a .EXE to .COM converter out there somewhere (non-M$) Google for 'intel hex'; you should be able to make BASIC produce that from a file, but you'll ahve to use the right horrible commands so that BASIC won't gag on binary "characters"! Sheesh. In fact, if the donor/source computer is MSDOS, debug mught even PRODUCE Intel hex; I just don't recall. .EXE don't contain too much magic, just Mark Zibikoski's initials and a few words telling how much resources it wants. Most convert to .COM but get a bit larger, if I recall. If you get the hex file to the target machine OK, A> debug hexfile.hex Should do it. If the file was a .COM, then you can type "G100" and it will run! If it was a .EXE, you'll have to use the save command, save the right number of blocks to disk, etc. I've long forgotten the proper invokations. From tomj at wps.com Mon Jan 3 14:37:54 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: > > Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files > > over a com: port? Oh, I assumed that on the target, floppy-less system, you have utterly NO tools except what microsoft giveth. Hoepfully there's debug. If not you may be screwed. Hell, with debug you could WRITE the program to input the file in binary! We're talking MSDOS, right? Not Windows? If so, then you can simply talk to the bare iron, it's easy, I can do this from memory: I'd use MODE to set the serial port to something conservative, like 9600 baud first. Even a 4.77MHz machine will easily do 9600 bits/sec; the big problem is overruns when the system writes to the disk, so the solution is to NOT write to the disk at all, load into memory and just execute it. This assumes a .COM to be utterly trivial. XXXX: mov ax, cs mov ds, ax mov es, ax mov di, 100 mov cx, theexactsizeofKERMIT.COM foo1: in ax, COMPORT ; look up port addresses and ax, RDA jz foo1 ; wait for char ready, in ax, DATAPORT ; read it, mov [di], al ; store it, inc di djnz foo1 ; next... jmp 100 ; done! This will work (barring opcode thinkos) iff kermit is small model. The address XXXX should be safely past the end of the space that kermit will consume. If you've got more than a meg or two of RAM, then you can put it in another segment, make the last jump a jmpf. You can type this crap directly into debug, "aXXXX". From acme at gbronline.com Mon Jan 3 14:44:52 2005 From: acme at gbronline.com (Glen Goodwin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: This is not a plug! (was Re: Cleaning motherboards...) References: Message-ID: <004c01c4f1d5$13be8e80$de4f0945@acme> ----- Original Message ----- From: Vintage Computer Festival > On Fri, 31 Dec 2004, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > > > Apart from dusting with compressed air and camel hair brushes, which > > removes the dust from circuit boards, are there any recommendations for > > cleaning the general grimy file from motherboards? > > Good question. I didn't have any luck with contact cleaner and would love > to hear suggestions. Many contact cleaners leave a lubricating residue and are too wimpy to deal with real grease and gunk. We sell some stuff called GC Bath (ingredients: heptane, isopropyl alcohol, carbon dioxide) which I have used on some fairly nasty boards with good results. Got rid of the crap, but didn't eat the board. Glen 0/0 From waltje at pdp11.nl Mon Jan 3 15:35:28 2005 From: waltje at pdp11.nl (Fred N. van Kempen) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: [SOLVED] Re: Anyone have a Seagate ST01 or 2 ? In-Reply-To: <20041130204204.BA0534859@spies.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, Al Kossow wrote: > from Fred van Kempen > > Al, > > Can you ask the list, or anyone, if anyone has an old Seagate ST01 > and/or ST02 controller available? I cant post to the list from > my biz address.. > > -- > > I think these were PC scsi cards. The issue has been resolved, I found one. Thanks Arlen! And yes, these were horrid cards, slow as hell, DISK-only ISA bus SCSI cards. But, it was the first I got running after writing a driver for it under MINIX, and I am working on re-creating that environment and its drivers. --fred From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Mon Jan 3 14:02:45 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: FTGH: DEC documentation (UK) Message-ID: Hi list, I have here a DEC documentation set for the VT220 (its outer cardboard cover says VT200, though). It contains: VT220 Owner's Manual (EK-VT220-UG-003) VT220 Installation Guide (EK-VT220-IN-002) VT220 Programmer Pocket Guide (EK-VT220-HR-002) It also contains the following: VAX Language-Sensitive Editor VAX Fortran Pocket Guide (AA-EV45A-TE) MicroVMS User's Pocket Reference (AA-Z211C-TE) MicroVMS Programming Pocket Reference (AA-Z214B-TE) These are all free to whoever wants them (unless any of the Bitsavers guys need them for scanning, in which case they get first refusal). You pay shipping. Usual 21 days before they get recycled, so move fast. Replies by private mail please. Ed. From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Mon Jan 3 14:13:41 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: FTGH: DEC TK50 tapes x 7 (inc diag tape) - UK Message-ID: Like it says, 7 TK50 media, free to good home. All but one have handwritten labels. They all have cases. One has a dot-matrix printed label which says: "AQ-GL5AJ-DN MB26947 MVII DIAG CUST TK50 COPYRIGHT 1987 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION" so, a MicroVAX 2 diagnostics tape. Free to whoever wants them, you pay shipping. Please speak up (by private mail) within 21 days if you want them. Ed. From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Mon Jan 3 14:21:19 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Available: BA23 skins x 2 sets (UK) Message-ID: I have 2 sets of BA23 "skins" (the outer plastic covers) available. One is complete and undamaged (except for the property marking described below) - has both side panels, front cover, back cover, and the base "foot". The other has everything except the back cover, and the "foot" on this one has a chunk missing from the middle of one edge, maybe about 4" long. Both of them have the name of the organisation they came from marked on the front panel (under the opening for the drives) using the "SELECTAMARK" system (blue dots which spell out letters in a dot-matrix-style font). This can be removed with glasspaper, or if you don't care you can of course just leave it. I suppose this only really matters if you want the covers for display/museum purposes. Best offer (to me by private mail) by the end of 21 days takes them. Your offer can be from "nothing" upwards - I don't mind if these go for free, but if they're worth more then obviously I wouldn't mind a few drinking vouchers ;) You must pay shipping or collect in all cases. Ed. From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 3 16:21:39 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP Message-ID: <200501032221.OAA27256@clulw009.amd.com> Hi I'm almost sure I'd done this in the past to get something like laplink running on a remote machine. I suspect that the code specifically had no ^Z until the end of the file and it was just a minimum bootstrap program to load the rest. One could always edit the file by changing any ^Z to something else. Once on the new machine, just change them back. I do remember that the name of the file couldn't be .COM or .EXE. I think the copy from COM1: didn't work for those files names. Dwight >From: "Pete Turnbull" > >On Jan 3 2005, 13:01, John Foust wrote: >> At 12:41 PM 1/3/2005, you wrote: >> > It seems like I remember doing something >> >like "copy COM1: FileName" or something. >> > It seems like I remember there being an issue >> >with the file name extention. >> >> And perhaps something else about setting the mode of the COM1: >> port for bits and binary? > >You can't, in MS-DOS. COPY uses ASCII transfers for COM ports and >complains if you try to force binary, because it needs to see a ctrl-Z >to know where the end-of-file is. > >-- >Pete Peter Turnbull > Network Manager > University of York > From pete at tholian.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 3 16:54:40 2005 From: pete at tholian.demon.co.uk (Pete Edwards) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: DEC 3000 PMAG-E dead and gone? Message-ID: <41D9CD30.8060608@tholian.demon.co.uk> I'm in the process of sorting out a DEC 3000/600 i acquired last year. However, the PMAG-E turbochannel framebuffer is sick, for example, if I run tests from the >>> prompt I get this (some detail removed for brevity): t 1/vdacsig ?TFL: 1/vdacsig [PMAG-DA] (+2+ Pxl[#0]=555555, R[668bd3]=978bd3, ? G[603023]=3a3023, B[2f0af5]=880af5, vsimm=1?) ERR-MIPS - ROM OBJECT 'cnsltest' REPORTED A SEVERE ERROR and t 1/shade ?TFL: 1/shade [PMAG-DA] (+3+ tri smth shd err, indx= 0, stamp= 0) ERR-MIPS - ROM OBJECT 'pst-q' REPORTED A SEVERE ERROR Alas what I don't have right now is a DEC 3w3 cable so I can't see what the card is doing (if anything). Is there any hope here or has the magic smoke long since departed? Cheers, Pete -- Pete Edwards "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 3 18:10:57 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:45 2005 Subject: Trying to get running an LSI 11/23 In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20041227232007.0ace8e28@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20041227232007.0ace8e28@localhost> Message-ID: <63030.64.139.41.130.1104797457.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Tom Peters wrote: > The bootstrap/terminator card had bipolar PROMs on it with a little > charge pump chip to supply the -12 for the PROMs. But the chip wouldn't > supply -12v soon enough after power up, so the system would drop to an > @ debugger prompt instead of booting. I think you must mean EPROMs. Bipolar PROMs don't need -12V; they run on +5V only for read, and various voltages for programming. Early EPROMs (before the Intel 2716 and TI TMS2516) needed multiple supply voltages even for reading. Examples of multiple-power-supply EPROMs were the Intel 1701, 1702, 2704, 2708, National Semiconductor 5203, 5204, and TI TMS2716. From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 3 18:12:27 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Reviving old hard drives In-Reply-To: <200501030008.j0307qlw008045@ms-smtp-01-eri0.ohiordc.rr.com> References: <200501030008.j0307qlw008045@ms-smtp-01-eri0.ohiordc.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050103161138.M32431@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 2 Jan 2005, Barry Watzman wrote: > One other note, some early Seagate drives (esp. ST-225, 238 and 251 series) > are VERY sensitive to the voltage on the 12 volt rail, and the drive won't > work (either the spindle or the servo system won't work) if the +12 volt > supply is even one-quarter volt low. The XT power supply is not very happy trying to power TWO ST4096 drives. From ICS at Core.com Mon Jan 3 18:24:42 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Data General equipment Message-ID: <001101c4f1f3$c9f8a8c0$3c2fc4d8@icsdevelopment> Anyone know of any Data Gereral equipment, such as the Nova 3 or 4, model 6045/50 Hard Drive or Dasher D1 (model 6052) Terminal? From vcf at siconic.com Mon Jan 3 18:28:13 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <41D99B44.7090105@internet1.net> Message-ID: > chris wrote: > > >> Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files > >> over a com: port? > > > > > > MS DOS came with a program to do that. I dont' recall the exact name, but > > it was something about a server (check the DOS directory it will probably > > spring out at you). You had to setup one side as a server and one as a > > client. I don't recall if you had to do it at boot time or not (I had > > boot disks setup for it, so I always did it at boot, but that might have > > just been the way I set it up). > > > > I used to use it over parallel, but I'm pretty sure it worked over serial > > as well (I think I did parallel simply because it was faster). On Mon, 3 Jan 2005, Chad Fernandez wrote: > intrsvr, and intrlnk, or some similar looking name. It will work over a > serial port or a parallel port. I always used the parallel port. > > Chad Fernandez > Michigan, USA This assumes John is running DOS 6.0 or higher. I can't remember if Interlink was available on DOS 5.0. To set it up, you run INTERSVR.EXE on the "host" machine. The program will take over the machine while running and you can't do anything with it until you exit INTERSVR. On the "client" machine, you must add a DEVICE entry for INTERLNK.EXE in the CONFIG.SYS file. Make your serial or parallel port connections between the two computers and then once the "client" is rebooted, it'll map whatever drives it finds on the "host" to local drive letters. You then copy to your heart's content. It works terrifically. There also seems to be a way to bootstrap a machine that doesn't have the INTERLNK program. There's a /RCOPY option. Anyway, if you've got DOS 6.0 or higher then just issue a 'help' command on either INTERLNK or INTERSVR. Be sure to read all the notes and examples and also check the table of contents as there are three entries for the program suite (INTERLNK.EXE, Interlnk and Intersvr). Good luck! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 3 18:32:57 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050103162812.G32431@shell.lmi.net> > Hi, > Anybody have a stupid DOS trick for importing binary files > over a com: port? WHAT VERSION of DOS? After 3.30? or 5.00?, there was a DOS program called something like INTRLINK. Prior to that, you'll have to write some code in DEBUG or in BASIC to be able to do "BINARY" files (anything that contains character 26) For "non-binary" files, you can copy from a COM port. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From vcf at siconic.com Mon Jan 3 18:31:27 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Another TRS-80 Model 4 sighting Message-ID: This time it was in the movie Napolean Dynamite. Appropriately enough, it was when he's in the thrift store looking at crap just before finding the D-Kwon dance tape. It's in the lower right-hand part of the screen (when he finds the sai), with half of it being off-screen in the TV edited version (if you have a cinema TV I'm sure you can see the whole thing) but you can still tell it's a TRS-80 M4 if you know what you're looking at. This movie is a must see for anyone that loves off-the-wall comedies and either was or had a friend growing up that was a complete dork. Ebert gave it a thumbs down. Either he took the movie personally or he just didn't get it. The movie is hilarious. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 3 18:37:21 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050103130048.04ebc808@mail> References: <200501031841.KAA27181@clulw009.amd.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103130048.04ebc808@mail> Message-ID: <20050103163346.A32431@shell.lmi.net> > > It seems like I remember doing something > >like "copy COM1: FileName" or something. > > It seems like I remember there being an issue > >with the file name extention. > > And perhaps something else about setting the mode of the COM1: > port for bits and binary? Setting the port parameters is done with the MODE program. Setting the port for "BINARY" can not be done in MS-DOS. You HAFTA write or obtain some code. MS-DOS actually has a built-in error message saying "Cannot copy binary to or from a device" if you try to use the /B option of COPY when copying to or from COM. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From fernande at internet1.net Mon Jan 3 19:03:25 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41D9EB5D.9020003@internet1.net> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > This assumes John is running DOS 6.0 or higher. I can't remember if > Interlink was available on DOS 5.0. It depends on whose DOS he is using. IBM included intrsvr and intrlnk in PC-DOS 5.02, and possibly earlier. I don't think M$ included it until MS-DOS 6.xx, but I'm unsure. DR-DOS had something similar, but the names may have been different. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jan 3 19:18:30 2005 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: GI AY-3-8600 pinouts Message-ID: <200501040136.j041aeAe054063@huey.classiccmp.org> Hi folks, Happy festive stuff :) Does anyone have pinouts of the aforementioned chip? I can do the 8500 but not the 8600 which allowed horizontal movement amongst other things...... Thanks! -- Adrian/Witchy Creator/Curator of Binary Dinosaurs, quite probably the UK's biggest private home computer collection. www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the online museum www.aaghverts.co.uk - *the* site for letting you moan about adverts! www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - former gothic shenanigans :( From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 3 19:16:29 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: More on PDP 11/24 (hints & Maintenance Card infos needed) In-Reply-To: <628450458@web.de> References: <628450458@web.de> Message-ID: On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 16:23:53 +0100, Pierre Gebhardt wrote: > Thanks alot for your advices and the links, Ethan. You're welcome. > > No. There are 1MB boards for the 11/24, but they are somewhat odd, > > IIRC. I have an 11/24 at home with a KT24 (M7134?) Physical Address > > eXtension (PAX) board... that lets you put more than 256K of memory in > My 11/24 _uses_ the KT24 Mapping Module with the suggested MS11-PB, > giving it 1MB of ECC Memory. Perfect. > I can guarantee, that this combination works :^) It all sounds reasonable, but I hesitate to make absolute pronouncements unless I can verify things myself. > There's another board, I own: a MS11-LB (M7891-BB) with 128kb. > But I suppose that it doesn't make much sense to put this one together with the > MS11-PB. The Ms11-PB is certainly much faster than the MS11-LB. Right, but what I don't remember is if you can use the MS11-PBs _without_ the KT11. I am almost positive the KT11 is optional (I remember buying my 11/24 in college for $300 + S&H, and the KT11 was extra (and $300 as well, IIRC. I spent a _lot_ on trying to run UNIX at home in the 1980s). Mentioning the MS11-LB makes me wonder if it even works with the KT11 at all, or if it is designed to sit _on_ the Unibus for a 256K machine. It's been 20 years since I reconfigured an 11/24. I only ever messed with memory once, so I'd have to look everything up now. > Unfortuantely, the National Semiconductor boards can't be used, they were built for a VAX 11/750... Right. > Currently, I have some problems to get this baby work. > > There is a strange malfunction: When typing in some letters or digits on the keyboard (VT420), the screen turns out some sort of random characters at the @-pormpt. > It's very weird ! > Sometimes, when I turn it off and on to give it another try, it becomes impossible to type something. > The prompt is waiting, the cursor's blinking and the machine try to bootstrap, when pushing the boot-button, > but I simply can't type in anything ! Check your terminal settings vs what the CPU card wants. Check the cable from the CPU to the outside world for, say, a bad ground wire (could have gotten pinched). Check the terminal not in local mode, but with a loopback connector (local mode doesn't exercise the line drivers on the terminal). Try a PC or a different terminal instead of that VT420. Check your backplane voltages, especially -15V to make sure the CPU's line drivers are getting properly fed. If _all_ of those tests fail to turn up something, there's a small chance it's the UART on the CPU card, but I'd really doubt it's that far upstream. Cables, settings, and voltages are common problems; less common are blown line drivers, but it does happen. Good luck, -ethan From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Jan 3 19:23:15 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Reviving old hard drives In-Reply-To: Message from "Joe R." of "Mon, 03 Jan 2005 13:17:26 EST." <3.0.6.32.20050103131726.009abba0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <200501040123.j041NGer004914@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Joe R." wrote: ... >slide (or rotate) just as easily. I've looked at a couple of drive platters >that had sticktion problems and there definitely seems to be wax or >something holding the heads to the platters. I think almost all 3 1/2" drive media has some sort of coating on it. What it is varies over time and mfg. I remember that most of it had 'lubrication like' properties - it's been a long time however and I may be slightly off. I seem to recall the magnetic coating was sputtered on and then another coating was put on top. As I remember sometimes the top coating would pool around the heads after they landed. but it's all a dim memory and my memories are probably very dated these days since the density has gone up by factor of 1000. I do remember walking through Tony Lapine's labs and watching watching drives running inside laminar flow hoods :-) head balistics where the order of the day and made for some interesting firmware. -brad From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 3 19:46:45 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Reviving old hard drives Message-ID: <200501040146.RAA27422@clulw009.amd.com> Hi All I can say is that those were the words from the actual engineers that were working on the problem. Yes, I do believe the disk had coatings but they were dry lub ( like Teflon ) and none flowing. Anything that would flow would quickly destroy the disk. Any lump on the surface would cause the head to bounce. Anything that flowed slowly would cause a lump. Since this doesn't happen, it couldn't be. A smoke particle is a lump. Dust is usually so large that the head knocks it out of the way. Still, they said they solved the problem by making the surface a little less smooth. If someone opened a disk and saw lube on the surface, that disk had a failed bearing seal. Dwight >From: "Brad Parker" > > >"Joe R." wrote: >... >>slide (or rotate) just as easily. I've looked at a couple of drive platters >>that had sticktion problems and there definitely seems to be wax or >>something holding the heads to the platters. > >I think almost all 3 1/2" drive media has some sort of coating on it. >What it is varies over time and mfg. I remember that most of it had >'lubrication like' properties - it's been a long time however and I may >be slightly off. > >I seem to recall the magnetic coating was sputtered on and then another >coating was put on top. As I remember sometimes the top coating would >pool around the heads after they landed. > >but it's all a dim memory and my memories are probably very dated these >days since the density has gone up by factor of 1000. > >I do remember walking through Tony Lapine's labs and watching watching >drives running inside laminar flow hoods :-) head balistics where the >order of the day and made for some interesting firmware. > >-brad > From allain at panix.com Mon Jan 3 21:13:58 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP References: Message-ID: <015f01c4f20b$6f7c5dc0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > This assumes John is running DOS 6.0 or higher. > I can't remember if Interlink was available on DOS 5.0. This one here is DOS 5.0 and doesn't have INTR* Interlink sounds pretty useful, but it came a bit late in the DOS evolution. I'll probably combine the ideas from Today with the .BAS ideas from http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/rsts/dec us/sig88/088009/msbpct.bas John A. From jgevaryahu at hotmail.com Mon Jan 3 21:27:01 2005 From: jgevaryahu at hotmail.com (Jonathan Gevaryahu) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: (no subject) Message-ID: It is worth something to me, but at the moment my budget is rather tight. I didn't mean to 'whine' about it, I was just excited to see such a complete piece for sale, and was surprised when you bought it. I didn't mean for you to buy something you didn't want. I'd say the complete documentation (the stuff in the binder) is worth around $60 to me, but I don't have any extra money to spend right now. In about a month I should have enough. I'll e-mail you then. Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu_@t_hotmail.com lord_nightmare_@t_users.sf.net (replace _@t_ with @) >>>>I hope to see the whole thing scanned (and I want to see the scans too). >>>And this information is worth how much to you? >>I was hoping to get scans of the *ENTIRE* Votrax PSS manual -- >Perhaps you are not a native English speaker. >I just spent over $200 for something I was not particularly interstested >in because you were whining on this mailing list about wanting the >documentation. >I am not going to put this information up on bitsavers for free. If you >feel >this is worth something to you, put up or shut up. From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Mon Jan 3 22:49:04 2005 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik S. Klein) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: 19" rack in SF Bay Area Message-ID: <000201c4f218$b88e7fe0$6e7ba8c0@p933> If anyone is interested in a nice enclosed 19" rack (5.5 feet tall with a door, etc. I think it's on casters) it's free for the asking in the SF Bay Area. Just email me if you have an interest and I'll put you in touch with the guy that has it. Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum From news at computercollector.com Mon Jan 3 22:58:35 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP Message-ID: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> A while ago I asked if anyone on the list could help me get AutoCAD 12 for DOS. Several people came through and I now have a copy. Thanks, everyone! As expected though, it doesn't work and play nicely with Windows XP. I was hoping that just running it through a command prompt window and giving that giving the Win 95 compatibility attribute to the acad.exe file would make it work. It didn't and I got a strange error message: "Phar Lap err 74: Can't use -REALBREAK under this version of DPMI" So I Google that and found a few threads like this one: http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=314 Apparently it's just not possible to run Acad 12 in 'real' DOS in XP. I already knew XP's prompt is nothing close to real DOS, but I was hoping to find a way to trick the program, or a way to emulate DOS perhaps. Anyone have a clever solution to this? (I do have a suitable second PC to install real DOS on, but I'd rather not have to dedicate a whole system just to use one program.) ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 628 readers and counting! From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jan 3 22:59:27 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050103225657.054c1b00@mail> At 02:20 PM 1/3/2005, Scott Stevens wrote: >Can't the plain old DOS copy command be used in the same fashion, i.e.: > >MODE COM1:9600,N,8,1,P >COPY COM1 filename.exe > >entered at the 'receiving' system (at the right points in time) If the program binary sent over the serial line didn't include any characters that were eaten or rejected by COPY, and it ended with a CTRL/Z and COPY stopped there, it would work, wouldn't it? This reminds me of the constraints on today's exploits and code injection techniques: "write a series of three progressive exploits and loaders that fit in 64, 256 and 512 bytes, respectively, and do not contain any zeroes." At 02:37 PM 1/3/2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >Hell, with debug you could WRITE the program to input the file >in binary! We're talking MSDOS, right? Not Windows? >You can type this crap directly into debug, "aXXXX". Go for it, Skippy! When it's debugged and tested, ship it! :-) As the hex to enter into DEBUG. You're right - the program for this would be small enough to fit in the margin of a FAQ. "Load and run from the serial port." - John From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jan 3 23:51:58 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050103231426.055c6ba8@mail> At 10:58 PM 1/3/2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >A while ago I asked if anyone on the list could help me get AutoCAD 12 for DOS. >Several people came through and I now have a copy. Thanks, everyone! Advertising your piracy in a public forum where message threads are archived on a web site is a great way to attract the attention of Autodesk. :-) - John From dr.ido at bigpond.net.au Tue Jan 4 01:26:36 2005 From: dr.ido at bigpond.net.au (Dr. Ido) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20050104172636.01746100@pop-server> At 08:58 PM 1/3/05 -0800, you wrote: >A while ago I asked if anyone on the list could help me get AutoCAD 12 for DOS. > Several people came through and I now have a copy. Thanks, everyone! > >As expected though, it doesn't work and play nicely with Windows XP. I was >hoping that just running it through a command prompt window and giving that >giving the Win 95 compatibility attribute to the acad.exe file would make it >work. It didn't and I got a strange error message: Have you tried Virtual PC or any of the other emulators? Most of the stuff that I haven't been able to run in a Windows DOS box runs okay under DOS on Virtual PC. The only real exception I've found is "Divide by Zero" and other cache related problems. From fernande at internet1.net Tue Jan 4 00:29:54 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050103231426.055c6ba8@mail> References: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103231426.055c6ba8@mail> Message-ID: <41DA37E2.2080605@internet1.net> John Foust wrote: > At 10:58 PM 1/3/2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > >>A while ago I asked if anyone on the list could help me get AutoCAD 12 for DOS. >>Several people came through and I now have a copy. Thanks, everyone! > > > Advertising your piracy in a public forum where > message threads are archived on a web site is a great > way to attract the attention of Autodesk. :-) > > - John Your assuming his copy was made by someone other than Autodesk. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From news at computercollector.com Tue Jan 4 00:32:12 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20050104172636.01746100@pop-server> Message-ID: <20050104063212.64577.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> Just tried that, but it's only for XP Pro and 2000; I have XP Home Edition. --- "Dr. Ido" wrote: > At 08:58 PM 1/3/05 -0800, you wrote: > >A while ago I asked if anyone on the list could help me get AutoCAD 12 for > DOS. > > Several people came through and I now have a copy. Thanks, everyone! > > > >As expected though, it doesn't work and play nicely with Windows XP. I was > >hoping that just running it through a command prompt window and giving that > >giving the Win 95 compatibility attribute to the acad.exe file would make it > >work. It didn't and I got a strange error message: > > Have you tried Virtual PC or any of the other emulators? Most of the stuff > that I haven't been able to run in a Windows DOS box runs okay under DOS on > Virtual PC. The only real exception I've found is "Divide by Zero" and > other cache related problems. > > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 628 readers and counting! From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 4 00:54:34 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <41DA37E2.2080605@internet1.net> References: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103231426.055c6ba8@mail> <41DA37E2.2080605@internet1.net> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050104005321.05798de8@mail> At 12:29 AM 1/4/2005, you wrote: >Your assuming his copy was made by someone other than Autodesk. Really? You have some knowledge that this copy is legit, and that Autodesk knows he has it? - John From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jan 4 01:00:12 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050104005321.05798de8@mail> References: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103231426.055c6ba8@mail> <41DA37E2.2080605@internet1.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050104005321.05798de8@mail> Message-ID: <200501040706.CAA01962@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >>>> [Wanted AutoCAD 13 for DOS. People came through, now have it.] >>> Advertising your piracy [...] >> Your[sic] assuming his copy was made by someone other than Autodesk. > Really? You have some knowledge that this copy is legit, and that > Autodesk knows he has it? I have no knowledge either way. But it does seem to me that just because person B doubts that person A knows it's pirated does not necessarily mean that that person B has reason to think it's not. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 4 01:17:23 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <200501040706.CAA01962@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103231426.055c6ba8@mail> <41DA37E2.2080605@internet1.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050104005321.05798de8@mail> <200501040706.CAA01962@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050104011430.054fecd0@mail> At 01:00 AM 1/4/2005, der Mouse wrote: >I have no knowledge either way. But it does seem to me that just >because person B doubts that person A knows it's pirated does not >necessarily mean that that person B has reason to think it's not. My hints come from his mentioning that several people helped him with "finding a copy", as well as my experience with the shark-like rapacity of Autodesk's licensing requirements. Call me skeptical. It's not like AutoCAD is a thirty-years-extinct product. It's alive and well. You're supposed to buy it. - John From news at computercollector.com Tue Jan 4 01:32:37 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050104011430.054fecd0@mail> Message-ID: <20050104073237.96979.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> Version 12 for DOS was already becoming old when I first learned how to use it in 1995. So where could I be expected to go out today and buy a licensed copy? Besides, it's purely for my personal non-commercial use. LOL, and right now it's NOT being used, because I can't get it to run on my computer, thus I posted the OT message here. So Autodesk temporarily wins. --- John Foust wrote: > At 01:00 AM 1/4/2005, der Mouse wrote: > >I have no knowledge either way. But it does seem to me that just > >because person B doubts that person A knows it's pirated does not > >necessarily mean that that person B has reason to think it's not. > > My hints come from his mentioning that several people helped him with > "finding a copy", as well as my experience with the shark-like rapacity > of Autodesk's licensing requirements. Call me skeptical. It's not > like AutoCAD is a thirty-years-extinct product. It's alive and well. > You're supposed to buy it. > > - John > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 628 readers and counting! From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 4 01:41:11 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <20050104073237.96979.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> References: <6.2.0.14.2.20050104011430.054fecd0@mail> <20050104073237.96979.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050104013829.054f5640@mail> At 01:32 AM 1/4/2005, you wrote: >Version 12 for DOS was already becoming old when I first learned how to use it >in 1995. So where could I be expected to go out today and buy a licensed copy? Uhm, an Autodesk dealer? Or calling Autodesk to transfer and register the one that you acquired? Offhand, I would guess that Autodesk's policy on old versions is the same as it is with Microsoft's operating systems: buying today's version gives you a license to run an older version. I am sure there are a few businesses out there still running AutoCAD 12. - John From ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk Tue Jan 4 01:46:00 2005 From: ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk (Lawrence Wilkinson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <200501032221.OAA27256@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501032221.OAA27256@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <1104824760.24265.18.camel@ljw.me.uk> Yes, as far as I can recall Laplink had this exact facility, perhaps using the CTTY command instead of COPY, but I may be thinking of some other program. Writing such a bootstrap would be an interesting exercise. LJW On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 22:21, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > Hi > I'm almost sure I'd done this in the past to > get something like laplink running on a remote machine. > I suspect that the code specifically had no ^Z > until the end of the file and it was just a minimum > bootstrap program to load the rest. > One could always edit the file by changing any ^Z to > something else. Once on the new machine, just change them > back. > I do remember that the name of the file couldn't be > .COM or .EXE. I think the copy from COM1: didn't > work for those files names. > Dwight > > > >From: "Pete Turnbull" > > > >On Jan 3 2005, 13:01, John Foust wrote: > >> At 12:41 PM 1/3/2005, you wrote: > >> > It seems like I remember doing something > >> >like "copy COM1: FileName" or something. > >> > It seems like I remember there being an issue > >> >with the file name extention. > >> > >> And perhaps something else about setting the mode of the COM1: > >> port for bits and binary? > > > >You can't, in MS-DOS. COPY uses ASCII transfers for COM ports and > >complains if you try to force binary, because it needs to see a ctrl-Z > >to know where the end-of-file is. > > > >-- > >Pete Peter Turnbull > > Network Manager > > University of York > > -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk Ph +44(0)1869-811059 http://www.ljw.me.uk From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jan 4 02:04:49 2005 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP References: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103231426.055c6ba8@mail> <41DA37E2.2080605@internet1.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050104005321.05798de8@mail> <200501040706.CAA01962@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <6.2.0.14.2.20050104011430.054fecd0@mail> Message-ID: <004f01c4f234$1064d000$0500fea9@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Foust" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 2:17 AM Subject: Re: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP > At 01:00 AM 1/4/2005, der Mouse wrote: > >I have no knowledge either way. But it does seem to me that just > >because person B doubts that person A knows it's pirated does not > >necessarily mean that that person B has reason to think it's not. > > My hints come from his mentioning that several people helped him with > "finding a copy", as well as my experience with the shark-like rapacity > of Autodesk's licensing requirements. Call me skeptical. It's not > like AutoCAD is a thirty-years-extinct product. It's alive and well. > You're supposed to buy it. > > - John > Good luck buying a new copy of AutoCAD 12 for DOS from them today. I am not even sure what the license stated back then about selling the program to another person legally. From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 4 02:24:21 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Sinclair hooded-top Message-ID: Get 'em while they're hot (cute blonde not included): http://www.livepublishing.co.uk/retro/page_644.shtml -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From m.wickens at rhodium-consulting.com Tue Jan 4 03:44:28 2005 From: m.wickens at rhodium-consulting.com (Mark Wickens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: FTGH: DEC TK50 tapes x 7 (inc diag tape) - UK In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001101c4f242$0bbcc360$0701a8c0@max> Hi Ed, If you haven't already found a taker, I'd like to have them. Regards, Mark. Mark Wickens Rhodium Consulting Ltd -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of listmailgoeshere@gmail.com Sent: 03 January 2005 20:14 To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: FTGH: DEC TK50 tapes x 7 (inc diag tape) - UK Like it says, 7 TK50 media, free to good home. All but one have handwritten labels. They all have cases. One has a dot-matrix printed label which says: "AQ-GL5AJ-DN MB26947 MVII DIAG CUST TK50 COPYRIGHT 1987 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION" so, a MicroVAX 2 diagnostics tape. Free to whoever wants them, you pay shipping. Please speak up (by private mail) within 21 days if you want them. Ed. From melamy at earthlink.net Tue Jan 4 05:14:01 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP Message-ID: <18771539.1104837241373.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> win2K and on will not allow any hardware direct access to hardware. In the DOS days, programs "talked" directly to display cards to bypass BIOS or expected to load their own memory manager (that is the Phar Lap error you are receiving). There are a lot of console programs that will work just fine on XP as long as they access normal BIOS and DOS system calls. AutoCAD is not in that category... best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- From: Computer Collector Newsletter Sent: Jan 3, 2005 11:58 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP A while ago I asked if anyone on the list could help me get AutoCAD 12 for DOS. Several people came through and I now have a copy. Thanks, everyone! As expected though, it doesn't work and play nicely with Windows XP. I was hoping that just running it through a command prompt window and giving that giving the Win 95 compatibility attribute to the acad.exe file would make it work. It didn't and I got a strange error message: "Phar Lap err 74: Can't use -REALBREAK under this version of DPMI" So I Google that and found a few threads like this one: http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=314 Apparently it's just not possible to run Acad 12 in 'real' DOS in XP. I already knew XP's prompt is nothing close to real DOS, but I was hoping to find a way to trick the program, or a way to emulate DOS perhaps. Anyone have a clever solution to this? (I do have a suitable second PC to install real DOS on, but I'd rather not have to dedicate a whole system just to use one program.) From charlesb at otcgaming.net Tue Jan 4 06:11:25 2005 From: charlesb at otcgaming.net (Charles Blackburn) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Sinclair hooded-top In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <005301c4f256$868f6430$0c650750@gamemachine> U gota admit tho... She is hot :D -----Original Message----- From: Vintage Computer Festival [mailto:vcf@siconic.com] Sent: 04 January 2005 08:24 To: Classic Computers Mailing List Subject: Sinclair hooded-top Get 'em while they're hot (cute blonde not included): http://www.livepublishing.co.uk/retro/page_644.shtml --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.825 / Virus Database: 563 - Release Date: 30/12/2004 From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 4 06:40:17 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <004f01c4f234$1064d000$0500fea9@game> References: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103231426.055c6ba8@mail> <41DA37E2.2080605@internet1.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050104005321.05798de8@mail> <200501040706.CAA01962@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <6.2.0.14.2.20050104011430.054fecd0@mail> <004f01c4f234$1064d000$0500fea9@game> Message-ID: <1104842417.5530.7.camel@weka.localdomain> On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 03:04 -0500, Teo Zenios wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "John Foust" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 2:17 AM > Subject: Re: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP > > > > At 01:00 AM 1/4/2005, der Mouse wrote: > > >I have no knowledge either way. But it does seem to me that just > > >because person B doubts that person A knows it's pirated does not > > >necessarily mean that that person B has reason to think it's not. > > > > My hints come from his mentioning that several people helped him with > > "finding a copy", as well as my experience with the shark-like rapacity > > of Autodesk's licensing requirements. Call me skeptical. It's not > > like AutoCAD is a thirty-years-extinct product. It's alive and well. > > You're supposed to buy it. > > > > - John > > > > Good luck buying a new copy of AutoCAD 12 for DOS from them today. I am not > even sure what the license stated back then about selling the program to > another person legally. Aside: I thought autocad of that era required a hardware protection dongle (as 3D Studio did) on the parallel port (Sentinel IIRC)? Maybe I'm wrong on that... There was a trick to getting 3D Studio 3 and 4 (both DOS apps) working in a Windows NT DOS shell - afraid I know nothing of DOS support in more recent versions of Windows but maybe some googling around the 3DS issue will give some tips. I expect they'd be relevant to Autocad too (certainly the Pharlap error someone mentioned rings bells) (I think 3DS4 has to be in my top ten list of favourite software :) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 4 06:49:36 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <18771539.1104837241373.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <18771539.1104837241373.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <1104842976.5530.15.camel@weka.localdomain> On Tue, 2005-01-04 at 06:14 -0500, Steve Thatcher wrote: > win2K and on will not allow any hardware direct access to hardware. In the DOS days, > programs "talked" directly to display cards to bypass BIOS or expected to load > their own memory manager (that is the Phar Lap error you are receiving). There are > a lot of console programs that will work just fine on XP as long as they access > normal BIOS and DOS system calls. AutoCAD is not in that category... My memory on that one is that Autocad uses the same loadable video (and hardcopy) drivers as 3DStudio did - now I *think* the solution there for 3DS under Windows was just to set it to use the VESA driver; Windows could intercept VESA calls and do the necessary emulation. Not as fast as talking direct to hardware, but of course you're running the app on hardware that's many times faster than what was around when the app was current, so it doesn't actually matter. ps. there was some patch for 3DS floating around to get it to run on Pentium-class CPUs at proper speed; 3DS was written in the days of the 486 and for some reason slowed to a crawl on a Pentium without the patch. May well be that Autocad has the same problem... From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 08:05:19 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <26c11a6405010406053c56345d@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 20:58:35 -0800 (PST), Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > A while ago I asked if anyone on the list could help me get AutoCAD 12 for DOS. > Several people came through and I now have a copy. Thanks, everyone! > > As expected though, it doesn't work and play nicely with Windows XP. I was > hoping that just running it through a command prompt window and giving that > giving the Win 95 compatibility attribute to the acad.exe file would make it > work. It didn't and I got a strange error message: > > "Phar Lap err 74: Can't use -REALBREAK under this version of DPMI" > > So I Google that and found a few threads like this one: > > http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=314 > > Apparently it's just not possible to run Acad 12 in 'real' DOS in XP. I > already knew XP's prompt is nothing close to real DOS, but I was hoping to find > a way to trick the program, or a way to emulate DOS perhaps. Anyone have a > clever solution to this? (I do have a suitable second PC to install real DOS > on, but I'd rather not have to dedicate a whole system just to use one program.) > > ===== > Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! > > -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address > -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us > -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all > -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com > -- 628 readers and counting! > If you don't need to have windows running at the same time, get a copy of freedos. Make a bootable cd with autocad on it. Dan From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 08:06:32 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Sinclair hooded-top In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <26c11a6405010406063f1e2a74@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 00:24:21 -0800 (PST), Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > Get 'em while they're hot (cute blonde not included): > > http://www.livepublishing.co.uk/retro/page_644.shtml > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > > Who get's the topless blonde after they are all sold then ? Dan From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 08:09:33 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <015f01c4f20b$6f7c5dc0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <015f01c4f20b$6f7c5dc0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <26c11a640501040609680c2f90@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 22:13:58 -0500, John Allain wrote: > > This assumes John is running DOS 6.0 or higher. > > I can't remember if Interlink was available on DOS 5.0. > > This one here is DOS 5.0 and doesn't have INTR* > Interlink sounds pretty useful, but it came a bit late in the DOS evolution. > > I'll probably combine the ideas from Today with the .BAS ideas from > http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/rsts/dec > us/sig88/088009/msbpct.bas > > John A. > > Do you need to do this on a regular basis ? You could download a trial version of laplink from tucows. It expires after 15 days. Dan From fernande at internet1.net Tue Jan 4 10:51:00 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050104011430.054fecd0@mail> References: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103231426.055c6ba8@mail> <41DA37E2.2080605@internet1.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050104005321.05798de8@mail> <200501040706.CAA01962@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <6.2.0.14.2.20050104011430.054fecd0@mail> Message-ID: <41DAC974.3080500@internet1.net> I found a copy of the book I was looking for at Barnes an Noble, and then I bought it. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA John Foust wrote: > My hints come from his mentioning that several people helped him with > "finding a copy", as well as my experience with the shark-like rapacity > of Autodesk's licensing requirements. Call me skeptical. It's not > like AutoCAD is a thirty-years-extinct product. It's alive and well. > You're supposed to buy it. > > - John From jpl15 at panix.com Tue Jan 4 11:26:03 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Modular Computer Systems front panel on eBay Message-ID: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=53147&item=3864326230&tc=photo $30 buy-it-now Same switch style as the older DEC machines. Blinkenlights. Needs rescue...? Cheers John From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 4 11:30:47 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Modular Computer Systems front panel on eBay In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, John Lawson wrote: > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=53147&item=3864326230&tc=photo > > > $30 buy-it-now > > Same switch style as the older DEC machines. Blinkenlights. Needs > rescue...? That's a panel for a Modcomp machine. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jan 4 12:16:30 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Reviving old hard drives In-Reply-To: <200501040146.RAA27422@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050104131630.009b4c60@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 05:46 PM 1/3/05 -0800, Dwight wrote: > If someone opened a disk and saw lube on the surface, >that disk had a failed bearing seal. You know, that may be exactly what the problem is. The seal is failing and the lube is coming out and gathering around the head and causing it to stick the the platter. If the problem was due to lubricant on the platter then the problem would occur even on relatively new disks. The fact that it only seems to happen to old disk indicates that it's related to wear. Joe h>Dwight > >>From: "Brad Parker" >> >> >>"Joe R." wrote: >>... >>>slide (or rotate) just as easily. I've looked at a couple of drive platters >>>that had sticktion problems and there definitely seems to be wax or >>>something holding the heads to the platters. >> >>I think almost all 3 1/2" drive media has some sort of coating on it. >>What it is varies over time and mfg. I remember that most of it had >>'lubrication like' properties - it's been a long time however and I may >>be slightly off. >> >>I seem to recall the magnetic coating was sputtered on and then another >>coating was put on top. As I remember sometimes the top coating would >>pool around the heads after they landed. >> >>but it's all a dim memory and my memories are probably very dated these >>days since the density has gone up by factor of 1000. >> >>I do remember walking through Tony Lapine's labs and watching watching >>drives running inside laminar flow hoods :-) head balistics where the >>order of the day and made for some interesting firmware. >> >>-brad >> > > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jan 4 12:18:56 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <20050104045835.14110.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050104131856.009c4450@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 08:58 PM 1/3/05 -0800, you wrote: >A while ago I asked if anyone on the list could help me get AutoCAD 12 for DOS. > Several people came through and I now have a copy. Thanks, everyone! > >As expected though, it doesn't work and play nicely with Windows XP. I was >hoping that just running it through a command prompt window and giving that >giving the Win 95 compatibility attribute to the acad.exe file would make it >work. It didn't and I got a strange error message: > >"Phar Lap err 74: Can't use -REALBREAK under this version of DPMI" > >So I Google that and found a few threads like this one: > >http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=314 > >Apparently it's just not possible to run Acad 12 in 'real' DOS in XP. I >already knew XP's prompt is nothing close to real DOS, but I was hoping to find >a way to trick the program, or a way to emulate DOS perhaps. Anyone have a >clever solution to this? What about using Partition Magic or something similar to create a DOS or Windows 3.11 partition and running Autocad from that? Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jan 4 12:23:26 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050103225657.054c1b00@mail> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 10:59 PM 1/3/05 -0600, you wrote: >At 02:20 PM 1/3/2005, Scott Stevens wrote: >>Can't the plain old DOS copy command be used in the same fashion, i.e.: >> >>MODE COM1:9600,N,8,1,P >>COPY COM1 filename.exe >> >>entered at the 'receiving' system (at the right points in time) > >If the program binary sent over the serial line didn't include >any characters that were eaten or rejected by COPY, and it >ended with a CTRL/Z and COPY stopped there, it would work, >wouldn't it? It should. However COPY will normally stop when it hits a CTRL/Z. (And many files have CTRL/Zs in them other than the EOF.) HOWEVER there is a switch that you can use to make COPY copy the entire file length regardless of the preense of embedded CTRL/Zs. I don't remember what the switch is but it should be easy to find out. Joe > >This reminds me of the constraints on today's exploits and code >injection techniques: "write a series of three progressive >exploits and loaders that fit in 64, 256 and 512 bytes, >respectively, and do not contain any zeroes." > >At 02:37 PM 1/3/2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >>Hell, with debug you could WRITE the program to input the file >>in binary! We're talking MSDOS, right? Not Windows? >>You can type this crap directly into debug, "aXXXX". > >Go for it, Skippy! When it's debugged and tested, ship it! :-) >As the hex to enter into DEBUG. > >You're right - the program for this would be small enough to >fit in the margin of a FAQ. "Load and run from the serial port." > >- John > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jan 4 12:27:51 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <1104824760.24265.18.camel@ljw.me.uk> References: <200501032221.OAA27256@clulw009.amd.com> <200501032221.OAA27256@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050104132751.00923d50@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> >> >> >From: "Pete Turnbull" >> > >> > >> >You can't, in MS-DOS. COPY uses ASCII transfers for COM ports and >> >complains if you try to force binary, because it needs to see a ctrl-Z >> >to know where the end-of-file is. Use COPY /B to force it to do a Binary copy. (FWIW /A forces it to do an Ascii copy). Joe From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Tue Jan 4 12:53:29 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFA49@exchange.olf.com> Use DosBox or Boch's from XP.... http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1 http://bochs.sourceforge.net/ Cheers, Ram (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jan 4 13:02:38 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Modular Computer Systems front panel on eBay In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050104140238.009b4c60@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Hey Cool! I have two of these except mine are "Maintenance Panels" and are in stand alone boxs. I've been thinking of puttng mine of E-OverPay too since I don't need them. Joe At 12:26 PM 1/4/05 -0500, you wrote: > > >http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=53147&item=386432623 0&tc=photo > > >$30 buy-it-now > >Same switch style as the older DEC machines. Blinkenlights. Needs >rescue...? > > > >Cheers > >John > > > From cb at mythtech.net Tue Jan 4 13:05:52 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:46 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP Message-ID: >Good luck buying a new copy of AutoCAD 12 for DOS from them today. I am not >even sure what the license stated back then about selling the program to >another person legally. I'm not sure it matters what the license said. Adobe tried the trick of making it against the license to transfer a copy of their software to a new owner. The courts shot it down the first time it was tested. -chris From dwight.elvey at amd.com Tue Jan 4 13:09:15 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP Message-ID: <200501041909.LAA27934@clulw009.amd.com> Hi I've been wondering. If I use one of these tools will it allow me to have things like the bi-directional control of the parallel port? I use the parallel port to connect to an older paper tape reader. Does it really emulate access to hardware or just the more standard useages like serial ports? Dwight >From: "Ram Meenakshisundaram" > >Use DosBox or Boch's from XP.... > >http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1 > >http://bochs.sourceforge.net/ > >Cheers, > >Ram > > From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Tue Jan 4 13:18:45 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFA4B@exchange.olf.com> Hi, If you want to do that, there is a better way (if you want to write the C code for it). I use IO.DLL which allows you to do inp, outp in user space. There are several of these types of DLLs, but this one seems to be popular: http://www.geekhideout.com/iodll.shtml This allows you to port those old dos programs directly over to XP as a console program. Very handy.... Cheers, Ram -----Original Message----- From: Dwight K. Elvey [mailto:dwight.elvey@amd.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 2:09 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: RE: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP Hi I've been wondering. If I use one of these tools will it allow me to have things like the bi-directional control of the parallel port? I use the parallel port to connect to an older paper tape reader. Does it really emulate access to hardware or just the more standard useages like serial ports? Dwight >From: "Ram Meenakshisundaram" > >Use DosBox or Boch's from XP.... > >http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/news.php?show_news=1 > >http://bochs.sourceforge.net/ > >Cheers, > >Ram > > (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From james at jdfogg.com Tue Jan 4 13:57:15 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (james) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: IPI terminators Message-ID: <1104868635.2319.37.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> I'm in need of an IPI terminator. I am trying to make a Sun 690MP usefull and this is the last component in my way. I'm told this is *not* the same as the d-shell 3-pin-row SCSI terminators. From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Tue Jan 4 13:56:24 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: "Joe R." "Re: TKermitFTP" (Jan 4, 13:27) References: <200501032221.OAA27256@clulw009.amd.com> <3.0.6.32.20050104132751.00923d50@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <10501041956.ZM13931@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 4 2005, 13:27, Joe R. wrote: > >> > >> >From: "Pete Turnbull" > >> > > >> > > >> >You can't, in MS-DOS. COPY uses ASCII transfers for COM ports and > >> >complains if you try to force binary, because it needs to see a ctrl-Z > >> >to know where the end-of-file is. > > Use COPY /B to force it to do a Binary copy. (FWIW /A forces it to do an > Ascii copy). The point is that you CAN'T use the /B switch when one of the files is actually a device (like COM:). DOS will not allow that. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From dhbarr at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 15:39:13 2005 From: dhbarr at gmail.com (David H. Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Photo Questions Message-ID: Greetings, list! In my quest for the perfect PaperClip PC, I have finally managed to find a decent snapshot of the book cover: http://pictures.abebooks.com/EVIANS/402158968.JPG I was somehow under the impression that the cover was a dull RED, not light blue; can anyone who has a copy clarify this issue? TIA, -dhbarr. From aek at spies.com Tue Jan 4 15:47:54 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Photo Questions Message-ID: <20050104214754.978CA4C8D@spies.com> The photo matches my copy (which has been scanned) From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 4 16:45:24 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Photo Questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, David H. Barr wrote: > Greetings, list! > > In my quest for the perfect PaperClip PC, I have finally managed to > find a decent snapshot of the book cover: > > http://pictures.abebooks.com/EVIANS/402158968.JPG > > I was somehow under the impression that the cover was a dull RED, not > light blue; can anyone who has a copy clarify this issue? If I recall correctly, my copy has a red hardbound cover. I'm not sure if the dust jacket is still on it. My copy was also published, I believe, in the UK, whereas this one seems to be a US published edition. I'm just guessing at this last point but it may explain the difference. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From geoffreythomas at onetel.com Tue Jan 4 17:19:52 2005 From: geoffreythomas at onetel.com (Geoffrey Thomas) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Speaking of eBay References: Message-ID: <076c01c4f2b3$f04c0c40$0200a8c0@geoff> Electronics World ran a series of articles called " capacitor sound " from July 2002. -Discussing how capacitor construction can affect the sound of a hi-fi amp. The author , Cyril Bateman , also did a few articles on loudspeaker cable sound , but I can't find those at the moment. Geoff. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vintage Computer Festival" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 10:31 PM Subject: RE: Speaking of eBay > On Wed, 29 Dec 2004, Tom Jennings wrote: > > > I'll believe anything with sufficient evidence, but solder alloys > > in a solder joint sounds like total crap to me -- unless I had > > a lot of rolls to offload on fools with more money than I ... :-) > > That's the thing mainly with these crazy audiophiles. Except for the two > examples you bring up, which seems like they have a technical basis to the > theory, most of it is just voodoo hocum that doesn't have any underlying > technical or scientific basis. One loon comes up with a wacko theory and > then it propagates until everyone is demanding special-alloy solder. Why? > They don't know, and they don't care. Some guy said it makes the > electrons happy so they have to get some too. It's completely naive. > > I want to see technical treatises explaining WHY, with scientifically > executed experiments backed up with empirical data, before I believe any > of this nonsense. I think these audio guys ought to demand the same. > They might save a few bucks. > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage mputers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.6 - Release Date: 28/12/04 > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 4 17:25:30 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Joe R. wrote: > It should. However COPY will normally stop when it hits a CTRL/Z. (And > many files have CTRL/Zs in them other than the EOF.) HOWEVER there is a > switch that you can use to make COPY copy the entire file length regardless > of the preense of embedded CTRL/Zs. I don't remember what the switch is > but it should be easy to find out. The switch is /B but DOS will NOT ALLOW /B if the source is a device. If you wade through the ASCII text messages within COMMAND.COM, you'll find that there is a specific error message for that! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 4 17:45:01 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> > The switch is /B > but DOS will NOT ALLOW /B if the source is a device. If you wade through > the ASCII text messages within COMMAND.COM, you'll find that there is > a specific error message for that! I had previously given some wrong information (so,... what's new?) You CAN do /B copies TO a device (I shoulda remembered; I used to have to do that to load certain fonts into laserjets) But you cannot, without appropriate additional software, do /B copies FROM a device. In the case of DOS 6.22, the message "Cannot do binary reads from a device" is at offset 970F in COMMAND.COM 9700 43 C 9710 61 6E 6E 6F 74 20 64 6F-20 62 69 6E 61 72 79 20 annot do binary 9720 72 65 61 64 73 20 66 72-6F 6D 20 61 20 64 65 76 reads from a dev 9730 69 63 65 0D 0A 0D 42 52-45 41 4B 20 69 73 20 25 ice... From dwight.elvey at amd.com Tue Jan 4 17:54:08 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Speaking of eBay Message-ID: <200501042354.PAA28085@clulw009.amd.com> Hi It is true that capacitors can have nonlinear effects. In most cases, the design is such that these effects are vary small and only in cases where the capacitor is used as a filter parameter that has a sharp cut off, does this have measurable effects. This means that blindly replacing all the capacitors is just plain silly. Speaker wire is another interesting one. All wire has impedance ( DC and AC effects ). No wire will ever be the right impedance for an 8 Ohm speaker. Different speakers are effected differently by the speaker wire. I've done some AB test with wire and for at least two speakers, I looked at. I could hear no difference between 6 feet of 12 ga. appliance cord and woven special speaker wire. I doubt my hearing is good enough today to repeat such test but at the time my heard was better than average, being able to clearly hear TV horizontal outputs from any TV across the room. Dwight >From: "Geoffrey Thomas" > >Electronics World ran a series of articles called " capacitor sound " from >July 2002. >-Discussing how capacitor construction can affect the sound of a hi-fi amp. >The author , Cyril Bateman , also did a few articles on loudspeaker cable >sound , but I can't find those at the moment. > >Geoff. > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Vintage Computer Festival" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 10:31 PM >Subject: RE: Speaking of eBay > > >> On Wed, 29 Dec 2004, Tom Jennings wrote: >> >> > I'll believe anything with sufficient evidence, but solder alloys >> > in a solder joint sounds like total crap to me -- unless I had >> > a lot of rolls to offload on fools with more money than I ... :-) >> >> That's the thing mainly with these crazy audiophiles. Except for the two >> examples you bring up, which seems like they have a technical basis to the >> theory, most of it is just voodoo hocum that doesn't have any underlying >> technical or scientific basis. One loon comes up with a wacko theory and >> then it propagates until everyone is demanding special-alloy solder. Why? >> They don't know, and they don't care. Some guy said it makes the >> electrons happy so they have to get some too. It's completely naive. >> >> I want to see technical treatises explaining WHY, with scientifically >> executed experiments backed up with empirical data, before I believe any >> of this nonsense. I think these audio guys ought to demand the same. >> They might save a few bucks. >> >> -- >> >> Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer >Festival >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >---- >> International Man of Intrigue and Danger >http://www.vintage.org >> >> [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage >mputers ] >> [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at >http://marketplace.vintage.org ] >> >> >> >> >> -- >> No virus found in this incoming message. >> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. >> Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.6 - Release Date: 28/12/04 >> >> > > > >-- >No virus found in this outgoing message. >Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. >Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 > > From james at jdfogg.com Tue Jan 4 17:54:48 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (James) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Speaking of eBay In-Reply-To: <076c01c4f2b3$f04c0c40$0200a8c0@geoff> Message-ID: > > > I'll believe anything with sufficient evidence, but solder alloys > > > in a solder joint sounds like total crap to me -- unless I had > > > a lot of rolls to offload on fools with more money than I ... :-) I've used lots of the solder in question. I won't believe it makes better "sounding" connections, but it flows and works real nice. Best solder I've used. From dhbarr at gmail.com Tue Jan 4 18:02:08 2005 From: dhbarr at gmail.com (David H. Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Photo Questions In-Reply-To: <20050104214754.978CA4C8D@spies.com> References: <20050104214754.978CA4C8D@spies.com> Message-ID: Al, are you indicating that a) your copy of the book has been scanned in detail, or b) the cover of your book has been scanned? -dhbarr. On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 13:47:54 -0800 (PST), Al Kossow wrote: > > The photo matches my copy (which has been scanned) > From aek at spies.com Tue Jan 4 18:13:08 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Photo Questions Message-ID: <20050105001308.53D244D94@spies.com> > Al, are you indicating that a) your copy of the book has been scanned correct. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with putting it on line, however. also, it is a VERY strange book. I pulled it out again just to refresh my memory about just exactly what they were trying to do with this project while you could consider it a 'computer', it is not an 'automatic computer' every switch (all those little things made from paper clips) are operated manually. From chenmel at earthlink.net Tue Jan 4 18:27:36 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Photo Questions In-Reply-To: <20050105001308.53D244D94@spies.com> References: <20050105001308.53D244D94@spies.com> Message-ID: <20050104192736.5dad18b8.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 16:13:08 -0800 (PST) aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) wrote: > > > Al, are you indicating that a) your copy of the book has been scanned > > correct. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with putting it on line, however. > > also, it is a VERY strange book. I pulled it out again just to refresh > my memory about just exactly what they were trying to do with this project > > while you could consider it a 'computer', it is not an 'automatic computer' > > every switch (all those little things made from paper clips) are operated > manually. > My Digi-Comp was all operated manually, back in aprox. 1970 when I had one. The first _electornic_ computer I ever wanted to build was one that was basically a cascade of flip-flops made into an up counter. The input device was a telephone dial. For some reason, the author of the book designed it to use multiple big TO-3 package 2N3055 transistors per flip-flop stage, which priced it WAY out of my school-kid budget at the time. Looking back, it's pretty ridiculous that it wasn't designed around little cheap transistors, i.e. 2N2222 parts. Yikes. Serious topic drift. Sorry. -Scott From geoffreythomas at onetel.com Tue Jan 4 18:28:20 2005 From: geoffreythomas at onetel.com (Geoffrey Thomas) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... References: <41D87F38.4070209@jetnet.ab.ca> <1104761808.4015.5.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <08bb01c4f2bd$e1e2e2a0$0200a8c0@geoff> I use Safewash 2000 from Electrolube, specifically designed to remove heavy flux/dirt from pcb's. It comes in an aerosol can with an integral brush - it also foams which is the clue to a better cleaning action it appears. http://www.computronics.com.au/electrolube/aqclean/ In case of doubt - data sheet here : http://www.cirrus.it/pdf/262_1390.PDF Geoff. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jules Richardson" To: Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 2:16 PM Subject: Re: Cleaning motherboards... > On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 13:09 +0000, listmailgoeshere@gmail.com wrote: > > Servisol "Foaming Cleanser" is the best thing I've seen for cleaning > > electronics - it's most often used on the outside of cases, but it > > certainly doesn't do the innards any harm IME (and a chap I know who > > runs a test/measurement dealership uses a LOT of this stuff - he buys > > it by the case on a regular basis). > > > > I'd be wary of it possibly taking delicate screen print off PCBs > > (check first on a piece of text you can afford to lose) but not about > > much else. > > > Watch out for any ceramic ICs. It doesn't take much at all for the black > lettering to come off the gold portions! > > > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 From geoffreythomas at onetel.com Tue Jan 4 18:50:16 2005 From: geoffreythomas at onetel.com (Geoffrey Thomas) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Speaking of eBay References: <200501042354.PAA28085@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <08ce01c4f2c0$915ab4e0$0200a8c0@geoff> Right , I'm off to bed after this . If I recall correctly , the best performing cable in his tests was a lawn mower extension ( mains cable ) , on grounds of price at least. The capacitor articles are a bit more involved , and he does measure noticeable effects. He recommends extended foil polystyrene below 10nF for instance, together with C0G ceramic and extended foil polypropylene. As you say the positioning of the capacitor in the circuit has a bearing on any distortion contribution . The series runs to six articles , and he develops his own low distortion test gear for the purpose. Still can't find the cable articles , but he more or less says the same as you there. Cheers and goodnight :^) . Geoff. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dwight K. Elvey" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 11:54 PM Subject: Re: Speaking of eBay > Hi > It is true that capacitors can have nonlinear effects. > In most cases, the design is such that these effects are > vary small and only in cases where the capacitor is used > as a filter parameter that has a sharp cut off, does > this have measurable effects. This means that blindly > replacing all the capacitors is just plain silly. > Speaker wire is another interesting one. All wire > has impedance ( DC and AC effects ). No wire will ever > be the right impedance for an 8 Ohm speaker. Different > speakers are effected differently by the speaker wire. > I've done some AB test with wire and for at least two > speakers, I looked at. I could hear no difference between > 6 feet of 12 ga. appliance cord and woven special speaker > wire. I doubt my hearing is good enough today to repeat > such test but at the time my heard was better than average, > being able to clearly hear TV horizontal outputs from any > TV across the room. > Dwight > > >From: "Geoffrey Thomas" > > > >Electronics World ran a series of articles called " capacitor sound " from > >July 2002. > >-Discussing how capacitor construction can affect the sound of a hi-fi amp. > >The author , Cyril Bateman , also did a few articles on loudspeaker cable > >sound , but I can't find those at the moment. > > > >Geoff. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jan 4 20:04:31 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Data General equipment In-Reply-To: <001101c4f1f3$c9f8a8c0$3c2fc4d8@icsdevelopment> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050104210431.00925aa0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 07:24 PM 1/3/05 -0500, you wrote: >Anyone know of any Data Gereral equipment, such as the Nova 3 or 4, model >6045/50 Hard Drive or Dasher D1 (model 6052) Terminal? Astro II in Melbourne Florida had about 150 Dasher terminals that they were trying to sell a year or so ago. I got one of them from him and it's in my warehouse. I don't think he was able to sell ANY of the remaining ones and I think he's thrown them all away now. Joe > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 4 22:13:43 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Data General equipment References: <3.0.6.32.20050104210431.00925aa0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <006401c4f2dc$f31d7f20$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written... > At 07:24 PM 1/3/05 -0500, you wrote: >>Anyone know of any Data Gereral equipment, such as the Nova 3 or 4, model >>6045/50 Hard Drive or Dasher D1 (model 6052) Terminal? > > Astro II in Melbourne Florida had about 150 Dasher terminals that they > were trying to sell a year or so ago. I got one of them from him and it's > in my warehouse. I don't think he was able to sell ANY of the remaining > ones and I think he's thrown them all away now. > > Joe Bummer... I've been looking for an old Dasher blue/white terminal for some time. Also nice would be one of the DG "LA120" type units. They're so CUTE! :) Jay From Innfogra at aol.com Tue Jan 4 22:18:52 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Data General equipment Message-ID: <85.1e5163e9.2f0cc4ac@aol.com> There is a guy in Portland Oregon that has a lot of old DG. I will see if I can try to contact him next time in Portland, in a week or two. I think he has some 6045s. Just thinking about him I realize he spends some of the winter in Thailand. Hope he wasn't involved in the Tsunami. Paxton, Astoria, OR From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 4 22:44:35 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: NICE hp box on epay Message-ID: <04ad01c4f2e1$42f59290$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Hey HP fans... Check out item # 5154313481 on ebay. I have a stash of these, but none I want to get rid of yet. Evenso, I was tempted by this one. It's a 2100A, looks to be very good condition, and stuffed with a lot of really nice cards. The seller put up some really nice photos of the all over the unit and you can enlarge all of them to read the fine print on all the card handles. That system is pretty decked out... 32KW core, several 8-bit dup reg boards, several CRT interfaces (I'd like one of those). 7970 Mag tape, 13210 (7900A) disc controller set. Very nice. If you're not an HP fan, you really should check out the front panel pictures. Gorgeous - but then I'm biased :> Jay West From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 5 00:07:15 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050103225657.054c1b00@mail> References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103225657.054c1b00@mail> Message-ID: <20050104220458.I60328@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> On Mon, 3 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > If the program binary sent over the serial line didn't include > any characters that were eaten or rejected by COPY, and it > ended with a CTRL/Z and COPY stopped there, it would work, > wouldn't it? > > This reminds me of the constraints on today's exploits and code > injection techniques: "write a series of three progressive > exploits and loaders that fit in 64, 256 and 512 bytes, > respectively, and do not contain any zeroes." That sounds a bit much for the task at hand... ! > At 02:37 PM 1/3/2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >> Hell, with debug you could WRITE the program to input the file >> in binary! We're talking MSDOS, right? Not Windows? >> You can type this crap directly into debug, "aXXXX". > > Go for it, Skippy! When it's debugged and tested, ship it! :-) > As the hex to enter into DEBUG. debug will assemble for you! It jsut won't do symbols. I am surprised that no one pointed out that the input, store, incremnt could more easily be done by: mov dx, DATAPORT ... es:insb djnz label > > You're right - the program for this would be small enough to > fit in the margin of a FAQ. "Load and run from the serial port." > > - John > From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 5 00:21:48 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050104222045.E74208@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Joe R. wrote: >> If the program binary sent over the serial line didn't include >> any characters that were eaten or rejected by COPY, and it >> ended with a CTRL/Z and COPY stopped there, it would work, >> wouldn't it? > > It should. However COPY will normally stop when it hits a CTRL/Z. (And > many files have CTRL/Zs in them other than the EOF.) HOWEVER there is a > switch that you can use to make COPY copy the entire file length regardless > of the preense of embedded CTRL/Zs. I don't remember what the switch is > but it should be easy to find out. THe problem is that copy /B doesn't work. Never did, in any version of DOS since 1.0. From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 5 00:28:54 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: DOS programs in Win XP In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050104131856.009c4450@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050104131856.009c4450@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050104222808.R86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> Umm, why not create a new partition and simply install DOS on it? From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 5 00:31:13 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Fred Cisin wrote: > In the case of DOS 6.22, the message "Cannot do binary reads from a > device" > is at offset 970F in COMMAND.COM Sheesh, it only took them 10 years to declare it impossible and test for the error. From river at zip.com.au Tue Jan 4 12:36:13 2005 From: river at zip.com.au (river) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TMS9980/9901 Message-ID: <00e501c4f28c$484f0d20$8122083d@river> Hi, Does anyone know where I can get TMS9980 and TMS9901 chips from? They're never on eBay. I tried a chip broker who had a large stash, but he wanted 200USD per chip! I'm trying to get my old TM99/U89 system going and the 9980 and 9901 chips have corroded badly and lost a leg or two. I've been told the 9980 was in some old pin-ball machines, so I'm currently hunting down these sites to verify this. seeyuzz river -------------- next part -------------- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.7 - Release Date: 30/12/04 From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jan 5 05:24:57 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TMS9980/9901 In-Reply-To: <00e501c4f28c$484f0d20$8122083d@river> References: <00e501c4f28c$484f0d20$8122083d@river> Message-ID: <41DBCE89.4070608@gjcp.net> river wrote: > I'm trying to get my old TM99/U89 system going and the 9980 and 9901 chips have > corroded badly and lost a leg or two. You could try grinding the envelope back with a dremel and soldering a new lead on. I've done this with eproms that have lost legs. Scary but it works. OTOH if it's that badly corroded, what state is the rest of the machine in? Gordon. From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jan 5 05:29:03 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: FTGH: DEC documentation (UK) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41DBCF7F.8060705@gjcp.net> listmailgoeshere@gmail.com wrote: > Hi list, > > I have here a DEC documentation set for the VT220 (its outer cardboard > cover says VT200, though). I'll have this if no-one else grabs it. Mail me off-list with your details. Gordon. From geoffreythomas at onetel.com Wed Jan 5 05:58:31 2005 From: geoffreythomas at onetel.com (Geoffrey Thomas) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: GI AY-3-8600 pinouts References: <200501040136.j041aeAe054063@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <009101c4f31e$ede20e80$0200a8c0@geoff> Try this link http://www.pong-story.com/eaus0778.htm Geoff. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrian Graham" To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 1:18 AM Subject: GI AY-3-8600 pinouts > Hi folks, > > Happy festive stuff :) > > Does anyone have pinouts of the aforementioned chip? I can do the 8500 but > not the 8600 which allowed horizontal movement amongst other things...... > > Thanks! > > -- > Adrian/Witchy > Creator/Curator of Binary Dinosaurs, quite probably the UK's biggest private > home computer collection. > www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the online museum > www.aaghverts.co.uk - *the* site for letting you moan about adverts! > www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - former gothic shenanigans :( > > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 5 06:55:34 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Photo Questions In-Reply-To: <20050104192736.5dad18b8.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <20050105001308.53D244D94@spies.com> <20050104192736.5dad18b8.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050105065354.0562ae68@mail> At 06:27 PM 1/4/2005, Scott Stevens wrote: >The first _electornic_ computer I ever wanted to build was one that was basically a cascade of flip-flops made into an up counter. The input device was a telephone dial. Hah! As a tike, I remember wiring an old dial as a switch with a battery and a lamp, and thinking it was an adding computer because if I dialed one number, held the dial in place, then dialed the second number, then released the dial, the lamp would blink the answer. :-) - John From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 5 07:01:33 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050104220458.I60328@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103225657.054c1b00@mail> <20050104220458.I60328@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050105065718.056184b8@mail> At 12:07 AM 1/5/2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >On Mon, 3 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: >>This reminds me of the constraints on today's exploits and code >>injection techniques: >That sounds a bit much for the task at hand... ! Of course, in this case, your simple jump at the end would do the trick. >>At 02:37 PM 1/3/2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >debug will assemble for you! It jsut won't do symbols. And in your code, we'd need to know COMPORT, RDA, DATAPORT and theexactsizeofKERMIT. Not remembering enough low-level DOS myself, are the first three constants or something from a BIOS call? >I am surprised that no one pointed out that the input, store, incremnt >could more easily be done by: Who was the one talking about overkill and excessive optimization? :-) - John From wacarder at usit.net Wed Jan 5 08:29:10 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: What is this RK05 style pack? Message-ID: <002901c4f332$eca42030$f71b0f14@wcarder1> A couple months ago I acquired a new, still in the plastic wrap, still in the box, never opened disk pack that at first glance appeared to be an RK05. I finally decided to look further at it to see if it was a 12 sector or 16 sector RK05 pack, since it had no identifying label or markings. Upon further inspection, I found that it did not have the usual rim on the hub, where normally you would be able to count the thin notches to determine whether it was a 16 sector or 12 sector RK05. Instead, it has a short, rounded, unnotched rim where normally it would have the tall thin rim with notches. Otherwise it looks just like an RK05. The case is interchangeable. I actually took it apart so I could use the case on another RK05 pack that had a decent platter but a bad outer case. What is this thing? RK03? Ashley From wacarder at usit.net Wed Jan 5 08:34:48 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: What is this RK05 style pack? References: <002901c4f332$eca42030$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Message-ID: <003001c4f333$b5dba950$f71b0f14@wcarder1> A couple months ago I acquired a new, still in the plastic wrap, still in the box, never opened disk pack that at first glance appeared to be an RK05. I finally decided to look further at it to see if it was a 12 sector or 16 sector RK05 pack, since it had no identifying label or markings. Upon further inspection, I found that it did not have the usual rim on the hub, where normally you would be able to count the thin notches to determine whether it was a 16 sector or 12 sector RK05. Instead, it has a short, rounded, unnotched rim where normally it would have the tall thin rim with notches. Otherwise it looks just like an RK05. The case is interchangeable. I actually took it apart so I could use the case on another RK05 pack that had a decent platter but a bad outer case. What is this thing? RK03? Ashley ...... or maybe an RK02, since everything I'm reading about the RK03 indicates that it's much like an RK05??? From dholland at woh.rr.com Wed Jan 5 08:45:07 2005 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's Message-ID: <1104936307.21591.8.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Hi, To re-iterate a CCTalk thread I found that was two years old, anyone got any documentation on one of these things? (I picked up one off of EPay cheap, in a vague attempt to get some networking into a IIgs) I've found this page here: http://www.walshcomptech.com/fastpath5/ That site had a little software for the FastPath 5, however, I've not had the opportunity try it out. (None of the Apple boxes I have access to have any sort of network in them. Powerbook 540c, and of course the IIgs.) So, anyone seen any other documentation on the things, on the web? Thanks! /me goes back to googling for doc's... David From pkoning at equallogic.com Wed Jan 5 08:45:00 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: What is this RK05 style pack? References: <002901c4f332$eca42030$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Message-ID: <16859.64876.647594.111421@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "Ashley" == Ashley Carder writes: Ashley> A couple months ago I acquired a new, still in the plastic Ashley> wrap, still in the box, never opened disk pack that at first Ashley> glance appeared to be an RK05. I finally decided to look Ashley> further at it to see if it was a 12 sector or 16 sector RK05 Ashley> pack, since it had no identifying label or markings. Ashley> Upon further inspection, I found that it did not have the Ashley> usual rim on the hub, where normally you would be able to Ashley> count the thin notches to determine whether it was a 16 Ashley> sector or 12 sector RK05. Instead, it has a short, rounded, Ashley> unnotched rim where normally it would have the tall thin rim Ashley> with notches. Otherwise it looks just like an RK05. The Ashley> case is interchangeable. I actually took it apart so I could Ashley> use the case on another RK05 pack that had a decent platter Ashley> but a bad outer case. Ashley> What is this thing? RK03? I have no idea, but here's a far out thought... some IBM 360 mainframes (the 360 model 44 for example) have an RK05 style drive in them. Reading the 360 model 44 functional description (on bitsavers.org) suggests that probably isn't right -- that disk (Model 2315) is described as having 16 fixed size sectors. Hm, that would mean an RK08 pack would fit??? Strange to have hard sectoring here, given that IBM 360 mass storage normally used variable-size records on a track. paul From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 5 08:58:30 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 05 Jan 2005 09:45:07 EST." <1104936307.21591.8.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: <200501051458.j05EwURt006794@mwave.heeltoe.com> David Holland wrote: > >So, anyone seen any other documentation on the things, on the web? If no one else can dig anything up let me know. I know a lot of ex-shiva people - I might be able to find something. I'll send off some email. As I recall the fp-4 had battery backed up SRAM; you might want to check the internal battery. There was a macintosh program which would download the code and config. I was always more of a gatorbox person myself :-) -brad From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 5 09:06:30 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 05 Jan 2005 09:58:30 EST." <200501051458.j05EwURt006794@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <200501051506.j05F6Up7007281@mwave.heeltoe.com> You might try this - it may be FP5 only, however. http://www.walshcomptech.com/miscfiles/FPADMIN.bin -brad From dholland at woh.rr.com Wed Jan 5 10:07:49 2005 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: <200501051506.j05F6Up7007281@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501051506.j05F6Up7007281@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <1104941269.21591.25.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Yup, that's the software I found. At this point, I was looking for documentation as a preemptive measure. It never hurts to have the docs handy when your dinking w/ something. :-> There is some sort of battery inside of the FastPath box, I already peeked. I suspect its dead just due to general age of the unit. Once I figure out how to get that file onto my little PowerBook laptop, hopefully I'll be able to bumble my way through the software. I was kind of hoping the documentation was online in some form, but it apparently isn't. (Which IMHO, is surprising, considering the number of requests I've seen online for it.) thanks, David On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 10:06 -0500, Brad Parker wrote: > You might try this - it may be FP5 only, however. > > http://www.walshcomptech.com/miscfiles/FPADMIN.bin > > -brad From aek at spies.com Wed Jan 5 12:01:28 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's Message-ID: <20050105180128.332E13D60@spies.com> here is the installation manual www.bitsavers.org/pdf/kinetics/4200094-00_FP4_inst_Jul88.pdf From dholland at woh.rr.com Wed Jan 5 13:42:49 2005 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: <20050105180128.332E13D60@spies.com> References: <20050105180128.332E13D60@spies.com> Message-ID: <1104954169.21591.28.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 10:01 -0800, Al Kossow wrote: > here is the installation manual > > www.bitsavers.org/pdf/kinetics/4200094-00_FP4_inst_Jul88.pdf Doh... And bitsavers was one of the places I looked. Just didn't check the right directory... Thanks! David From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 5 14:08:36 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: have an extra UDA-50 board set? Message-ID: <200501052008.j05K8aFd002358@mwave.heeltoe.com> Hi Does anyone have a working UDA-50 board set with the "over the top" jumpers they would be willing to part with? (or while I'm asking, an RA-81 HDA? :-) (this is a unibus disk controller for the non-dec folks) i have one in my vax and I'd like to have another for my 11/44. -brad From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 5 14:18:32 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050105065718.056184b8@mail> References: <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050103225657.054c1b00@mail> <20050104220458.I60328@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> <6.2.0.14.2.20050105065718.056184b8@mail> Message-ID: <20050105120431.Y787@localhost> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > And in your code, we'd need to know COMPORT, RDA, DATAPORT > and theexactsizeofKERMIT. Not remembering enough low-level DOS > myself, are the first three constants or something from a > BIOS call? theexactsizeofKERMIT is simply derived from the DIR command. The only catch is if dir says kermit.com = 67000 bytes, and you send only 66999, then the kludge will wait for 67000 bytes... for ever. The solution is easy: copy/b some short crap file to the port. IBM feces comm. port data is trivial RTFM. All from http://wps.com/FidoNet/source/DOS-C-sources/Old%20DOS%20C%20library%20source/ibmasync.asm DATAPORT= base + MDATA ; You're not paying me enough STATPORT= base + MSTAT ; to do arithmetic. and RDA is... RDA. ; ; 8250 hardware configuration ; base dw 3f8h ; COM1 base port intnum db 12 ; COM1 interrupt intmsk db 11101111b ; MDATA equ 0 ; modem data port MLINE equ 3 ; line control MLSTAT equ 5 ; line status MCNTRL equ 4 ; modem control MSTAT equ 6 ; modem status MBAUDL equ 0 ; baud rate low MBAUDH equ 1 ; baud rate high INTENB equ 1 ; interrupt enable register INTID equ 2 ; interrupt ID FIFO equ 2 ; 16550 FIFO control DLAB equ 80h ; baud reg. access bit RDA equ 01h ; character avail TBE equ 20h ; buffer empty MODE equ 03h ; 8 bits, no parity MMODE equ 00001000b ; enable interrupt RTS equ 2 ; RTS bit DTR equ 1 ; DTR bit, CTS equ 10h ; CTS bit, B300 equ 0180h ; 300 baud B1200 equ 0060h ; 1200 baud B9600 equ 000ch ; 9600 baud >> I am surprised that no one pointed out that the input, store, incremnt >> could more easily be done by: > > Who was the one talking about overkill and excessive optimization? :-) Me? Never! From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 5 16:27:52 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> Message-ID: <20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net> > > In the case of DOS 6.22, the message "Cannot do binary reads from a > > device" is at offset 970F in COMMAND.COM On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > Sheesh, it only took them 10 years to declare it impossible and > test for the error. Well, ... in DOS 4.00, it is at offset 7CCC. It may have been there since QDOS? Although admittedly, I do not know whether earlier versions actually included the test for the error to DISPLAY the message. Perhaps some with older DOS currently installed could try: COPY /B CON: filename to see whether it notices? But use of the built-in DOS device drivers in order to use COPY /B is NOT the only way. PC-DOS 3.30 (but probably NOT MS-DOS 3.30) has REC35.COM bundled with DOS. That was mostly because IBM started using 3.5" drives on PS/2 WITHOUT usually having a 5.25" drive present, and needed a way to do format conversion. Or,... you could write and debug a small bootstrap program for loading a binary file through a port. [Left as an exercise for the reader] The "operator" of the machine can then type it into DEBUG or,... Disassemble it into a text file of the source code with no labels, comments, etc. insert an "A " at the beginning, and add at the end: N filename R CX nnnn W Q For example: A JMP 106 DB 1A DB 1A DB 1A DB 1A MOV AH, 2 MOV DL, 42 INT 21 INT 20 N test.com R CX E W Q COPY that text file (yes, you can do it /A) into the machine, with a filename on the order of TESTCODE.DAT Have the "operator" of the machine type DEBUG < TESTCODE.DAT It will produce a .COM file that CAN include ^Z characters. One of the computer magazines (PC? PCWORLD?) used that briefly as a way to distribute programs to their readers, some of whom could not have managed without it. Another way they did it was as DATA statements in a BASIC program. The redirection into DEBUG has the advantage of not hiding the code as thoroughly, and thus being less insulting to our intelligence. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 5 17:07:39 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 05 Jan 2005 14:42:49 EST." <1104954169.21591.28.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: <200501052307.j05N7dSe009405@mwave.heeltoe.com> for the fastpath-4 folks: I found a cache of FP files from Shiva's old ftp server. I'll put it up for ftp tonight. I think it's all the software one would ever need for a fastpath. -brad From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 17:13:00 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: <200501052307.j05N7dSe009405@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <1104954169.21591.28.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> <200501052307.j05N7dSe009405@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 18:07:39 -0500, Brad Parker wrote: > > for the fastpath-4 folks: > > I found a cache of FP files from Shiva's old ftp server. I'll put it up > for ftp tonight. I think it's all the software one would ever need > for a fastpath. Sweet! Thanks! I think I'm part of that two-year-old thread that was dredged up about these. -ethan From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Wed Jan 5 17:34:30 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:47 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: Fred Cisin "Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP" (Jan 5, 14:27) References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> <20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 5 2005, 14:27, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > In the case of DOS 6.22, the message "Cannot do binary reads from a > > > device" is at offset 970F in COMMAND.COM > On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > Sheesh, it only took them 10 years to declare it impossible and > > test for the error. > > Well, ... > in DOS 4.00, it is at offset 7CCC. It may have been there since QDOS? Dunno, I don't have quite such old versions :-) My old copy of "The MS-DOS Bible" says "every version" -- it means 3.30 and older -- disallows binary reads from devices. The same message is at 5254 in MS-DOS 3.30 (ditto in PC-DOS 3.30), at 4CA0 in 3.21, and 4CCC in IBM-DOS 4.01 (from a Compaq). I can't read my MS-DOS 2.10 and 2.11 disks on the hardware I have here. "Binary reads from a device are not allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. All the ones that I could boot (ie all but 2.10/2.11) print the message and then exit when you try COPY /B CON: dummy . -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 5 17:55:25 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> <20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net> <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: <20050105155307.C9662@localhost> >> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >>> Sheesh, it only took them 10 years to declare it impossible and >>> test for the error. On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: > All the ones that I could boot (ie all but 2.10/2.11) print the message > and then exit when you try COPY /B CON: dummy . Hmm. It's clearly obvious that when personal memory, and 30+ lbs. of documentation disagree, the printed manuals are all in error. (I do recall some combo of copying binary files and simply not getting desire results, but I'll chalk it up to illusion and hallucinations.) (I"m still awaiting my fabled LSD flashbacks, they would be much more interesting than this.) From KParker at workcover.com Mon Jan 3 16:53:40 2005 From: KParker at workcover.com (Parker, Kevin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Cleaning motherboards... Message-ID: <2E6595D306CCF54DB703F7BB1E26162301B4B7A8@minerva.headoffice.corporate.local> I'm interested in the same issue too - I've got a TRS80 Model 16B that was living in an unused bakehouse for a few years - I think it's a box of dust with some circuit boards in there somewhere :-) I heard a substance you can use that is non conductive and leaves a protective film on the board after - I think its CRC 626 or CRC 262 or similar - someone on the list might know a bit more. ++++++++++ Kevin Parker Web Services Manager WorkCover Corporation p: 08 8233 2548 m: 0418 806 166 e: kparker@workcover.com w: www.workcover.com ++++++++++ -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gavin Thomas Nicol Sent: Saturday, 1 January 2005 3:37 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Cleaning motherboards... Apart from dusting with compressed air and camel hair brushes, which removes the dust from circuit boards, are there any recommendations for cleaning the general grimy file from motherboards? ************************************************************************ This e-mail is intended for the use of the addressee only. It may contain information that is protected by legislated confidentiality and/or is legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient you are prohibited from disseminating, distributing or copying this e-mail. Any opinion expressed in this e-mail may not necessarily be that of the WorkCover Corporation of South Australia. Although precautions have been taken, the sender cannot warrant that this e-mail or any files transmitted with it are free of viruses or any other defect. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and destroy the original e-mail and any copies. ************************************************************************ From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Mon Jan 3 17:43:48 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: FTGH: PCS Munix 2.06 Tutorial Manual IIa (German UNIX?) - UK Message-ID: I have Manual IIa for MUNIX 2.06 by Periphere Computer Systeme GmbH to give away. This is a large (4 hole) white ring binder containing several hundred pages of tutorial documentation. Suit German collector maybe? Jochen/Gerold? Free to whoever wants it, you pay shipping. Speak up (by private mail to me) within 21 days or it gets recycled. Ed. From mokuba at gmail.com Mon Jan 3 18:29:27 2005 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary G. Sparkes Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050103104227.009112e0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <41d9e371.0da003c2.0f60.00b8@smtp.gmail.com> I'd be glad to! Of course you'll get them back, as with myself getting one, I also got one of these units for a friend and he's keenly interested in a manual too. I've just got the copy of the ROM code with comments and all, which certainly saves me from the hassle of having to disassemble it by hand (too bad I already had copied down the ROM and verified it twice... all 2048 bytes of it!) so, yea, I'd love to scan it and send it back to you. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Joe R. Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 10:42 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: HP 5036A Microprocessor Lab Hi Gary, I got your message about this a week or so ago and I've already talked to Al Kossow to see if he already had the manuals or had scanned them and about hosting them. He doesn't have the manuals but is willing to scan and host them. I do have all the manuals including the user's manual, service manual and microprocessor course manual. I know Al is quite backed up with scanning (I send him three large boxs of manuals myself recently) so If you'd like to scan them and/or host them that's fine by me as long as I get the manuals back. Joe At 02:23 AM 1/1/05 -0500, you wrote: >I recently acquired one of these units and am in the process of searching >for manuals or any info AT ALL on this unit! So far I've figured out how to >call up addresses, store data and program it (havn't really done much since >I can't figure out more then how to play with the registers, the output >hardware is alien to me :/) I'd love to get a copy of the rom as it was >written in the manual, comments and all. Also, if anyone has a manual and >wants it scanned, I'll be more then happy to do that for you! And I'm >especially keen to know how to manipulate the speaker and output LEDs > > From bob.supnik at sicortex.com Tue Jan 4 08:09:17 2005 From: bob.supnik at sicortex.com (Bob Supnik) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: 780 simulator project Message-ID: <41DAA38D.3020907@sicortex.com> I've finished, and am debugging, a VAX-11/780 simulator, with the goal of running VMS V1, early BSD releases, and other 'first VAX' code. There are a couple of critical missing pieces. In particular, I need 1) 780 PROM bootstrap contents. This was the 4KB of PROM located in the MS780 memory controllers. A binary dump would be sufficient, the simulator can dissassemble VAX code. 2) LSI11 console PROM contents. The LSI11 console ran out of a boot PROM. This is less critical but would help with understanding the fine details of the console-CPU interaction. Again, a binary dump suffices. 3) VMS V1 floppy kit. While early tape distributions have been found, the console floppies have not. The most critical ones are the tape restore program and the system bootstrap (VMB). Getting a 780 online required - booting the console from its PROM - loading the standalone tape restore program into the 780 from the console - running the standalone tape restore program to copy VMS from the distribution tape to a hard disk - loading VMB into the 780 from the console - using VMB to boot VMS Any help would be appreciated. The 780 simulator, in its current incomplete state, is included in the SIMH source distribution, http://simh.trailing-edge.com. -- Bob Supnik bob.supnik@sicortex.com VP Engineering Tel: 978.897.0214 x202 SiCortex Fax: 978.461.2444 One Clocktower Place Cell: 508.344.0398 Suite 100 Maynard, Ma 01754 From mjd.NO.bishop.SPAM at iee.org Tue Jan 4 08:26:09 2005 From: mjd.NO.bishop.SPAM at iee.org (Martin Bishop) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Available: BA23 skins x 2 sets (UK) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Had I looked down my in box ... Like the TK50 diag these are of interest. May I offer a bottle of The Balvenie on collection ? If my offer wins the prize, please let me know where in the UK and I'll confirm / decline. Regards Martin mjdbishop@iee.org -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of listmailgoeshere@gmail.com Sent: 03 January 2005 20:21 To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Available: BA23 skins x 2 sets (UK) I have 2 sets of BA23 "skins" (the outer plastic covers) available. One is complete and undamaged (except for the property marking described below) - has both side panels, front cover, back cover, and the base "foot". The other has everything except the back cover, and the "foot" on this one has a chunk missing from the middle of one edge, maybe about 4" long. Both of them have the name of the organisation they came from marked on the front panel (under the opening for the drives) using the "SELECTAMARK" system (blue dots which spell out letters in a dot-matrix-style font). This can be removed with glasspaper, or if you don't care you can of course just leave it. I suppose this only really matters if you want the covers for display/museum purposes. Best offer (to me by private mail) by the end of 21 days takes them. Your offer can be from "nothing" upwards - I don't mind if these go for free, but if they're worth more then obviously I wouldn't mind a few drinking vouchers ;) You must pay shipping or collect in all cases. Ed. From rreichle at rdspos.com Tue Jan 4 10:47:28 2005 From: rreichle at rdspos.com (Rick Reichle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: more vintage PC junk available free (some good!) Message-ID: <000601c4f27d$142e7800$0e33406e@rds11> I don't suppose you have a keyboard for a Corona Data Systems Portable computer model PPC400 laying around?? Thanks Rick Reichle From ddl-cctech at danlan.com Wed Jan 5 03:12:54 2005 From: ddl-cctech at danlan.com (Dan Lanciani) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Emulex MT03 available Message-ID: <200501050912.EAA18448@ss10.danlan.com> Anybody want it? This is a SCSI/QIC44 bridge. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com From ddl-cctech at danlan.com Wed Jan 5 03:20:23 2005 From: ddl-cctech at danlan.com (Dan Lanciani) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Alloy S100-interfaced QIC tape drive available Message-ID: <200501050920.EAA18593@ss10.danlan.com> This consists of an IDXCS-100T S-100 controller and a D6410 tape drive. Also programming manual and CP/M-86 software. It is pretty heavy. As usual, price is $0 plus shipping or you pick up in Gloucester, MA. Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com From jesnyder at iastate.edu Wed Jan 5 15:59:13 2005 From: jesnyder at iastate.edu (John E Snyder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: "Antique" Apple II e Computer, Manuals, Books Message-ID: <6.1.0.6.2.20050105155501.026ddb90@jesnyder.mail.iastate.edu> Greetings I am doing some housecleaning, and re-discovered that I have an old Apple II e computer (with monitor, disk drive, and keyboard), and a big box of software, manuals, and books for it. I am not a home computer hobbyist (just a computer user) and have no use for it, but it would seem a shame to just throw all the stuff into the dumpster. I am not really trying to sell it or anything, just see that it gets to someone who is interested in it. How can I find if there is someone interested in it, who I could give it to? Thanks for your help, John jesnyder@iastate.edu (515)-294-4312 (university) (515)-232-8824 (home) From ICS at Core.com Wed Jan 5 18:11:47 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Data General equipment References: <3.0.6.32.20050104210431.00925aa0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <008701c4f384$62b888f0$4228c4d8@icsdevelopment> Is Astro II a company name? Do you have contact info.? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe R." To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 9:04 PM Subject: Re: Data General equipment > At 07:24 PM 1/3/05 -0500, you wrote: > >Anyone know of any Data Gereral equipment, such as the Nova 3 or 4, model > >6045/50 Hard Drive or Dasher D1 (model 6052) Terminal? > > Astro II in Melbourne Florida had about 150 Dasher terminals that they > were trying to sell a year or so ago. I got one of them from him and it's > in my warehouse. I don't think he was able to sell ANY of the remaining > ones and I think he's thrown them all away now. > > Joe > > > > > > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 5 18:33:00 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Data General equipment In-Reply-To: <008701c4f384$62b888f0$4228c4d8@icsdevelopment> References: <3.0.6.32.20050104210431.00925aa0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050105193300.009c1460@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 07:11 PM 1/5/05 -0500, you wrote: >Is Astro II a company name? Yeap. Do you have contact info.? They're in the phone book. I think the number is (321) 239-0606 or (321) 727-9010. Joe > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Joe R." >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 9:04 PM >Subject: Re: Data General equipment > > >> At 07:24 PM 1/3/05 -0500, you wrote: >> >Anyone know of any Data Gereral equipment, such as the Nova 3 or 4, model >> >6045/50 Hard Drive or Dasher D1 (model 6052) Terminal? >> >> Astro II in Melbourne Florida had about 150 Dasher terminals that they >> were trying to sell a year or so ago. I got one of them from him and it's >> in my warehouse. I don't think he was able to sell ANY of the remaining >> ones and I think he's thrown them all away now. >> >> Joe >> >> > >> > >> >> > > From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Wed Jan 5 18:25:03 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: Tom Jennings "Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP" (Jan 5, 15:55) References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> <20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net> <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> <20050105155307.C9662@localhost> Message-ID: <10501060025.ZM17052@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 5 2005, 15:55, Tom Jennings wrote: > Hmm. It's clearly obvious that when personal memory, and 30+ lbs. > of documentation disagree, the printed manuals are all in error. Absolutely! They change them, you know, when you're not looking. It's often happened to me :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 5 18:35:52 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050105155307.C9662@localhost> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de> <17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> <20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net> <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> <20050105155307.C9662@localhost> Message-ID: <20050105163447.F78324@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > (I"m still awaiting my fabled LSD flashbacks, they would be much > more interesting than this.) Sorry if it's a disappointment, but they're hardly ever anywhere near as weird as current reality! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 20:12:04 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Who Made/Makes the World Smallest Harddrive In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20041218194403.00904d10@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <007301c4e524$a07f09c0$1b406b43@66067007> <3.0.6.32.20041218194403.00904d10@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 19:44:03 -0500, Joe R. wrote: > HP built some 1.3" drives. They were the Kittyhawk series. I have a couple of these - they are physically the length of a standard 44-pin laptop IDE connector and about 1/2 as wide. Mine are 20MB, there was also a 40MB version. In terms of size and capacity, the Kittyhawks hold no records presently, but for a time, they were the smallest drives made, and gave acceptable capacity for their volume. ISTR they were intended for palmtop-like devices and similar things. Mine is attached to a C-64 with an IDE interface. In terms of PC technology, 5MB would be the lowest capacity I am aware of (ST-506), and CF 'microdrives' would be the smallest physical size. If the boundaries extend to disks of all ages, I am unaware of any disk with less capacity than the DF-32 (as someone else mentioned) - 20 fixed heads (16 data, 4 timing including spares) for 32768 words of 12 bits (plus parity)... yes... a 32K disk. Several list members here have one or more. -ethan From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jan 5 20:13:27 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: VAXstation 200 memory board Message-ID: I have a VS2000 memory board (the 2 meg upgrade, I think) doing nothing here, and it needs to go. Anyone want it for a buck and shipping? William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 20:19:34 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Who Made/Makes the World Smallest Harddrive In-Reply-To: <1103556679.26744.10.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1103555522.26108.8.camel@fortran> <1103556679.26744.10.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 15:31:19 +0000, Jules Richardson > There was a discussion on a local group about the origin of the name > Winchester... > Neither group seemed to be able to satisfactorily prove or disprove > things one way or the other as to the origins of the name. Most books > within the last 15 years or so probably base the origin on the rifle, > but that may be down to that being the oft-repeated folklore. There was an issue of "Scientific American" a number of years ago, 1984 perhaps? It had a cover article on storage technology. It may have been where I first heard of thin film heads (as opposed to standard coiled wire ones) as an upcoming technology. I am sure they go over the history of drive technology at some point in the article, and I'm pretty sure they mention Winchesters and rifles. True, it's not a 1960s reference, but it's 20 years closer to the source than we are now. If anyone has that particular issue, it might be worth digging out. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 20:31:28 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Who Made/Makes the World Smallest Harddrive In-Reply-To: <20041218122204.3c58dbcb.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <007301c4e524$a07f09c0$1b406b43@66067007> <20041218122204.3c58dbcb.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 12:22:04 -0500, Scott Stevens wrote: > Physically smallest, wasn't there a drive called the 'matchbox' drive? Smallest I've owned was a little PCMCIA hard drive, which isn't as small as the 'matchbox' drive. OK... a google image search on "Kittyhawk disk" turns up two hits... Page at: http://www.drchaos.net/drchaos/Conf/Kitty/kitty.html Picture at: http://www.drchaos.net/drchaos/Conf/Kitty/disk1.jpg and: http://www.drchaos.net/drchaos/Conf/Kitty/disk2.jpg With another one here: http://www.palmtoppaper.com/ptphtml/4/ptp400c2.htm I can't verify that's the same thing as what I have, since mine still has the lid on, but it looks reasonable. The article mentions 2" as a dimension, but my recollection is that the Kittyhawk platter _is_ 1.3"... the case is probably 2" wide, then. It certainly is on the order of 3" long (however wide the 44 pin connector is, plus a fraction) They appear to have been manufactured from 1993 to 1994. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 20:34:09 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Who Made/Makes the World Smallest Harddrive In-Reply-To: <20041218122204.3c58dbcb.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <007301c4e524$a07f09c0$1b406b43@66067007> <20041218122204.3c58dbcb.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 12:22:04 -0500, Scott Stevens wrote: > wasn't there a drive called the 'matchbox' drive? OK... found references to dimensions... http://www.palmtoppaper.com/ptphtml/4/ptp40040.htm 0.4" x 2" x 1.44", 18ms seek, 1oz weight -ethan From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 5 22:19:18 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Dunno, I don't have quite such old versions :-) My old copy of "The > MS-DOS Bible" says "every version" -- it means 3.30 and older -- > disallows binary reads from devices. The same message is at 5254 in > MS-DOS 3.30 (ditto in PC-DOS 3.30), at 4CA0 in 3.21, and 4CCC in > IBM-DOS 4.01 (from a Compaq). I can't read my MS-DOS 2.10 and 2.11 > disks on the hardware I have here. "Binary reads from a device are not > allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell not???" -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jan 5 22:35:09 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200501052335.09912.pat@computer-refuge.org> Vintage Computer Festival declared on Wednesday 05 January 2005 11:19 pm: > On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > Dunno, I don't have quite such old versions :-) My old copy of "The > > MS-DOS Bible" says "every version" -- it means 3.30 and older -- > > disallows binary reads from devices. The same message is at 5254 in > > MS-DOS 3.30 (ditto in PC-DOS 3.30), at 4CA0 in 3.21, and 4CCC in > > IBM-DOS 4.01 (from a Compaq). I can't read my MS-DOS 2.10 and 2.11 > > disks on the hardware I have here. "Binary reads from a device are > > not allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. > > The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell > not???" Well, my guess would be that it has no way to determine the EOF coming over the line, as it can't just "check the file length", unless there's a ^Z there to indicate it. Thus, ASCII mode is needed. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 5 22:34:09 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050105223304.05b67fb8@mail> At 10:19 PM 1/5/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell not???" Because of the CTRL/Z issue, and not having a standard character device method of knowing when to stop reading? - John From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 5 22:32:27 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Who Made/Makes the World Smallest Harddrive In-Reply-To: References: <007301c4e524$a07f09c0$1b406b43@66067007> <20041218122204.3c58dbcb.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050105223121.05cdb6e0@mail> At 08:31 PM 1/5/2005, you wrote: >OK... a google image search on "Kittyhawk disk" turns up two hits... >They appear to have been manufactured from 1993 to 1994. Coincidentally, today I stumbled on a reference in an email I sent to friends in March 1998: "Check out the (perhaps) world's smallest mechanical hard drive, soon to be a classic, about the size of the smallest Post-Its, just $7.95 and 20 megs, at ." It must've been mentioned on Slashdot. - John From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jan 5 22:41:33 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: 780 simulator project In-Reply-To: <41DAA38D.3020907@sicortex.com> References: <41DAA38D.3020907@sicortex.com> Message-ID: <200501052341.33727.pat@computer-refuge.org> Bob Supnik declared on Tuesday 04 January 2005 09:09 am: > I've finished, and am debugging, a VAX-11/780 simulator, with the goal > of running VMS V1, early BSD releases, and other 'first VAX' code. > > There are a couple of critical missing pieces. In particular, I need > > 1) 780 PROM bootstrap contents. This was the 4KB of PROM located in > the MS780 memory controllers. A binary dump would be sufficient, the > simulator can dissassemble VAX code. > 2) LSI11 console PROM contents. The LSI11 console ran out of a boot > PROM. This is less critical but would help with understanding the > fine details of the console-CPU interaction. Again, a binary dump > suffices. I've most likely got copies of these in my /780. Sometime I need to get back around to fixing that machine (IIRC, the CIB is probably broken, as I can't see the registers and PROM on it from the LSI11). Hopefully that's something simple that's broken (and is easily replacable) like bus buffer chips or something. But, I digress. I'll go and grab the cards out of the machine in a few minutes, and hook up the EPROM burner tomorrow to read them. > 3) VMS V1 floppy kit. While early tape distributions have > been found, the console floppies have not. The most critical ones are > the tape restore program and the system bootstrap (VMB). Getting a > 780 online required I should have copies of these, but I don't know if I can get them read in. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 23:03:17 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Who Made/Makes the World Smallest Harddrive In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050105223121.05cdb6e0@mail> References: <007301c4e524$a07f09c0$1b406b43@66067007> <20041218122204.3c58dbcb.chenmel@earthlink.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050105223121.05cdb6e0@mail> Message-ID: On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 22:32:27 -0600, John Foust wrote: > At 08:31 PM 1/5/2005, you wrote: > Coincidentally, today I stumbled on a reference in an email I sent to > friends in March 1998: > > "Check out the (perhaps) world's smallest mechanical hard drive, > soon to be a classic, about the size of the smallest Post-Its, > just $7.95 and 20 megs, at ." > > It must've been mentioned on Slashdot. I don't remember where I heard about it, but I _did_ buy a couple for $7.95, and I have bought several things over the years from All Elec. -ethan From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 5 23:08:15 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 success! References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de><17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> <20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net> <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: <001501c4f3ad$bb79ccf0$0100a8c0@screamer> After 3 years of part-time debugging, I've gotten my Imlac PDS-1 booting original software! I got an Imlac PDS-1 shortly after VCF East 1.0 and began to study the documentation and tinker with the machine. This was an original 4K word PDS-1 'Alpha' Imlac (meaning it does not have long vector support, and an odd non-linear display mapping designed for text). This PDS-1 had seen some modifications in it past lives. The original 4K core memory was one of the weak points, and had been 'upgraded' to use 8K words of static ram. But for several reasons the machine was unable to address the top 4K. Additionally the main CPU was rather unstalble, often crashing even when running 2 or 3 instruction loops. The quality of the logic power supplies was very poor, with high 120 hz ripple. This made me think the power supply needed to be re-capped, etc. There was also an excessive amount of high frequency noise as the original Imlac Engineers had left out the usual decoupling caps from 99% of the the logic for both processors (display and main CPU). After some power supply work, and several weeks of evenings of soldering small caps to the boards to tame the logic supplies the machine was able to run hand-toggled programs on the main CPU. The Display Processor was another story. Any attempts to draw short vectors with a -y displacement produced +y axis vectors. This was chased down to an original Imlac option board that expands the display processors address space from 4K to 8K. With that option pulled (as the machine could only address 4K anyway) I finally got the machine to reliably display the HELLO test pattern. But the basic stability problem soon returned. One recent evening I got a little lucky and found that the linear regulator for the +5 volt supply was dropping out of regulation due to a high frequency oscillation on one of the pins of the regulator IC. This was repaired, and I once again had a solid machine to work on. I discovered that for the main CPU to address 8K several modifications were needed, I had to change some wire-pairs in the external programmers console box (which already had the 8K address switch and indicators), as well as debug the logic on the SRAM modification that added the extra bits to the memory address and program counter registers. Imlac's hardware engineers also decided that the transistors driving the console lamps did not need base current limiting resistors, so they pull a TTL output to ground when lit. This nailed the new address bit low as far as the rest of the machine was concerned. A set of TTL buffers restored the new address bit with an absolute minimum of modifications. Dallas NV SRAMS replaced the srams, so the 'appearance' of core memory returned. At this point I thought I had a solid 8K machine, except for the display processor anyway. A plug-in replacement for the stock Imlac serial I/O board (110 baud!) was designed and slipped into the correct slot, with the ability to load Imlac software (stand-alone) from eeprom. But the machine would not boot correctly. I discovered that the bootstrap loader was having problems with the 4K address boundry, and indirect address transfers were not correctly setting the high order memory address bit. More debugging of the sram modifications brought me to a missing connection, and now I really had a working 8K word Imlac main CPU with a 4K display processor. Even after this it would not boot correctly, until I tweaked my serial interface hack slightly, and tested several binary images from Tom Uban's liberary. Then early tonight I successfully loaded and ran a terminal emulation program. It took well over 150 hours of on-again, off-again debugging, but seeing a page full of green flickering vector text was worth every moment. And there is nothing like a 16 bit mimi with real incandescent bulbs flickering on the panel! I've still got some debugging and repair to do, and then the cosmetic restoration of the display and keyboard section will begin. I imagine that in about a year more, I'll have the machine in a very cherry state, excepting that the original core has been replaced. But even that upgrade is 'vintage' (having been done in the early 1980's). So maybe the upgrade was not completed until 2005, but thats a minor detail really. I've restored five or six machines from the 1960's (this Imlac is circa 1969), but by far this has been the most envolved job yet. Most other machines need a repair or two and then worked fine, but this Imlac has been a very different experiance. Some may argue that I should have removed the sram mods and re-installed the original core. Alas, the original core (which I have) was never very reliable, and some of the Imlac software of the most interest to me requires 8K. There is also a (good) argument that the modification to sram is very much a part of the machine to preserve and has been in the machine for over 15 years. Perhaps some day soon I'll be using this Imlac as the system console on one of my HP 2116's. That would be just about the 'right' amount of blinking lights, for a single user system anyway. From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 5 23:43:21 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <200501052335.09912.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Vintage Computer Festival declared on Wednesday 05 January 2005 11:19 pm: > > On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > > Dunno, I don't have quite such old versions :-) My old copy of "The > > > MS-DOS Bible" says "every version" -- it means 3.30 and older -- > > > disallows binary reads from devices. The same message is at 5254 in > > > MS-DOS 3.30 (ditto in PC-DOS 3.30), at 4CA0 in 3.21, and 4CCC in > > > IBM-DOS 4.01 (from a Compaq). I can't read my MS-DOS 2.10 and 2.11 > > > disks on the hardware I have here. "Binary reads from a device are > > > not allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. > > > > The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell > > not???" > > Well, my guess would be that it has no way to determine the EOF coming > over the line, as it can't just "check the file length", unless there's > a ^Z there to indicate it. Thus, ASCII mode is needed. And the programmers were not smart enough to figure a way around this because...why? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 5 23:49:13 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 success! In-Reply-To: <001501c4f3ad$bb79ccf0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Bob Shannon wrote: > After 3 years of part-time debugging, I've gotten my Imlac PDS-1 booting > original software! Bob, Congratulations. This sounds like it was quite the epic restoration. Very well done. I hope someday to have the time (and miraculously develop the skills) to get mine up and running. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From randy at s100-manuals.com Wed Jan 5 23:50:58 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP References: Message-ID: <000601c4f3b3$b4395bd0$6192d6d1@randylaptop> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vintage Computer Festival" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 11:43 PM Subject: Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP > On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >> Vintage Computer Festival declared on Wednesday 05 January 2005 11:19 pm: >> > On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: >> > > Dunno, I don't have quite such old versions :-) My old copy of "The >> > > MS-DOS Bible" says "every version" -- it means 3.30 and older -- >> > > disallows binary reads from devices. The same message is at 5254 in >> > > MS-DOS 3.30 (ditto in PC-DOS 3.30), at 4CA0 in 3.21, and 4CCC in >> > > IBM-DOS 4.01 (from a Compaq). I can't read my MS-DOS 2.10 and 2.11 >> > > disks on the hardware I have here. "Binary reads from a device are >> > > not allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. >> > >> > The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell >> > not???" >> >> Well, my guess would be that it has no way to determine the EOF coming >> over the line, as it can't just "check the file length", unless there's >> a ^Z there to indicate it. Thus, ASCII mode is needed. > > And the programmers were not smart enough to figure a way around this > because...why? > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer > Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger > http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage > mputers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at > http://marketplace.vintage.org ] Programmers did have a work around. The answer for decades has been hex. Many times I transfered software to both DOS and CP/M by using hex files. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Wed Jan 5 19:03:03 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <1104824760.24265.18.camel@ljw.me.uk> References: <200501032221.OAA27256@clulw009.amd.com> <1104824760.24265.18.camel@ljw.me.uk> Message-ID: On 04 Jan 2005 07:46:00 +0000, Lawrence Wilkinson wrote: > Yes, as far as I can recall Laplink had this exact facility, perhaps > using the CTTY command instead of COPY, but I may be thinking of some > other program. > Writing such a bootstrap would be an interesting exercise. > > LJW This is correct - the Sharp PC-3000 palmtop (of which I have a faulty one here - it used to work fine though) has a version of Laplink in ROM which can do exactly this. There's a menu option like "Upload client to remote side" or something, which then displays "Type the following commands on the connected machine and then press return" or similar. ISTR there are about 3 commands it displays which you type on the remote side; at least one of them is to do with setting the speed of the serial port, and I think at least one of them involved COPY. You certainly didn't need anything other than plain DOS on the machine you were uploading to. Ed. > On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 22:21, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > > Hi > > I'm almost sure I'd done this in the past to > > get something like laplink running on a remote machine. > > I suspect that the code specifically had no ^Z > > until the end of the file and it was just a minimum > > bootstrap program to load the rest. > > One could always edit the file by changing any ^Z to > > something else. Once on the new machine, just change them > > back. > > I do remember that the name of the file couldn't be > > .COM or .EXE. I think the copy from COM1: didn't > > work for those files names. > > Dwight > > > > > > >From: "Pete Turnbull" > > > > > >On Jan 3 2005, 13:01, John Foust wrote: > > >> At 12:41 PM 1/3/2005, you wrote: > > >> > It seems like I remember doing something > > >> >like "copy COM1: FileName" or something. > > >> > It seems like I remember there being an issue > > >> >with the file name extention. > > >> > > >> And perhaps something else about setting the mode of the COM1: > > >> port for bits and binary? > > > > > >You can't, in MS-DOS. COPY uses ASCII transfers for COM ports and > > >complains if you try to force binary, because it needs to see a ctrl-Z > > >to know where the end-of-file is. > > > > > >-- > > >Pete Peter Turnbull > > > Network Manager > > > University of York > > > > -- > Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk > Ph +44(0)1869-811059 http://www.ljw.me.uk > From nschepers at govital.net Thu Jan 6 01:46:45 2005 From: nschepers at govital.net (Nathan Schepers) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: VAXstation 200 memory board In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41DCECE5.8080609@govital.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 where are you located? William Donzelli wrote: | I have a VS2000 memory board (the 2 meg upgrade, I think) doing nothing | here, and it needs to go. Anyone want it for a buck and shipping? | | William Donzelli | aw288@osfn.org | | . | - -- Nathan Schepers (nschepers@govital.net) () ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail /\ - against microsoft attachments -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFB3OzknIwld3L0JzgRAmOQAJ952r99G6CT7+zIYuZHZEzbbNhOagCeM0TR h/S7RFna1EGEMEjZ2jHi4eQ= =s+jp -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From gordon at gjcp.net Thu Jan 6 03:57:01 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: <200501032221.OAA27256@clulw009.amd.com> <1104824760.24265.18.camel@ljw.me.uk> Message-ID: <41DD0B6D.3090903@gjcp.net> listmailgoeshere@gmail.com wrote: > This is correct - the Sharp PC-3000 palmtop (of which I have a faulty > one here - it used to work fine though) has a version of Laplink in > ROM which can do exactly this. My Toshiba T1000EX has Laplink in ROM (in fact, DOS 3.3 in ROM IIRC). > There's a menu option like "Upload client to remote side" or > something, which then displays "Type the following commands on the > connected machine and then press return" or similar. ISTR there are > about 3 commands it displays which you type on the remote side; at > least one of them is to do with setting the speed of the serial port, > and I think at least one of them involved COPY. You certainly didn't > need anything other than plain DOS on the machine you were uploading > to. I think the last one is "CTTY COM?:" where ? is the port number. This lets the serial port become the console, at which point Laplink takes over and builds up a copy on the other machine somehow. Gordon. From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 6 04:31:26 2005 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 success! In-Reply-To: <001501c4f3ad$bb79ccf0$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net><628450458@web.de><17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201><3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com><3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com><20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net><20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net><20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu><20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net><10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> <001501c4f3ad$bb79ccf0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <58705.80.242.32.51.1105007486.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> > After 3 years of part-time debugging, I've gotten my Imlac PDS-1 booting > original software! I'll join Sellam with the congrats! That's the sort of level of debugging I want to get to too, but lack the background knowledge of working electronics. I think I need to get my paws on a copy of 'the art of electronics' and dig out my old science fair 200-in-one kit :) Nice one! -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From news at computercollector.com Thu Jan 6 04:43:44 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Who Made/Makes the World Smallest Harddrive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050106104344.74461.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> I forget if this came up the first time around for the discussion, but, FYI: Toshiba's got a .85-inch drive (even smaller than the 1-inch microdrive from Hitachi/IBM) -- http://boingboing.net/2004/03/17/worlds_smallest_hard.html --- Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 22:32:27 -0600, John Foust wrote: > > At 08:31 PM 1/5/2005, you wrote: > > Coincidentally, today I stumbled on a reference in an email I sent to > > friends in March 1998: > > > > "Check out the (perhaps) world's smallest mechanical hard drive, > > soon to be a classic, about the size of the smallest Post-Its, > > just $7.95 and 20 megs, at ." > > > > It must've been mentioned on Slashdot. > > I don't remember where I heard about it, but I _did_ buy a couple for > $7.95, and I have bought several things over the years from All Elec. > > -ethan > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 635 readers and counting! From dholland at woh.rr.com Thu Jan 6 09:44:09 2005 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: <200501052307.j05N7dSe009405@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501052307.j05N7dSe009405@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <1105026249.13492.0.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> That'd be cool. Thanks! I did boot the FP far enough to see (surprisingly) the battery doesn't appear to be dead. David On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 18:07 -0500, Brad Parker wrote: > for the fastpath-4 folks: > > I found a cache of FP files from Shiva's old ftp server. I'll put it up > for ftp tonight. I think it's all the software one would ever need > for a fastpath. > > -brad From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 6 10:50:51 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: <200501052335.09912.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050106103233.05b8ce50@mail> At 11:43 PM 1/5/2005, you wrote: >And the programmers were not smart enough to figure a way around this >because...why? It's been a while, but MS-DOS derived its programming models from CP/M, not Unix. If it's just expecting ASCII, you can use a meta-character (like CTRL/Z) in the stream to know when to stop (or CTRL/S CTRL/Q to pause and resume a handshaked char stream, for that matter), or you need a programming model that includes a way to send the notion of "end of file" outside the band of the simple stream of bytes (as well as handling other flow-of-control outside of band). Low-level DOS didn't have a low-level model like that at first. Maybe it was added later. Maybe it never was. Certainly DOS, as the shell, needed to maintain compatibility with the original method. Perhaps someone else can describe if or when it was added to later models of character devices in DOS or Windows, and whether it shows up in the shell. (I do remember using several Unix-like DOS command shell replacements to get around cruft like this. To this day, a Cygwin shell resides on my Win2000 desktop.) Sure, Unix is very good at copying binary or ASCII, and that's where your expectation comes from. When you "cat >file", you enter a meta-char like CTRL/D to tell the shell you want to stop entering chars to the file (you're at end of file), and it sends the proper out-of-band message to "cat", as opposed to sending it the actual CTRL/D. It sends it through a function that receives more info than just bytes. For example, the heart of a simplified "cat" program looks like: while( (c = getc( rptr )) != EOF ) { putchar( c ); } where EOF is an int, usually -1, not a valid char. In English, "read a char, write the char, until EOF." I don't pretend to be a Unix or low-level MS-DOS expert who can quote chapter and verse, but I think this is the gist of it. - John From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 6 11:05:02 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP Message-ID: <200501061705.JAA28991@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Vintage Computer Festival" > >On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >> Vintage Computer Festival declared on Wednesday 05 January 2005 11:19 pm: >> > On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: >> > > Dunno, I don't have quite such old versions :-) My old copy of "The >> > > MS-DOS Bible" says "every version" -- it means 3.30 and older -- >> > > disallows binary reads from devices. The same message is at 5254 in >> > > MS-DOS 3.30 (ditto in PC-DOS 3.30), at 4CA0 in 3.21, and 4CCC in >> > > IBM-DOS 4.01 (from a Compaq). I can't read my MS-DOS 2.10 and 2.11 >> > > disks on the hardware I have here. "Binary reads from a device are >> > > not allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. >> > >> > The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell >> > not???" >> >> Well, my guess would be that it has no way to determine the EOF coming >> over the line, as it can't just "check the file length", unless there's >> a ^Z there to indicate it. Thus, ASCII mode is needed. > >And the programmers were not smart enough to figure a way around this >because...why? Hi It would have been trivial for them to adopt a simple block transfer for serial binary at the begining. I suspect that the reason they didn't do this was that they didn't wan't people to transfer programs from machine to machine. Can you imaging. 1 million people with computers and they only sold one OS. Dwight From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 6 11:30:21 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <200501061705.JAA28991@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > >And the programmers were not smart enough to figure a way around this > >because...why? > > It would have been trivial for them to adopt a simple > block transfer for serial binary at the begining. I suspect > that the reason they didn't do this was that they didn't > wan't people to transfer programs from machine to machine. > Can you imaging. 1 million people with computers and they > only sold one OS. Hi Dwight. Your theory would make sense in an alternate universe where the floppy disk was never invented ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From allain at panix.com Thu Jan 6 11:34:37 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 success! References: Message-ID: <008a01c4f416$0032bec0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > I hope someday to have the time (and miraculously > develop the skills) to get mine up and running. Bob is building quite a reputation. Personally, I hope to someday have the _money_ to bring one of my computers to Mr. Shannon's caring attention. John A. From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 6 11:40:29 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP Message-ID: <200501061740.JAA29000@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Vintage Computer Festival" > >On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > >> >And the programmers were not smart enough to figure a way around this >> >because...why? >> >> It would have been trivial for them to adopt a simple >> block transfer for serial binary at the begining. I suspect >> that the reason they didn't do this was that they didn't >> wan't people to transfer programs from machine to machine. >> Can you imaging. 1 million people with computers and they >> only sold one OS. > >Hi Dwight. > >Your theory would make sense in an alternate universe where the floppy >disk was never invented ;) > Ok, then they had no excuse. Dwight From melamy at earthlink.net Thu Jan 6 11:54:37 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP Message-ID: <24218713.1105034077810.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> the only reason Microsoft would not add binary transfer capability as an integral part of early DOS is that the people that needed it were in a small minority. It made no business sense to include features that they believed that most people really didn't need. Later in DOS, they did include a basic file transfer capability over a cable. Probably more out of pressure because people used products like LapLink and complained that they had to buy something instead of having it built in. It was designed to transfer files (and filenames) like a real software package like Telix would do when running zmodem protocol. A programmer can write any software, but they still are employed by the company that hired them and the product requirements. If Microsoft had put "everything" into early DOS, then companies like Norton, Traveling Software, etc would have not even been started. I have long held the concept that Microsoft has always been a 90% solution and the remaining 10% are the opportunities for outside companies. best regards, Steve Thatcher From dave04a at dunfield.com Thu Jan 6 13:43:57 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Olivetti Programma 101 manual online Message-ID: <200501061943.j06JhuSY008532@mail4.magma.ca> Hi guys, Several people asked me for copies of the Olivetti Programma 101 manual - I have scanned the better of the two manuals that I have, and placed the scan at: http://www.dunfield.com/pub/olpro101.pdf Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Vintage computing equipment collector. http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 6 14:05:23 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <24218713.1105034077810.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > the only reason Microsoft would not add binary transfer capability as an > integral part of early DOS is that the people that needed it were in a > small minority. It made no business sense to include features that they > believed that most people really didn't need. Later in DOS, they did What? It seems to me they had to do more programming work to prevent binary copying to the serial port. > include a basic file transfer capability over a cable. Probably more out > of pressure because people used products like LapLink and complained > that they had to buy something instead of having it built in. It was Actually, it was because Laplink showed there was a market for such a product, and in true MS style they probably tried to buy LL, were rebuffed, and then came up with their own (inferior) built-in version to try to suck the life out of Traveling Software and make them go bankrupt. It didn't work in this (rare) case. > I have long held the concept that Microsoft has always been a 90% > solution and the remaining 10% are the opportunities for outside > companies. More like 10% original work and 90% acquisitions/destruction-by-co-optation of other companies. (I sense the possibility of another thread of MS bashing coming on...) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 6 14:09:49 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050106114713.L690@localhost> >> "Binary reads from a device are not >> allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell not???" The real answer is: there is no out-of-band signalling, so one of the 128 in-band symbols (SUB, 26 decimal) is chosen to mean "END OF FILE". It's borrowed from CP/M-80; I don't know where DR got it; it seems un-DEC-ish. ("Out of band" signalling is, for RS-232 et al, the hardware handshake lines. No one likes them, everyone complains like babies, so they have essentially been deprecated.) The practical answer is: COMMAND.COM does something to the effect: while ( byte available from the COM port) read byte is it Control-Z? TERMINATE COPY COMMAND is it Null? --> bit bucket is it Character MSDOS Doesn't Like? --> bit bucket ... copy byte to file is DISK FULL? TERMINATE COPY COMMAND continue From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 6 14:15:32 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:48 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 success! In-Reply-To: <001501c4f3ad$bb79ccf0$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de><17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> <20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net> <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> <001501c4f3ad$bb79ccf0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <20050106121401.Y690@localhost> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Bob Shannon wrote: > After some power supply work, and several weeks of evenings of soldering > small caps to the boards > to tame the logic supplies the machine was able to run hand-toggled programs > on the main CPU. Now that's debugging! > I discovered that the bootstrap > loader was having > problems with the 4K address boundry, and indirect address transfers were not > correctly setting > the high order memory address bit. Indirect addressing -- when instruction sets were interesting! Congratulations! From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 6 14:18:47 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050106121554.E690@localhost> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >> Well, my guess would be that it has no way to determine the EOF coming >> over the line, as it can't just "check the file length", unless there's >> a ^Z there to indicate it. Thus, ASCII mode is needed. > > And the programmers were not smart enough to figure a way around this > because...why? Because it is not theoretically possible, given the limitations of IBM feces serial ports and the usual serial environment. There's simply no way to get the information (file size, or EOF) from one system to the other and preserve the trivial unstructured character stream. That's what protocols like XMODEM etc do; create an information structure with which to send meta data. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 6 14:22:32 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <24218713.1105034077810.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <24218713.1105034077810.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050106122058.M690@localhost> Who was it that said, "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station-wagon full of floppy disks"? From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Thu Jan 6 14:19:20 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: Vintage Computer Festival "Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP" (Jan 6, 9:30) References: Message-ID: <10501062019.ZM18954@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 6 2005, 9:30, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > > > >And the programmers were not smart enough to figure a way around this > > >because...why? > > > > It would have been trivial for them to adopt a simple > > block transfer for serial binary at the begining. I suspect > > that the reason they didn't do this was that they didn't > > wan't people to transfer programs from machine to machine. > Your theory would make sense in an alternate universe where the floppy > disk was never invented ;) I think the reason is simpler than Dwight implies, and more along the lines of John's comment. Microsoft were in a hurry to make DOS work for IBM, and there was simply no perceived need to add the functionality. If you look at CP/M-related and Apple ][ systems, you see they had (er, have) the same problem: no out-of-band way to signal end of file. Several versions of kermit for Z80 machines and Apple ][s therefore come with a little program to talk from a remote machine to the serial port, start debug or equivalent, and stuff an ASCII-converted copy of kermit over which debug then saves in executable format. I've still got the ASCII HEX files for an Apple ][. As far as I remmeber there are two ways to get Kermit-65 onto an Apple. The first way is to type "IN#2" to set he serial card as the input, and then on the remote machine give the command to send the main file. It starts with "CALL -151" to jump into the monitor, and then follows that with a series of lines like "E00:38 A5"... which cause those bytes to be stored in memory; then it calls the code it's just stuffed in, and that in turn loads a huge number of much more compact (no addresses, no spaces) lines, before finally issuing a "3D0G" to get back to BASIC. Ditto for the serial card driver's HEX file. Finally you type "PR#6" so output goes to the disk, and you EXEC the two HEX files to create the actual binary as a disk file. Easy ;-) The other way is superficially simpler; you type IN#2, transmit a small file which creates a BASIC program and runs it; that program receives and saves the two HEX files, and then tells you what to do with them. Seems slightly simpler, but actually takes a lot longer, as I recall. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Thu Jan 6 14:23:17 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: Vintage Computer Festival "Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP" (Jan 6, 12:05) References: Message-ID: <10501062023.ZM18960@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 6 2005, 12:05, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > > > the only reason Microsoft would not add binary transfer capability as an > > integral part of early DOS is that the people that needed it were in a > > small minority. It made no business sense to include features that they > > believed that most people really didn't need. Later in DOS, they did > > What? It seems to me they had to do more programming work to prevent > binary copying to the serial port. No, actually much less. To make binary transfers work, they'd have had to change the already-existing methods that they had. To prevent them, they only had to add an error message and add one more case to a test for a command-line switch. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From RCini at congressfinancial.com Thu Jan 6 14:22:57 2005 From: RCini at congressfinancial.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bund led software (was: TKermitFTP Message-ID: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFC5@mail10.congressfinancial.com> This is the exact same method that's used to initiate the install of ADT, the Apple Disk Transfer utility that's used to get Apple II disk images over a serial link to a PC for archiving and use with emulators. I believe that DOS has something similar which redirects the CTTY device to COM1: (CTTY=COM1: or something like that). CTTY is the DOS shorthand for the console terminal (screen and keyboard). Obviously this works only in text-only DOS. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Pete Turnbull Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 3:19 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP On Jan 6 2005, 9:30, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > > > >And the programmers were not smart enough to figure a way around this > > >because...why? > > > > It would have been trivial for them to adopt a simple > > block transfer for serial binary at the begining. I suspect > > that the reason they didn't do this was that they didn't > > wan't people to transfer programs from machine to machine. > Your theory would make sense in an alternate universe where the floppy > disk was never invented ;) I think the reason is simpler than Dwight implies, and more along the lines of John's comment. Microsoft were in a hurry to make DOS work for IBM, and there was simply no perceived need to add the functionality. If you look at CP/M-related and Apple ][ systems, you see they had (er, have) the same problem: no out-of-band way to signal end of file. Several versions of kermit for Z80 machines and Apple ][s therefore come with a little program to talk from a remote machine to the serial port, start debug or equivalent, and stuff an ASCII-converted copy of kermit over which debug then saves in executable format. I've still got the ASCII HEX files for an Apple ][. As far as I remmeber there are two ways to get Kermit-65 onto an Apple. The first way is to type "IN#2" to set he serial card as the input, and then on the remote machine give the command to send the main file. It starts with "CALL -151" to jump into the monitor, and then follows that with a series of lines like "E00:38 A5"... which cause those bytes to be stored in memory; then it calls the code it's just stuffed in, and that in turn loads a huge number of much more compact (no addresses, no spaces) lines, before finally issuing a "3D0G" to get back to BASIC. Ditto for the serial card driver's HEX file. Finally you type "PR#6" so output goes to the disk, and you EXEC the two HEX files to create the actual binary as a disk file. Easy ;-) The other way is superficially simpler; you type IN#2, transmit a small file which creates a BASIC program and runs it; that program receives and saves the two HEX files, and then tells you what to do with them. Seems slightly simpler, but actually takes a lot longer, as I recall. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 6 14:38:40 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050106122058.M690@localhost> References: <24218713.1105034077810.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <20050106122058.M690@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 12:22:32 -0800 (PST), Tom Jennings wrote: > Who was it that said, "never underestimate the bandwidth of a > station-wagon full of floppy disks"? magtape... http://www.clueless.com/jargon3.0.0/sneakernet.html -ethan From melamy at earthlink.net Thu Jan 6 14:45:37 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP Message-ID: <26898936.1105044337966.JavaMail.root@skeeter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> if they allowed it, then they had to support it... It was easier to prevent it then deal with the untold support calls because people didn't know what they were doing. Connecting machines by RS232 was never easy in the early days. I worked for Applied Microsystems and had to connect emulators to a variety of computer systems in the 80s and every one was a pain. Imagine IBM tech support dealing with that too. As for Traveling Software, seeing how I worked for them for five years, I don't recall any buyout attempts from Microsoft. Traveling did go through hard times and it still around but not as they were back in the 90s. They could never get the LapLink name associated with Traveling Software and they finally changed the company name to LapLink. They made a great remote control product that was more reliable that PC Anywhere, but LapLink was a file transfer utility and the recognition as another form of product was never successful. As for the last topic, my comment stands. I really don't care where MS gets stuff. They have unfortunately destroyed a lot of companies along the way by assimilation or outright destruction. -----Original Message----- From: Vintage Computer Festival Sent: Jan 6, 2005 3:05 PM To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > the only reason Microsoft would not add binary transfer capability as an > integral part of early DOS is that the people that needed it were in a > small minority. It made no business sense to include features that they > believed that most people really didn't need. Later in DOS, they did What? It seems to me they had to do more programming work to prevent binary copying to the serial port. > include a basic file transfer capability over a cable. Probably more out > of pressure because people used products like LapLink and complained > that they had to buy something instead of having it built in. It was Actually, it was because Laplink showed there was a market for such a product, and in true MS style they probably tried to buy LL, were rebuffed, and then came up with their own (inferior) built-in version to try to suck the life out of Traveling Software and make them go bankrupt. It didn't work in this (rare) case. > I have long held the concept that Microsoft has always been a 90% > solution and the remaining 10% are the opportunities for outside > companies. More like 10% original work and 90% acquisitions/destruction-by-co-optation of other companies. (I sense the possibility of another thread of MS bashing coming on...) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 6 14:56:39 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Applied Microsystems (was Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software) In-Reply-To: <26898936.1105044337966.JavaMail.root@skeeter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <26898936.1105044337966.JavaMail.root@skeeter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 15:45:37 -0500 (GMT-05:00), Steve Thatcher wrote: > I worked for Applied Microsystems and had to connect emulators to a variety of computer systems in the 80s and every one was a pain. Hey! If you were there in the 1983-1993 timeframe, I was one of your customers. We used at least one Applied Microsystems box for developing our COMBOARDs (IBM protocol boards (HASP/3780/SNA) for DEC machines). I probably still have all the gear in my basement from when the company closed. -ethan From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 6 15:34:12 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: <24218713.1105034077810.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <20050106122058.M690@localhost> Message-ID: <20050106133311.D690@localhost> > On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 12:22:32 -0800 (PST), Tom Jennings wrote: >> Who was it that said, "never underestimate the bandwidth of a >> station-wagon full of floppy disks"? On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Ethan Dicks wrote: > magtape... > > http://www.clueless.com/jargon3.0.0/sneakernet.html There "they" go again, changing all the facks to make me wrong!!! Must not have my tinfoil hat and undies on right. From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 6 15:48:46 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <10501062019.ZM18954@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Ditto for the serial card driver's HEX file. Finally you type "PR#6" > so output goes to the disk, and you EXEC the two HEX files to create > the actual binary as a disk file. Easy ;-) Actually, if you type PR#6 you'd issue a reboot to the disk drive ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 6 15:52:21 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Beating dead files was Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <26898936.1105044337966.JavaMail.root@skeeter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <26898936.1105044337966.JavaMail.root@skeeter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050106133435.J690@localhost> Sheesh, everyone's making this sooo complicated. There's no conspiracy. The number of application programs that Microsoft does NOT provide is infinite. I have no love for them but it's not a reasonable complaint. Copying files over a wire between machines is, was and will be, a hackish need. I am a Hacker and therefore find this to be the Right Thing. What, I'm supposed to talk my mother through setting up XMODEM/Kermit?! No, I said parity off! Let's be real. The alleged machine that started this thread, a laptop without a floppy drive and no transfer software, is a corner case. It's not a valid basis for slagging Microsoft. (There are already a sufficient number of reasons to hate them, and believe me, I do.) From zmerch at 30below.com Thu Jan 6 15:55:44 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Tandy Model 'T' Schtuff... (was: Importing binary files without... In-Reply-To: <26898936.1105044337966.JavaMail.root@skeeter.psp.pas.earth link.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050106162841.04c7ccc8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Steve Thatcher may have mentioned these words: >if they allowed it, then they had to support it... That sounds more like the M$ I know... ;-) >As for Traveling Software, seeing how I worked for them for five years, I >don't recall any buyout attempts from Microsoft. Traveling did go through >hard times and it still around but not as they were back in the 90s. Do you know of anything remaining from the days when they (you?) made products for the Tandy Model 100/102/200 / NEC 8201A laptop machines? Source code especially... ;-) There are still quite a few people (relatively speaking, of course) using those little critters (me included)... *Anything* that's still around would be greatly appreciated! By the by, the mailing list I run for those laptops has 185 subscribers, and one tireless Rick Hanson that *still* supports them. The archives for that mailing list can be found at: http://ccarchive.30below.com/cgi-bin/wrapper Right next to the Classic Computer Archive project list archives... Hint, Hint, Hint -- we could always use more *volunteers* for that! Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers _??_ zmerch@30below.com (?||?) If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead _)(_ disarmament should *not* be your first career choice. From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 6 16:23:26 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Beating dead files was Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050106133435.J690@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > Sheesh, everyone's making this sooo complicated. There's no > conspiracy. Sorry...I guess I'm just all in a kerfuffle over why it was so difficult to allow binary transfers over a serial port. Yes, I understand the historical reasons why, but it's still stupid. :) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From asholz at topinform.de Thu Jan 6 01:49:27 2005 From: asholz at topinform.de (Andreas Holz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Convex SPP(3?) .... Worth saving? In-Reply-To: <7B4C28C84831D211BFA200805F9F345605A16E68@nswcdlvaex04.nswc.navy.mil> References: <7B4C28C84831D211BFA200805F9F345605A16E68@nswcdlvaex04.nswc.navy.mil> Message-ID: <41DCED87.1080309@topinform.com> Hello, did you got more informations about this machine? Did you save it? Andreas >Hey guys... > I have a line on a Convex machine. The current owner is a guy >who attends Govt. auctions and buys bulk, then scraps out stuff for >gold/parts/etc... He calls me when he finds anything interesting, so... > >He says this is a Convex SPP3. (it's _heavy_... around 400 Lbs.) I >haven't seen it yet, so I don't know anything more right now. >Unfortunately, >I have no knowledge of Convex stuff, and a web search turned up some >Convex SPP stuff, but not much, and _nothing_ on an "SPP3". Can anyone >enlighten me further? (Yep, I know it's an SMP architecture of some sort, >but >little more than that). > >A couple of questions... >Is this machine historically significant? (I.e. worth saving?) > >Does anyone know of a source for documentation? (I've done a prelim. >web/newsgroup >search, but haven't turned anything up) > >Does anyone have (or know where I can find) a copy of an OS for it >(apparently >it's a unix variant. He told me that the disks were missing... not unusual >for an auction item) > >400 lbs is a bit large for me, but if there is a remote chance I can bring >this >critter back to life (and it's worth saving) it's probably worth the effort. >I'll going to >try to take a look at it and try to get some sort of model#/ident. Anything >I should >be looking out for or wary of? > >-al- >-acorda@1bigred.com > > > > > From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Thu Jan 6 07:45:30 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: IPI terminators In-Reply-To: <1104868635.2319.37.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> References: <1104868635.2319.37.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: On 04 Jan 2005 14:57:15 -0500, james wrote: > ... > I'm told this is *not* the same as the d-shell 3-pin-row SCSI > terminators. ...but if anyone has one, or several, of those they wouldn't mind parting with, please email me as I am looking for some. Ed. From waisun.chia at hp.com Thu Jan 6 08:19:12 2005 From: waisun.chia at hp.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 success! In-Reply-To: <001501c4f3ad$bb79ccf0$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de><17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> <20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net> <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> <001501c4f3ad$bb79ccf0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <41DD48E0.2090208@hp.com> Bob Shannon wrote: > After 3 years of part-time debugging, I've gotten my Imlac PDS-1 booting > original software! Wow! Superb job! Congrats! :-) > The Display Processor was another story. Any attempts to draw short > vectors with a -y displacement > produced +y axis vectors. This was chased down to an original Imlac > option board that expands the > display processors address space from 4K to 8K. With that option pulled > (as the machine could only address 4K anyway) I finally got the machine > to reliably display the HELLO test pattern. Did you manage to debug that option board also? > > But the basic stability problem soon returned. One recent evening I got > a little lucky and found > that the linear regulator for the +5 volt supply was dropping out of > regulation due to a high frequency > oscillation on one of the pins of the regulator IC. This was repaired, > and I once again had a solid > machine to work on. How did you repair this? Did you replace the 7805 (I presume) or did you put a bypass cap at the input? > Imlac's hardware engineers also decided that the transistors driving the > console lamps did not need > base current limiting resistors, so they pull a TTL output to ground > when lit. This nailed the new > address bit low as far as the rest of the machine was concerned. A set > of TTL buffers restored > the new address bit with an absolute minimum of modifications. So the TTL buffers were borked? > > Dallas NV SRAMS replaced the srams, so the 'appearance' of core memory > returned. At this point > I thought I had a solid 8K machine, except for the display processor > anyway. > > A plug-in replacement for the stock Imlac serial I/O board (110 baud!) > was designed and slipped > into the correct slot, with the ability to load Imlac software Wow. You design this board yourself or did you copy from the original schematics? All in all, very impressive debugging/detective work. Congrats again! /wai-sun From jpl15 at panix.com Thu Jan 6 16:30:27 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Really OT now, was:Re: Beating dead files was Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > Sorry...I guess I'm just all in a kerfuffle over why it was so difficult ^^^^^^^^^ as opposed to being Twitterpated or even (gasp!) Flummoxed?? Cheers Webster From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jan 6 16:36:47 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: Message from David Holland of "Wed, 05 Jan 2005 14:42:49 EST." <1104954169.21591.28.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: <200501062236.j06MalgM003975@mwave.heeltoe.com> Ok, here's the FastPath software I promised: (what an odd trick of fate that *I* would be doing this; yee gods! How come no asks for gatorbox software? :-) http://www.heeltoe.com/download/shiva/FastPath/ download/shiva/FastPath/shiva-ftp/distrib/fastpath/9.2/NewFeatures.txt download/shiva/FastPath/shiva-ftp/distrib/fastpath/9.2/fp92.sea.bin I can't say what runs in a FP-4 vs a FP-5, sorry. You might start with the 8.1.1 on a FP-4. Also, in case it's not obvious I'd use something like "unstuffit" to deal with the .sea.bin files. -brad From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 6 16:43:34 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP Message-ID: <200501062243.OAA29069@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Tom Jennings" > >>> "Binary reads from a device are not >>> allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. > >On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >> The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell not???" > >The real answer is: there is no out-of-band signalling, so one of >the 128 in-band symbols (SUB, 26 decimal) is chosen to mean "END >OF FILE". It's borrowed from CP/M-80; I don't know where DR got >it; it seems un-DEC-ish. > >("Out of band" signalling is, for RS-232 et al, the hardware >handshake lines. No one likes them, everyone complains like >babies, so they have essentially been deprecated.) > Hi In the past when I wanted a non-block binary transfer, I often had some value that I used as an escape character. I'd choose a low frequency value to improve throughput. It is simple, If you want to send a command value, you send the escape character, first. If you just wanted the escape character, you'd send it twice. For 8 bit data, you had 255 commands. EOF could be one of those. It makes a simple protocol that is easy to implement in code. Dwight From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 6 17:02:24 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Differences between TI-960B and TI-980B Message-ID: Are there any significant differences between a TI-960B and TI-980B CPU? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Thu Jan 6 17:02:52 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: Vintage Computer Festival "Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP" (Jan 6, 13:48) References: Message-ID: <10501062302.ZM19239@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 6 2005, 13:48, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > > Ditto for the serial card driver's HEX file. Finally you type "PR#6" > > so output goes to the disk, and you EXEC the two HEX files to create > > the actual binary as a disk file. Easy ;-) > > Actually, if you type PR#6 you'd issue a reboot to the disk drive ;) So I would. Hmm.. I'm sure there was a PR#6 somewhere along the line, though I don't remember why. It was 15 years ago I last did this stuff. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From melamy at earthlink.net Thu Jan 6 17:30:47 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Tandy Model 'T' Schtuff... (was: Importing binary files without... In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050106162841.04c7ccc8@mail.30below.com> References: <26898936.1105044337966.JavaMail.root@skeeter.psp.pas.earth link.net> <5.1.0.14.2.20050106162841.04c7ccc8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050106182626.033fa7c0@mail.earthlink.net> the support issue was IBM also. It isn't much different that the early days of Windows NT. There were plenty of software companies making software for 3.1 and 95, 98, etc that would not support NT because they did not want to spend the money for testing. Most of it worked just fine, but I did have conversations with companies about the no support policy. As for Traveling Software, I don't have source code unfortunately. I did work on the DOS version and created the remote control TSRS. I also tweaked and improved the serial and parallel protocols back in 1992-97. Let me try and track something down for you. I may still be able to contact a few people. best regards, Steve At 04:55 PM 01/06/2005, Roger Merchberger wrote: >Rumor has it that Steve Thatcher may have mentioned these words: >>if they allowed it, then they had to support it... > >That sounds more like the M$ I know... ;-) > >>As for Traveling Software, seeing how I worked for them for five years, I >>don't recall any buyout attempts from Microsoft. Traveling did go through >>hard times and it still around but not as they were back in the 90s. > >Do you know of anything remaining from the days when they (you?) made >products for the Tandy Model 100/102/200 / NEC 8201A laptop machines? >Source code especially... ;-) There are still quite a few people >(relatively speaking, of course) using those little critters (me included)... > >*Anything* that's still around would be greatly appreciated! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 6 18:09:35 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled In-Reply-To: <20050106114713.L690@localhost> from "Tom Jennings" at Jan 6, 5 12:09:49 pm Message-ID: > > >> "Binary reads from a device are not > >> allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. > > On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell not???" > > The real answer is: there is no out-of-band signalling, so one of The obvious out-of-band signal is a keypress (either the 'Any key' or some partciular one like ctrl-C). In other words, COPY /B should copy all characters from the serial port to the file _without modification_ until there's a keypress. The user has to start the copy, get the other device to start sending data, then press a key when it's finished. > the 128 in-band symbols (SUB, 26 decimal) is chosen to mean "END > OF FILE". It's borrowed from CP/M-80; I don't know where DR got > it; it seems un-DEC-ish. > > ("Out of band" signalling is, for RS-232 et al, the hardware > handshake lines. No one likes them, everyone complains like > babies, so they have essentially been deprecated.) That's mainly because they are not hardware handshake lines, at least not for things like that. They were status lines between a terminal and the local modem, not the device at the other end of the link. Using them for flow cotnrol is actually contrary to the RS232 standard (or at least the one I saw). I suppose using the for end-of-file (which could be taken to be similar to loss-of-carrier or something) would sort-of comply with the standards, but I doubt that was ever done. Problem is that if you use them as they were originally intended then you'll have problems because nobody else does that. I remember bitterly doing battle with the HP82164 RS232 interface. This seems to have been designed by someboy who has read the standard but has never seen a real-world 'RS232' device. I seem to remember some very odd pin-swaps to get it working... -tony From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Thu Jan 6 18:27:11 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled Message-ID: <0501070027.AA15068@ivan.Harhan.ORG> ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > Problem is that if you use them as they were originally intended then > you'll have problems because nobody else does that. DEC was very good about using EIA-232 (and EIA-423 and other related interfaces) the way it was supposed to be used, not the way the pee sea world uses it. MS From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 6 18:33:57 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Tandy Model 'T' Schtuff... (was: Importing binary files without... In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050106162841.04c7ccc8@mail.30below.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050106162841.04c7ccc8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <20050106163049.W690@localhost> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Roger Merchberger wrote: > Do you know of anything remaining from the days when they (you?) made > products for the Tandy Model 100/102/200 / NEC 8201A laptop machines? Source > code especially... ;-) There are still quite a few people (relatively > speaking, of course) using those little critters (me included)... I wrote a real terminal program for the Tandy 200, does real XMODEM and all that. http://wps.com/FidoNet/source/Tandy-200/ the files.bbs contents: Tandy 200 MODEM program; mini-comm. program with decent XMODEM, text up/download, even does 9600 baud! TELCOM sux! MODEM.DO Generates modem program MDMDOC.DO Poor excuse for dox (required reading) ------------------------------------------------ The following are of interest only to Tandy 200 programmers and other foolish people. MDMSRC.DO Assembler source to the program SCRUNCH.EXE MSDOS program to strip comments SCRUNCH.C etc from MODEM.DO (and others) CO2BAT Create .BA file from .CO CO-PROGR Why there's .CO and .DO files CROSS.DOC Tandy 200/100 cross reference ROMDOC.DOC Stuff HINTS Stuff PASTE.200 Stuff From aek at spies.com Thu Jan 6 18:36:57 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Differences between TI-960B and TI-980B Message-ID: <20050107003657.16F6F4A6F@spies.com> The 960 and 980 are completely different architectures. 980s are fairly conventional 16bit accumulator arch machines while the 960s were oriented towards process control. I have one of each. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 6 18:48:53 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <200501062243.OAA29069@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501062243.OAA29069@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <20050106163720.H690@localhost> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > In the past when I wanted a non-block binary transfer, > I often had some value that I used as an escape character. > I'd choose a low frequency value to improve throughput. > It is simple, If you want to send a command value, you > send the escape character, first. If you just wanted the escape > character, you'd send it twice. For 8 bit data, you > had 255 commands. EOF could be one of those. > It makes a simple protocol that is easy to implement in > code. For MSDOS etc, you have to escape SUB, and NUL. And a bunch of others. Plus, you might not have an 8-bit channel, only 7. So now you ahve to escape all those. A is sent as A Control-A is sent as &A A with bit7 set is sent as #A Control-A with bit7 set is sent as #&A Wait! That's Kermit! Machines need to pause for various tasks, like writing to slow disks. So now you need a way to tell the sender to stop. Ad nauseum. Hence, communications protocols. The problem is anything BUT trivial. But I do agree with you, I'm all in favor if one-off problem solutions, with the caveat that many tasks expand with time. To paraphrase the jargon file: "That's why I love standards, there's so many to choose from!" From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Thu Jan 6 19:04:54 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: IC history and chip art Message-ID: <5bff44294d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Hi, I just found a scanned/OCR'd copy of "State of the Art" by Stan Augarten on the Smithsonian's website. It covers integrated circuits from their creation right up to the 1980s - the URL is: Some of the pictures are quite neat, as are a few of the little facts - the origin of ZiLOG's name for one (that's on the Z-80 page). I also came across the "Silicon Zoo" in my Firefox bookmarks list. It's a site full of "chip art" - little doodles that chip designers sneaked into the chip masks. There are also a few more on the Chipworks site - URL: Later. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... Let's organize this thing and take all the fun out of it. From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 6 19:06:03 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: OT:Macworld - Will anyone be there, Think we can meet? Message-ID: <4D1DB0E4-6048-11D9-ACE1-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Will any of you be attending Macworld in SF next week? Decide a place and time inside or nearby? I plan to attend at least the first and last days, other days optional depending on how my cash holds out. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jan 6 19:47:19 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <200501062243.OAA29069@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501062243.OAA29069@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <200501070150.UAA05807@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > In the past when I wanted a non-block binary transfer, [...] > It makes a simple protocol that is easy to implement in code. It's _almost_ identical to SLIP framing (though SLIP has marginally different goals, because its EOF analog occurs relatively frequently (depending on the data stream, anywhere from every few dozen bytes to every thousand or so). A couple of years ago, I even took advantage of some of those 256 sequences that the escape-character technique gives you to extend SLIP to handle IPv6. (The SLIP "nonstandard" contains language implying that this cannot be done. Happily, that implication is wrong - whoever wrote it apparently didn't notice that SLIP uses only two of the 256 possible escape sequences and that 254 of them thus remain available for other uses.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 6 20:15:17 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Really OT now, was:Re: Beating dead files was Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, John Lawson wrote: > On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > Sorry...I guess I'm just all in a kerfuffle over why it was so difficult > ^^^^^^^^^ > > as opposed to being Twitterpated or even (gasp!) Flummoxed?? Now you're just being straight-up persnickety. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 6 20:20:28 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <200501062243.OAA29069@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > In the past when I wanted a non-block binary transfer, > I often had some value that I used as an escape character. > I'd choose a low frequency value to improve throughput. > It is simple, If you want to send a command value, you > send the escape character, first. If you just wanted the escape > character, you'd send it twice. For 8 bit data, you > had 255 commands. EOF could be one of those. > It makes a simple protocol that is easy to implement in > code. A perfectly good and simple protocol for a simple serial interface (i.e. 2 or 3 wires max). But I submit that the BREAK signal could have been used, which is inline and is part of the RS232 spec for this very reason. Anyway, dead horse is now a pile of fur. The ants are already back in their hole and the flies have long since flown away. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From chenmel at earthlink.net Thu Jan 6 20:31:53 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Beating dead files was Re: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: <20050106133435.J690@localhost> Message-ID: <20050106213153.7c8ef350.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 14:23:26 -0800 (PST) Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > > Sheesh, everyone's making this sooo complicated. There's no > > conspiracy. > > Sorry...I guess I'm just all in a kerfuffle over why it was so > difficult to allow binary transfers over a serial port. Yes, I > understand the historical reasons why, but it's still stupid. > Anybody who was reasonably active with the PC back in the time period being discussed who was aware there was a serial port on the machine, and who actually had said serial port installed (the serial port was an add-in and many machines never had one- I had to go out and spend 'big bucks' on the first ISA serial card I plugged in my first PC clone) would have had Procomm or Telix or one of the easy to use communications packages. Xmodem wasn't some obscure, awful, and confusing thing to use- it was built into the comm programs with easy setup menus, etc. I moved my archive of text files/text captures from my CP/M system to my first PC system using this very technique, and a simple three wire nullmodem cable. The CP/M machine had a Modem7 executable on it that made it easy. -Scott From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 6 21:02:04 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: have an extra UDA-50 board set? References: <200501052008.j05K8aFd002358@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <006801c4f465$44c1c3c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Brad wrote... > (or while I'm asking, an RA-81 HDA? :-) I may have a spare RA81... I'll check. Jay From bshannon at tiac.net Thu Jan 6 21:26:33 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 success! References: Message-ID: <000301c4f468$b1451fd0$0100a8c0@screamer> I've still got a large pile of spare parts. I'd be happy to help you get yours running. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vintage Computer Festival" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 12:49 AM Subject: Re: Imlac PDS-1 success! > On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Bob Shannon wrote: > >> After 3 years of part-time debugging, I've gotten my Imlac PDS-1 booting >> original software! > > Bob, > > Congratulations. This sounds like it was quite the epic restoration. > Very well done. > > I hope someday to have the time (and miraculously develop the skills) to > get mine up and running. > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer > Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger > http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage > mputers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at > http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 6 21:29:52 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 success! In-Reply-To: <000301c4f468$b1451fd0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Bob Shannon wrote: > I've still got a large pile of spare parts. > > I'd be happy to help you get yours running. I'd like to take up your offer as soon as I get a bunch of projects out of the way. With any luck, I'll be ready to start on this by the Summer. Thanks! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From randy at s100-manuals.com Thu Jan 6 21:35:11 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Dina Sig References: <200501050920.EAA18593@ss10.danlan.com> Message-ID: <001901c4f469$e6ee0b00$a53ed7d1@randylaptop> Does anyone know if the Dina Sig archive is available? Randy www.s100-manuals.com From bshannon at tiac.net Thu Jan 6 21:51:02 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 success! References: <20050103152018.38758267.chenmel@earthlink.net> <628450458@web.de><17153.62.177.191.201.1104767810.squirrel@62.177.191.201> <3.0.6.32.20050103132234.009acc80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050104132326.00922880@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050104152345.L55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104153914.J55100@shell.lmi.net> <20050104223040.T86174@dhcp166-139.ace.uci.edu> <20050105140307.S78324@shell.lmi.net> <10501052334.ZM16885@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com><001501c4f3ad$bb79ccf0$0100a8c0@screamer> <41DD48E0.2090208@hp.com> Message-ID: <001701c4f46c$1c311300$0100a8c0@screamer> Wai-Sun Chia asked: >> The Display Processor was another story. Any attempts to draw short >> vectors with a -y displacement >> produced +y axis vectors. This was chased down to an original Imlac >> option board that expands the >> display processors address space from 4K to 8K. With that option pulled >> (as the machine could only address 4K anyway) I finally got the machine >> to reliably display the HELLO test pattern. > > Did you manage to debug that option board also? Not yet. I have 2 spares for this board, each slightly different from the one that was installed. None of them 'work' correctly, but I suspect that this may be due to other problems the machine had (that are now corrected). I've not installed or re-tested the 8K display extensions since resolving the last issues that got the machine booting 4K Imlac programs. Currently I'm working my way through the available software and seeing whats what. Then I'll jump back onto the display procesor so I can run the 8K debugger. >> But the basic stability problem soon returned. One recent evening I got >> a little lucky and found >> that the linear regulator for the +5 volt supply was dropping out of >> regulation due to a high frequency >> oscillation on one of the pins of the regulator IC. This was repaired, >> and I once again had a solid >> machine to work on. > > How did you repair this? Did you replace the 7805 (I presume) or did you > put a bypass cap at the input? 7805!? Thats funny. No, the main 5 volt supply uses a 723 linear regulator controller that drives a stack of 2N3055 power transistors to deliver 15 amps at +5 volts. The 'quick fix' for the regulator board was to swap it with a working spare. I'll replace the regulator chip in the other board in time, and perhaps add a small cap to the feedback pin for HF bypass to ground. This will prevent any noise from the logic from pushing the regulation feedback loop into oscillation. > >> Imlac's hardware engineers also decided that the transistors driving the >> console lamps did not need >> base current limiting resistors, so they pull a TTL output to ground when >> lit. This nailed the new >> address bit low as far as the rest of the machine was concerned. A set >> of TTL buffers restored >> the new address bit with an absolute minimum of modifications. > > So the TTL buffers were borked? No, the 'stock' buffers (2 sections of a 7404 in series) work fine, but there was no display buffers for PC.3 and MA.3 (Imlacs have their bits numbered backwards!). These were needed, but omitted from the design of the SRAM / 8K extensions added back in the early 1980's. Essentially the conversion and memory extension never worked exactly right, and the machine was stored that way for many years. I had to add a tiny board with a 7408 between the MA.3 and PC.3 signals and the display console connector to buffer these bits. I really can't beleive Imlac omitted the base current limiters for the console lamp dirver transistors. Later model Imlac's had LED panels, so I'd guess that this extra level of buffering is not needed on a PDS-1D. >> A plug-in replacement for the stock Imlac serial I/O board (110 baud!) >> was designed and slipped >> into the correct slot, with the ability to load Imlac software > > Wow. You design this board yourself or did you copy from the original > schematics? I designed the serial board, but trust me, this is not rocket science. Mainly I copied a small bit of interface logic from the original schematics, then I tacked on a modern microcontroller and wrote a little code. This is now I'm now able to reach inside and flick a switch to boot the CPU from a binary image stored right on the serial interface board itself, then flick the switch back for a 'normal' serial interface, that now has modern baud rates and crystal controlled timing. > All in all, very impressive debugging/detective work. Congrats again! > > /wai-sun Thanks! As many people on the list with HP's know, I'm always willing to help others get their machines running. If anyone is in the general Boston area and needs a hand, let me know what I can do to help. From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jan 6 22:03:50 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: have an extra UDA-50 board set? In-Reply-To: <006801c4f465$44c1c3c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <200501052008.j05K8aFd002358@mwave.heeltoe.com> <006801c4f465$44c1c3c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200501062303.50110.pat@computer-refuge.org> Jay West declared on Thursday 06 January 2005 10:02 pm: > Brad wrote... > > > (or while I'm asking, an RA-81 HDA? :-) > > I may have a spare RA81... I'll check. I've got an RA81 that has bad electronics, so it may (or may not) have a good HDA still. If you want it, we could probably arrange something. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jan 6 23:02:08 2005 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software In-Reply-To: <20050106133311.D690@localhost> References: <24218713.1105034077810.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <20050106122058.M690@localhost> <20050106133311.D690@localhost> Message-ID: <41DE17D0.3060700@jetnet.ab.ca> Tom Jennings wrote: > > There "they" go again, changing all the facks to make me wrong!!! > Must not have my tinfoil hat and undies on right. Remember the tinfoil on top, the frilly stuff on the bottom. I have allways thought it was a 747 of mag-tapes. :) From swtpc6800 at comcast.net Thu Jan 6 23:07:34 2005 From: swtpc6800 at comcast.net (Michael Holley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <001b01c4f476$cd093ef0$9865fea9@hslckirkland.org> I have acquired some Don Lancaster designs that use RTL logic and I am looking for spare parts. The MC789 hex inverter is used in all of them and I have 2 chips. Does anyone have a reasonable source for the MC789, I can get all I want for $20 a chip. I also have 2 MC799 buffers that are use in the Microlab. I have found two each of these (MC725, MC778, MC785, MC792, MC853, MC855) that I will part with. SWTPC Digital Logic Microlab http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1970/PE_Apr1970.htm Early SWTPC keyboard http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1974/PE_Apr1974.htm I think that Don Lancaster's TIC TAC TOE machine from 1971 is a very clever design. It uses 5 ICs and 60 diodes to play the game. I may build one. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/Dec1971/RE_Dec1971.htm Michael Holley www.swtpc.com/mholley From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jan 6 23:35:21 2005 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: SGI IR Onyx Boards... Message-ID: <200501062135.21862.lbickley@bickleywest.com> I'd like to obtain the following spares for my SGI Onyx IR system. If you have any or all of the boards below available, please contact me off list. SGI Part No. Description -------------------------------------------------- 030-0683-004 RM6-16 raster manager (16Mb TRAM) 030-0684-004 RM6-64 raster manager (64Mb TRAM) 030-0681-003 GE12-4 geometry engine Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From GOOI at oce.nl Fri Jan 7 03:04:14 2005 From: GOOI at oce.nl (Gooijen H) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: XXDP listings available Message-ID: <3C9C07E832765C4F92E96B06BDC0747A011134A5@gd-mail03.oce.nl> Hello PDP-11 addicts :~) I finished the scan of some 130+ XXDP listings into PDF's. Al has provided the webspace on bitsavers at www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/XXDP If you are looking for a specific XXDP, bitsavers is great, but if you want to have them all in your collection you might consider asking me in a private e-mail. All XXDP listings are totalling your download to approx 670 Mb ... For a small fee, depending the shipping costs, I could burn a CD-ROM ... -- that is, if nobody objects to this approach -- kind regards, - Henk, PA8PDP. From gordon at gjcp.net Fri Jan 7 04:26:02 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41DE63BA.6030201@gjcp.net> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > A perfectly good and simple protocol for a simple serial interface (i.e. > 2 or 3 wires max). But I submit that the BREAK signal could have been > used, which is inline and is part of the RS232 spec for this very reason. Or you could use bit-banging with the RTS and CTS lines, to send actual out-of-band data and commands outside the "normal" serial link. Ok, ok, it was just a thought ;-) Gordon. From RCini at congressfinancial.com Fri Jan 7 07:41:47 2005 From: RCini at congressfinancial.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFCB@mail10.congressfinancial.com> OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat ignorant of RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, if anything, can be substituted for RTL logic chips? For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" using current TTL? Rich -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Michael Holley Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:08 AM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: RTL Logic I have acquired some Don Lancaster designs that use RTL logic and I am looking for spare parts. The MC789 hex inverter is used in all of them and I have 2 chips. Does anyone have a reasonable source for the MC789, I can get all I want for $20 a chip. I also have 2 MC799 buffers that are use in the Microlab. I have found two each of these (MC725, MC778, MC785, MC792, MC853, MC855) that I will part with. SWTPC Digital Logic Microlab http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1970/PE_Apr1970.htm Early SWTPC keyboard http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1974/PE_Apr1974.htm I think that Don Lancaster's TIC TAC TOE machine from 1971 is a very clever design. It uses 5 ICs and 60 diodes to play the game. I may build one. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/Dec1971/RE_Dec1971.htm Michael Holley www.swtpc.com/mholley From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 7 08:53:22 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: have an extra UDA-50 board set? In-Reply-To: Message from Patrick Finnegan of "Thu, 06 Jan 2005 23:03:50 EST." <200501062303.50110.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200501071453.j07ErMCI011535@mwave.heeltoe.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >I've got an RA81 that has bad electronics, so it may (or may not) have a >good HDA still. If you want it, we could probably arrange something. Ah. Well, I have an RA81 with good electronics and no HDA :-) Give me a day or so to see what Jay comes up with. thanks! -brad From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 6 16:47:39 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:49 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <10501062019.ZM18954@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> References: <10501062019.ZM18954@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: <41DDC00B.9040004@oldskool.org> Pete Turnbull wrote: > I've still got the ASCII HEX files for an Apple ][. As far as I > remmeber there are two ways to get Kermit-65 onto an Apple. The first > way is to type "IN#2" to set he serial card as the input, and then on > the remote machine give the command to send the main file. It starts I do something similar all the time in MS-DOS: "mode con com1:9600,n,8,1" sets up console TTY to be read from the serial port. You then just send a program in "debug script" form, then call "debug < script.ext" and it assembles and saves the program. I should say I used to do this a lot -- now I just do it once to get a file transfer program on there like MS-DOS 6.x's intersvr/interlnk, or FastLynx (preferred), then transfer files with that instead (uses compression, faster speeds, etc.) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 6 16:52:07 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: CLEAN computers Re: Grid 1520 In-Reply-To: <200412121739.57729.kenziem@sympatico.ca> References: <41BBC740.9090902@mich.com> <3.0.6.32.20041212131000.0079b100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <200412121739.57729.kenziem@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: <41DDC117.4000409@oldskool.org> Mike Kenzie wrote: > I had a machine that came out of the office at a McDonald's restaurant and > the dust bunnies that were inside were so greasy that it took sereral > passes through the dishwasher to get it clean. > The hard drive still smells of fries. Well, if we're going to switch gears from the clean to the nasty, try reading my old DOS PC's diary (http://www.oldskool.org/shrines/diary). Spiders, steam, smoke... -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 6 17:06:38 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: 8-bit ISA SCSI (was Re: Possible to speed up I/O subsystem of 5150?) In-Reply-To: <41C3990B.9050605@oldskool.org> References: <20041208203412.G49412@shell.lmi.net> <20041209132148.N65479@shell.lmi.net> <00f201c4dfa6$900db880$ce4f0945@acme> <41C3990B.9050605@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <41DDC47E.1080606@oldskool.org> Got the card, but didn't come with a driver diskette. Am I going to be able to use this controller as the only I/O in the system? (ie. I can boot off the card's BIOS, yes?) Jim Leonard wrote: > I've ordered one, thanks! I'll benchmark it to see how it performs > against a WD1002 w/ST-225. > > Glen Goodwin wrote: > >> As usual, I'm coming into this conversation late, but for those >> who are interested, you can still buy Rancho RT-1000B 8-bit >> ISA SCSI controllers for $15, brand new with a 90-day warranty: >> http://www.hitechcafe.com/eshop/product.asp?dept_id=4&sku=RT1000B-2 >> >> I used these extensively years ago, and built hundreds of Win 3.1 and >> Win 95 machines with them. They are bootable, and used to include the >> driver >> diskette (I still have some of the diskettes -- as well as a few of the >> controllers). Remarkably, I never, ever saw one fail, and they worked >> with every (small) SCSI hard drive and CD-ROM I ever tried with them. >> >> Until a couple of months ago, I was still using one with a 50MB drive in >> the machine we used for a cash register in our shop. >> >> And, now that I recall, I've done a number of data transfers from >> XT clones to newer machines for customers by sticking an RT-1000B, >> with a small hard drive attached, into the XT clone, xcopy-ing the data >> from an ST-225, then moving the controller and the SCSI drive to the >> newer machine and reversing the process. >> >> Later -- >> >> Glen >> 0/0 >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: Fred Cisin >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> >> Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 4:40 PM >> Subject: Re: Possible to speed up I/O subsystem of 5150? >> >> >> >>> On Thu, 9 Dec 2004, 9000 VAX wrote: >>> >>>> There are 8 bit SCSI controllers too. Once I sold two to one guy for >>>> $10. Both used NCR 53c90, both had ROM and were bootable. >>> >>> >>> I have a DTC 3250 (SCSI + floppy) with manual AND DRIVER DISK!, and a >>> Future Domain TMC-840. Both have ROMs (EPROMs?) They are available if >>> they will help. >>> (I found them a few days ago while looking for my ST-01s (another >>> thread); >>> Some book or magazine had had source code for a stand-alone CD-ROM >>> driver >>> using the ST-01, and I had gotten a few to play with many years ago.) >>> >>> >>> >>>>> SMARTDRV was bundled with Windoze 3.10, and will work with >>>>> some of the <3.30 DOS versions. >>>>> But you need to use 3.31 or newer to have any partitions >>>>> larger than 32M. >>>> >>>> >>>> XT's do not have more than 640K memory, thus SMARTDRV is not very >> >> >> useful. >> >>> But wouldn't a few hundred K of cache be helpful? >>> >>> While it's true that XTs can not have more than 640K of REAL memory >>> (actually 1M minus some overhead with some hardware and software hacks), >>> not even HIMEM, and certainly no XMS (Extended Memory Specification), >>> I have had up to 8meg of "Expanded" memory on XTs. >>> I have a tote full of TallTree JRAM, JLASER, etc. stuff. >>> I don't know what the max was on the later LIM (Lotus Intel MicroSoft) >>> EMS (Expanded Memory Specification). >>> >>> -- >>> Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com >>> > -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 6 17:44:57 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: Possible to speed up I/O subsystem of 5150? In-Reply-To: <200412152025.18729.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <41B398E8.2010400@oldskool.org> <000f01c4e308$7b22fab0$6501a8c0@ibm6go1addn6c0> <200412152025.18729.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <41DDCD79.2040101@oldskool.org> Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> There was one 8-bit ISA hard disk controller card for the IBM PC >>or XT that would do a 1:1 interleave, from Patterson Labs. Don't >>know how they did it, but they worked. They were always unusual, >>probably impossible to find today, but Google it. >> >> RLL was way too fast for the PC/XT bus at 1:1 interleave, but >>there was at least one 8-bit controller from Seagate that worked with >>only one 30 MB IDE drive. I don't remember the numbers. They would >>work with a higher interleave, 3 or 4 sounds about right. > > Why not just get a SCSI controller? Surely you can get an AHA-1542 or > something to work on an 8-bit bus, and it'll probably have better > performance (and easier to find disks) than any IDE or MFM/RLL (ST-506) > controller for the era. I believe the AHA-1542 (and B, C, and CF) were all 16-bit boards, whereas I'm trying to increase the I/O of an 8-bit IBM 5150... -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From fritz_chwolka at t-online.de Fri Jan 7 09:10:51 2005 From: fritz_chwolka at t-online.de (Fritz Chwolka) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: Olivetti Programma 101 manual online In-Reply-To: <200501061943.j06JhuSY008532@mail4.magma.ca> Message-ID: <1CmvlJ-26Tyr20@fwd03.sul.t-online.com> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 14:43:57 -0500, Dave Dunfield wrote: >Hi guys, > >Several people asked me for copies of the Olivetti Programma 101 >manual - I have scanned the better of the two manuals that I have, >and placed the scan at: > > http://www.dunfield.com/pub/olpro101.pdf > Thanks for it.. Mit freundlichen Gruessen Fritz Chwolka From kth at srv.net Fri Jan 7 09:14:40 2005 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: have an extra UDA-50 board set? In-Reply-To: <006801c4f465$44c1c3c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <200501052008.j05K8aFd002358@mwave.heeltoe.com> <006801c4f465$44c1c3c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <41DEA760.6090406@srv.net> Jay West wrote: > Brad wrote... > >> (or while I'm asking, an RA-81 HDA? :-) > > > I may have a spare RA81... I'll check. > > Jay > > I have a KDA-50. Just scrape off the K, and magic marker in a U, and no one will notice the difference.... ;) From dave04a at dunfield.com Fri Jan 7 10:08:56 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: Olivetti Programma 101 manual online Message-ID: <20050107160856.VPG20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> At 14:43 06/01/2005 -0500, you wrote: >Hi guys, > >Several people asked me for copies of the Olivetti Programma 101 >manual - I have scanned the better of the two manuals that I have, >and placed the scan at: > > http://www.dunfield.com/pub/olpro101.pdf > >Regards, >Dave Btw - just in case it is not obvious - the last two pages of the scan are NOT from the manual - these are scans of the two different "programming worksheet" pads that I have. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Jan 7 10:19:43 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: Possible to speed up I/O subsystem of 5150? In-Reply-To: <41DDCD79.2040101@oldskool.org> References: <41B398E8.2010400@oldskool.org> <200412152025.18729.pat@computer-refuge.org> <41DDCD79.2040101@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200501071119.44412.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 06 January 2005 18:44, Jim Leonard wrote: > Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >> There was one 8-bit ISA hard disk controller card for the IBM > >> PC or XT that would do a 1:1 interleave, from Patterson Labs. > >> Don't know how they did it, but they worked. They were always > >> unusual, probably impossible to find today, but Google it. > >> > >> RLL was way too fast for the PC/XT bus at 1:1 interleave, but > >>there was at least one 8-bit controller from Seagate that worked > >> with only one 30 MB IDE drive. I don't remember the numbers. > >> They would work with a higher interleave, 3 or 4 sounds about > >> right. > > > > Why not just get a SCSI controller? Surely you can get an AHA-1542 > > or something to work on an 8-bit bus, and it'll probably have > > better performance (and easier to find disks) than any IDE or > > MFM/RLL (ST-506) controller for the era. > > I believe the AHA-1542 (and B, C, and CF) were all 16-bit boards, > whereas I'm trying to increase the I/O of an 8-bit IBM 5150... Well, I've had good luck with using 16-bit cards (mostly VGA) in 8-bit machines (mostly 5150s and 5160s). You could try it out; it might actually work just fine. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 10:56:39 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFCB@mail10.congressfinancial.com> Message-ID: <007701c4f4d9$dd2708e0$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> The MC789 is a hex inverter, a 7404 or 7406 could be used but the pin-out is different :( There are two simple solutions: an adapter or a foil change. With an adapter you are able to keep looking for the right part. With a foil change it looks better. Randy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cini, Richard" To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 7:41 AM Subject: RE: RTL Logic > OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat ignorant > of > RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, if anything, can > be > substituted for RTL logic chips? > > For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't > concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" using > current TTL? > > Rich > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Michael Holley > Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:08 AM > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: RTL Logic > > > I have acquired some Don Lancaster designs that use RTL logic and I am > looking for spare parts. The MC789 hex inverter is used in all of them and > I > have 2 chips. Does anyone have a reasonable source for the MC789, I can > get > all I want for $20 a chip. > > I also have 2 MC799 buffers that are use in the Microlab. I have found two > each of these (MC725, MC778, MC785, MC792, MC853, MC855) that I will part > with. > > SWTPC Digital Logic Microlab > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1970/PE_Apr1970.htm > Early SWTPC keyboard > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1974/PE_Apr1974.htm > > I think that Don Lancaster's TIC TAC TOE machine from 1971 is a very > clever > design. It uses 5 ICs and 60 diodes to play the game. I may build one. > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/Dec1971/RE_Dec1971.htm > > Michael Holley > www.swtpc.com/mholley > > > > From aek at spies.com Fri Jan 7 11:07:51 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <20050107170751.07BBF3DDD@spies.com> The MC789 is a hex inverter, a 7404 or 7406 could be used but the pin-out is different -- The only thing it has in common with a TTL inverter is the function it performs. RTL logic, power supply, and switching performance are NOT the same as TTL. I have the RTL section of the 1969 Motorola microelectronics catalog scanned I'll see about getting it on line later today. From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 11:17:28 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <20050107170751.07BBF3DDD@spies.com> Message-ID: <008801c4f4dc$cd282840$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> For the projects mentioned TTL will work. It interfaces to other TTL chips and darlinton switches. The timing is extremely liberal so switching performance is not an issue. It uses a +5v power supply. Randy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Kossow" To: Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 11:07 AM Subject: Re: RTL Logic > > The MC789 is a hex inverter, a 7404 or 7406 could be used but the pin-out > is > different > > -- > > The only thing it has in common with a TTL inverter is the function it > performs. > > RTL logic, power supply, and switching performance are NOT the same as > TTL. > > I have the RTL section of the 1969 Motorola microelectronics catalog > scanned > I'll see about getting it on line later today. > > > From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Jan 7 11:19:15 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501071719.JAA29544@clulw009.amd.com> Hi RTL is 3.6V. You could get by with CMOS but not TTL, directly. Of course, you could run two power rails. The signal levels of RTL and TTL are somewhat compatable. Dwight >From: "Cini, Richard" > >OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat ignorant of >RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, if anything, can be >substituted for RTL logic chips? > >For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't >concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" using >current TTL? > >Rich > >-----Original Message----- >From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org >[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Michael Holley >Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:08 AM >To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >Subject: RTL Logic > > >I have acquired some Don Lancaster designs that use RTL logic and I am >looking for spare parts. The MC789 hex inverter is used in all of them and I >have 2 chips. Does anyone have a reasonable source for the MC789, I can get >all I want for $20 a chip. > >I also have 2 MC799 buffers that are use in the Microlab. I have found two >each of these (MC725, MC778, MC785, MC792, MC853, MC855) that I will part >with. > >SWTPC Digital Logic Microlab >http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1970/PE_Apr1970.htm >Early SWTPC keyboard >http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1974/PE_Apr1974.htm > >I think that Don Lancaster's TIC TAC TOE machine from 1971 is a very clever >design. It uses 5 ICs and 60 diodes to play the game. I may build one. >http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/Dec1971/RE_Dec1971.htm > >Michael Holley >www.swtpc.com/mholley > > From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Jan 7 11:22:00 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501071722.JAA29548@clulw009.amd.com> Oops! I forgot one thing. You can put several RTL outputs in parallel as a wired AND. You can't do that with the general CMOS or TTL. You'd need to look out for this. Does anyone have a source for DTL parts. There are a could I've been looking for. Dwight >From: "Cini, Richard" > >OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat ignorant of >RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, if anything, can be >substituted for RTL logic chips? > >For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't >concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" using >current TTL? > >Rich > >-----Original Message----- >From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org >[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Michael Holley >Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:08 AM >To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >Subject: RTL Logic > > >I have acquired some Don Lancaster designs that use RTL logic and I am >looking for spare parts. The MC789 hex inverter is used in all of them and I >have 2 chips. Does anyone have a reasonable source for the MC789, I can get >all I want for $20 a chip. > >I also have 2 MC799 buffers that are use in the Microlab. I have found two >each of these (MC725, MC778, MC785, MC792, MC853, MC855) that I will part >with. > >SWTPC Digital Logic Microlab >http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1970/PE_Apr1970.htm >Early SWTPC keyboard >http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1974/PE_Apr1974.htm > >I think that Don Lancaster's TIC TAC TOE machine from 1971 is a very clever >design. It uses 5 ICs and 60 diodes to play the game. I may build one. >http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/Dec1971/RE_Dec1971.htm > >Michael Holley >www.swtpc.com/mholley > > From ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk Fri Jan 7 11:23:54 2005 From: ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk (Lawrence Wilkinson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <20050107170751.07BBF3DDD@spies.com> References: <20050107170751.07BBF3DDD@spies.com> Message-ID: <1105118633.1499.35.camel@ljw.me.uk> On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 17:07, Al Kossow wrote: > The MC789 is a hex inverter, a 7404 or 7406 could be used but the pin-out is > different > > -- > > The only thing it has in common with a TTL inverter is the function it performs. > > RTL logic, power supply, and switching performance are NOT the same as TTL. > > I have the RTL section of the 1969 Motorola microelectronics catalog scanned > I'll see about getting it on line later today. Hmmm, with surface-mount components it should be possible to make an IC-sized board which is functionally equivalent, but you'd have to be pretty keen. If the OP is not intending to use the original board layout or any RTL devices, then there shouldn't be a problem in translating the design into TTL, but then why not go the whole way and put it into an FPGA? -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk Ph +44(0)1869-811059 http://www.ljw.me.uk From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 11:29:44 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <20050107170751.07BBF3DDD@spies.com> <008801c4f4dc$cd282840$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <000601c4f4de$7be9bf50$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> I forgot to mention: While I believe that a "modern" inverter will work for these three projects I do not claim that is always the case. It would be great to have an online source for RTL specs, like most people I have no RTL docs. I based my opinion of using a TTL chip in place of RTL on the schematics and timing diagrams. In this case I believe that TTL would work OK. Randy www.s100-manuals.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Randy McLaughlin" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 11:17 AM Subject: Re: RTL Logic > For the projects mentioned TTL will work. It interfaces to other TTL > chips and darlinton switches. The timing is extremely liberal so > switching performance is not an issue. It uses a +5v power supply. > > > Randy > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Al Kossow" > To: > Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 11:07 AM > Subject: Re: RTL Logic > > >> >> The MC789 is a hex inverter, a 7404 or 7406 could be used but the pin-out >> is >> different >> >> -- >> >> The only thing it has in common with a TTL inverter is the function it >> performs. >> >> RTL logic, power supply, and switching performance are NOT the same as >> TTL. >> >> I have the RTL section of the 1969 Motorola microelectronics catalog >> scanned >> I'll see about getting it on line later today. >> >> >> > > > > > From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 11:37:46 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <200501071719.JAA29544@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <001f01c4f4df$9bae43f0$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> 3.6v? Are you joking or do you believe that? Way back when I worked a little with RTL and always used 5v. On the other hand CMOS might work in many cases. Randy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dwight K. Elvey" To: Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 11:19 AM Subject: RE: RTL Logic > Hi > RTL is 3.6V. You could get by with CMOS but > not TTL, directly. Of course, you could run two > power rails. The signal levels of RTL and TTL are > somewhat compatable. > Dwight > >>From: "Cini, Richard" >> >>OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat ignorant >>of >>RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, if anything, can >>be >>substituted for RTL logic chips? >> >>For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't >>concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" using >>current TTL? >> >>Rich >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org >>[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Michael Holley >>Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:08 AM >>To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >>Subject: RTL Logic >> >> >>I have acquired some Don Lancaster designs that use RTL logic and I am >>looking for spare parts. The MC789 hex inverter is used in all of them and >>I >>have 2 chips. Does anyone have a reasonable source for the MC789, I can >>get >>all I want for $20 a chip. >> >>I also have 2 MC799 buffers that are use in the Microlab. I have found two >>each of these (MC725, MC778, MC785, MC792, MC853, MC855) that I will part >>with. >> >>SWTPC Digital Logic Microlab >>http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1970/PE_Apr1970.htm >>Early SWTPC keyboard >>http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1974/PE_Apr1974.htm >> >>I think that Don Lancaster's TIC TAC TOE machine from 1971 is a very >>clever >>design. It uses 5 ICs and 60 diodes to play the game. I may build one. >>http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/Dec1971/RE_Dec1971.htm >> >>Michael Holley >>www.swtpc.com/mholley >> >> > > > > > From pcw at mesanet.com Fri Jan 7 11:46:01 2005 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <001f01c4f4df$9bae43f0$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > 3.6v? Are you joking or do you believe that? Way back when I worked a > little with RTL and always used 5v. On the other hand CMOS might work in > many cases. > > > Randy > At least the Fairchild 9xx series of RTL used 3.6V. (I still have a few 914's in my junk box) RTL tends to be more VCC range tolerant than TTL. Peter Wallace From melamy at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 11:59:59 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <3178346.1105120799557.JavaMail.root@rizzo.psp.pas.earthlink.net> I don't see how doing a wired-and is possible when RTL includes a pullup resistor on each output. You would get to a point where an individual output transistor would not be capable of sinking all the "low" current. You can get a basic idea of the logic families here... http://www.asic-world.com/digital/gates5.html best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- From: "Dwight K. Elvey" Sent: Jan 7, 2005 12:22 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: RE: RTL Logic Oops! I forgot one thing. You can put several RTL outputs in parallel as a wired AND. You can't do that with the general CMOS or TTL. You'd need to look out for this. Does anyone have a source for DTL parts. There are a could I've been looking for. Dwight From aek at spies.com Fri Jan 7 12:01:11 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <20050107180111.6F0D53D64@spies.com> > 3.6v? Are you joking or do you believe that? The MC7xx series specs are now up at http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/motorola/_dataBooks/1969_microElectronics/17_MRTL_700P_800P.pdf Feel free to interpret their specifications any way that you like. This will be the last comment I will make on this topic. From pkoning at equallogic.com Fri Jan 7 12:02:57 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <200501071719.JAA29544@clulw009.amd.com> <001f01c4f4df$9bae43f0$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <16862.52945.128694.768295@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "Randy" == Randy McLaughlin writes: Randy> 3.6v? Are you joking or do you believe that? Way back when I Randy> worked a little with RTL and always used 5v. Well, then you were lucky. (I have an old keyboard with RTL logic in it, and the documentation say that it *can* be powered with 5 volt power though at some risk of damage to the chips if you're unlucky.) But Dwight is right, the data sheet says Vcc is 3.6 volts. paul From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 12:04:39 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: Message-ID: <000a01c4f4e3$5cbd2630$df3cd7d1@randylaptop> Shows me why I would love to see more online docs, more than 30 year old memories fade for me. Randy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter C. Wallace" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 11:46 AM Subject: Re: RTL Logic > On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > >> 3.6v? Are you joking or do you believe that? Way back when I worked a >> little with RTL and always used 5v. On the other hand CMOS might work in >> many cases. >> >> >> Randy >> > > At least the Fairchild 9xx series of RTL used 3.6V. > (I still have a few 914's in my junk box) > > RTL tends to be more VCC range tolerant than TTL. > > > > Peter Wallace > > > > > From swtpc6800 at comcast.net Fri Jan 7 12:04:49 2005 From: swtpc6800 at comcast.net (Michael Holley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <010720051804.8736.41DECF410002DD2D0000222022058891160603970A04040108@comcast.net> My goal on the Tic Tac Toe machine was to build an exact replica of the Don Lancaster 1971 design. I have 2 of the MC789 inverters so I could build one unit. I could change the design to use a TTL open collector inverter but it would be nice to have the exact circuit board. If I switched to TTL I could make the board or a kit available. (I figure a total market of under 10 units.) The other item of a exact replica is the lamp color filters. The company AMP Hexseal still makes the filters (No.1813-27). I wonder how much they cost? http://www.apmhexseal.com/lampfilters/filters.htm After two years of looking a found exact replacement JFET transistors (TIS58) for my TV Typewriter restorations. The generic replacement JFET worked but it is nice to have the exact part. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/CT_1024/CT1024_Index.htm I got these parts on eBay for $1.35 plus $2.70 shipping. 13 TIS58 16 TIS97 7 L7805CV 2 L7808CV 4 L78N08 5 78L05A ------------------------------- Michael Holley swtpc6800@comcast.net www.swtpc.com ------------------------------- From melamy at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 12:13:03 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <21404976.1105121583873.JavaMail.root@rizzo.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Michael, to get a version running, you could "build" an inverter on a 14 pin header with the inverter pinout you need. I realize it would take a couple of 6 resistor packages and six transistors. At least you could replace the "part" with the real one when you find it. It might actually be a conversation piece to show people what went into the RTL chips themselves. Just a thought anyway. best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- From: Michael Holley Sent: Jan 7, 2005 1:04 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Re: RTL Logic My goal on the Tic Tac Toe machine was to build an exact replica of the Don Lancaster 1971 design. I have 2 of the MC789 inverters so I could build one unit. From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 12:39:45 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <20050107180111.6F0D53D64@spies.com> Message-ID: <000801c4f4e8$445ea5a0$df3cd7d1@randylaptop> Thank you very much for putting up the manual. As I said My memory of light use more than 30 years ago was wrong. In general the Vcc voltage specs alone should eliminate swapping TTL & RTL, in this specific case the RTL device (MC789) is driven with a +5v power-supply which going by the manual is too high. I stand by my statement that for the three projects mentioned TTL should work. After checking the specs of the original parts (MC789) I would recomend using TTL since Vcc is driven with +5v and I didn't see anything else in the project plans that would eliminate TTL for the inverters. Randy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Kossow" To: Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:01 PM Subject: Re: RTL Logic > > > >> 3.6v? Are you joking or do you believe that? > > The MC7xx series specs are now up at > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/motorola/_dataBooks/1969_microElectronics/17_MRTL_700P_800P.pdf > > Feel free to interpret their specifications any way that you like. > This will be the last comment I will make on this topic. From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Jan 7 12:52:05 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501071852.KAA29580@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Most of these were designed such that a single output pullup resistor didn't use all of the sink of an output transistor. This means that two outputs tied together and would not draw too much current. DTL does the same thing and allows the wired AND. As I recall, with RTL, you only needed to apply power to one device if they were inverters since there was no other active logic, like flops. Dwight >From: "Steve Thatcher" > >I don't see how doing a wired-and is possible when RTL includes a pullup resistor on each output. You would get to a point where an individual output transistor would not be capable of sinking all the "low" current. > >You can get a basic idea of the logic families here... > >http://www.asic-world.com/digital/gates5.html > >best regards, Steve Thatcher > > >-----Original Message----- >From: "Dwight K. Elvey" >Sent: Jan 7, 2005 12:22 PM >To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >Subject: RE: RTL Logic > >Oops! > I forgot one thing. You can put several RTL outputs in >parallel as a wired AND. You can't do that with the >general CMOS or TTL. You'd need to look out for this. > Does anyone have a source for DTL parts. There are >a could I've been looking for. >Dwight > > > From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Jan 7 13:13:39 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501071913.LAA29619@clulw009.amd.com> Hi If you look at Al's spec page, see 017_MC715 or page 18. It states: Each may be used independently, paralleled for increasing the number of inputs ( subject to loading rules), or cross-coupled to form bistable elements. So, as you can see, it was allowed to tie outputs together with some restrictions. Dwight >From: "Steve Thatcher" > >I don't see how doing a wired-and is possible when RTL includes a pullup resistor on each output. You would get to a point where an individual output transistor would not be capable of sinking all the "low" current. > >You can get a basic idea of the logic families here... > >http://www.asic-world.com/digital/gates5.html > >best regards, Steve Thatcher > > >-----Original Message----- >From: "Dwight K. Elvey" >Sent: Jan 7, 2005 12:22 PM >To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >Subject: RE: RTL Logic > >Oops! > I forgot one thing. You can put several RTL outputs in >parallel as a wired AND. You can't do that with the >general CMOS or TTL. You'd need to look out for this. > Does anyone have a source for DTL parts. There are >a could I've been looking for. >Dwight > > > From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 13:19:11 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFCB@mail10.congressfinancial.com> References: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFCB@mail10.congressfinancial.com> Message-ID: <20050107111241.G883@localhost> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Cini, Richard wrote: > OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat ignorant of > RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, if anything, can be > substituted for RTL logic chips? > > For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't > concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" using > current TTL? It's an interesting idea. There are different types of RTL, wanting supply voltages not +5VDC sometimes. TTL may not like running at 6V, the magic smoke may leave. I'd use 74HC instead. It will live at 6V. I doubt any of them would have the same pinouts, first off. There would be problems mapping functions (flipflops with right in/out combinations, etc) but a few hours with a couple of databooks would probably work that out. You'd probably end up with little daughter boards per-chip, not much fun to consider, but if you only need one or two it's probably fine. It could be as little as pin swaps and a resistor or two, or as much as two chips plus glue passives. None of the RTL chips have much complexity, so that's a plus. tomj > > Rich > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Michael Holley > Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:08 AM > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: RTL Logic > > > I have acquired some Don Lancaster designs that use RTL logic and I am > looking for spare parts. The MC789 hex inverter is used in all of them and I > have 2 chips. Does anyone have a reasonable source for the MC789, I can get > all I want for $20 a chip. > > I also have 2 MC799 buffers that are use in the Microlab. I have found two > each of these (MC725, MC778, MC785, MC792, MC853, MC855) that I will part > with. > > SWTPC Digital Logic Microlab > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1970/PE_Apr1970.htm > Early SWTPC keyboard > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1974/PE_Apr1974.htm > > I think that Don Lancaster's TIC TAC TOE machine from 1971 is a very clever > design. It uses 5 ICs and 60 diodes to play the game. I may build one. > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/Dec1971/RE_Dec1971.htm > > Michael Holley > www.swtpc.com/mholley > From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 13:20:41 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <41DDC00B.9040004@oldskool.org> References: <10501062019.ZM18954@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> <41DDC00B.9040004@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20050107111933.L883@localhost> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: > I do something similar all the time in MS-DOS: "mode con com1:9600,n,8,1" > sets up console TTY to be read from the serial port. You then just send a > program in "debug script" form, then call "debug < script.ext" and it > assembles and saves the program. Debug also loads Intel hex. The original poster (sorry, mail deleted, forgot your name) never followed up with: have DOS plus utilities installed or not? From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 13:24:08 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <200501071852.KAA29580@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <000601c4f4ee$77847620$383dd7d1@randylaptop> It's funny to have a good discussion based on projects published over 30 years ago. For the OP, modifying the original project to use currently available devices, especially if you use devices that were contemporaneous seems OK to me. I would not be surprised if people used 7404's or 7406's to build some of these projects when they first came out. I would be curious to know the reasoning of using RTL chips when TTL chips were available considering they are driven out of spec, maybe Don was just more comfortable with them or that is what he had laying around. Randy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dwight K. Elvey" To: Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:52 PM Subject: RE: RTL Logic > Hi > Most of these were designed such that a single > output pullup resistor didn't use all of the > sink of an output transistor. This means that > two outputs tied together and would not draw too much > current. > DTL does the same thing and allows the wired AND. > As I recall, with RTL, you only needed to apply > power to one device if they were inverters > since there was no other active logic, > like flops. > Dwight > > >>From: "Steve Thatcher" >> >>I don't see how doing a wired-and is possible when RTL includes a pullup > resistor on each output. You would get to a point where an individual > output > transistor would not be capable of sinking all the "low" current. >> >>You can get a basic idea of the logic families here... >> >>http://www.asic-world.com/digital/gates5.html >> >>best regards, Steve Thatcher >> >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: "Dwight K. Elvey" >>Sent: Jan 7, 2005 12:22 PM >>To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >>Subject: RE: RTL Logic >> >>Oops! >> I forgot one thing. You can put several RTL outputs in >>parallel as a wired AND. You can't do that with the >>general CMOS or TTL. You'd need to look out for this. >> Does anyone have a source for DTL parts. There are >>a could I've been looking for. >>Dwight From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 13:26:32 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFCB@mail10.congressfinancial.com> <20050107111241.G883@localhost> Message-ID: <000f01c4f4ee$cd541510$383dd7d1@randylaptop> The +6v is not used for the chips. The +6v goes through discrete transistors to drive lamps. Randy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Jennings" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 1:19 PM Subject: RE: RTL Logic > On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Cini, Richard wrote: > >> OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat ignorant >> of >> RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, if anything, can >> be >> substituted for RTL logic chips? >> >> For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't >> concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" using >> current TTL? > > It's an interesting idea. There are different types of RTL, > wanting supply voltages not +5VDC sometimes. TTL may not like > running at 6V, the magic smoke may leave. I'd use 74HC instead. > It will live at 6V. > > I doubt any of them would have the same pinouts, first off. There > would be problems mapping functions (flipflops with right in/out > combinations, etc) but a few hours with a couple of databooks > would probably work that out. > > You'd probably end up with little daughter boards per-chip, not > much fun to consider, but if you only need one or two it's > probably fine. It could be as little as pin swaps and a resistor > or two, or as much as two chips plus glue passives. > > None of the RTL chips have much complexity, so that's a plus. > > tomj > > > >> >> Rich >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org >> [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Michael Holley >> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:08 AM >> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >> Subject: RTL Logic >> >> >> I have acquired some Don Lancaster designs that use RTL logic and I am >> looking for spare parts. The MC789 hex inverter is used in all of them >> and I >> have 2 chips. Does anyone have a reasonable source for the MC789, I can >> get >> all I want for $20 a chip. >> >> I also have 2 MC799 buffers that are use in the Microlab. I have found >> two >> each of these (MC725, MC778, MC785, MC792, MC853, MC855) that I will part >> with. >> >> SWTPC Digital Logic Microlab >> http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1970/PE_Apr1970.htm >> Early SWTPC keyboard >> http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Apr1974/PE_Apr1974.htm >> >> I think that Don Lancaster's TIC TAC TOE machine from 1971 is a very >> clever >> design. It uses 5 ICs and 60 diodes to play the game. I may build one. >> http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/Dec1971/RE_Dec1971.htm >> >> Michael Holley >> www.swtpc.com/mholley >> > > > From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 13:28:26 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <20050107170751.07BBF3DDD@spies.com> References: <20050107170751.07BBF3DDD@spies.com> Message-ID: <20050107112700.P883@localhost> > The MC789 is a hex inverter, a 7404 or 7406 could be used but the pin-out is > different On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote: > The only thing it has in common with a TTL inverter is the function it performs. > > RTL logic, power supply, and switching performance are NOT the same as TTL. Al's right. For lamp drivers etc just stuff it in, but if it's buried in the guts of high-speed ALU you're in for a project. I'm sure many can be retrofit, but you'll need to be very adept at reading spec sheets (and hoep that they tell the whole truth). From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 13:34:58 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <000601c4f4de$7be9bf50$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> References: <20050107170751.07BBF3DDD@spies.com> <008801c4f4dc$cd282840$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> <000601c4f4de$7be9bf50$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050107112912.C883@localhost> > It would be great to have an online source for RTL specs, like most people I > have no RTL docs. But there are many RTL families, and only some are compatible. RTL isn't a brand name, it means only "resistor-transistor logic". TTL is also quite accurately described as "resistor-transistor logic", "branding" was done there certainly to distinguish, and today, nearly all "TTL" families died off except the TI 74xx stuff, but you can't extrapolate backwards. (I don't mean to start a pissing match over meanings of acronyms (TTL, RTL, DTL, etc), I speak loosely to warn about not taking names too seriously.) I have some few datasheets for early logic families here: http://wps.com/archives/solid-state-datasheets/index.html From melamy at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 13:35:25 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <26171002.1105126526752.JavaMail.root@ernie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> yes, and you are pointing out a three input dual NOR gate. You said several could be paralleled. What you pointed out in the book was text that said you could connect two together... -----Original Message----- From: "Dwight K. Elvey" Sent: Jan 7, 2005 2:13 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: RE: RTL Logic Hi If you look at Al's spec page, see 017_MC715 or page 18. It states: Each may be used independently, paralleled for increasing the number of inputs ( subject to loading rules), or cross-coupled to form bistable elements. So, as you can see, it was allowed to tie outputs together with some restrictions. Dwight From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Jan 7 13:37:12 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501071937.LAA29663@clulw009.amd.com> Hi There may be a good reason for his selection. It may have been the pull-up voltage he needed since TTL is voltage limited on output swing. It may have been the sink current as well. One really needs to check the actual useage to see what he had in mind. I'm sure the application would show what the issue was. Dwight >From: "Randy McLaughlin" > >It's funny to have a good discussion based on projects published over 30 >years ago. > >For the OP, modifying the original project to use currently available >devices, especially if you use devices that were contemporaneous seems OK to >me. I would not be surprised if people used 7404's or 7406's to build some >of these projects when they first came out. > >I would be curious to know the reasoning of using RTL chips when TTL chips >were available considering they are driven out of spec, maybe Don was just >more comfortable with them or that is what he had laying around. > > >Randy > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Dwight K. Elvey" >To: >Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:52 PM >Subject: RE: RTL Logic > > >> Hi >> Most of these were designed such that a single >> output pullup resistor didn't use all of the >> sink of an output transistor. This means that >> two outputs tied together and would not draw too much >> current. >> DTL does the same thing and allows the wired AND. >> As I recall, with RTL, you only needed to apply >> power to one device if they were inverters >> since there was no other active logic, >> like flops. >> Dwight >> >> >>>From: "Steve Thatcher" >>> >>>I don't see how doing a wired-and is possible when RTL includes a pullup >> resistor on each output. You would get to a point where an individual >> output >> transistor would not be capable of sinking all the "low" current. >>> >>>You can get a basic idea of the logic families here... >>> >>>http://www.asic-world.com/digital/gates5.html >>> >>>best regards, Steve Thatcher >>> >>> >>>-----Original Message----- >>>From: "Dwight K. Elvey" >>>Sent: Jan 7, 2005 12:22 PM >>>To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >>>Subject: RE: RTL Logic >>> >>>Oops! >>> I forgot one thing. You can put several RTL outputs in >>>parallel as a wired AND. You can't do that with the >>>general CMOS or TTL. You'd need to look out for this. >>> Does anyone have a source for DTL parts. There are >>>a could I've been looking for. >>>Dwight > > > From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 13:40:33 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <001f01c4f4df$9bae43f0$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> References: <200501071719.JAA29544@clulw009.amd.com> <001f01c4f4df$9bae43f0$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050107113558.R883@localhost> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > 3.6v? Are you joking or do you believe that? Way back when I worked a > little with RTL and always used 5v. On the other hand CMOS might work in > many cases. 3.6V, but also: +4.5V and -2V +3.3 to +5V +12V - +20V -30V (MOS) And that's just the first few data sheets in my very meager collection. From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 13:41:57 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <3178346.1105120799557.JavaMail.root@rizzo.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <3178346.1105120799557.JavaMail.root@rizzo.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050107114055.I883@localhost> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > I don't see how doing a wired-and is possible when RTL includes a pullup resistor on each output. You would get to a point where an individual output transistor would not be capable of sinking all the "low" current. > It varies from chip to chip and family to family. Wire OR/etc was common as dirt. From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 13:44:45 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <000601c4f4ee$77847620$383dd7d1@randylaptop> References: <200501071852.KAA29580@clulw009.amd.com> <000601c4f4ee$77847620$383dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050107114416.F883@localhost> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > I would be curious to know the reasoning of using RTL chips when TTL chips > were available considering they are driven out of spec, maybe Don was just > more comfortable with them or that is what he had laying around. Cost! TTL was pricey when new, and RTL was last year's model, available as surplus. From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 13:49:23 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <20050107170751.07BBF3DDD@spies.com><008801c4f4dc$cd282840$d73dd7d1@randylaptop><000601c4f4de$7be9bf50$d73dd7d1@randylaptop> <20050107112912.C883@localhost> Message-ID: <003801c4f4f1$febc5e70$383dd7d1@randylaptop> I am working with others to archive some computer related documents. I added your link to my favorites and will look at it when I get a chance. Too many olders docs are just considered that - older docs, and are thrown away. Later when you want or need them they are not available. Randy www.s100-manuals.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Jennings" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 1:34 PM Subject: Re: RTL Logic >> It would be great to have an online source for RTL specs, like most >> people I have no RTL docs. > > But there are many RTL families, and only some are compatible. RTL > isn't a brand name, it means only "resistor-transistor logic". TTL > is also quite accurately described as "resistor-transistor logic", > "branding" was done there certainly to distinguish, and today, > nearly all "TTL" families died off except the TI 74xx stuff, but > you can't extrapolate backwards. > > (I don't mean to start a pissing match over meanings of acronyms > (TTL, RTL, DTL, etc), I speak loosely to warn about not taking > names too seriously.) > > I have some few datasheets for early logic families here: > > http://wps.com/archives/solid-state-datasheets/index.html From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 13:57:02 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <26171002.1105126526752.JavaMail.root@ernie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <003d01c4f4f3$106c4da0$383dd7d1@randylaptop> It turns out Don had something to say about selecting either a 7404 (TTL), MC789 (RTL), or 4049 (CMOS): http://www.tinaja.com/glib/marcia.pdf He mentions it at the bottom right of the second page. The article is well worth reading and does shed light on the subject. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 14:32:06 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <003d01c4f4f3$106c4da0$383dd7d1@randylaptop> References: <26171002.1105126526752.JavaMail.root@ernie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <003d01c4f4f3$106c4da0$383dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050107122947.P883@localhost> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > It turns out Don had something to say about selecting either a 7404 (TTL), > MC789 (RTL), or 4049 (CMOS): > > http://www.tinaja.com/glib/marcia.pdf > > He mentions it at the bottom right of the second page. The article is well > worth reading and does shed light on the subject. >>>GROAN<< :-) It's filled with truly crucial information, I agree. From melamy at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 14:43:17 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <25896062.1105130598353.JavaMail.root@louie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> dirt has been known to be found in most places in the world... doing a wired-or and wired-and depends on reading IC specifications for specific chips. It is what design engineers do... -----Original Message----- From: Tom Jennings It varies from chip to chip and family to family. Wire OR/etc was common as dirt. From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 14:46:48 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:50 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <003d01c4f4f3$106c4da0$383dd7d1@randylaptop> References: <26171002.1105126526752.JavaMail.root@ernie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <003d01c4f4f3$106c4da0$383dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050107124428.Y883@localhost> Fron that same URL Randy just posted: > http://www.tinaja.com/glib/marcia.pdf Maybe this is where some of those tube audio people get their information: Q: When using barbed wire to connect speakers, is it better to use two-point or four-point barb? Specifically, are the claims that four point barb definitively quantifies the transient interphase gribient dynamosity worth the extra expense? A. The Barbie and Barbie Doll proponents tend to feel that two point is better for Barry Manilow and four point for Metallica. Either way, oxygen free wire is a must. Studies have shown that 4-point exhibits corona effects over 100 watts, while 2-point only loses half as many electronics. Both 2-point and 4-point tend to raise the pitch of the music because they are sharp. To compensate, connect a length of flat ribbon cable in parallel. The excess pitch sharpening can also be mitigated by flattening each point with a hammer blow. Certain researchers claim that grebient dynamosity (especially its transcendental interphase manifestation) is unaffected by even integer testing. With the execption of mundancily fortuitous positive shift economics. A few mathematicians have verified this with their 2 + 2 = 4 rule that seems valid except for very large values of two. Other proponents do feel that 4-point gives a better soundstaging, reduced midrange granularity, and better bass speed. The phase balance gets compensated by the inherent quadrilateral symmetry. There is a possibility of group delay, since the intended purpose of barbed wire is to inherently delay groups of people or animals. From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 14:59:57 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <25896062.1105130598353.JavaMail.root@louie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <25896062.1105130598353.JavaMail.root@louie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050107125846.I883@localhost> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > dirt has been known to be found in most places in the world... > > doing a wired-or and wired-and depends on reading IC specifications for specific chips. It is what design engineers do... Sorry for being so obtuse! Phrase meant: "wire OR/etc was very common in RTL". I tried wired-OR once in TTL, didn't like the results :-) > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Jennings > > It varies from chip to chip and family to family. Wire OR/etc was > common as dirt. > From melamy at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 15:46:31 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <23603480.1105134392940.JavaMail.root@fozzie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> I did wired-and with open collector TTL gates all the time... common as dirt! LOL -----Original Message----- From: Tom Jennings Sent: Jan 7, 2005 3:59 PM To: Steve Thatcher , "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: RE: RTL Logic On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > dirt has been known to be found in most places in the world... > > doing a wired-or and wired-and depends on reading IC specifications for specific chips. It is what design engineers do... Sorry for being so obtuse! Phrase meant: "wire OR/etc was very common in RTL". I tried wired-OR once in TTL, didn't like the results :-) > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Jennings > > It varies from chip to chip and family to family. Wire OR/etc was > common as dirt. > From ICS at Core.com Fri Jan 7 15:43:08 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Convex SPP(3?) .... Worth saving? References: <7B4C28C84831D211BFA200805F9F345605A16E68@nswcdlvaex04.nswc.navy.mil> <41DCED87.1080309@topinform.com> Message-ID: <003401c4f501$e17f3840$3e28c4d8@icsdevelopment> Hi, Do you have the phone # for the guy that buys bulk from the auctions? I'm looking for a Mr. Drummond that does this, to learn of what happen to some hard drives that he bought in 2003. Thanks, George Wiegand ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andreas Holz" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" Cc: Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 2:49 AM Subject: Re: Convex SPP(3?) .... Worth saving? > Hello, > > did you got more informations about this machine? Did you save it? > > Andreas > > >Hey guys... > > I have a line on a Convex machine. The current owner is a guy > >who attends Govt. auctions and buys bulk, then scraps out stuff for > >gold/parts/etc... He calls me when he finds anything interesting, so... > > > >He says this is a Convex SPP3. (it's _heavy_... around 400 Lbs.) I > >haven't seen it yet, so I don't know anything more right now. > >Unfortunately, > >I have no knowledge of Convex stuff, and a web search turned up some > >Convex SPP stuff, but not much, and _nothing_ on an "SPP3". Can anyone > >enlighten me further? (Yep, I know it's an SMP architecture of some sort, > >but > >little more than that). > > > >A couple of questions... > >Is this machine historically significant? (I.e. worth saving?) > > > >Does anyone know of a source for documentation? (I've done a prelim. > >web/newsgroup > >search, but haven't turned anything up) > > > >Does anyone have (or know where I can find) a copy of an OS for it > >(apparently > >it's a unix variant. He told me that the disks were missing... not unusual > >for an auction item) > > > >400 lbs is a bit large for me, but if there is a remote chance I can bring > >this > >critter back to life (and it's worth saving) it's probably worth the effort. > >I'll going to > >try to take a look at it and try to get some sort of model#/ident. Anything > >I should > >be looking out for or wary of? > > > >-al- > >-acorda@1bigred.com > > > > > > > > > > > > From ICS at Core.com Fri Jan 7 16:03:50 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Data General equipment References: <85.1e5163e9.2f0cc4ac@aol.com> Message-ID: <00d501c4f504$c557b3b0$3e28c4d8@icsdevelopment> Thanks, George Wiegand ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 11:18 PM Subject: Re: Data General equipment > There is a guy in Portland Oregon that has a lot of old DG. I will see if I > can try to contact him next time in Portland, in a week or two. I think he > has some 6045s. > > Just thinking about him I realize he spends some of the winter in Thailand. > Hope he wasn't involved in the Tsunami. > > Paxton, > Astoria, OR > From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 7 16:52:05 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <23603480.1105134392940.JavaMail.root@fozzie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <23603480.1105134392940.JavaMail.root@fozzie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050107145043.I3343@localhost> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > I did wired-and with open collector TTL gates all the time... common as dirt! LOL D'OH!! R U sure that wasn't wired-NOR? (ducks from thrown tools) From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 7 17:37:18 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050106122058.M690@localhost> References: <24218713.1105034077810.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <20050106122058.M690@localhost> Message-ID: <20050107153601.Y30134@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > Who was it that said, "never underestimate the bandwidth of a > station-wagon full of floppy disks"? Several later (and earlier?) people have been attributed, but the canonical interpretation was Andrew? Tennenbaum (sp?) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 7 17:55:00 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFCB@mail10.congressfinancial.com> from "Cini, Richard" at Jan 7, 5 08:41:47 am Message-ID: > > OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat ignorant of > RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, if anything, can be > substituted for RTL logic chips? > > For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't > concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" using > current TTL? It is difficult to mix RTL and TTL in the same circuit, the supply voltage and logic levels are different. RTL chips are slower, and have different switching characteristics to TTL. If the devices are used as plain digital devices, and if the timing delays are not critical, then you should be able to built one of those circuits using entirley TTL devices. But if they use gates as oscillators or monostables (read : If there are RC networks about), then you will almost certainly need to make some changes. The other thing to watch out for is that many older logic families (certainly DTL, I suspect RTL too) had passive (resistive) pull-ups on the outputs, and could be wire-ANDed without problems. TTL, of course cannot, unless you use open-collector devices with an external pull-up resistor. The bottom line : You can almost certainly make a functionally-identical device with TTL and the changes will not be that major, but there could well be changes, It may not be just a matter of replacing a NAND gate with a NAND gate, etc. -tony From bshannon at tiac.net Fri Jan 7 18:13:30 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <200501071722.JAA29548@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <001101c4f516$e3c79510$0100a8c0@screamer> How about CTL parts? I sure could use a fistfull of them... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dwight K. Elvey" To: Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 12:22 PM Subject: RE: RTL Logic > Oops! > I forgot one thing. You can put several RTL outputs in > parallel as a wired AND. You can't do that with the > general CMOS or TTL. You'd need to look out for this. > Does anyone have a source for DTL parts. There are > a could I've been looking for. > Dwight > From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 7 18:21:03 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> > > disks on the hardware I have here. "Binary reads from a device are not > > allowed" is the message at 8753 in DR-DOS 3.41. On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > The question I haven't seen answered yet is, "Well, why the hell not???" Because the ONLY data that it has to determine EOF is the incoming data stream. Following in Gary Kildall's footsteps, they chose to use ^Z as an EOF marker, thereby permanently disabling the capability of using the device for inputting anything that contains byte 1Ah When I was writing XenoComm-Parallel, I would have preferred to do it as a device driver, so that the user could use COPY. Instead, I had to write a small stand-alone program. To be able to sense EOF reauires setting aside one bit pattern for an EOF character, using a sequence of bytes (how do you transfer the HELP file that lists them?) using user intervention ("press the ANY key when it is done") using a hardware signal outside of the data stream. I seriously considered using a time-out to trigger EOF detection! (a generally BAD idea) My usual machine for internet access just croaked (bad checksum in NTVDM.EXE), so, I'm using a Chembook notebook that has several broken keyboard keys, (so I'll have plenty of spelling errs), while I figure out how to boot the machine well enough to fix it. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From melamy at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 18:30:47 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <9149778.1105144248403.JavaMail.root@waldorf.psp.pas.earthlink.net> that was a function of input, not output - I was using 7409s... :) -----Original Message----- From: Tom Jennings Sent: Jan 7, 2005 5:52 PM To: Steve Thatcher , "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: RE: RTL Logic On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > I did wired-and with open collector TTL gates all the time... common as dirt! LOL D'OH!! R U sure that wasn't wired-NOR? (ducks from thrown tools) From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Jan 7 18:35:58 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501080035.QAA29812@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Actually regular TTL can take momentary shorts on the outputs to ground. When desperate in trouble shooting, I've been know to ground an output. It is not such a good idea on S parts though. Dwight >From: "Tom Jennings" > >On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > >> I did wired-and with open collector TTL gates all the time... common as dirt! LOL > >D'OH!! > >R U sure that wasn't wired-NOR? > >(ducks from thrown tools) > From ICS at Core.com Fri Jan 7 18:42:18 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Wanted: Contact info for Buyer at Gov. Auctions Message-ID: <016101c4f51a$e896d390$3e28c4d8@icsdevelopment> Hi everyone, Anyone know of a guy that buys from NASA, goverment Auctions in the Maryland area? I'm trying to learn of what happened to some hard drives that he bought. Thanks, George From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 7 21:12:59 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: more nice hp stuff on ebay Message-ID: <005101c4f52f$f581d090$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It's unusual to see one on Ebay... an HP 7210A plotter in what appears to be awesome condition. Same seller has a 9866A printer in very nice shape too. I don't know why I'm so intrigued by the 7210, I wouldn't use a plotter for anything I do, but it's soooo "period" :) Jay West From chenmel at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 21:20:13 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: References: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFCB@mail10.congressfinancial.com> Message-ID: <20050107222013.35391dc9.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 23:55:00 +0000 (GMT) ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > > > > OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat > > ignorant of RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, > > if anything, can be substituted for RTL logic chips? > > > > For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't > > concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" > > using current TTL? > > It is difficult to mix RTL and TTL in the same circuit, the supply > voltage and logic levels are different. > > RTL chips are slower, and have different switching characteristics to > TTL. If the devices are used as plain digital devices, and if the > timing delays are not critical, then you should be able to built one > of those circuits using entirley TTL devices. But if they use gates as > oscillators or monostables (read : If there are RC networks about), > then you will almost certainly need to make some changes. > > The other thing to watch out for is that many older logic families > (certainly DTL, I suspect RTL too) had passive (resistive) pull-ups on > the outputs, and could be wire-ANDed without problems. TTL, of course > cannot, unless you use open-collector devices with an external pull-up > resistor. > > The bottom line : You can almost certainly make a > functionally-identical device with TTL and the changes will not be > that major, but there could well be changes, It may not be just a > matter of replacing a NAND gate with a NAND gate, etc. > > -tony Doesn't 4000-series CMOS logic operate pretty well at non-5 volt levels if powered to such levels? I haven't used any in years, but all the 'building block' logic components are available, i.e. the 4049 and such. A company I worked for made a muscle stim device out of a single 4000 series 'hex converter' using feedback to make multivibrators, crude comparators, drivers, etc. out of the gates. It wasn't powered at 5 volts, the whole thing ran from a 9 volt battery. The logic thresholds for 4000 CMOS are 1/3 and 2/3 of VCC, for whatever VCC you supply, if I recall. From chenmel at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 21:30:29 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <000601c4f4ee$77847620$383dd7d1@randylaptop> References: <200501071852.KAA29580@clulw009.amd.com> <000601c4f4ee$77847620$383dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 13:24:08 -0600 "Randy McLaughlin" wrote: > It's funny to have a good discussion based on projects published over > 30 years ago. > > For the OP, modifying the original project to use currently available > devices, especially if you use devices that were contemporaneous seems > OK to me. I would not be surprised if people used 7404's or 7406's to > build some of these projects when they first came out. > > I would be curious to know the reasoning of using RTL chips when TTL > chips were available considering they are driven out of spec, maybe > Don was just more comfortable with them or that is what he had laying > around. > > > Randy > > Don Lancaster is still online, so if anybody wants, they could ask him directly, by emailing. He also has a phone-for-any-question kind of thing set up, with a published number you can call. His website is http://www.tinaja.com He appears to be mostly into non-electronic stuff these days. A lot of eBay marketing. -Scott From chenmel at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 21:33:27 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <20050107125846.I883@localhost> References: <25896062.1105130598353.JavaMail.root@louie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <20050107125846.I883@localhost> Message-ID: <20050107223327.7c45bdc9.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 12:59:57 -0800 (PST) Tom Jennings wrote: > On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > > > dirt has been known to be found in most places in the world... > > > > doing a wired-or and wired-and depends on reading IC specifications > > for specific chips. It is what design engineers do... > > Sorry for being so obtuse! Phrase meant: "wire OR/etc was very > common in RTL". > > I tried wired-OR once in TTL, didn't like the results :-) > Wired-OR will work fine for open-collector output TTL. It will fail miserably with totem-pole output parts. A 'battle of the transistors' will ensue and one output or another will win. From chenmel at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 21:35:17 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <20050107222013.35391dc9.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFCB@mail10.congressfinancial.com> <20050107222013.35391dc9.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050107223517.587b1979.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 22:20:13 -0500 Scott Stevens wrote: > A company I worked for made a muscle stim device out of a single 4000 > series 'hex converter' using feedback to make multivibrators, crude substitute 'hex inverter' in above. From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Fri Jan 7 21:43:46 2005 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore S Bekkedal) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: more nice hp stuff on ebay In-Reply-To: <005101c4f52f$f581d090$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005101c4f52f$f581d090$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1105155826.8243.29.camel@fortran> On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 21:12 -0600, Jay West wrote: > It's unusual to see one on Ebay... an HP 7210A plotter in what appears to be > awesome condition. Same seller has a 9866A printer in very nice shape too. > > I don't know why I'm so intrigued by the 7210, I wouldn't use a plotter for > anything I do, but it's soooo "period" :) > Oh, tell me about it. Personally, I kick myself every day because I didn't pick up that amazingly cool (and working) A4 (letter-ish for you statesians) HP carousel plotter. Instead I picked up a Tandon 286 computer my father dropped... It had two removable disks, though! I wrote a BASIC program in something like 5th grade that would write perfect handwriting using a series of plotpixel functions... oh, how I wish I had the printer then, would save me the horror of writing my schoolwork in the handwriting I oh-so-hated... Still, watching a plotter at work is *fun*! :) It's just like blinkenlights or magtapes. :) I have a weakness not only for the internal workings of the machines of the era, but also the external gears and cranks (and precision stepper motors :) -- Tore S Bekkedal From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jan 7 21:57:55 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <20050107222013.35391dc9.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAEFCB@mail10.congressfinancial.com> <20050107222013.35391dc9.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <200501080402.XAA24330@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Doesn't 4000-series CMOS logic operate pretty well at non-5 volt > levels if powered to such levels? Which brings up something I've wondered about for a long time: what goes wrong with TTL when powered at other than 5V? "It doesn't work", yes, but _why_? I've got schematics for many of the simpler circuits in my data book, and I can't see anything there that I wouldn't expect to work equally well at anywhere from 3 volts or so up to the point at which either currents get so high that dissipated power cooks something or insulating layers break down, whichever happens first. So there's obviously something I don't quite understand going on, and there are few better places to learn such things than here. :-) Besides, the data book itself, never mind the parts described in it, is on topic by now. Heck, I personally used it in the late '70s. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jan 7 22:27:05 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <20050107125846.I883@localhost> References: <25896062.1105130598353.JavaMail.root@louie.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <20050107125846.I883@localhost> Message-ID: <200501080427.XAA24471@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I tried wired-OR once in TTL, didn't like the results :-) Not surprising, since wiring two outputs together generally produces something much more like wire-AND. :-) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 22:51:42 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <200501071852.KAA29580@clulw009.amd.com><000601c4f4ee$77847620$383dd7d1@randylaptop> <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> I used his site to point to some humor he wrote about inverters in a previous post. Randy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Stevens" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 9:30 PM Subject: Re: RTL Logic > On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 13:24:08 -0600 > "Randy McLaughlin" wrote: > >> It's funny to have a good discussion based on projects published over >> 30 years ago. >> >> For the OP, modifying the original project to use currently available >> devices, especially if you use devices that were contemporaneous seems >> OK to me. I would not be surprised if people used 7404's or 7406's to >> build some of these projects when they first came out. >> >> I would be curious to know the reasoning of using RTL chips when TTL >> chips were available considering they are driven out of spec, maybe >> Don was just more comfortable with them or that is what he had laying >> around. >> >> >> Randy >> >> > > Don Lancaster is still online, so if anybody wants, they could ask him > directly, by emailing. He also has a phone-for-any-question kind of > thing set up, with a published number you can call. > > His website is http://www.tinaja.com > > He appears to be mostly into non-electronic stuff these days. A lot of > eBay marketing. > > -Scott From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 7 22:54:42 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: Message-ID: <003c01c4f53e$2cfd6d00$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> The specific circuits in question are a mix of TTL & RTL and are simple gates easily substituted with all TTL. Randy www.s100-manuals.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Duell" To: Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 5:55 PM Subject: Re: RTL Logic >> >> OK, this might sound like a stupid question, but being somewhat ignorant >> of >> RTL logic in comparison to TTL and other designs, what, if anything, can >> be >> substituted for RTL logic chips? >> >> For example, if I wanted to build one of Don's devices and I wasn't >> concerned with using "vintage" chips, could I do it "plug-and-play" using >> current TTL? > > It is difficult to mix RTL and TTL in the same circuit, the supply > voltage and logic levels are different. > > RTL chips are slower, and have different switching characteristics to > TTL. If the devices are used as plain digital devices, and if the timing > delays are not critical, then you should be able to built one of those > circuits using entirley TTL devices. But if they use gates as oscillators > or monostables (read : If there are RC networks about), then you will > almost certainly need to make some changes. > > The other thing to watch out for is that many older logic families > (certainly DTL, I suspect RTL too) had passive (resistive) pull-ups on the > outputs, and could be wire-ANDed without problems. TTL, of course cannot, > unless you use open-collector devices with an external pull-up resistor. > > The bottom line : You can almost certainly make a functionally-identical > device with TTL and the changes will not be that major, but there could > well be changes, It may not be just a matter of replacing a NAND gate > with a NAND gate, etc. > > -tony From sethm at loomcom.com Sat Jan 8 00:23:18 2005 From: sethm at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> References: <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050108062318.GA3268@loomcom.com> Does anyone knows about of any Imlac PDS-1 simulators? I've taken a real interest in them recently, and I think it might be a fun project to participate in. I very sincerely doubt that I have the motivation to tackle the entire thing myself, so I'm hoping one has already been started by somebody with a more gung-ho attitude than I have :) I'm also looking for PDS-1 software -- does anyone have any archived somewhere where it can be downloaded? -Seth -- "It looks just like a Telefunken U47! Seth Morabito You'll love it." - Frank Zappa sethm@loomcom.com From randy at s100-manuals.com Sat Jan 8 00:41:05 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? References: <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net><003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> <20050108062318.GA3268@loomcom.com> Message-ID: <003401c4f54d$0912f220$bb3cd7d1@randylaptop> Just recently PDS software was offered and I posted it on my site. Also available are some Intel emulators for ISIS (not PDS and not full system emulators). Randy www.s100-manuals.com Also directly accessed via http://intel.s100-manuals.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Seth Morabito" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2005 12:23 AM Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? > > Does anyone knows about of any Imlac PDS-1 simulators? I've taken a > real interest in them recently, and I think it might be a fun project > to participate in. I very sincerely doubt that I have the motivation > to tackle the entire thing myself, so I'm hoping one has already > been started by somebody with a more gung-ho attitude than I have :) > > I'm also looking for PDS-1 software -- does anyone have any archived > somewhere where it can be downloaded? > > -Seth > -- > "It looks just like a Telefunken U47! Seth Morabito > You'll love it." - Frank Zappa sethm@loomcom.com From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 8 00:40:11 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <20050108062318.GA3268@loomcom.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Seth Morabito wrote: > Does anyone knows about of any Imlac PDS-1 simulators? I've taken a > real interest in them recently, and I think it might be a fun project > to participate in. I very sincerely doubt that I have the motivation > to tackle the entire thing myself, so I'm hoping one has already > been started by somebody with a more gung-ho attitude than I have :) > > I'm also looking for PDS-1 software -- does anyone have any archived > somewhere where it can be downloaded? DigiBarn has Maze War: http://www.digibarn.com/history/04-VCF7-MazeWar/ I have it too, but it's easier to get it from DigiBarn ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Jan 8 00:53:24 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <200501071852.KAA29580@clulw009.amd.com> <000601c4f4ee$77847620$383dd7d1@randylaptop> <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050108001934.05535220@mail> At 09:30 PM 1/7/2005, Scott Stevens wrote: >His website is http://www.tinaja.com >He appears to be mostly into non-electronic stuff these days. A lot of >eBay marketing. Ah, Don - always entertaining. His auction tips within his eBay tips have many nuggets of value to anyone hunting classic equipment as well as those re-sellable modern nuggets that can fund the old-computer habit. His eBay seller tips seem to be aimed at people who want to make a living at it. I balked at his 30:1 tip, for example, having derived that I was happy with a 10:1 ratio on items I bought for $100. Then you read things like his recommendation that you spend at least two hours cleaning up an image for an eBay auction, or his Rube Goldberg methods to do image processing in PostScript, and you wonder if he's spent a little too much time at high altitudes. - John From melamy at earthlink.net Sat Jan 8 07:51:45 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <18549933.1105192306624.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> actually you can wire-or with diodes as long as you pay attention to the "higher" low logic level. Naturally, the voltage is not TTL compatible, but I have used that technique also. As for totem pole vs open collector, that is why I mentioned reading the specs rather than getting more technical with output types. I don't think anyone is going to whip out their TTL chips and start connecting them up to see which one works and which one doesn't. -----Original Message----- From: Scott Stevens Sent: Jan 7, 2005 10:33 PM To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: RTL Logic On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 12:59:57 -0800 (PST) Tom Jennings wrote: > On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > > > dirt has been known to be found in most places in the world... > > > > doing a wired-or and wired-and depends on reading IC specifications > > for specific chips. It is what design engineers do... > > Sorry for being so obtuse! Phrase meant: "wire OR/etc was very > common in RTL". > > I tried wired-OR once in TTL, didn't like the results :-) > Wired-OR will work fine for open-collector output TTL. It will fail miserably with totem-pole output parts. A 'battle of the transistors' will ensue and one output or another will win. From uban at ubanproductions.com Sat Jan 8 09:51:20 2005 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <20050108062318.GA3268@loomcom.com> References: <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com> At 10:23 PM 1/7/2005 -0800, Seth Morabito wrote: >Does anyone knows about of any Imlac PDS-1 simulators? I've taken a >real interest in them recently, and I think it might be a fun project >to participate in. I very sincerely doubt that I have the motivation >to tackle the entire thing myself, so I'm hoping one has already >been started by somebody with a more gung-ho attitude than I have :) > >I'm also looking for PDS-1 software -- does anyone have any archived >somewhere where it can be downloaded? I've been considering starting a simulator project for the PDS-1D, but haven't actually engaged yet. You can find some code and related info on my site: http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac.html http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac_sw.html --tom From acme at gbronline.com Sat Jan 8 10:50:26 2005 From: acme at gbronline.com (Glen Goodwin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: 8-bit ISA SCSI (was Re: Possible to speed up I/O subsystem of5150?) Message-ID: <006701c4f5a2$27a442c0$9d4f0945@acme> ----- Original Message ----- From: Jim Leonard To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Cc: Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 6:06 PM Subject: Re: 8-bit ISA SCSI (was Re: Possible to speed up I/O subsystem of5150?) > Got the card, but didn't come with a driver diskette. Am I going to be able to > use this controller as the only I/O in the system? (ie. I can boot off the > card's BIOS, yes?) Absolutely. If you are installing the card in an AT-type system with a built-in BIOS setup program and a table of hard drives, you may have to set the hard drive types to "none" in the BIOS. Before bothering to do that, though, I'd suggest just sticking the card in the system, hooking up a SCSI hard drive, and powering up. Most likely this will work with no hassle. The only time I needed the driver diskette was with SCSI CD-ROM drives. If you want a copy let me know. Later -- Glen 0/0 From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 8 10:49:15 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <003401c4f54d$0912f220$bb3cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > Just recently PDS software was offered and I posted it on my site. Not Intel PDS, Imlac PDS ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 8 10:54:33 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jan 2005, Tom Uban wrote: > I've been considering starting a simulator project for the PDS-1D, but > haven't actually engaged yet. You can find some code and related info > on my site: > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac.html > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac_sw.html Tom, AWESOME! Thanks for putting all that stuff on the web. I didn't realize you had so much software for the Imlac. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From dhbarr at gmail.com Sat Jan 8 12:29:19 2005 From: dhbarr at gmail.com (David H. Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Newish Parts Message-ID: I have sitting on my desk, taking up space: * 4 Intel i386 processors * 3 Intel Above Board Plus 8's (non-IO version, 2MB installed) 16 bit ISA cards Not really VERY old (circa '90) but if anyone wants, they can have. The 386's have just been stuck in some foam for about 6 years, but the memcards are new, in box, with 5.25 drivers and manuals (two still shrink-wrapped!). They say they're PC / XT / AT compatible, I think (not at my desk right now). They have a mode to work in an 8-bit slot, IIRC, and can be configured as extended or standard mem. Regards, -dhbarr. PS: Of course these are free, and shipping should be nominal. From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 8 13:47:18 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Disk drive technology Message-ID: <20050108114431.P638@localhost> Stumbled upon this while looking for something actually useful (eg. disk drive reliability data -- yeah right). Its more or less market hype, mainly the forward projections, but the interesting part are some good drawings of head topology, density-over-the-ages charts. Good drawing of perpendicular head design. IBM by way of Hitachi. http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/hddpdf/tech/hdd_technology2003.pdf It's an ugly old PDF, sorry. From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 8 13:51:41 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <200501071852.KAA29580@clulw009.amd.com> <000601c4f4ee$77847620$383dd7d1@randylaptop> <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050108114923.Q638@localhost> On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Scott Stevens wrote: > Don Lancaster is still online, so if anybody wants, they could ask him > directly, by emailing. He also has a phone-for-any-question kind of > thing set up, with a published number you can call. > > His website is http://www.tinaja.com I've called him, in the past, about his flutterwumper stuff. (I made a box that drives a Tek 555 storage scope... with PostScript.) He's a total nut. THat's not a put down, we need more nuts like him. What have normal people done for the world? From sethm at loomcom.com Sat Jan 8 14:01:54 2005 From: sethm at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com> References: <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> <5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <20050108200154.GA5644@loomcom.com> On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 09:51:20AM -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > > I've been considering starting a simulator project for the PDS-1D, but > haven't actually engaged yet. You can find some code and related info > on my site: > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac.html > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac_sw.html Wow! I knew about your imlac hardware page, but I hadn't seen your software and docs page before. This is fantastic, thanks! > --tom -Seth -- "It looks just like a Telefunken U47! Seth Morabito You'll love it." - Frank Zappa sethm@loomcom.com From news at computercollector.com Sat Jan 8 14:12:27 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Disk drive technology In-Reply-To: <20050108114431.P638@localhost> Message-ID: <20050108201227.73753.qmail@web52809.mail.yahoo.com> Considering this posting and all the recent postings about hard drive size and capacity, I thought I'd post links to a series of related articles I wrote a few years ago for eWeek magazine (the one that used to be PC Week)... just in case anyone else finds this stuff as interesting as I do. The articles are about R&D work for tapes and hard drives. 11/1201 -- http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,40037,00.asp 5/27/02 -- http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,8532,00.asp 7/15/02 -- http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,373929,00.asp 4/21/03 -- http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1502007,00.asp (two pages) --- Tom Jennings wrote: > Stumbled upon this while looking for something actually useful > (eg. disk drive reliability data -- yeah right). Its more or less > market hype, mainly the forward projections, but the interesting > part are some good drawings of head topology, > density-over-the-ages charts. Good drawing of perpendicular head > design. > > IBM by way of Hitachi. > > http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/hddpdf/tech/hdd_technology2003.pdf > > It's an ugly old PDF, sorry. > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 640 readers and counting! From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 8 15:08:18 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <20050108114923.Q638@localhost> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Fri, 7 Jan 2005, Scott Stevens wrote: > > > Don Lancaster is still online, so if anybody wants, they could ask him > > directly, by emailing. He also has a phone-for-any-question kind of > > thing set up, with a published number you can call. > > > > His website is http://www.tinaja.com > > I've called him, in the past, about his flutterwumper stuff. (I > made a box that drives a Tek 555 storage scope... with > PostScript.) > > He's a total nut. THat's not a put down, we need more nuts like > him. What have normal people done for the world? He and Wayne Green should get together and tour the country doing a freak show. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 8 15:35:18 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL LogicZ In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050108133413.W638@localhost> On Sat, 8 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > He and Wayne Green should get together and tour the country doing a freak > show. Wayne Green!!! Umm yeah, I have never spent face time with D.L., I can imagine some rough edges there though. From uban at ubanproductions.com Sat Jan 8 18:11:04 2005 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <20050108200154.GA5644@loomcom.com> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com> <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> <5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com> At 12:01 PM 1/8/2005 -0800, you wrote: >On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 09:51:20AM -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > > > > I've been considering starting a simulator project for the PDS-1D, but > > haven't actually engaged yet. You can find some code and related info > > on my site: > > > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac.html > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac_sw.html > >Wow! I knew about your imlac hardware page, but I hadn't seen your >software and docs page before. This is fantastic, thanks! Heh! Been there for a while, hiding under the "here" link at the top. --tom From news at computercollector.com Sat Jan 8 18:22:39 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Collectors in NY, NJ, DE, PA, MD ....? Message-ID: <20050109002239.12354.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> Hello to any mid-Atlantic collectors... a few of us are thinking about starting a user group of sorts. To start, the people who run the Trenton Computer Festival (April 16-17, www.tcf-nj.org) said we can have some free exhibit space. This year is the show's 30th anniversary, so my idea is that a few of us would each bring a few old computers, and we'd have a display where the show's attendees can experience what computing was like 30-ish years ago. It's be a great way for regional collectors to meet in person, and a great way to get others involved in our hobby. (As I was a few years ago, I know there are many people out there who have old computers, but who just don't realize that they're part of a bigger hobby.) If anyone's interested, please contact me ** OFF-LIST ** at news@computercollector.com. - Evan ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 642 readers and counting! From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 8 19:39:41 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Programs written in MIX (MIXAL)? Message-ID: <20050108172912.Y638@localhost> Does anyone know of any computer language processors (algol, basic, fortran, pascal, etc) written in MIX eg. MIXAL, Knuth's mythical machine? Or MIXAL written in MIX (eg. a MIXAL that compiles itself)? From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 9 04:15:40 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <18549933.1105192306624.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <18549933.1105192306624.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <200501091020.FAA26336@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Wired-OR will work fine for open-collector output TTL. Well, except you generally get wired-AND, because the open collectors are generally NPN collectors with emitters to ground, not PNP collectors with emitters to Vcc. > It will fail miserably with totem-pole output parts. A 'battle of > the transistors' will ensue and one output or another will win. Except that totem-pole outputs usually have just a transistor to ground, but a transistor and resistor to Vcc. This means that the one driving the signal low will win, and, provided not too many outputs are wired together, it will sink the current without damage. (I've actually built circuits that depended on this, though I've never liked it and never considered it suitable for more than preliminary hackery. I've also always never done it for anything where the conflict will last more than nanoseconds, as when building an ~R/~S flip-flop out of two cross-coupled inverters rather than the more usual NANDs or NORs.) Of course, this depends on the details of the output pin circuitry and hence does not really apply to things like CMOS TTL-alikes (unless they go to the trouble to also simulate this aspect of TTL - I don't know whether they do). /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From frustum at pacbell.net Sun Jan 9 05:50:58 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <200501091020.FAA26336@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <18549933.1105192306624.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <200501091020.FAA26336@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <41E11AA2.6090206@pacbell.net> der Mouse wrote: >>Wired-OR will work fine for open-collector output TTL. > > Well, except you generally get wired-AND, because the open collectors > are generally NPN collectors with emitters to ground, not PNP > collectors with emitters to Vcc. That is twice you've tried to make this point. If a signal is viewed as active low, then what is going on is logically wired-or. Imagine an active low reset signal with two open collector drivers on it. If either or both drivers pull down, then reset is activated. OR in this case, not AND. From CCTalk at catcorner.org Sun Jan 9 08:29:04 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Quadlink by Quadram - put an Apple II in you PC Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C60@mail.catcorner.org> OK, this came to me by a rather circuitous route, but I now have a new in the box Quadlink by Quadram. It includes all the cables, software, and documentation (the warranty card is still there). This card is essentially and Apple II/Apple II+ on an 8-bit ISA plug in board. I don't know how compatible it is with today's PC equipment. Anyway, the point of this is: Does anyone want this? Contact me off list if so. Shipping would be from New Jersey, USA. I'm always looking for old Tandy items in trade too. Kelly From pamandbill at earthlink.net Fri Jan 7 12:23:02 2005 From: pamandbill at earthlink.net (Pam and Bill) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Found was Re: Setup disk for HP Vectra ES? Message-ID: <000501c4f4e5$ed123ca0$6401a8c0@personalbjsvjf> Hey Joe, Any chance you have a copy of that Vectra es setup disk you could Email me is there? I'm trying to bring one back to life... Bill N. From SAEICHNER at rainbow-media.com Fri Jan 7 16:11:45 2005 From: SAEICHNER at rainbow-media.com (Steve Eichner) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Can anyone identify this IBM magnetic tape cartridge?&In-Reply-To=a06010204bbdf7cfbe966@[192.168.1.1 Message-ID: I'm responding to a very old posting that I came upon quite accidentally. The tape in question is a "Precon" tape used by the IBM Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer system introducted by IBM in 67. I worked for IBM at the time and subsequently used a lot of this equipment in my graphic arts/typesetting business. The tape was used to "pre-condition" the IBM MT/SC based on what you were trying to do, i.e., set straight text type, set tabular type, set type using an outline format, or set horizontal rules. It was sort of a "download" of code to get the machine set up for what you were about to do because all of the code could not be resident in the MT/SC at the same time. The Precon 256 was used for straight columnar text type; the Precon 260 was used for text in outline format (1.(a).1 etc), Precon 261 was used for tabular work--columns and Precon 259 was used to create automatic horizontal rules specifically for use in classified ads. Precon 263 was a diagnostic Precon. There were many other Special Feature Precons such as 340, 341, 342 and 343 for automatic letter writing functions and automatic paragraph selection, etc. Interesting stuff. Good equipment--I liked using it very much. P.S.--The tape has no value--other than memories. At the time the tape cost about 40 bucks--the MT/SC cost about $35,000! Steve Eichner Manager, Business Systems Standards & Assurance Rainbow Information Systems 516-803-5102 From dlearyfun at adelphia.net Fri Jan 7 22:29:35 2005 From: dlearyfun at adelphia.net (Dick Leary) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: NEC APC III, anyone have one? Message-ID: <000601c4f53a$a8a35040$6501a8c0@IbmLaptop> I too have an original APC with graphics board and all documentation. It still works. Dick Leary From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Jan 8 07:23:18 2005 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp@gjcp.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:51 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> References: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> > My usual machine for internet access just croaked (bad checksum in > NTVDM.EXE), so, I'm using a Chembook notebook that has several I'm *amazed* how many people on this list still struggle on with Windows. I would have thought most people with the geeky proclivities that would lead them into playing with old computers would all be running one of the many free OSes. Gordon. From CCour79992 at aol.com Sat Jan 8 20:56:17 2005 From: CCour79992 at aol.com (CCour79992@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Bondwell SX Message-ID: <1f6.3f883c9.2f11f751@aol.com> Greetings: I saw on the webpage a question and answer exchange about putting an external monitor on the Bondwell 386 310SX. I also have the same problem, but my screen has completely died so I cant see what I am typing to get to the prompts to switch it to "external." Any chance you could "talk" me thru the keystrokes from power up and perhaps I can work it "blind"? Thanks for any help you can give. Chris in Va. From melamy at earthlink.net Sun Jan 9 08:37:09 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <9049793.1105281429544.JavaMail.root@gonzo.psp.pas.earthlink.net> well, I design by specifications. The TI specs say that the short circuit current for 74xx series is 18ma which is also not within specs for the general output current capability of 16 ma. Transient shorts like this are a great way to generate power supply noise. I guess I never applied any type of "preliminary hackery" to systems I have developed. -----Original Message----- From: der Mouse Sent: Jan 9, 2005 5:15 AM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Re: RTL Logic Except that totem-pole outputs usually have just a transistor to ground, but a transistor and resistor to Vcc. This means that the one driving the signal low will win, and, provided not too many outputs are wired together, it will sink the current without damage. (I've actually built circuits that depended on this, though I've never liked it and never considered it suitable for more than preliminary hackery. I've also always never done it for anything where the conflict will last more than nanoseconds, as when building an ~R/~S flip-flop out of two cross-coupled inverters rather than the more usual NANDs or NORs.) From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 9 09:26:16 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <41E11AA2.6090206@pacbell.net> References: <18549933.1105192306624.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <200501091020.FAA26336@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41E11AA2.6090206@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <200501091530.KAA26983@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >>> Wired-OR will work fine for open-collector output TTL. >> Well, except you generally get wired-AND, because the open >> collectors are generally NPN collectors with emitters to ground, not >> PNP collectors with emitters to Vcc. > That is twice you've tried to make this point. If a signal is viewed > as active low, then what is going on is logically wired-or. Yes...but would you call (? of) a 7408 an OR gate if it happens to be manipulating such signals? That's the sense in which I say it's wired-AND: the resulting signal is what you'd get from feeding the same logic levels (except with pullups, or non-OC outputs) into the gate usually called an AND gate. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 9 11:25:50 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Quadlink by Quadram - put an Apple II in you PC In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C60@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <20050109172551.15119.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> What's the advantage of using this instead of an emulator like AppleWin? --- Kelly Leavitt wrote: > OK, this came to me by a rather circuitous route, but I now have a new in > the box Quadlink by Quadram. It includes all the cables, software, and > documentation (the warranty card is still there). > > This card is essentially and Apple II/Apple II+ on an 8-bit ISA plug in > board. I don't know how compatible it is with today's PC equipment. Anyway, > the point of this is: Does anyone want this? Contact me off list if so. > Shipping would be from New Jersey, USA. > > I'm always looking for old Tandy items in trade too. > > > Kelly > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 642 readers and counting! From wpointon at earthlink.net Sun Jan 9 12:33:12 2005 From: wpointon at earthlink.net (william pointon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Quadlink by Quadram - put an Apple II in you PC In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C60@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: hi kelly - if nobody beat me id love it - im in zip code 34945 and can paypal you for postage if thats ok - thanks - billp On Sunday, Jan 9, 2005, at 09:29 US/Eastern, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > OK, this came to me by a rather circuitous route, but I now have a new > in > the box Quadlink by Quadram. It includes all the cables, software, and > documentation (the warranty card is still there). > > This card is essentially and Apple II/Apple II+ on an 8-bit ISA plug in > board. I don't know how compatible it is with today's PC equipment. > Anyway, > the point of this is: Does anyone want this? Contact me off list if so. > Shipping would be from New Jersey, USA. > > I'm always looking for old Tandy items in trade too. > > > Kelly > From dhbarr at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 12:53:38 2005 From: dhbarr at gmail.com (David H. Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Fwd: Newish Parts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Eep, can't believe I left that out: On closer inspection, I have: * A80386DX-20 (SX214) * A80386DX-20 IV (SX217) * A80386DX-25 IV (SX133) * A80386DX-25 IV (SX218) -dhbarr. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tothwolf Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2005 02:06:09 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Newish Parts To: "David H. Barr" On Sat, 8 Jan 2005, David H. Barr wrote: > I have sitting on my desk, taking up space: > > * 4 Intel i386 processors What speeds are the cpus? I'd like to find some 387 math processors eventually, but I've not been looking very hard. -Toth From wpointon at earthlink.net Sun Jan 9 13:25:13 2005 From: wpointon at earthlink.net (william pointon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Quadlink by Quadram - put an Apple II in you PC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <2F2627D0-6274-11D9-A9B6-003065ED7126@earthlink.net> sorry - it was supposed to be offflist On Sunday, Jan 9, 2005, at 13:33 US/Eastern, william pointon wrote: > hi kelly - if nobody beat me id love it - im in zip code 34945 and can From rich_bramante at yahoo.com Sun Jan 9 13:46:54 2005 From: rich_bramante at yahoo.com (Rich Bramante) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: NEC APC III, anyone have one? In-Reply-To: <000601c4f53a$a8a35040$6501a8c0@IbmLaptop> Message-ID: <20050109194654.95313.qmail@web53205.mail.yahoo.com> I also have one that works. No docs for it though, and very little software. http://old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=996 is my actual machine. I also have 2 old APC I machines with the 8" drives. Not sure of their status since I have no s/w. I'm in the process of downsizing the collection, so I am considering letting these go. If anybody around Massachusetts might be interested, drop me a line. rich --- Dick Leary wrote: > I too have an original APC with graphics board and all documentation. It > still works. > > > Dick Leary __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From CCTalk at catcorner.org Sun Jan 9 13:51:06 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Quadlink by Quadram - put an Apple II in you PC Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C62@mail.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: Kelly Leavitt [mailto:CCTalk@catcorner.org] > > > OK, this came to me by a rather circuitous route, but I now > have a new in > the box Quadlink by Quadram. It includes all the cables, software, and > documentation (the warranty card is still there). > > This card is essentially and Apple II/Apple II+ on an 8-bit > ISA plug in > board. I don't know how compatible it is with today's PC > equipment. Anyway, > the point of this is: Does anyone want this? Contact me off > list if so. > Shipping would be from New Jersey, USA. > > I'm always looking for old Tandy items in trade too. > > > Kelly > Man, sure seemed to be a lot of interest in this. Maybe I should have tried EPay ;-) Anyway, someone that has been helping me a lot with getting an old Quadra running has asked for this. It is officially his. I guess I should have asked him privately FIRST. In the same lot is a bunch of other interesting stuff. I have to inventory it yet, and see what is running, but I know of at least: A 5155 (one of the luggables) with dual floppies, an IBM PC reference set A 5150 (with dual floppies and a 20M drive (with cassette port)), lots of NIB software and docs. A largish 8 bit memory expansion card. A "turbo" XT Clone Anyway, I'll be listing this stuff as available once I have inventoried it and know what is running and what is not. As for the Tandy stuff I collect: My main interest is in the old II/12/16/6000 line running Xenix Thanks for all the interest. Kelly From dholland at woh.rr.com Sun Jan 9 14:07:11 2005 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: <200501062236.j06MalgM003975@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501062236.j06MalgM003975@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <1105301231.9443.7.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 17:36 -0500, Brad Parker wrote: >snip< > I can't say what runs in a FP-4 vs a FP-5, sorry. You might start with > the 8.1.1 on a FP-4. Many thanks, I now have my little FP4 talking on the local LAN. FWIW, 9.2 does NOT run on a FP4 w/ 4.x ROMS. If you try hard enough /w Basilisk (Macintosh emulator), you can even configure the thing under MacOS 7.5.3 emulated on Linux. (However, it probably isn't worth the effort, unless you've no Macintosh's.) thanks again all, David > > Also, in case it's not obvious I'd use something like "unstuffit" to > deal with the .sea.bin files. > > -brad From allain at panix.com Sun Jan 9 14:25:21 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundledsoftware (was: TKermitFTP References: <10501062019.ZM18954@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com><41DDC00B.9040004@oldskool.org> <20050107111933.L883@localhost> Message-ID: <007601c4f689$d1b578a0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > have DOS plus utilities installed or not? Huh? Have basic, debug and ver is 5.00 I'm better with basic than I am with debug so my solution might just turn out to be wrapperizing a basic 'data' section binary file transcriber. If somebody could show a real world example, complete, with debug I'll use that, the transferred file sizes should be 2X smaller. John A. From frustum at pacbell.net Sun Jan 9 14:48:34 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <200501091530.KAA26983@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <18549933.1105192306624.JavaMail.root@scooter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> <200501091020.FAA26336@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41E11AA2.6090206@pacbell.net> <200501091530.KAA26983@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <41E198A2.8030402@pacbell.net> der Mouse wrote: >>>>Wired-OR will work fine for open-collector output TTL. >>> >>>Well, except you generally get wired-AND, because the open >>>collectors are generally NPN collectors with emitters to ground, not >>>PNP collectors with emitters to Vcc. >> >>That is twice you've tried to make this point. If a signal is viewed >>as active low, then what is going on is logically wired-or. > > > Yes...but would you call (? of) a 7408 an OR gate if it happens to be > manipulating such signals? That's the sense in which I say it's > wired-AND: the resulting signal is what you'd get from feeding the same > logic levels (except with pullups, or non-OC outputs) into the gate > usually called an AND gate. The schematic programs that I'm used to allow having different symbol versions for situations like this, so the answer is yes: an OR gate gets demorganized into what looks like an AND gate with bubbles on the inputs and outputs. likewise, and AND get gets turned into an OR gate with bubbles in inputs and outputs. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 9 14:51:33 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Quadlink by Quadram - put an Apple II in you PC In-Reply-To: <20050109172551.15119.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050109172551.15119.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050109124635.X61123@shell.lmi.net> Being able to read Apple diskettes, REAL 6502, . . . One of the computer labs at the college tried to use them as a transition step in switching to PCs. Nice idea, but a lot of copy-protected disks were inaccessible, and they had a SEVENTY PERCENT DOA rate on the Quadlinks! Even the replacement ones from Quadram had a 70% DOA rate! One of them that I looked at that was returned "repaired" had one of the connectors mounted backwards, which COULD NOT have been tested. If you're into Tandy, look for the Diamond Trackstar128. It had a MUCH better reliability than the Quadlinks. On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > What's the advantage of using this instead of an emulator like AppleWin? > > --- Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > > OK, this came to me by a rather circuitous route, but I now have a new in > > the box Quadlink by Quadram. It includes all the cables, software, and > > documentation (the warranty card is still there). > > > > This card is essentially and Apple II/Apple II+ on an 8-bit ISA plug in > > board. I don't know how compatible it is with today's PC equipment. Anyway, > > the point of this is: Does anyone want this? Contact me off list if so. > > Shipping would be from New Jersey, USA. > > > > I'm always looking for old Tandy items in trade too. From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 9 15:28:55 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> References: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> Message-ID: <20050109132031.F638@localhost> On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 gordonjcp@gjcp.net wrote: > I'm *amazed* how many people on this list still struggle on with Windows. > I would have thought most people with the geeky proclivities that would > lead them into playing with old computers would all be running one of the > many free OSes. Windows is appropriate in places, there's many good software packages for it, but I otherwise agree you, especiially for anyone with more than pedestrian demands. I just sink further into geekdom, and after getting bamboozled by the increasing complexity and featuritis of linux (SuSE 9.2) (*) "went back" to freeBSD. (It's > 10 years old... :-) I found that since the last time I used it (mid 90's) it's MUCH nicer. Supports all the crappy hardware I have (Sony VAIO vx89), boots 2X faster, imported, transformed all my data, and tuned for the new OS in three days. I'm running fvwm2 (over KDE), gained 200 MEGABYTES FREE MEMORY!, and sacrificed *nothing* in the way of convenience. Nothing. I installed it with the three-floppy kernel and an ethernet to the world (at UCI.EDU, fat pipe to freebsd.org). Practically painless. Geek onward! (*) somehow Yast got confused; can't ID the OS version, couldn't figure out how to do online updates any more. Spent a few hous over a few weeks trying to track down just how yast determines it, realized there was a lengthening list of problems knowable, but unwilling, to solve. CVS for updates is at least debuggable. Big linux distros are getting more and more baroque as they try to "compete" with W$. From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 9 15:32:54 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: NEC APC III, anyone have one? In-Reply-To: <20050109194654.95313.qmail@web53205.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050109194654.95313.qmail@web53205.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050109133105.N638@localhost> On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, Rich Bramante wrote: > I also have 2 old APC I machines with the 8" drives. Not sure of their status > since I have no s/w. I did the MSDOS port for that machine! Sorry, don't have anything from those days. I barely remember it though, big desktop? Color monitor? Two 8" flops side by side? Something like that... From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 9 15:43:52 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundledsoftware (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <007601c4f689$d1b578a0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <10501062019.ZM18954@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com><41DDC00B.9040004@oldskool.org> <20050107111933.L883@localhost> <007601c4f689$d1b578a0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <20050109133326.X638@localhost> On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, John Allain wrote: > Huh? Have basic, debug and ver is 5.00 Since DEBUG can load Intel hex files, and copying text files through the com port is relatively easy, htat's one solution. * On the "donor" machine, convert KERMIT.COM (or .EXE) to hex. YOu might have to go to (the current logical equivelant of) tucows to find a program that does it, but it should not be hard. * On each machine (donor and target) use "MODE" to set some bit rate, eg 9600, no parity, 8 bits. * On the target, start "COPY COM1 KERMIT.HEX". * Then, on the donor, start "COPY KERMIT.HEX COM1". * If all went well (caveats, below) you now have a hex, text copy of Kermit on the target machine. * DEBUG KERMIT.HEX. > G Kermit shoudl run! > the transferred file sizes should > be 2X smaller. Immaterial I say -- this is something you are going to do ONCE, who cares how long the text file transfer takes? 10 seconds? 90 seconds? 15 minutes? BFD. What matters is that it be RELIABLE. CAVEATS: Since nothing is buffered, the target machine might drop characters inputting if it has to write to disk. This would screw up the transfer, and most likely debug will give an error when you try to load the hex file. Solutions: split the KERMIT.HEX file into multiple pieces on the donor machine; transfer each with COPY. Say you named them KERMIT.1H, KERMIT.2H, ... On the target machine, after they're all transferred, do: copy/a kermit.1h+kermit.2h+kermit.Nh kermit.hex And proceed. ALso consider transferring the hex file TWICE or more, and use COMP to check that they are the same; it's unlikely it will drop precisely the same byte each time, and errors will be visible. Drop to 300 baud for the transfer; this will raise the time you get to do disk writes, especially if the target has a 16550 UART. Again, I suggest not even thinking about the transfer speed if it's less than an hour or two. From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sun Jan 9 16:26:18 2005 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore S Bekkedal) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: <20050109132031.F638@localhost> References: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> Message-ID: <1105309578.8243.47.camel@fortran> On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 13:28 -0800, Tom Jennings wrote: > Windows is appropriate in places, Yeah, the trash can. :P > there's many good software > packages for it, Definately (spuhlyng?) true. But GPL apps *are* catching up - just look at OpenOffice 2 betas... They're progressing very very fast :) > I just sink further into geekdom, and after getting bamboozled by > the increasing complexity and featuritis of linux (SuSE 9.2) (*) > "went back" to freeBSD. (It's > 10 years old... :-) I do not want to start a distro war. But I like the two deb-based distros Ubuntu and, well, Debian :) Kickass package management, you start with a base system and install what you need. (apt-get install x-window-system build-essential gnome openoffice-org gives you a good system) Ubuntu fits an entire desktop system, with automatic updates, on *one CD*. And GNOME runs *fast* nowadays. (though, not quite fast enough for me - a lot of my hardware is ontopic here. I run Fluxbox, you should give it a spin.) > I'm running fvwm2 (over KDE), gained 200 MEGABYTES FREE MEMORY!, > and sacrificed *nothing* in the way of convenience. Nothing. Well, you *are* a geek, remember... You don't need a big DE, newbies do. My 73-year-old grandmother is very happy with GNOME. Most of what KDE loads probably stands in swap anyways. Still quite big. > I installed it with the three-floppy kernel and an ethernet to the > world (at UCI.EDU, fat pipe to freebsd.org). Practically painless. Ditto with Debian, though I think the floppy count is higher. But if you've got a server running Linux nearby, netboot! One floppy, and you have the full, semi-graphical installer. (The Debian installer is no longer as horrid as the myth that surrounds it. Yes, at one point, it truly was horrid.) > Geek onward! As if I intended to just stop? :) > Big > linux distros are getting more and more baroque as they try to > "compete" with W$. Absolutely. That's why I stay clear of them. But the one userfriendly distro I recommend and endorse is Ubuntu, a newcomer, but wow... It's beautiful both technically and visually. I suggest you give it a spoon. -- Tore S Bekkedal The light at the end of the tunnel is Cherenkov Radiation From Watzman at neo.rr.com Sun Jan 9 09:05:51 2005 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <200501091516.j09FFXAi001482@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200501091505.j09F5hlw012599@ms-smtp-01-eri0.ohiordc.rr.com> I have old Motorola and TI data books from the period that do have RTL chips in them. There is no chance of scanning them, they are several thousand pages long (3" of very think paper), bound, and odd-size. But if anyone needs info on a very few specific chips, I could look them up. From richardlynch3 at comcast.net Sun Jan 9 10:01:46 2005 From: richardlynch3 at comcast.net (Richard Lynch) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Need Altos Tape Interface Program (TIP) In-Reply-To: <6.1.0.6.2.20050105155501.026ddb90@jesnyder.mail.iastate.edu> Message-ID: Does anyone have a copy of the Altos Tape Interface Program (TIP) for an MTU-2A on 8" floppy? Mine has a bad cylinder 0. I've got the machine connected to my ACS8000-10, ready to go. Thanks for any help. Richard From Richardkurtz at prodigy.net Sun Jan 9 15:57:43 2005 From: Richardkurtz at prodigy.net (Richard Kurtz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Error codes for 11/73 Message-ID: I'm sure this is a familiar question to many - does anyone have a list of the two-digit codes displayed on the PDP11-73 during power-up ? I am resurrecting a dormant unit which stops at '1' (I have only the CPU and memory installed in the backplane) I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad code. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, David Comley Dave, the Error Code 1 = cpu error 1. Make sure that your cpu diag switches are correctly set 2. Make sure your +5vdc and +12vdc power supply is good 3. Make sure your eproms do not have any bent pins J Richardkurtz@prodigy.net From williams.dan at gmail.com Sun Jan 9 17:29:26 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: <20050109132031.F638@localhost> References: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> Message-ID: <26c11a6405010915297ff0b725@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 13:28:55 -0800 (PST), Tom Jennings wrote: > On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 gordonjcp@gjcp.net wrote: > > > I'm *amazed* how many people on this list still struggle on with Windows. > > I would have thought most people with the geeky proclivities that would > > lead them into playing with old computers would all be running one of the > > many free OSes. > As the other's have sometimes you have to run windows. I can't afford a high end mac, so I need to use windows. Openoffice can't deal with some excel files and last time I looked any powerpoint documents. I get these on a regular basis. They seem to be quite happy to buy licenses, having just about 5,000 dell machines with XP. I don't have any say in this. It is also a lot easier to put songs on my ipod and other bits on my phone on windows then it is on linux. That's without even speaking about games. Then again the main programs I use are ZOC and Cygwin/X., connected to the Suns and Vaxen humming away, heating up my flat and really annoying the missus. "Why do you need all those computers on when you only ever use one !" . I would also say that this machine XP pro, has not crashed and has behaved it self. I would say the last time it was even rebooted was october when I got a bigger hard drive. From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Sun Jan 9 17:32:59 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: <1105309578.8243.47.camel@fortran> References: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <1105309578.8243.47.camel@fortran> Message-ID: In message <1105309578.8243.47.camel@fortran> Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > On Sun, 2005-01-09 at 13:28 -0800, Tom Jennings wrote: > > Windows is appropriate in places, > Yeah, the trash can. :P At the risk of being flamed to death, the NT-based versions (especially Win2k) aren't too bad. Certainly loads better than the 9x series. Linux still beats the crap out of it in terms of raw speed and usability on older hardware, but W2K isn't too bad for general software development. I wouldn't recommend putting a '2K box online unless it was behind a firewall (preferably a NAT) and had all the security patches installed. > I do not want to start a distro war. But I like the two deb-based > distros Ubuntu and, well, Debian :) I tried Debian for a good two months, then went back to Slackware. > Kickass package management, you start with a base system and install > what you need. (apt-get install x-window-system build-essential gnome > openoffice-org gives you a good system) Ubuntu fits an entire desktop > system, with automatic updates, on *one CD*. And GNOME runs *fast* > nowadays. (though, not quite fast enough for me - a lot of my hardware > is ontopic here. My primary Linux dev system is a Panasonic CF-25 Toughbook - Pentium 133 CPU, 10" TFT (vibration-proofed), 3GB shock-mounted hard drive, 32MB RAM, CD and FDD (either the FDD or CD can be installed, but you have to power down to swap them). I put Win98SE on there too, primarily because 2k really doesn't work well on a P133... > I run Fluxbox, you should give it a spin.) I might have to grab a copy of that to play with on my Toughbook. > Absolutely. That's why I stay clear of them. But the one userfriendly > distro I recommend and endorse is Ubuntu, a newcomer, but wow... It's > beautiful both technically and visually. I suggest you give it a spoon. I've got a 6GB hard drive on order for the Toughbook - I'll have to give Ubuntu a shot when it arrives. After I've swapped the keyboard assembly over, that is - a few of the key guides appear to have worn out (or been soaked in cola) and now the keys are binding on the guides :-/ BTW, anyone got a spare 64MB 144-pin EDO SODIMM? Later, -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... One way to better your lot is to do a lot better... From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jan 9 17:37:46 2005 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (Ben Franchuk) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: geek OS References: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> Message-ID: <41E1C04A.60607@jetnet.ab.ca> Tom Jennings wrote: > I installed it with the three-floppy kernel and an ethernet to the > world (at UCI.EDU, fat pipe to freebsd.org). Practically painless. > > Geek onward! Umm it is not so painless if have the skinny dial up line to the net. I just installed new version 4.8 from CD/R from Free-Bytes and the harderst part was finding 3 floppies that still work. Still since I plan to do some CPLD design ( BASED of TTL logic ) I still have to use windows. NOW FPLA/CPLD software sure has bloated over the last few years so now you can't seem to do any design work from a GUI setup. From lbickley at bickleywest.com Sun Jan 9 18:19:14 2005 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Error codes for 11/73 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200501091619.14820.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Contact me off list and I'll Email you the manual for the CPU (or you can pick it up off bitsavers "EK-KDJ1B-UG_KDJ11-B_Nov86.pdf") Lyle On Sunday 09 January 2005 13:57, Richard Kurtz wrote: > I'm sure this is a familiar question to many - does > anyone have a list of the two-digit codes displayed on > the PDP11-73 during power-up ? I am resurrecting a > dormant unit which stops at '1' (I have only the CPU > and memory installed in the backplane) I'm not sure if > this is a good or a bad code. Any help would be > appreciated. > > Thanks, > > David Comley > > > Dave, the Error Code 1 = cpu error > > 1. Make sure that your cpu diag switches are correctly set > > 2. Make sure your +5vdc and +12vdc power supply is good > > 3. Make sure your eproms do not have any bent pins > > J Richardkurtz@prodigy.net -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From rich_bramante at yahoo.com Sun Jan 9 18:49:30 2005 From: rich_bramante at yahoo.com (Rich Bramante) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: NEC APC III, anyone have one? In-Reply-To: <20050109133105.N638@localhost> Message-ID: <20050110004930.21683.qmail@web53204.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tom Jennings wrote: > On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, Rich Bramante wrote: > > > I also have 2 old APC I machines with the 8" drives. Not sure of their > status > > since I have no s/w. > > I did the MSDOS port for that machine! Sorry, don't have anything > from those days. I barely remember it though, big desktop? Color > monitor? Two 8" flops side by side? Something like that... Yes, very big desktop (around 75 lbs.). I have seen models in both color and green monochrome. And yup, two hefty 8" drives vertical side-by-side on the right. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com From jpl15 at panix.com Sun Jan 9 18:58:18 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: NEC APC III, anyone have one? In-Reply-To: <20050110004930.21683.qmail@web53204.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050110004930.21683.qmail@web53204.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, Rich Bramante wrote: > > > Yes, very big desktop (around 75 lbs.). I have seen models in both color and > green monochrome. And yup, two hefty 8" drives vertical side-by-side on the > right. > I used to sell 'em.... I remember the very distinctive "sthnurr-sthnurr-sth-sthnirrrr" noise those drives made - when one was used to the Shugarts of the time... Did they not have dual processors? One to compute and one to I/O? Cheers John From kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com Sun Jan 9 18:58:06 2005 From: kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com (Keven Miller) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Quadlink by Quadram - put an Apple II in you PC In-Reply-To: <20050109124635.X61123@shell.lmi.net> References: <20050109172551.15119.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> <20050109124635.X61123@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <41E1D31E.90101@reeltapetransfer.com> I have a TrakStar someplace. But from what I remember it required a 1-mhz clock, so only an 8088 or similar PC would work. Guess I'll have to find it, manuals, and check it out again. Keven Miller kevenm@reeltapetransfer.com > If you're into Tandy, look for the Diamond Trackstar128. It had a MUCH > better reliability than the Quadlinks. From dan at ekoan.com Sun Jan 9 20:02:55 2005 From: dan at ekoan.com (Dan Veeneman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Amdahl tapes Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050109210208.05881170@mail.marcal.com> Hello, Is there anyone currently working with Amdahl equipment? I've got four spools of nine-track magnetic tape with various labels (AMATS, Amdahl Architectural Test Systems, Extended Memory Support, etc). I believe these were used by Amdahl field support. You can see the labels (and some Amdahl binders) at www.decodesystems.com/amdahl.html While I've read "There Are No Electrons" (written by Kenn Amdahl) I don't happen to have any Amdahl equipment -- so if there is anyone with an interest in these tapes please contact me off-list for trades, etc. Cheers, Dan www.decodesystems.com/wanted.html From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 9 20:50:44 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Using crap hardware (was: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> References: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> Message-ID: <20050109125336.U61123@shell.lmi.net> > > My usual machine for internet access just croaked (bad checksum in > > NTVDM.EXE), so, I'm using a Chembook notebook that has several On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 gordonjcp@gjcp.net wrote: > I'm *amazed* how many people on this list still struggle on with Windows. > I would have thought most people with the geeky proclivities that would > lead them into playing with old computers would all be running one of the > many free OSes. guilty as charged. but with an explanation. . . . The POS Chembook belongs to my employer. I am not authorized to modify it. They think that it is still worth "thousands of dollars". When the keyboard went bad, it was cheaper for me to replace the whole machine with a used Dell Latitude CP than to get a replacement keyboard. I kept the Dell MOSTLY matching the Chembook to use as an internet terminal with the crappy MICROS~1 stuff that I "had to" keep on the machine. For my own stuff, I have mostly 8088 and 286 machines (with lots of different drives), and hardly any of them even have modems or serial ports. With some of the other crap that is keeping me busy, I've been getting rid of stuff, even most of XenoSoft. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jan 9 20:55:16 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: <1105309578.8243.47.camel@fortran> References: <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <1105309578.8243.47.camel@fortran> Message-ID: > > I'm running fvwm2 (over KDE), gained 200 MEGABYTES FREE MEMORY!, > > and sacrificed *nothing* in the way of convenience. Nothing. >Well, you *are* a geek, remember... You don't need a big DE, newbies do. >My 73-year-old grandmother is very happy with GNOME. >Most of what KDE loads probably stands in swap anyways. Still quite big. This is the part I really hate about Linux distro's. At work they seem to think we want to run either KDE or GNOME, and those are the only two options when logging into a system. Sorry, I want to run either MWM (talk about sick and twisted), or a pre-V1 version of Afterstep that I was originally running on an RS/6000 350 workstation at work 8+ years ago! As a result I just login under the failsafe mode without a window manager and fire up what *I* want. I did run Enlightenment for a few years at work, but since I'm running my Unix desktop via VNC these days I prefer a much lighter weight solution. Last time I loaded a system at home with Linux, I opted for Debian. At least with it, it is possible to do an installation without quite so much garbage. Still ever since I moved my Mac to Mac OS X last year, I've not had much need for a Linux box at home. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 9 23:55:08 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Intel bubble memory kit, BPK70A (7110A) Message-ID: <20050109214421.F13406@localhost> They're all megabit devices. So whattaya call these things, megabubbles? I got a dozen or so of these kits, new unused and unopened, mostly, they include all the oddball support chips and the funny muonting brackets for the bubblebucket. 1984 and 1985 date codes. Any interest in them? I'll likely eBay them for money, but I'm willing to trade (I need a working 8" double-sided floppy drive, ugly OK). Anyone have, or willing to work up, a PCB to make them usable? Parallel interface would be nice. From netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net Mon Jan 10 03:37:50 2005 From: netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net (David Vohs) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? Message-ID: <1105349870.11665.212370595@webmail.messagingengine.com> Hi all, I was just wondering if we had any Zenith Minisport owners in the house. David M. Vohs Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. "Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. "Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2. "Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board. "Scout": Otrona Attache. (prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II. "TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander + "Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000. From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Jan 10 09:08:57 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 09 Jan 2005 15:07:11 EST." <1105301231.9443.7.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: <200501101508.j0AF8vrd010353@mwave.heeltoe.com> David Holland wrote: > >Many thanks, I now have my little FP4 talking on the local LAN. excellent. I still have a soft spot for localtalk. Too many hours hacking 8530 drivers :-) -brad From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jan 10 21:33:09 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? In-Reply-To: <1105349870.11665.212370595@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050110223309.00925500@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I just bought two of them (and plenty of disks :-) this weekend. Joe At 11:37 PM 1/9/05 -1000, you wrote: >Hi all, > >I was just wondering if we had any Zenith Minisport owners in the house. > >David M. Vohs >Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian > >Computer Collection: > >"Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. >"Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II. >"Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. >"Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III. >"Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. >"Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. >"Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2. >"Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board. >"Scout": Otrona Attache. >(prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II. >"TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander + >"Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000. > > From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 10 14:56:31 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501102056.MAA01660@clulw009.amd.com> Hi 4000 series is good to around 15 volts someplace as I recall. I don't remember how low it goes but it seems like 2.5v someplace. It does run slower at lower voltages and even at 5 volts, it is really slow for logic. It really depends on the application. Dwight >From: "Scott Stevens" ---snip--- > >Doesn't 4000-series CMOS logic operate pretty well at non-5 volt levels >if powered to such levels? I haven't used any in years, but all the >'building block' logic components are available, i.e. the 4049 and such. > A company I worked for made a muscle stim device out of a single 4000 >series 'hex converter' using feedback to make multivibrators, crude >comparators, drivers, etc. out of the gates. It wasn't powered at 5 >volts, the whole thing ran from a 9 volt battery. The logic thresholds >for 4000 CMOS are 1/3 and 2/3 of VCC, for whatever VCC you supply, if I >recall. > > From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 10 14:50:01 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP Message-ID: <200501102050.MAA01656@clulw009.amd.com> Hi I use windows for tax programs and digital photos. Beyond that, I have no use for it. If these were available in some other form, I'd use that instead. Dwight >From: gordonjcp@gjcp.net > > >> My usual machine for internet access just croaked (bad checksum in >> NTVDM.EXE), so, I'm using a Chembook notebook that has several > >I'm *amazed* how many people on this list still struggle on with Windows. >I would have thought most people with the geeky proclivities that would >lead them into playing with old computers would all be running one of the >many free OSes. > >Gordon. > > From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 10 14:48:07 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501102048.MAA01652@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Both right but it really depends on usage. Dwight >From: "der Mouse" > >>>> Wired-OR will work fine for open-collector output TTL. >>> Well, except you generally get wired-AND, because the open >>> collectors are generally NPN collectors with emitters to ground, not >>> PNP collectors with emitters to Vcc. >> That is twice you've tried to make this point. If a signal is viewed >> as active low, then what is going on is logically wired-or. > >Yes...but would you call (? of) a 7408 an OR gate if it happens to be >manipulating such signals? That's the sense in which I say it's >wired-AND: the resulting signal is what you'd get from feeding the same >logic levels (except with pullups, or non-OC outputs) into the gate >usually called an AND gate. > >/~\ The ASCII der Mouse >\ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca >/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 10 14:46:48 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501102046.MAA01647@clulw009.amd.com> Hi The 16ma is for sink of the NPN to ground. The pullup is limited to around 100ua as I recall. Dwight >From: "Steve Thatcher" > >well, I design by specifications. The TI specs say that the short circuit current for 74xx series is 18ma which is also not within specs for the general output current capability of 16 ma. Transient shorts like this are a great way to generate power supply noise. I guess I never applied any type of "preliminary hackery" to systems I have developed. > >-----Original Message----- >From: der Mouse >Sent: Jan 9, 2005 5:15 AM >To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: RTL Logic > >Except that totem-pole outputs usually have just a transistor to >ground, but a transistor and resistor to Vcc. This means that the one >driving the signal low will win, and, provided not too many outputs are >wired together, it will sink the current without damage. (I've >actually built circuits that depended on this, though I've never liked >it and never considered it suitable for more than preliminary hackery. >I've also always never done it for anything where the conflict will >last more than nanoseconds, as when building an ~R/~S flip-flop out of >two cross-coupled inverters rather than the more usual NANDs or NORs.) > > From zmerch at 30below.com Mon Jan 10 14:07:28 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: <26c11a6405010915297ff0b725@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050110142046.03a08768@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Dan Williams may have mentioned these words: >On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 13:28:55 -0800 (PST), Tom Jennings wrote: > > On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 gordonjcp@gjcp.net wrote: > > > > > I'm *amazed* how many people on this list still struggle on with Windows. > > > I would have thought most people with the geeky proclivities that would > > > lead them into playing with old computers would all be running one of the > > > many free OSes. > >As the other's have sometimes you have to run windows. As I have to, at both work and home. Work: Peachtree. Other than that, I SSH into all of my linux servers. ;-) Home: MPEG transcoding software from my TiVo to SVCD. Linux just doesn't have the (inexpensive) software yet. Good stuff is $$$$$, free stuff isn't worth dealing with. >Openoffice can't deal with >some excel files and last time I looked any powerpoint documents. OO 1.1.x has opened every excel file I threw at it so far; but that's not saying much; I don't deal with very high-end spreadsheets. And now that I have my serial cable & floppy emulation software set up for my Tandy 200, I want to see how well it opens SYLK files from MultiPlan... hehehe -- It's interesting how it opens more MicroSoft formats than M$... ;-) It's *supposed* to work well with powerpoint, but I never use them, so I can't say how well it does it. OpenOffice 1.9.(mumble) is out in beta form - it's supposed to be even closer yet, and has a GUI database as well. I don't know if it supports Access databases... haven't installed it yet. (Tonite at home.) >That's without even speaking about games. That's why most people still run Winders. Win2K, all security patches, no firewall, running Mozilla Firefox & Eudora (but sometimes use Mutt directly on the servers) -- scan for spyware every 2-3 *weeks* (only come up positive every 3rd scan or so) and have no problems at all. Granted, I wouldn't recommand a "non-geek" do this. ;-) =-=-=-= Everyone's talking 'distro' (this 'Ubuntu' sounds interesting -- methinks I need to check it out) -- if you want to use a distro that *runs* from CD, try Knoppix. It boots, you try it out, make sure all the stuff works, then pull the CD & reboot -- no changes to the system. [[ and I certainly don't want to 'war' about it either - they all have their strengths and weaknesses! ]] For my laptop, I went the "Other Way." www.linuxfromscratch.org -- I compiled *everything* for my Crusoe processor, and lemme tell ya, it's *fast*. From boot, including FVWM 2.5.(mumble), Apache, Coldfusion 4.5 (I need to support it), PostgreSQL, and total memory used is under 80Meg. Granted, it took me a month of spare time to get the way I like it... but damn, do I like it. ;-) If you want to speed things up and have multiple Linux boxen available, check out distcc -- distributed compiling across several boxen; it works well, too. The wife runs linux -- despite the fact she's the "Anti-Geek" (I installed a basic RedHat 9 - she couldn't install Winders either if she tried...), my next door neighbor just installed it & was surprised how easy it was - He'd heard the horror stories, but thought it was just as easy as installing windows. ;-) It's getting there... Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch@30below.com | From ICS at Core.com Mon Jan 10 21:36:24 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Data General boards Message-ID: <000501c4f78e$ba7a4b10$e228c4d8@icsdevelopment> Hi, I just found your message on the list from April 2004. Do you still have the Data General boards, if so I would be interested in obtaining them. Let me know. Thanks, George Wiegand From dave04a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 10 19:59:43 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted Message-ID: <20050111015942.CCKF20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Took in a big load of S-100 material this past weekend, including 5 complete systems (Altair 8800, Vector-1+, 3 homebuilts), and a total of 76 S-100 cards, with about 40 different types. I believe I have documentation for them all, which I would like to eventually make available in electronic form. As there is really no need for multiple people to scan documentation, I propose the following: - If you have already scanned documents for any of these cards, or otherwise have "electric" form, please let me know. - If you are looking for documenation on any of these cards, please let me know and I will move the ones requested up my priority list. A=AndiCom B=oBjective designs C=eleCtronic systems D=Drc E=Ems G=GodBout H=HomeBuilt I=Ithaca Audio L=simpLiway M=Mits N=Northstar O=newtrOnics P=Processor-tech. R=m.t.wRite S=Solid State music T=Tanner Computers V=Vector Graphic W=WMC Mfg Model Description ------------------------------- A AM1000 64k RAM B VDI Video Display B Programmable Character Generator C S-100 Active Terminator D S-100 Sound Effects D 32k RAM E VC8024 Single Board Computer (CPU/ROM/RAM/VID/KBD) G EconoRam II 8k RAM G EconoRam IV RAM G 106C Active Terminator G 106E Active Terminator H 1793 Disk Controller H TRS-80 Eprom Card H ? (full of sockets) I IA-1100 Video L Video/Keyboard M CPU BD REV.0 8080 CPU Board * M 88-1 SIO Serial I/O * M 88-SIOB Serial I/O with Modem/Cassette daughter card M 4K RAM BD M 4K Synchronous RAM BD N MDC-A4 Single-Density Disk Ctrlr * N MDS-AD Double-Density Disk Ctrlr * O 64K S-100 memory P VDM-1 64x16 Video P CUTS (revB) Cassette/Tape Interface P 3P+S I/O (rev2) Parallel/Serial I/O P GPM EPROM P 16KRA 16k RAM R I/O - proto S CB1 8080 CPU S CB1A 8080 CPU S CB2 Z80 CPU S IO-4 Serial/Parallel I/O S PB1 EPROM Programmer S VBTC Video T 32K EPROM II 32K memory (RAM populated) V 8080 CPU W MEM-3 32k RAM (2114) * = I already have these scanned from my other S-100 projects. Guy was also really into TRS-80's - I received two Model IIIs and a Model IV-D - also with tons of documenation and technical material - if anyone is interested in this documentation, contact me and I will forward an inventory when it becomes available. ** Two of the S-100 homebuilts are actually complete TRS-80's implemented on S-100 cards - they run the TRS-80 ROMs unmodified (with disk system) and load/run TRS-80 software! A few other interesting odds and ends as well, such as a SWTP C-64 terminal and docs, Full collection of Micro-80 magazine, and much more - this will all eventually get listed on the web site, so check in in a few months (years?) in case there is anything of interest. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jan 10 07:14:28 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Intel bubble memory kit, BPK70A (7110A) In-Reply-To: <20050109214421.F13406@localhost> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050110081428.00935730@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Tom, I'm interested in the bubble memories. I have some BMs and some Multibus cards (and docs :-) for them and I'm short a few bubbles. I talked a couple of guys into writing drivers for them for ISIS and CPM (stilll in the works). I have some extra DS drives so I can work out a trade if you're interested. Joe At 09:55 PM 1/9/05 -0800, you wrote: >They're all megabit devices. So whattaya call these things, >megabubbles? > >I got a dozen or so of these kits, new unused and unopened, >mostly, they include all the oddball support chips and the funny >muonting brackets for the bubblebucket. 1984 and 1985 date codes. > >Any interest in them? I'll likely eBay them for money, but I'm >willing to trade (I need a working 8" double-sided floppy drive, >ugly OK). > >Anyone have, or willing to work up, a PCB to make them usable? >Parallel interface would be nice. > > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 10 07:16:45 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: AIM65 with unknown second board Message-ID: <1105363005.13406.26.camel@weka.localdomain> Afternoon... We were given an AIM65 the other day (first time I've seen a real one) in a rather fetching custom blue case that has a carry handle on one edge. It was apparently used by Xerox for some for of magnetic media testing way back when; it still carries a Xerox asset tag on the back. Unfortunately in between the previous owner saying they wanted it when it was retired and them going to collect it, it got thrown into a skip - so there's some damage to the case and the red display cover needs replacing. Luckily the electronics survived, apart from one broken switch. Curious thing about the machine is that it has a second board mounted under the main board, containing quite a bit of circuitry. I was wondering whether this second board is something custom produced by Xerox (there are no marks indicating manufacturer) or whether it was an official off-the-shelf expansion board... Quick and dirty pics at: http://www.moosenet.demon.co.uk/temp/comps/aim65/ Wish I'd brought the machine home now, but I can get a list of the main ICs on that second board when I'm next at the musuem if needs be. Note that there seems to be no RAM on the AIM65 board itself, - just ROM - but there are 16 4116 chips on the expansion board. cheers Jules From vcf at siconic.com Mon Jan 10 21:55:33 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted In-Reply-To: <20050111015942.CCKF20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Dave Dunfield wrote: > Took in a big load of S-100 material this past weekend, including > 5 complete systems (Altair 8800, Vector-1+, 3 homebuilts), and a > total of 76 S-100 cards, with about 40 different types. Holy crap! Nice haul! > ** Two of the S-100 homebuilts are actually complete TRS-80's > implemented on S-100 cards - they run the TRS-80 ROMs unmodified > (with disk system) and load/run TRS-80 software! Holy crap II! That is fucking cool! Pictures!!! > A few other interesting odds and ends as well, such as a SWTP C-64 > terminal and docs, Full collection of Micro-80 magazine, and much > more - this will all eventually get listed on the web site, so check > in in a few months (years?) in case there is anything of interest. Wow, that is the nicest haul I've heard about all year. But there's 355 days left for someone to top it :) I want pictures of those homebrew TRS-80 S-100 systems. That has to be the coolest S-100 system ever (next to the Atari S-100 stuff I've got ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From jrkeys at concentric.net Mon Jan 10 22:02:01 2005 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:52 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? References: <1105349870.11665.212370595@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <010901c4f792$4f25cde0$56406b43@66067007> I have two in storage. ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Vohs" To: "No name" Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 3:37 AM Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? > Hi all, > > I was just wondering if we had any Zenith Minisport owners in the house. > > David M. Vohs > Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian > > Computer Collection: > > "Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. > "Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II. > "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. > "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III. > "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. > "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. > "Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2. > "Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board. > "Scout": Otrona Attache. > (prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II. > "TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander + > "Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000. > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 10 22:05:23 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: have an extra UDA-50 board set? References: <200501071453.j07ErMCI011535@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <004701c4f792$c68753e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I checked my RA81 supply. I have 5 drives, 3 are marked "Bad HDA". That's a bad sign :\ I need to keep the two left, in hopes of getting one or two working drives. Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad Parker" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 8:53 AM Subject: Re: have an extra UDA-50 board set? > > Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> >>I've got an RA81 that has bad electronics, so it may (or may not) have a >>good HDA still. If you want it, we could probably arrange something. > > Ah. Well, I have an RA81 with good electronics and no HDA :-) > > Give me a day or so to see what Jay comes up with. > > thanks! > > -brad > > From frustum at pacbell.net Mon Jan 10 22:27:10 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted In-Reply-To: <20050111015942.CCKF20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> References: <20050111015942.CCKF20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <41E3559E.5080609@pacbell.net> Dave Dunfield wrote: ... > As there is really no need for multiple people to scan documentation, > I propose the following: > > - If you have already scanned documents for any of these cards, or > otherwise have "electric" form, please let me know. ... > N MDS-AD Double-Density Disk Ctrlr * http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/manuals/nstar_MDS-A-D.pdf ... It was one of the first documents I scanned, for Doug Coward, in trade for him loaning me some Sol documents. From dave04a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 10 22:45:18 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted Message-ID: <20050111044517.CWCG8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> >> Took in a big load of S-100 material this past weekend, including >> 5 complete systems (Altair 8800, Vector-1+, 3 homebuilts), and a >> total of 76 S-100 cards, with about 40 different types. > >Holy crap! Nice haul! Thanks - it was a big load - took me about two hours to pack *most* of it into my Jeep Cherokee (with the rear seat folded down) - ended up leaving a few bits and pieces to pickup later this summer (was located about 700km from me). It was one of those "everything went right" experiences - The Altair is *mint* - not a mark on the panel or any worn lettering ... My initial disappointment because it didn't have the silver nameplate (my other one doesn't either) was quickly put aside when he hauled out the nameplate, still with it's "pink" protective covering on it. In addition to the Mits cards listed, it came with the original Mits 4K BASIC and 8K BASIC cassettes, as well as all of the documentation - and a completely unexpected suprise was when I noticed the January 1975 Popular Electronics "Altair" issue laying on top of it (I've been looking for it for a very long time). A very nice piece, along with the Vector which is also in excellent condition. >> ** Two of the S-100 homebuilts are actually complete TRS-80's >> implemented on S-100 cards - they run the TRS-80 ROMs unmodified >> (with disk system) and load/run TRS-80 software! > >Holy crap II! That is fucking cool! Pictures!!! I thought so too - Very unique S-100 systems - I will be getting them up and running, and will let you know how they work out. They are mostly homebuilt cards (except for memory). >I want pictures of those homebrew TRS-80 S-100 systems. That has to be >the coolest S-100 system ever (next to the Atari S-100 stuff I've got ;) I had hoped to update my site within the next week or two, however I expect it will get pushed off a little now, as some of the new material is worthy of waiting for - but the update will include photos of the two "TRS-80" S-100 systems - I'll post a note when I have made the update. Do you have photos of the Atari S-100 material posted? Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 10 22:51:42 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Importing binary files without removable storage nor non-bundled software (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <200501102050.MAA01656@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501102050.MAA01656@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <7D120446-638C-11D9-B017-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> I have used gphoto under GNU/Linux Gnome. I liked it until I actually got a mac and use iPhoto. http://www.gphoto.org/ On Jan 10, 2005, at 12:50 PM, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > Hi > I use windows for tax programs and digital photos. Beyond > that, I have no use for it. If these were available in > some other form, I'd use that instead. > Dwight > From pcw at mesanet.com Mon Jan 10 23:41:37 2005 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: VAX 11/750 in Utah In-Reply-To: <20050111044517.CWCG8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=510911&convertTo=USD PCW From SUPRDAVE at aol.com Mon Jan 10 23:53:57 2005 From: SUPRDAVE at aol.com (SUPRDAVE@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: geek OS Message-ID: <96.1e625acd.2f14c3f5@aol.com> People have made mention of ubuntu in this thread. My boss tried it out and like it a lot so he created a bootable cd for me and I tried it out on a computer I built from leftover parts. I used a crappy PC chips system board with onboard video and sound and put a 3com etherlink III NIC in the only slot and added a PII 400 and 512M RAM. I booted up the CD and it set up the blank hard drive and everything else with little intervention. It picked up the video card and the NIC and connected to my broadband connection. After a few hardware problems, it's up and running with mozilla. There's a package manager which can be used to bring down all the updates for installation. I expected to have to do some user configuration but it was essentially hands off! Runs pretty good and still plenty of space left on the hard drive. The sound does not work, but I expected that since I don't know what sound chipset the system board has. anyone curious about linux should check it out. also www.ubuntuforums.org From zmerch at 30below.com Tue Jan 11 00:12:10 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? In-Reply-To: <010901c4f792$4f25cde0$56406b43@66067007> References: <1105349870.11665.212370595@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050111011048.04d5bc38@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Keys may have mentioned these words: >I have two in storage. I have 1, with an extra 2" floppy drive that someday (read as: prolly never) I wanted to install that one internally in my CoCo3... ;-) Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... zmerch@30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" From zmerch at 30below.com Tue Jan 11 00:45:43 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: OT: Digital Photo Software (was: Importing binary files... (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <7D120446-638C-11D9-B017-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> References: <200501102050.MAA01656@clulw009.amd.com> <200501102050.MAA01656@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050111011348.04d6c608@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Ron Hudson may have mentioned these words: >I have used gphoto under GNU/Linux Gnome. I liked it until I >actually got a mac >and use iPhoto. Dunno about iPhoto, but my Nikon D70 had minimal support for anything, anywhere, and Nikon wanted $99 for their software to do raw editing which would crush any computer with less than 1.5Gig of RAM. Having sold my 2 each 1Gig sticks this spring as I wasn't doing much photo stuff then, that didn't seem like much of an option... until... Bibble 4 came out, supporting my D70 and so much more. The Pro version is $129, but runs fine in 512Meg, and... runs under Linux and MacOS too! With the 1 license! The author (Eric) asks that you only run it on one platform at a time, of course... There's a light version for $69 which doesn't have some of the higher-end batch features and is only licensed for one platform, which you choose at purchase. *Excellent* technical support through the forums, and he has a very flexible upgrade policy. http://www.bibblelabs.com/ [[ If you want a sample of how generous he was with upgrades from version 3, try here: http://www.bibblelabs.com/system/weborder_new.jsp ]] No affiliation other than my being a very happy customer... Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... zmerch@30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jan 11 00:51:32 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <200501102046.MAA01647@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501102046.MAA01647@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <200501110732.CAA25896@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> [top-postings repaired manually -dM] >>> Except that totem-pole outputs usually have just a transistor to >>> ground, but a transistor and resistor to Vcc. This means that the >>> one driving the signal low will win, and, provided not too many >>> outputs are wired together, it will sink the current without >>> damage. >> well, I design by specifications. The TI specs say that the short >> circuit current for 74xx series is 18ma which is also not within >> specs for the general output current capability of 16 ma. > The 16ma is for sink of the NPN to ground. The pullup is limited to > around 100ua as I recall. Limited to 100?A? That disagrees with my experience, which says that the pullup on an output is 100-200 ohms - if you drive nothing else with it, you can connect a LED from one to ground, and it's about as bright as using a switching transistor and a 100-ohm pullup to Vcc, meaning it's sourcing some 30-40 ma. While the output voltage is pulled low enough that it won't reliably drive an input high, meaning this is well outside its design range, the pullup isn't really _limiting_ the current to sub-milliamp levels. So I actually hauled out the book. Values given are from "The TTL Data Book for Design Engineers", "Second Edition", from Texas Instruments, copyright date 1976. The chip I looked up the data for is the '00. There are family differences; 54/74, 54H/74H, 54L/74L, 54LS/74LS, and 54S/74S all have different columns in the table, and the 54 and 74 families have different rows. Mostly the figures are the same for 54 vs 74, but there are some cases where this is not so. I_OH, the current sourced by a high output level, in ?A, maximum: 54/74?400; 54H/74H?500; 54L?100; 74L?200; 54LS/74LS?400; 54S/74S?1000. (The values given in the book are actually negative, because the current is sourced rather than sunk; I changed that for here.) I_OL, the current sunk by a low output level, in mA, maximum: 54/74?16; 54H/74H?20; 54L?2; 74L?3.6; 54LS?4; 74LS?8; 54S/74S?20. The schematics given do show the output with a transistor to ground and a transistor and resistor to Vcc (with a diode in series with the latter portion, for the 54/74 and 54L/74L). The nominal resistor value shown is, in ohms, 54/74?120; 54H/74H?58; 54L/74L?500; 54LS/74LS?120; 54S/74S?50. Now, _input_ pin pullups are much higher resistance. The resistances shown for those are never less than 2.8K and in one case as high as 40K. Correspondingly, the input current values are much lower: I_IH (input sink current, input high) is (?A) 54/74?40, 54H/74H?50, 54L/74L?10, 54LS/74LS?20, 54S/74S?50; I_IL (input source current, input low) is (mA) 54/74?1.6, 54H/74H?2, 54L/74L not given(!), 54LS/74LS?.4, 54S/74S?2. So yes, according to the spec, two outputs driving the same wire (to different logic levels) is well outside the spec. Which doesn't mean it won't "work", of course. :-) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 11 01:52:15 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted In-Reply-To: <20050111044517.CWCG8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Dave Dunfield wrote: > Do you have photos of the Atari S-100 material posted? Yes, but I don't know where they are. The mystery of where they came from was solved long ago, thanks to Curt Vendel and his excellent research. They were apparently built as development systems when the Atari 800 was being designed (if my memory is correct). Here's scant information from Curt's Atari Historical Society website: http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/misc/6512.html Notwithstanding what Curt says on that page, it's been pretty much confirmed that these boards were for development systems built with Cromemco hardware. I heard it from another Atari source myself. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Tue Jan 11 04:09:41 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: WTD: uPD7210 datasheet Message-ID: Hi, Does anyone have a complete copy of the NEC uPD7210 datasheet? I've just spent the past hour Google-ing for it and all I've found is a pair of "We'll give you this d/s if you pay $500" type sites, and a bunch of copies of the first page or so of the datasheet. Thanks. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI Warning: Windows is broken. Watch out for glass fragments. From GOOI at oce.nl Tue Jan 11 04:26:03 2005 From: GOOI at oce.nl (Gooijen H) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: uPD7210 datasheet Message-ID: <3C9C07E832765C4F92E96B06BDC0747A011134D0@gd-mail03.oce.nl> Hi Philip, it's been a long time, but I vagely remember the 7210 as the graphics processor from NEC. AFAIR it was used in the HX-10 or something like that (a small "laptop" thingie). If the 7210 is indeed that graphics processor chip, I can help. Possibly that graphics chip has a number that resembles 7210. I that case I'm of no help - sri - Henk, PA8PDP. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Philip Pemberton > Sent: dinsdag 11 januari 2005 11:10 > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: WTD: uPD7210 datasheet > > > Hi, > Does anyone have a complete copy of the NEC uPD7210 > datasheet? I've just > spent the past hour Google-ing for it and all I've found is a > pair of "We'll > give you this d/s if you pay $500" type sites, and a bunch of > copies of the > first page or so of the datasheet. > > Thanks. > -- > Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, > SA202, 64MB, 6GB, > philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT > Ethernet, 2-slice, > http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI > Warning: Windows is broken. Watch out for glass fragments. From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Tue Jan 11 04:49:23 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: uPD7210 datasheet In-Reply-To: <3C9C07E832765C4F92E96B06BDC0747A011134D0@gd-mail03.oce.nl> References: <3C9C07E832765C4F92E96B06BDC0747A011134D0@gd-mail03.oce.nl> Message-ID: <43da892b4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <3C9C07E832765C4F92E96B06BDC0747A011134D0@gd-mail03.oce.nl> Gooijen H wrote: > it's been a long time, but I vagely remember the 7210 as the graphics > processor from NEC. Nope - the 7210 was NEC's IEEE-488/HPIB/GPIB controller chip. I've got a CEC PCI-488 GPIB card that uses it and the "Advanced Programming" section of the manual makes a lot of references to the 7210 datasheet... What I want to do is make the CEC card act like a GPIB device that's been set to "Always Listen" mode so I can take copies of the screen on my HP 1651B logic analyser. It shouldn't be too hard to write a bit of code to convert the Laserjet control codes into a bitmap image... Later. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... Eagles Soar!, but weasels aren't sucked into jets! From GOOI at oce.nl Tue Jan 11 04:52:58 2005 From: GOOI at oce.nl (Gooijen H) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: uPD7210 datasheet Message-ID: <3C9C07E832765C4F92E96B06BDC0747A011134D1@gd-mail03.oce.nl> Ok, sorry I can't help. Then the graphics chip was the NEC7220. - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Philip Pemberton > Sent: dinsdag 11 januari 2005 11:49 > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: RE: uPD7210 datasheet > > > In message <3C9C07E832765C4F92E96B06BDC0747A011134D0@gd-mail03.oce.nl> > Gooijen H wrote: > > > it's been a long time, but I vagely remember the 7210 as > the graphics > > processor from NEC. > > Nope - the 7210 was NEC's IEEE-488/HPIB/GPIB controller chip. > I've got a CEC > PCI-488 GPIB card that uses it and the "Advanced Programming" > section of the > manual makes a lot of references to the 7210 datasheet... > > What I want to do is make the CEC card act like a GPIB device > that's been set > to "Always Listen" mode so I can take copies of the screen on > my HP 1651B > logic analyser. It shouldn't be too hard to write a bit of > code to convert > the Laserjet control codes into a bitmap image... > > Later. > -- > Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, > SA202, 64MB, 6GB, > philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT > Ethernet, 2-slice, > http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI > ... Eagles Soar!, but weasels aren't sucked into jets! > From john_a_s2004 at hotmail.com Tue Jan 11 05:34:34 2005 From: john_a_s2004 at hotmail.com (John) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: HP 9000 220 (9920) on eBay Message-ID: Hi, Spotted this early 80s computer, hope it finds a good home: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5155793160 Seller also has an old 9872A plotter. Regards, John From melamy at earthlink.net Tue Jan 11 05:42:15 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <25210736.1105443735626.JavaMail.root@dewey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> the 100ua only applies to the 74L family and it only represents the high logic level current that it will supply into other logic inputs. One of the key design specs for TTL was the input current to guarantee a specific logic level. For normal TTL, TI specs call for -1.6ma for a logic low and 40ua for a logic high (these are input currents). In other words, ten standard TTL loads for both low and high logic levels. Ten was the usual output capability of TTL outputs. Short circuit current is spec'd too and at a minimum, is 18ma for a TTL output that is high. You can find the standard logic currents on page 1076 of the 2nd edition on bitsavers and the short circuit current on the same page. Of note, the 18ma was only the minimum short circuit current, TI spec's 55ma for the maximum. It also states that you should not short more than one output at a time. Frankly, as I said before, shorting anything for any amount of time is a great way to create noise transients. I have tried to never recall anything from memory anymore on this list because there is always someone who disagrees... best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- From: "Dwight K. Elvey" Sent: Jan 10, 2005 3:46 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Re: RTL Logic Hi The 16ma is for sink of the NPN to ground. The pullup is limited to around 100ua as I recall. Dwight >From: "Steve Thatcher" > >well, I design by specifications. The TI specs say that the short circuit current for 74xx series is 18ma which is also not within specs for the general output current capability of 16 ma. Transient shorts like this are a great way to generate power supply noise. I guess I never applied any type of "preliminary hackery" to systems I have developed. > >-----Original Message----- >From: der Mouse >Sent: Jan 9, 2005 5:15 AM >To: cctalk@classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: RTL Logic > >Except that totem-pole outputs usually have just a transistor to >ground, but a transistor and resistor to Vcc. This means that the one >driving the signal low will win, and, provided not too many outputs are >wired together, it will sink the current without damage. (I've >actually built circuits that depended on this, though I've never liked >it and never considered it suitable for more than preliminary hackery. >I've also always never done it for anything where the conflict will >last more than nanoseconds, as when building an ~R/~S flip-flop out of >two cross-coupled inverters rather than the more usual NANDs or NORs.) > > From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 11 06:32:51 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050110142046.03a08768@mail.30below.com> References: <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20050110142046.03a08768@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <41E3C773.9050208@gjcp.net> Roger Merchberger wrote: > As I have to, at both work and home. Work: Peachtree. Other than that, I > SSH into all of my linux servers. ;-) Home: MPEG transcoding software > from my TiVo to SVCD. Linux just doesn't have the (inexpensive) software > yet. Good stuff is $$$$$, free stuff isn't worth dealing with. Are you on crack? Mencoder does the job admirably. Gordon JC Pearce From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 11 06:36:09 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: OT: Digital Photo Software (was: Importing binary files... (was: TKermitFTP In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050111011348.04d6c608@mail.30below.com> References: <200501102050.MAA01656@clulw009.amd.com> <200501102050.MAA01656@clulw009.amd.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20050111011348.04d6c608@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <41E3C839.7010302@gjcp.net> Roger Merchberger wrote: > Rumor has it that Ron Hudson may have mentioned these words: > >> I have used gphoto under GNU/Linux Gnome. I liked it until >> I actually got a mac >> and use iPhoto. > > > Dunno about iPhoto, but my Nikon D70 had minimal support for anything, > anywhere, and Nikon wanted $99 for their software to do raw editing > which would crush any computer with less than 1.5Gig of RAM. Having sold > my 2 each 1Gig sticks this spring as I wasn't doing much photo stuff > then, that didn't seem like much of an option... My girlfriend does a lot of digital photography. Her Fuji basically just appears as a usb-storage device, which she can then mount. A little bit of bash scripting involving convert and jhead quickly thumbnails, tags and catalogues the images. Gordon. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jan 11 06:44:50 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050111011048.04d5bc38@mail.30below.com> References: <010901c4f792$4f25cde0$56406b43@66067007> <1105349870.11665.212370595@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050111074450.00929b40@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I have a dead Minisport that I pulled the 2" drive out of and I gave it to Don Maslin along with five or so disks. No idea what happened to it after he died. One of the Minisports that I picked up this weekend is missing the 2" drive and is supposed to be dead. The other is complete and is supposed to be working but I haven't tested it yet. I got an external 3 1/2" drive with the stuff this weekend and somewhere I have one for the old dead Minisport. Joe At 01:12 AM 1/11/05 -0500, you wrote: >Rumor has it that Keys may have mentioned these words: >>I have two in storage. > >I have 1, with an extra 2" floppy drive that someday (read as: prolly >never) I wanted to install that one internally in my CoCo3... > >;-) > >Laterz, >Roger "Merch" Merchberger >-- > >Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan >sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... >zmerch@30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" > > From pkoning at equallogic.com Tue Jan 11 08:32:57 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: RTL Logic References: <200501102056.MAA01660@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <16867.58265.397703.385169@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "Dwight" == Dwight K Elvey writes: Dwight> Hi 4000 series is good to around 15 volts someplace as I Dwight> recall. I don't remember how low it goes but it seems like Dwight> 2.5v someplace. It does run slower at lower voltages and Dwight> even at 5 volts, it is really slow for logic. It really Dwight> depends on the application. True, though RTL is pretty slow too, so 4000 series CMOS might fit well in that respect. On the other hand, RTL logic thresholds for a given Vcc are likely to differ from CMOS thresholds, and that would be a trouble area. paul From news at computercollector.com Tue Jan 11 08:36:36 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... Message-ID: <20050111143636.19138.qmail@web52809.mail.yahoo.com> http://news.com.com/How+the+Mac+was+born%2C+and+other+tales/2008-1082_3-5529081.html?tag=nefd.lede ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 644 readers and counting! From pkoning at equallogic.com Tue Jan 11 08:41:51 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: WTD: uPD7210 datasheet References: Message-ID: <16867.58799.697084.661722@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "Philip" == Philip Pemberton writes: Philip> Hi, Does anyone have a complete copy of the NEC uPD7210 Philip> datasheet? I've just spent the past hour Google-ing for it Philip> and all I've found is a pair of "We'll give you this d/s if Philip> you pay $500" type sites, and a bunch of copies of the first Philip> page or so of the datasheet. NEC seems to be very unhelpful about that processor family. I think I have something similar, not a datasheet but an instruction set manual. Would that be of interest? I was hoping to use it to reverse engineer the microcode in my Kenwood TS-440. It sort of worked, but the manual doesn't actually match exactly what's in the radio... paul, ni1d From pkoning at equallogic.com Tue Jan 11 08:46:57 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: OT: Digital Photo Software (was: Importing binary files... (was: TKermitFTP References: <200501102050.MAA01656@clulw009.amd.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20050111011348.04d6c608@mail.30below.com> <41E3C839.7010302@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <16867.59105.346978.746210@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "Gordon" == Gordon JC Pearce writes: Gordon> My girlfriend does a lot of digital photography. Her Fuji Gordon> basically just appears as a usb-storage device, which she can Gordon> then mount. A little bit of bash scripting involving convert Gordon> and jhead quickly thumbnails, tags and catalogues the images. The same goes for, at least, Nikon's compact-flash based 880 camera (and probably all the others at least from Nikon). You can buy a $10 CF to PCMCIA adapter and plug that into your laptop. It'll look like a plain ordinary FAT filesystem, which Win or Linux will happily process. If you're using "raw" format, then you'll need a program that knows the particular camera's proprietary format. (It seems that recent Photoshop versions do; it's not something that applies to my camera.) If the camera uses JPG or TIFF format, you'll be able to use any decent graphics tool to manipulate those. I wish I knew why iPhoto transfers across the USB at less than 1/2 the speed that the Nikon hack on Win98 does... paul From vp at cs.drexel.edu Tue Jan 11 08:55:52 2005 From: vp at cs.drexel.edu (Vassilis Prevelakis) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: geek OS Message-ID: <20050111145552.6B39C3BAB6@queen.cs.drexel.edu> "Zane H. Healy" wrote: > Sorry, I want to run either MWM (talk about sick and twisted), [...] Wow, I thought I was the only one running mwm! I have one of the original source distributions and have been carrying it with me all these years. Now it is running on a dual screen machine under OpenBSD 3.4. Although it was considered slow and bloated when it came out (14+ years ago), nowadays the same code is considered fast and slim (times change). BTW this is what I really really really like about source distributions, you do not depend on the vendor to port the software. **vp From fabtagon at gmx.de Tue Jan 11 08:30:22 2005 From: fabtagon at gmx.de (=?ISO-8859-15?Q?Fabian_H=E4nsel?=) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: hardware fault on SGI Indigo? Message-ID: <41E3E2FE.1050406@gmx.de> Hello, indeed it's been a faulty drive. Now the machine works pretty fine. Thanks to everybody, especially to Scott Quinn for pointing me to the diagnostic program IDE. Fabian From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jan 11 10:12:09 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: VAX 11/750 in Utah In-Reply-To: References: <20050111044517.CWCG8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <26c11a6405011108122dc16ddd@mail.gmail.com> ` On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 21:41:37 -0800 (PST), Peter C. Wallace wrote: > > > http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=510911&convertTo=USD > > > PCW > > Bastards, why can't the good stuff be over this side of the water ! Dan From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jan 11 10:18:12 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: <20050111145552.6B39C3BAB6@queen.cs.drexel.edu> References: <20050111145552.6B39C3BAB6@queen.cs.drexel.edu> Message-ID: >"Zane H. Healy" wrote: >> Sorry, I want to run either MWM (talk about sick and twisted), [...] > >Wow, I thought I was the only one running mwm! I have one of the >original source distributions and have been carrying it with me >all these years. Now it is running on a dual screen machine under >OpenBSD 3.4. Although it was considered slow and bloated when it >came out (14+ years ago), nowadays the same code is considered >fast and slim (times change). Hey, I like your reasons! That's exactly why I run it! Though I find the concept of considering MWM to be a lightweight window manager to be mind boggling, but today it is. The other WM I've been known to use in the past couple years is TWM, but I really don't like it. >BTW this is what I really really really like about source distributions, >you do not depend on the vendor to port the software. I'm not that lucky, I have to depend on a vendor. Of course all this talk about lightweight Window Managers, and I'm writing this on a Mac OS X box which has one of the heaviest GUI's around (which is the one thing I don't like about it). Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jan 11 10:25:19 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: <41E3C773.9050208@gjcp.net> References: <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20050110142046.03a08768@mail.30below.com> <41E3C773.9050208@gjcp.net> Message-ID: >Roger Merchberger wrote: > >>As I have to, at both work and home. Work: Peachtree. Other than >>that, I SSH into all of my linux servers. ;-) Home: MPEG >>transcoding software from my TiVo to SVCD. Linux just doesn't have >>the (inexpensive) software yet. Good stuff is $$$$$, free stuff >>isn't worth dealing with. > >Are you on crack? Mencoder does the job admirably. > >Gordon JC Pearce I've got to agree with Roger, the free encoders just aren't worth messing with. The interesting thing is that $50 gets you TMPGEnc Plus on Windows, which is one of the best encoders around. Given the choice between that and the Compressor (Pro Apple software) on my G5 PowerMac, and I'll take TMPGEnc Plus, at least for VCD or SVCD. I have used Compressor to do Anamorphic Widescreen home movies, and for MPEG2, it is probably better. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net Tue Jan 11 10:44:15 2005 From: netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net (David Vohs) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050110223309.00925500@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050110223309.00925500@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <1105461855.17277.212493859@webmail.messagingengine.com> Good score Joe! You didn't happen to get an external floppy drive in the mix, did you? > I just bought two of them (and plenty of disks :-) this weekend. > > Joe > David M. Vohs Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. "Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. "Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2. "Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board. "Scout": Otrona Attache. (prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II. "TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander + "Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000. "Neon": Zenith Minisport. From netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net Tue Jan 11 10:45:54 2005 From: netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net (David Vohs) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? In-Reply-To: <010901c4f792$4f25cde0$56406b43@66067007> References: <1105349870.11665.212370595@webmail.messagingengine.com> <010901c4f792$4f25cde0$56406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <1105461954.17465.212494197@webmail.messagingengine.com> Do you have any external drives that you are willing to part with? On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:02:01 -0600, "Keys" said: > I have two in storage. From jrkeys at concentric.net Tue Jan 11 11:04:09 2005 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? References: <1105349870.11665.212370595@webmail.messagingengine.com><010901c4f792$4f25cde0$56406b43@66067007> <1105461954.17465.212494197@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <004a01c4f7ff$927663d0$54406b43@66067007> Sorry, I have only that I can remember? ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Vohs" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 10:45 AM Subject: Re: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? > Do you have any external drives that you are willing to part with? > > On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 22:02:01 -0600, "Keys" said: >> I have two in storage. > From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jan 11 11:11:37 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: References: <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <41E3C773.9050208@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <200501111211.37398.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 11 January 2005 11:25, Zane H. Healy wrote: > >Roger Merchberger wrote: > >>As I have to, at both work and home. Work: Peachtree. Other than > >>that, I SSH into all of my linux servers. ;-) Home: MPEG > >>transcoding software from my TiVo to SVCD. Linux just doesn't have > >>the (inexpensive) software yet. Good stuff is $$$$$, free stuff > >>isn't worth dealing with. > > > >Are you on crack? Mencoder does the job admirably. > > > >Gordon JC Pearce > > I've got to agree with Roger, the free encoders just aren't worth > messing with. The interesting thing is that $50 gets you TMPGEnc And I'll have to agree with Gordon. I've used mecnoder to transcode several things from MJPEG (what my video capture card spits out) to MPEG4/DivX. It usually works flawlessly. The only bear is getting it set up the first time (and figuring out the command line). But once you've got "a Clue", it works great. Of course, by now we've drifted WAY off topic... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jan 11 12:39:05 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? In-Reply-To: <1105461855.17277.212493859@webmail.messagingengine.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050110223309.00925500@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050110223309.00925500@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050111133905.0092ab80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Yes I did. And I think I also have another around here somewhere. Joe At 06:44 AM 1/11/05 -1000, you wrote: >Good score Joe! You didn't happen to get an external floppy drive in the >mix, did you? > >> I just bought two of them (and plenty of disks :-) this weekend. >> >> Joe >> > >David M. Vohs >Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian > >Computer Collection: > >"Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. >"Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II. >"Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. >"Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III. >"Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. >"Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. >"Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2. >"Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board. >"Scout": Otrona Attache. >(prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II. >"TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander + >"Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000. >"Neon": Zenith Minisport. > > From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Tue Jan 11 12:51:28 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: ISA-based SCSI card Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFC2D@exchange.olf.com> with all the talk about ISA-based SCSI cards, here is 8-bit XT ISA SCSI card on epay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=167&item=5120034528&r d=1&ssPageName=WD1V Cheers, Ram (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From zmerch at 30below.com Tue Jan 11 13:08:56 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: geek OS In-Reply-To: References: <41E3C773.9050208@gjcp.net> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20050110142046.03a08768@mail.30below.com> <41E3C773.9050208@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050111130044.00b050b8@mail.30below.com> {{{ > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >>Roger Merchberger wrote: >>>As I have to, at both work and home. Work: Peachtree. Other than that, I >>>SSH into all of my linux servers. ;-) Home: MPEG transcoding software >>>from my TiVo to SVCD. Linux just doesn't have the (inexpensive) software >>>yet. Good stuff is $$$$$, free stuff isn't worth dealing with. >> >>Are you on crack? Mencoder does the job admirably. Having never even smoked pot, I *should* be offended by that... but I won't. 'Course, having been xcoding MPEGs from my TiVo for almost 4 years, and having seen the output of Mencoder compared to TMPGEnc, I *should* be offended by that... As I do *many* shows (for my wife, mainly) I also rely heavily on AviSynth -- a most excellent tool for assembling, resizing (it even supports Lanczos resizing, and has plugins for *everything*), and scripting -- and as it's all text, I have a custom GUI Python program for determining the commercial breaks & final bandwidth to just fill an SVCD, And is there a decent tool similar to VirtualDub that can help me *find* the commercial breaks to cut them? === Just because your tool works good *for you* certainly does not mean it's not suitable for me due to a drug habit. }}} and rumor has it that Zane H. Healy may have mentioned these words: >I've got to agree with Roger, the free encoders just aren't worth messing >with. The interesting thing is that $50 gets you TMPGEnc Plus on Windows, >which is one of the best encoders around. Given the choice between that >and the Compressor (Pro Apple software) on my G5 PowerMac, and I'll take >TMPGEnc Plus, at least for VCD or SVCD. I have used Compressor to do >Anamorphic Widescreen home movies, and for MPEG2, it is probably better. SVCD is MPEG2 -- and I've put TMPGEnc head-to-head with Premiere 6.0, and I saw little difference; certainly not to justify the difference in price. Once I found and learned AviSynth, I'll put the combo of the 2 against darned near anything for speed, ease of use and quality. AviSynth is one of those tools that it takes a bit'o'learning to use, but once you do, resizing, deinterlacing, decimating & whatnot are childs play. Anyway, that's all I have to say. Thanks, Zane! Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Bugs of a feather flock together." sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | Russell Nelson zmerch@30below.com | From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Tue Jan 11 13:12:01 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: uPD7210 datasheet In-Reply-To: Philip Pemberton "RE: uPD7210 datasheet" (Jan 11, 10:49) References: <3C9C07E832765C4F92E96B06BDC0747A011134D0@gd-mail03.oce.nl> <43da892b4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <10501111912.ZM4685@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 11 2005, 10:49, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Nope - the 7210 was NEC's IEEE-488/HPIB/GPIB controller chip. I've got a CEC > PCI-488 GPIB card that uses it and the "Advanced Programming" section of the > manual makes a lot of references to the 7210 datasheet... NEC discontinued the 7210 a while ago, but a company called ComputerBoards makes a drop-in replacement. It has some extensions, so not everything described in the datasheet would work on a real uPD7210, but it might help. They have a 14-page data sheet on their website: http://www.7210.com/frames.html -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jan 11 13:56:57 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 11 Jan 2005 06:36:36 PST." <20050111143636.19138.qmail@web52809.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200501111956.j0BJuva9000433@mwave.heeltoe.com> Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >http://news.com.com/How+the+Mac+was+born%2C+and+other+tales/2008-1082_3-552908 >1.html?tag=nefd.lede huh. The world according to Andy. Certainly one side of the story, but not the only side I suspect. I'd be curious to hear what Steve Capps and Joanna Hoffman think of the book :-) (I remember being yelled at by mr. jobs in 1985. eeeyow. blew my hair back!) -brad From news at computercollector.com Tue Jan 11 14:07:12 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501111956.j0BJuva9000433@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <20050111200712.1039.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> You were yelled at by Jobs? Please share the tale with the rest of us. :) If it's any consolation, I was once "Ellison'd" at an Oracle press conference in 2001. My question was about the impact of open-source infrastructure and open-source databases like MySQL, etc. He said the question was "stupid". LOL, but a short time later, Oracle started a big marketing push about Linux. --- Brad Parker wrote: > > Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > >http://news.com.com/How+the+Mac+was+born%2C+and+other+tales/2008-1082_3-552908 > >1.html?tag=nefd.lede > > huh. The world according to Andy. > > Certainly one side of the story, but not the only side I suspect. > > I'd be curious to hear what Steve Capps and Joanna Hoffman think of the > book :-) > > (I remember being yelled at by mr. jobs in 1985. eeeyow. blew my hair > back!) > > -brad > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 644 readers and counting! From uban at ubanproductions.com Tue Jan 11 14:21:54 2005 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Zendex ZX-564 and ZBX-288 multibus SCSI In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050111130044.00b050b8@mail.30below.com> References: <41E3C773.9050208@gjcp.net> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <20050107161003.X30134@shell.lmi.net> <19943.195.212.29.83.1105190598.squirrel@195.212.29.83> <20050109132031.F638@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20050110142046.03a08768@mail.30below.com> <41E3C773.9050208@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20050111142048.04cc24a8@mail.ubanproductions.com> Does anyone have one of these board sets? --tnx --tom From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 11 14:24:56 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Zendex ZX-564 and ZBX-288 multibus SCSI In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20050111142048.04cc24a8@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Tom Uban wrote: > Does anyone have one of these board sets? I have a Zendex Multibus system but I have no idea if it has the board set in it. And for what it's worth, Zendex still exists (near me in Dublin, California). -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From uban at ubanproductions.com Tue Jan 11 14:42:42 2005 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: Zendex ZX-564 and ZBX-288 multibus SCSI In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.0.9.0.20050111142048.04cc24a8@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20050111144130.02265d00@mail.ubanproductions.com> At 12:24 PM 1/11/2005 -0800, you wrote: >On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Tom Uban wrote: > > > Does anyone have one of these board sets? > >I have a Zendex Multibus system but I have no idea if it has the board set >in it. Would you please check? If so, are you willing to part with it? >And for what it's worth, Zendex still exists (near me in Dublin, >California). I noticed that they seem to still have a web page and all, but I was hoping not to have to buy new product... --tnx --tom >-- > >Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > >[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] >[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 11 14:33:43 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050111200712.1039.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> References: <200501111956.j0BJuva9000433@mwave.heeltoe.com> <20050111200712.1039.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050111143306.05702b30@mail> At 02:07 PM 1/11/2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >You were yelled at by Jobs? Please share the tale with the rest of us. :) This is not a rare event. I would guess there must be a web site devoted to such tales. They happen/ed regularly. - John From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 11 17:25:33 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050111143306.05702b30@mail> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > At 02:07 PM 1/11/2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > >You were yelled at by Jobs? Please share the tale with the rest of us. :) > > This is not a rare event. I would guess there must be a web site > devoted to such tales. They happen/ed regularly. I haven't (yet) been yelled at by Jobs but I have been given a dirty look by Bill Gates. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 11 18:18:49 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: WTD: uPD7210 datasheet In-Reply-To: from "Philip Pemberton" at Jan 11, 5 10:09:41 am Message-ID: > > Hi, > Does anyone have a complete copy of the NEC uPD7210 datasheet? I've just I almost certainly have it (I have the 3-volume NEC microprocessor/peripheral databnok from the right period), but of course it's on paper and I don;t have a scanner. Still, if you need some information from it, just ask away. It's a GPIB controller, right? The 7201 is the multi-protocol serial chip, and the 7220 the graphics processor. I know I have the 7201 and 7220 data sheets... -tony From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Tue Jan 11 19:30:13 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: WTD: uPD7210 datasheet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In message ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > I almost certainly have it (I have the 3-volume NEC > microprocessor/peripheral databnok from the right period), but of course > it's on paper and I don;t have a scanner. Still, if you need some > information from it, just ask away. > It's a GPIB controller, right? The 7201 is the multi-protocol serial > chip, and the 7220 the graphics processor. I know I have the 7201 and > 7220 data sheets... Yep - the NEC uPD7210C is (as far as NEC are concerned) an "Intelligent GPIB Interface Controller". I've since found out that SMC (Standard Microsystems) second-sourced it as the COM 7210 - I've been working from the SMC datasheet, which isn't too bad. What I would like to do is get hold of a few 7210s to play around with. A GPIB-controlled power supply would be rather neat - that or a Gameboy Camera hooked up to the GPIB. I think I've still got some Fairchild 96LS488 GPIB controller chips lying around somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can find a datasheet for them anywhere. Cue the inevitable bunch of people accusing me of being lazy for thinking about using a GPIB chip instead of bitbanging GPIB in software... Later. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... Ancient Greeks made dolphin-killing punishable by death. From tomj at wps.com Tue Jan 11 20:09:00 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:53 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050111180758.Y4566@localhost> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > I haven't (yet) been yelled at by Jobs but I have been given a dirty look > by Bill Gates. Yeah? My brother Karl is a *dead ringer* for Gates. Really. But he has't yelled at me in recent memory. NOW I think I've drifted off topic! :-) From frustum at pacbell.net Tue Jan 11 20:36:39 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E48D37.2040207@pacbell.net> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > > >>At 02:07 PM 1/11/2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >> >>>You were yelled at by Jobs? Please share the tale with the rest of us. :) >> >>This is not a rare event. I would guess there must be a web site >>devoted to such tales. They happen/ed regularly. > > > I haven't (yet) been yelled at by Jobs but I have been given a dirty look > by Bill Gates. This is perhaps bad to tell a second hand story, but it is on thread and I'll keep it short. A good friend/mac fanatic since 1985 was quite excited that an apple store was opening in chicago. he went just about every day for a week. after a couple weeks he called the store at opening time to ask if they had something or other in stock. they were supposed to open at 10am. he called at 10am, and the phone rang and rang. he called again, same thing. finally, at 10:05 someone finally answered. perturbed, he wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him that the chicago store was slacking off. the reply came minutes later, personally from steve jobs: Dennis, you are an asshole. Steve From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jan 11 20:46:30 2005 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... References: <41E48D37.2040207@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <001a01c4f850$ebb004f0$0500fea9@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Battle" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 9:36 PM Subject: Re: How the Mac was born... supposedly... > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > > > > > >>At 02:07 PM 1/11/2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > >> > >>>You were yelled at by Jobs? Please share the tale with the rest of us. :) > >> > >>This is not a rare event. I would guess there must be a web site > >>devoted to such tales. They happen/ed regularly. > > > > > > I haven't (yet) been yelled at by Jobs but I have been given a dirty look > > by Bill Gates. > > This is perhaps bad to tell a second hand story, but it is on thread and > I'll keep it short. > > A good friend/mac fanatic since 1985 was quite excited that an apple > store was opening in chicago. he went just about every day for a week. > after a couple weeks he called the store at opening time to ask if > they had something or other in stock. they were supposed to open at > 10am. he called at 10am, and the phone rang and rang. he called again, > same thing. finally, at 10:05 someone finally answered. perturbed, he > wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him that the chicago store was > slacking off. the reply came minutes later, personally from steve jobs: > > Dennis, you are an asshole. > > Steve > > You shave made him print it out and then go frame the email. What did your friend the Mac fanatic say about this comment from his idle? From CCTalk at catcorner.org Tue Jan 11 20:53:09 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C67@mail.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Dunfield [mailto:dave04a@dunfield.com] > Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 11:45 PM > > > >> ** Two of the S-100 homebuilts are actually complete TRS-80's > >> implemented on S-100 cards - they run the TRS-80 ROMs unmodified > >> (with disk system) and load/run TRS-80 software! > > > >Holy crap II! That is fucking cool! Pictures!!! > > I thought so too - Very unique S-100 systems - I will be getting them > up and running, and will let you know how they work out. They > are mostly > homebuilt cards (except for memory). > > > >I want pictures of those homebrew TRS-80 S-100 systems. > That has to be > >the coolest S-100 system ever (next to the Atari S-100 stuff > I've got ;) > Are these Z80 TRS-80 systems, or the 68000 systems? There actually were some S-100 like systems (same connector, different board form factor) of the model 16/6000 series. They were used in large (for the time) dialup systems. I think they had 2+meg of ram and 2 or 3 four port serial cards. I have never seen these, only heard about them. Some were even modified to run 68010 CPUs. There are instructions out there somewhere for this mod, but no-one seems to have them readily available. They "lore" is that these instructions were saved in the swap area of one of the install boot diskettes. I was able to find and extract the games that were hidden there, but never these instructions. Kelly From frustum at pacbell.net Tue Jan 11 21:27:56 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <001a01c4f850$ebb004f0$0500fea9@game> References: <41E48D37.2040207@pacbell.net> <001a01c4f850$ebb004f0$0500fea9@game> Message-ID: <41E4993C.5020409@pacbell.net> Teo Zenios wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jim Battle" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 9:36 PM > Subject: Re: How the Mac was born... supposedly... > > > >>Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >> >> >>>On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>>At 02:07 PM 1/11/2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>>You were yelled at by Jobs? Please share the tale with the rest of us. > > :) > >>>>This is not a rare event. I would guess there must be a web site >>>>devoted to such tales. They happen/ed regularly. >>> >>> >>>I haven't (yet) been yelled at by Jobs but I have been given a dirty > > look > >>>by Bill Gates. >> >>This is perhaps bad to tell a second hand story, but it is on thread and >>I'll keep it short. >> >>A good friend/mac fanatic since 1985 was quite excited that an apple >>store was opening in chicago. he went just about every day for a week. >> after a couple weeks he called the store at opening time to ask if >>they had something or other in stock. they were supposed to open at >>10am. he called at 10am, and the phone rang and rang. he called again, >>same thing. finally, at 10:05 someone finally answered. perturbed, he >>wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him that the chicago store was >>slacking off. the reply came minutes later, personally from steve jobs: >> >>Dennis, you are an asshole. >> >>Steve >> >> > > > You shave made him print it out and then go frame the email. > What did your friend the Mac fanatic say about this comment from his idle? My friend was quite proud and honored. He had long heard that Jobs does personally answer a fraction of his email, plus he figured some subordinate would not have permission to call someone an asshole and sign Jobs' name to it. The net result is my friend has mailed Jobs a number of times since on various topics. He received one other reply, but I forget what it was about. I think Jobs response was something like, "Huh?" From tponsford at theriver.com Fri Jan 7 09:19:16 2005 From: tponsford at theriver.com (Tom Ponsford) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Auction goodies Message-ID: <41DEA874.1000500@theriver.com> Another good auction! For my $20 hard-earned dollars I picked up: a tabletop 9348-012 IBM SCSI (differential) 9-track tape drive (woohoo) so I can now make software tapes for my PDP's on my peecee!! Anybody have a manual for this beast?? I will gladly pay copying and mailing costs!! an Ohio Scientific 600 Single board computer (circa 1980) w/ power supply and cassette software along with these manuals: Servicing Data for Computer Boards 600 & 610 (challenger series) Assembler editor and Extended Monitor Reference Manual (C1P, C4P and C8P) Basic Reference Manual (ROM 65D and 65U) 65V Primer C1P and C1P MF Introductory Manual The Cip Users Manual Also a couple of IBM AT's (for the MFM drives) A couple of SGI Indy's (r5000's) miscellaneous peecee computer parts All-in-all a good day!! Cheers Tom -- --- Please do not read this sig. If you have read this far, please unread back to the beginning. From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Tue Jan 11 22:26:18 2005 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Auction goodies In-Reply-To: <41DEA874.1000500@theriver.com> Message-ID: > Another good auction! For my $20 hard-earned dollars I picked up: < snip some stuff > > an Ohio Scientific 600 Single board computer (circa 1980) w/ > power supply and > cassette software along with these manuals: > > Servicing Data for Computer Boards 600 & 610 (challenger series) > Assembler editor and Extended Monitor Reference Manual (C1P, C4P and C8P) > Basic Reference Manual (ROM 65D and 65U) > 65V Primer > C1P and C1P MF Introductory Manual > The Cip Users Manual Clearly, I am not attending the right auctions! Where was this? Bill From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Jan 11 22:34:11 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Amdahl tapes In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20050109210208.05881170@mail.marcal.com> Message-ID: > Is there anyone currently working with Amdahl equipment? I was once offered an Amdahl, but I declined. I was still in high school at the time. These days, I probably would jump hoops for one. > While I've read "There Are No Electrons" (written by Kenn > Amdahl) I don't happen to have any Amdahl equipment -- so > if there is anyone with an interest in these tapes please contact > me off-list for trades, etc. I don't really need them (no Amdalh, as above), but please don't erase them if nobody bites. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 11 22:44:47 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Amdahl tapes In-Reply-To: References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050109210208.05881170@mail.marcal.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050111224320.058a4650@mail> >> While I've read "There Are No Electrons" (written by Kenn >> Amdahl) After looking at the description and reviews on Amazon (and resisting the urge to give an affliate-plug link), I'm curious about other opinions of this book. Would it be good for a kid? - John From jdbryan at acm.org Tue Jan 11 09:44:51 2005 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: WTD: uPD7210 datasheet In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200501111544.j0BFisu2015121@mail.bcpl.net> Phil, On 11 Jan 2005 at 10:09, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Does anyone have a complete copy of the NEC uPD7210 datasheet? I have the 1987 NEC Microcomputer Products databook. If you still need a scan of the datasheet, let me know. "uPD7210 Intelligent GPIB Controller" is 12 pages long. -- Dave From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Tue Jan 11 10:00:18 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Thorn EMI Proton Detection System Commodore PET (UK) Message-ID: A friend of mine who works for a large local organisation rescued this fascinating piece of kit from being thrown in a dumpster. It is a modified PET (the later series without the cassette drive) with the "Commodore" name strip replaced with a "Thorn EMI" one. It is internally modified with one or several? more boards mounted in it, and there are several ports which have been added to the right hand side - these include two BNCs which IIRC were Analogue In and Analogue Out, a 25-pin D RS232, and several others I don't recall. The machine also has new ROMs in it - however the original ones are stored within it in a small perspex box attached to the baseplace (how thoughtful is that?). I didn't get to see it run. There is also a Commodore dual floppy drive for the unit with it (using half-height drives). Another contact I have at this place is a collector of old computers so I suspect he will have his eye on this, however he has a PET in his collection already, so if this unit is of particular historical importance and someone wants it for their museum where it will go on display (Witchy? Jules?) I might be able to get it for you on this basis. I could certainly try. Is anyone interested? From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jan 11 10:57:03 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050111143636.19138.qmail@web52809.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050111143636.19138.qmail@web52809.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41E4055F.3070204@oldskool.org> Nothing "supposedly" about it, most of the anecdotes ring true. You can read the entire book at www.folklore.org, since that's where the content comes from. Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > http://news.com.com/How+the+Mac+was+born%2C+and+other+tales/2008-1082_3-5529081.html?tag=nefd.lede > > ===== > Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! > > -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address > -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us > -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all > -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com > -- 644 readers and counting! -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From Watzman at neo.rr.com Tue Jan 11 12:29:36 2005 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Need Altos Tape Interface Program (TIP) In-Reply-To: <200501111801.j0BI0PKv011287@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200501111829.j0BITZlw025173@ms-smtp-01-eri0.ohiordc.rr.com> I have several versions, circa 1982-1985, of Alloy's "TIP" tape program. However, there is nothing about them that is Altos specific, they had a "general purpose" S-100 interface board. I believe that they are all 8-bit CP/M-80 programs. Contact me if you want to discuss further. Barry Watzman (Watzman@yahoo.com) From websupport at degnanco.com Tue Jan 11 12:41:36 2005 From: websupport at degnanco.com (Degnan Co.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: AIM65 with unknown second board Message-ID: Jules, Most often expansion boards that came from Rockwell are 6 1/4" x 4" and fit into the Rockwell AIM expansion chassis. I bet this is a custom (?) XEROX prom monitor card adapted for the AIM 65. The card would not fit in the Rockwell expansion chassis. I have a lot of Rockwell hardware and documentation. If you send me the part # of the board I can look it up to confirm. Bill >Message: 22 >Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 13:16:45 +0000 >From: Jules Richardson >Subject: AIM65 with unknown second board >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Message-ID: <1105363005.13406.26.camel@weka.localdomain> >Content-Type: text/plain > >Afternoon... > >We were given an AIM65 the other day (first time I've seen a real one) >in a rather fetching custom blue case that has a carry handle on one >edge. It was apparently used by Xerox for some for of magnetic media >testing way back when; it still carries a Xerox asset tag on the back. > >Unfortunately in between the previous owner saying they wanted it when >it was retired and them going to collect it, it got thrown into a skip - >so there's some damage to the case and the red display cover needs >replacing. Luckily the electronics survived, apart from one broken >switch. > >Curious thing about the machine is that it has a second board mounted >under the main board, containing quite a bit of circuitry. I was >wondering whether this second board is something custom produced by >Xerox (there are no marks indicating manufacturer) or whether it was an >official off-the-shelf expansion board... > >Quick and dirty pics at: > >http://www.moosenet.demon.co.uk/temp/comps/aim65/ > >Wish I'd brought the machine home now, but I can get a list of the main >ICs on that second board when I'm next at the musuem if needs be. > >Note that there seems to be no RAM on the AIM65 board itself, - just ROM >- but there are 16 4116 chips on the expansion board. > From websupport at degnanco.com Tue Jan 11 13:17:11 2005 From: websupport at degnanco.com (Degnan Co.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: AIM65 with unknown second board Message-ID: Jules, Update to my previous reply: The board found on http://www.moosenet. demon.co.uk/temp/comps/aim65/board_front.jpg could be a Memory-Mate board. >From Electronic Design magazine November 1981: "..these fit underneith the AIM-65 to privide 16 to 48 kbytes of RAM expansion, four programable I/O ports, timers and counters, and PROM sockets. The board interfaces with the Rockwell computer's expansion connector. Another card, called the STD-Mate, connects to the Memory-Mate to link the system with an STD-bus motherboard and card cage, thus permitting STD-bus systems to be developed using the examine, alter, simple step, trace, breakpoint, and other features of the AIM-65." Bill Degnan Wilmington, Delaware vintagecomputer.net From adamg at pobox.com Tue Jan 11 15:06:39 2005 From: adamg at pobox.com (Adam Goldman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: uPD7210 datasheet Message-ID: <20050111210639.GB17431@silme.pair.com> The newer IEEE-488 chips emulate either the uPD7210 or the TMS9914 or both, so their docs might have the info you want. You should be able to find the following online: National Instruments TNT4882 Programmer Reference Manual 320724-01 National Instruments NAT7210BPD datasheet National Instruments NAT9914 Reference Manual (9914 but with 7210 mode) ines ieee488.2 iGPIB Hardware Manual Computerboards CB7210.2 data sheet Also, the source for Linux/NetBSD/FreeBSD IEEE-488 drivers might be helpful. -- Adam From adamg at pobox.com Tue Jan 11 15:23:12 2005 From: adamg at pobox.com (Adam Goldman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's Message-ID: <20050111212311.GA46012@silme.pair.com> Brad Parker wrote: > If no one else can dig anything up let me know. I know a lot of > ex-shiva people - I might be able to find something. I'll send off some > email. Any chance you could get a spec for the Shiva Pipe protocol used by the LANrovers? -- Adam From quapla at xs4all.nl Wed Jan 12 06:14:53 2005 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (quapla@xs4all.nl) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Some Genicom printer stuff available Message-ID: <16404.62.177.191.201.1105532093.squirrel@62.177.191.201> I have some 400 fingers available for Genicom line printers. They should fit the models 310/320/33/ & 340. About 25 are individually packed in platic bags, the others are in 2 tubes with approx 200 fingers each. There are also 3 extractor tools and some instruction sheets. Free for the cost of postage. Ed G. From news at computercollector.com Wed Jan 12 08:16:07 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: world's smallest hard drive Message-ID: <20050112141607.77831.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> http://news.com.com/Disk+drives+to+stop+shrinking/2100-1004_3-5532612.html?tag=nefd.lede ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 646 readers and counting! From dave04a at dunfield.com Wed Jan 12 08:23:29 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted Message-ID: <20050112142329.ZQJO8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> >> >> ** Two of the S-100 homebuilts are actually complete TRS-80's >> >> implemented on S-100 cards - they run the TRS-80 ROMs unmodified >> >> (with disk system) and load/run TRS-80 software! >> > >Are these Z80 TRS-80 systems, or the 68000 systems? There actually were some >S-100 like systems (same connector, different board form factor) of the >model 16/6000 series. They were used in large (for the time) dialup systems. >I think they had 2+meg of ram and 2 or 3 four port serial cards. I have >never seen these, only heard about them. Some were even modified to run >68010 CPUs. There are instructions out there somewhere for this mod, but >no-one seems to have them readily available. They "lore" is that these >instructions were saved in the swap area of one of the install boot >diskettes. I was able to find and extract the games that were hidden there, >but never these instructions. Yes, they are Z80 TRS-80 systems - the guy basically replicated a TRS-80 in homebuilt S-100 cards. I should have pictures up within the next week or two. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 12 08:37:45 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050112083356.0579cff0@mail> I'd seen the commercials for this instant-on battery-powered soldering iron and wondered if I should add it to my tool box. I saw this FAQ on Thinkgeek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/files/FAQ040504.pdf which made me think twice: Q: What kind of soldering projects is this tool recommended for? A: Based on the specifications mentioned above, we recommend this tool for most electrical projects (such as wires 18-24 AWG), small jewelry repair, and larger electronic projects. We do not recommend it for soldering of large metallic components that require a lot of heat transfer or for soldering sensitive electronic components that may be damaged by fast-rising temperatures or high electrical current. (Momentary high-amperage current will be created during active soldering.) Q: What is the spark I see sometimes during soldering? A: The spark (arc) is caused by the passing of electrical current from one half of the tip to the other. Although in testing the tool’s spark did not damage any electrical or electronic components, we recommend caution when soldering sensitive components. Also, ensure that the tool is not used in flammable or explosive environments. - John From james at jdfogg.com Wed Jan 12 08:46:26 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (James) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050112083356.0579cff0@mail> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > > I'd seen the commercials for this instant-on battery-powered > soldering iron and wondered if I should add it to my tool box. > > I saw this FAQ on Thinkgeek: I fucking thought so. I've been trying to figger out how it works and the only answer I could come up with is that there is no heat, just a dead short that makes the object-to-be-soldered get hot. From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Wed Jan 12 08:49:52 2005 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Modern-ish HP 7908 disk drive? Message-ID: <29244.1105541392@www65.gmx.net> Hello everybody! You might remember my question about transport-locking HP-IB Harddisks last year; Al Kossow kindly added the installation manual to his Bitsavers site. Today I had a go at the drives; two of them (the 7912 and the standalone 7908) were absolutely no problem to do using the information he provided. The rackmount 7908 however was not - it looked very different inside; a completely different technology, it must be a later revision. No die-cast HDA taking up the whole width of the housing, merely a modernish smoked PMMA (?) hood covering several 8" (if so large) platters in the front-left corner of the assembly. No accessible spindle drive or actuator to be seen and no obvious way to lock everything in place. Can anybody please shed some light on how to prepare this unit? We don't want to risk transporting it as it is because the head assembly already moved when I only pulled the drive out of the rack. TIA, -- Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de +++ GMX - die erste Adresse für Mail, Message, More +++ 1 GB Mailbox bereits in GMX FreeMail http://www.gmx.net/de/go/mail From james at jdfogg.com Wed Jan 12 08:50:10 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (James) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, James wrote: > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > > > > > I'd seen the commercials for this instant-on battery-powered > > soldering iron and wondered if I should add it to my tool box. > > > > I saw this FAQ on Thinkgeek: > > I fucking thought so. I've been trying to figger out how it works and the > only answer I could come up with is that there is no heat, just a dead > short that makes the object-to-be-soldered get hot. I appologize for my language, I thought I was replying to a different list where such language isn't uncommon. From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 09:10:13 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <41E48D37.2040207@pacbell.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Jim Battle wrote: > A good friend/mac fanatic since 1985 was quite excited that an apple > store was opening in chicago. he went just about every day for a week. > after a couple weeks he called the store at opening time to ask if > they had something or other in stock. they were supposed to open at > 10am. he called at 10am, and the phone rang and rang. he called again, > same thing. finally, at 10:05 someone finally answered. perturbed, he > wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him that the chicago store was > slacking off. the reply came minutes later, personally from steve jobs: > > Dennis, you are an asshole. > > Steve I'd have to agree with Steve on this one. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 09:11:34 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C67@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > Are these Z80 TRS-80 systems, or the 68000 systems? There actually were some > S-100 like systems (same connector, different board form factor) of the > model 16/6000 series. They were used in large (for the time) dialup systems. Interesting! Have you got more info? > I think they had 2+meg of ram and 2 or 3 four port serial cards. I have > never seen these, only heard about them. Some were even modified to run > 68010 CPUs. There are instructions out there somewhere for this mod, but > no-one seems to have them readily available. They "lore" is that these > instructions were saved in the swap area of one of the install boot > diskettes. I was able to find and extract the games that were hidden there, > but never these instructions. Neat-o! Do you have more info on this as well? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 09:33:07 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, James wrote: > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > > > > > I'd seen the commercials for this instant-on battery-powered > > soldering iron and wondered if I should add it to my tool box. > > > > I saw this FAQ on Thinkgeek: > > I fucking thought so. I've been trying to figger out how it works and the > only answer I could come up with is that there is no heat, just a dead > short that makes the object-to-be-soldered get hot. Well, aside from the fact that these fuckers employed spam to first get out the word on their product I would never buy one. The commercials on TV that I was seeing a few weeks ago seemed to think that ordinary people like housewives and weekend fix it up schlubs would somehow find a use for a soldering iron. They showed the hands of a lady soldering some piece of kitchen ware and some doofus doing some very light repair (broken battery wire or something equally lame) on some gadget. And I'm like, yeah right. Who fixes anything these days (I'm being rhetorical, Tony) and what of anything that's made today is conducive to being repaired in the home with a soldering iron? Still, they seem to be selling like mad, but if they're no good for electronics then what's the attraction? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From pcw at mesanet.com Wed Jan 12 09:35:45 2005 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <41E4055F.3070204@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: > Nothing "supposedly" about it, most of the anecdotes ring true. You can read > the entire book at www.folklore.org, since that's where the content comes from. One thing that doesn't ring true for me is when he says the not one line of code was taken from Xerox. I was involved in a project to make a LAB interface (A-D/D-A I/O bits) for the first (128K) MAC. The earliest development software was full of Xerox copyright notices... > > Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > > http://news.com.com/How+the+Mac+was+born%2C+and+other+tales/2008-1082_3-5529081.html?tag=nefd.lede > > > > ===== > > Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! > > > > -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address > > -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us > > -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all > > -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com > > -- 644 readers and counting! > > -- > Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ > Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ > Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 09:38:27 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, James wrote: > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, James wrote: > > > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > > > > > > > > I'd seen the commercials for this instant-on battery-powered > > > soldering iron and wondered if I should add it to my tool box. > > > > > > I saw this FAQ on Thinkgeek: > > > > I fucking thought so. I've been trying to figger out how it works and the > > only answer I could come up with is that there is no heat, just a dead > > short that makes the object-to-be-soldered get hot. > > I appologize for my language, I thought I was replying to a different list > where such language isn't uncommon. Don't worry, the Puritans here will somehow manage to maintain. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 12 09:45:52 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C67@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050112104552.00910d60@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 09:53 PM 1/11/05 -0500, you wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Dave Dunfield [mailto:dave04a@dunfield.com] >> Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 11:45 PM >> >> >> >> ** Two of the S-100 homebuilts are actually complete TRS-80's >> >> implemented on S-100 cards - they run the TRS-80 ROMs unmodified >> >> (with disk system) and load/run TRS-80 software! >> > >> >Holy crap II! That is fucking cool! Pictures!!! >> >> I thought so too - Very unique S-100 systems - I will be getting them >> up and running, and will let you know how they work out. They >> are mostly >> homebuilt cards (except for memory). >> >> >> >I want pictures of those homebrew TRS-80 S-100 systems. >> That has to be >> >the coolest S-100 system ever (next to the Atari S-100 stuff >> I've got ;) >> >Are these Z80 TRS-80 systems, or the 68000 systems? There actually were some >S-100 like systems (same connector, different board form factor) of the >model 16/6000 series. They were used in large (for the time) dialup systems. >I think they had 2+meg of ram and 2 or 3 four port serial cards. I have >never seen these, only heard about them. I think I may have one of these. Years ago I picked up a large metal chassis that I was told was a TRS-6000 and IIRC it did have TRS cards in it but it was NOT in the usual plastic chassis (I have one of them too). I pulled it apart and looked at it and as best I can remember it has 3 Mb of RAM, a 68000 CPU and a Z-80 CPU and a LOT of serial ports. I also got a huge stack of TRS-6000 disks and docs with it. I thought perhaps it was a TRS-6000 that someone had taken apart and mounted in a metal chassis but your message makes me wonder. It's been years since I looked at the thing and I don't remember what form-factor cards are in it. Joe Some were even modified to run >68010 CPUs. There are instructions out there somewhere for this mod, but >no-one seems to have them readily available. They "lore" is that these >instructions were saved in the swap area of one of the install boot >diskettes. I was able to find and extract the games that were hidden there, >but never these instructions. > >Kelly > From cb at mythtech.net Wed Jan 12 09:47:09 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: >Still, they seem to be selling like mad, but if they're no good for >electronics then what's the attraction? Yeah, I was a little surprised to see in their FAQ's that they say it is NOT recommended for electronics use... considering the commercial CLEARLY shows a person using it on electronics! I guess its another example of do as a I say and not as I do (eh, who am I kidding, all these "as seen on TV products" use them on TV in ways that they tell you not to use them) -chris From allain at panix.com Wed Jan 12 09:53:11 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... References: <41E48D37.2040207@pacbell.net> <001a01c4f850$ebb004f0$0500fea9@game> Message-ID: <000d01c4f8be$d20c1b60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > perturbed, he wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him Interesting story, but I find it hard to believe that emailing outside of academic and military circles was done much at all back in 1985. Oh yeah, and within a given company too, but seldom outside it. I'd believe this story if it was first set-up with how the two got email in the first place. John A. From melamy at earthlink.net Wed Jan 12 10:16:46 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: <30450206.1105546608169.JavaMail.root@rowlf.psp.pas.earthlink.net> the attraction is to all the people that burn themselves WHENEVER they pick up a soldering iron... -----Original Message----- From: Vintage Computer Festival Still, they seem to be selling like mad, but if they're no good for electronics then what's the attraction? From allain at panix.com Wed Jan 12 10:26:25 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? References: <20050112141607.77831.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Something's been bothering me since I read it. In the newspaper's el-cheapo weekend supplement* it stated that: Registered Internet Domain names, 2005: 63 million, which is believable, but then said Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6. This doesn't seem right. 200 I'd believe, but not 6. 20 companies and 60 Universities I'd believe, not 6. I first saw the Internet in use in 1985, at Calma's research lab. Many people there used it all the time. It seemed that they could get a lot of content. Again I'd say 6 is B*S*. Anybody know when it really was 6 and for extra credit what those original domain names were? John A. * USA Weekend, 31-Dec-2004, p.7 http://www.usaweekend.com/05_issues/050102/050102usaw_anniv_list.html From cb at mythtech.net Wed Jan 12 10:33:43 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: >the attraction is to all the people that burn themselves WHENEVER they >pick up a soldering iron... I thought those burns where a right of passage in using an iron!?! -chris From news at computercollector.com Wed Jan 12 10:45:24 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <20050112164524.39424.qmail@web52804.mail.yahoo.com> Check out the "1985" section here: http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/ --- John Allain wrote: > Something's been bothering me since I read it. > In the newspaper's el-cheapo weekend supplement* > it stated that: > Registered Internet Domain names, 2005: 63 million, > which is believable, but then said > Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6. > > This doesn't seem right. 200 I'd believe, but not 6. > 20 companies and 60 Universities I'd believe, not 6. > > I first saw the Internet in use in 1985, at Calma's research lab. > Many people there used it all the time. It seemed that they could > get a lot of content. Again I'd say 6 is B*S*. > > Anybody know when it really was 6 and for extra credit what > those original domain names were? > > John A. > * USA Weekend, 31-Dec-2004, p.7 > http://www.usaweekend.com/05_issues/050102/050102usaw_anniv_list.html > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 646 readers and counting! From vp at cs.drexel.edu Wed Jan 12 10:52:42 2005 From: vp at cs.drexel.edu (Vassilis Prevelakis) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: uPD7210 datasheet Message-ID: <20050112165242.D0A2A3BAB9@queen.cs.drexel.edu> Philip Pemberton wrote: > I've got a CEC PCI-488 GPIB card that uses it and the "Advanced Programming" > section of the manual makes a lot of references to the 7210 datasheet... National Instruments Corp. sells a GPIB controller (the NAT9914) which is compatible with the NEC 7210. The reference manual (370875A-01, 320744B-0), June 1995 is available at: http://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/370875a.pdf NI also makes another controller, the NAT9914 which has two modes of operation: (a) TI 9914 and (b) NEC 7210. The manual of the NAT9914 contains full descriptions of both the 9914 and 7210 modes. The NAT9914 Reference Manual (370876A-01, 320775-01), June 1995 is available at: http://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/370876a.pdf **vp From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Jan 12 10:53:12 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20050112141607.77831.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200501121700.MAA15347@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6. Define what "Registered Internet Domain name" means with respect to 1985 and that might mean something. (And it might be a true thing or a false thing, but at least we could sensibly discuss which.) Since the DNS as we know it today did not exist in 1985 (RFCs 1034 and 1035 are dated 1987), it's not clear what this is trying to say, which makes it impossible to tell whether it's true. There was an earlier form of DNS which existed in 1985; RFCs 882 and 883, which 1034 and 1035 replace, are dated 1983. To what extent this means that "Internet Domain names" existed in 1985 is...questionable, at the very least - never mind what "registered" would mean. I do note that 883 has a big warning at the beginning saying that it is not not NOT a spec for implementation. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 12 11:01:46 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 11 Jan 2005 20:36:39 CST." <41E48D37.2040207@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <200501121701.j0CH1kr9022311@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jim Battle wrote: > > Dennis, you are an asshole. > > Steve That is so perfect :-) (perfectly in character, that is) Ah for the day when Steve Jobs and Scott McNealy could read their own email and respond... -brad From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Jan 12 11:02:50 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In message chris wrote: > >the attraction is to all the people that burn themselves WHENEVER they > >pick up a soldering iron... > > I thought those burns where a right of passage in using an iron!?! Yep - picking up the hot end of a soldering iron is another one. Yes, I've done that once. That was reason I went out and bought a proper stand for the iron. Later. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... Laugh ? I nearly paid the poll-tax From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 12 11:06:07 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Kinetic's FastPath 4's In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 11 Jan 2005 16:23:12 EST." <20050111212311.GA46012@silme.pair.com> Message-ID: <200501121706.j0CH67uT024029@mwave.heeltoe.com> Adam Goldman wrote: > >Any chance you could get a spec for the Shiva Pipe protocol used by the >LANrovers? I can ask... I know most of the old shiva engineers, especially the ones who worked on the fp and lanrover. -brad From dtwright at uiuc.edu Wed Jan 12 11:07:28 2005 From: dtwright at uiuc.edu (Dan Wright) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <000d01c4f8be$d20c1b60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <001a01c4f850$ebb004f0$0500fea9@game> <000d01c4f8be$d20c1b60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200501121107.28441.dtwright@uiuc.edu> On Wednesday 12 January 2005 9:53 am, John Allain wrote: > > perturbed, he wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him > > Interesting story, but I find it hard to believe that emailing outside > of academic and military circles was done much at all back in 1985. > Oh yeah, and within a given company too, but seldom outside it. > I'd believe this story if it was first set-up with how the two got email > in the first place. Actually, I think the point was that the friend has been a mac fanatic SINCE 1985, but not that this HAPPENED in 1985. I know the Mac store in chicago only opened a couple years ago. > > John A. -- Dan Wright (dtwright@uiuc.edu) (http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright) "we are content if we can describe a multitude of other things in terms of... fundamental incomprehensibilities. science is an activity that takes place on the shore of an infinite sea of mystery." chet raymo, "doctor seuss and doctor einstein" From cblackburn36 at softhome.net Wed Jan 12 11:13:10 2005 From: cblackburn36 at softhome.net (Chris Blackburn) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Thorn EMI Proton Detection System Commodore PET (UK) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E55AA6.9090109@softhome.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 listmailgoeshere@gmail.com wrote: | Is anyone interested? | Hi, I work at the same museum as Jules in the UK. I'm sure we could find space for something like this, expecially if you have any documentation about what it did or how we can make it do something interesting that the public can relate to. (read as lots of flashing lights or pretty patterns on the screen ;)). The more unique a machine is the more we like it :D Regards - -- Chris Blackburn E-Mail: cblackburn36NOSPAM@softhome.net E-Mail: cblackburn36@NOSPAMgmail.com PGP Public Key: http://makeashorterlink.com/?C2AF31929 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFB5VqmxsNEmi5WofsRAlc0AJ44Nh15GBbYVTVef54Z2D4ZNt/PlQCeNNUp uu7kUAvbTOWZ5zHG1cKr6GA= =2ZP7 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Jan 12 11:18:14 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <000d01c4f8be$d20c1b60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <41E48D37.2040207@pacbell.net> <001a01c4f850$ebb004f0$0500fea9@game> <000d01c4f8be$d20c1b60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <41E55BD6.8020203@pacbell.net> John Allain wrote: >>perturbed, he wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him > > > Interesting story, but I find it hard to believe that emailing outside > of academic and military circles was done much at all back in 1985. > Oh yeah, and within a given company too, but seldom outside it. > I'd believe this story if it was first set-up with how the two got email > in the first place. > > John A. > > > The apple store opened in chicago two years ago or so, not 1985. I used email at a silicon valley company in 1986 to communicate with outside parties. It wasn't particularly academic, nor military. From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Jan 12 11:19:39 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501121107.28441.dtwright@uiuc.edu> References: <001a01c4f850$ebb004f0$0500fea9@game> <000d01c4f8be$d20c1b60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> <200501121107.28441.dtwright@uiuc.edu> Message-ID: <41E55C2B.2000901@pacbell.net> Dan Wright wrote: > On Wednesday 12 January 2005 9:53 am, John Allain wrote: > >>>perturbed, he wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him >> >>Interesting story, but I find it hard to believe that emailing outside >>of academic and military circles was done much at all back in 1985. >>Oh yeah, and within a given company too, but seldom outside it. >>I'd believe this story if it was first set-up with how the two got email >>in the first place. > > > Actually, I think the point was that the friend has been a mac fanatic SINCE > 1985, but not that this HAPPENED in 1985. I know the Mac store in chicago > only opened a couple years ago. > > >>John A. > > Dan, you are spot on. Sorry, I thought it was clear that my friend was a fanatic since 1985, but the story was recent. From aek at spies.com Wed Jan 12 11:23:17 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: uPD7210 datasheet Message-ID: <20050112172317.66BD44F27@spies.com> National Instruments Corp. sells a GPIB controller (the NAT9914) which is compatible with the NEC 7210. The NAT9914 is their implementation of the TI 9914. The orig 9914 data sheet scan can be found at www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ti/_dataBooks/TMS9914A_dataSheet_Jun89.pdf From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 12 11:26:29 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20050112141607.77831.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <1105550789.856.16.camel@weka.localdomain> On Wed, 2005-01-12 at 11:26 -0500, John Allain wrote: > Something's been bothering me since I read it. > In the newspaper's el-cheapo weekend supplement* > it stated that: > Registered Internet Domain names, 2005: 63 million, > which is believable, but then said > Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6. Are they confusing 6 registered names with 6 official top-level domains or something along those lines? (my knowledge of the Internet prior to the early 90's is pretty much non-existant, so that's a pure guess) cheers Jules From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 12 11:24:30 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 12 Jan 2005 10:53:11 EST." <000d01c4f8be$d20c1b60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200501121724.j0CHOUHg025025@mwave.heeltoe.com> "John Allain" wrote: >> perturbed, he wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him > >Interesting story, but I find it hard to believe that emailing outside >of academic and military circles was done much at all back in 1985. I think you are mistaken. Certainly the milnet/arpanet email was flying and outside that uucp mail (harvard!gcc-milo!brad :-) was gatewayed all over the place. I'm sure you could check the uucp maps - a quick google search shows apple.UUCP existed in 84. I was using uucp email in 84 and I could swear there was stuff coming in and out of apple. I don't we sent anything confidential back and forth but I'm pretty sure I got personal stuff from people at apple. I was sure sending regular email to a girlfriend at at&t in '83 :-) -brad From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Jan 12 11:24:25 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:54 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: <200501121724.JAA02804@clulw009.amd.com> >From: chris > >>Still, they seem to be selling like mad, but if they're no good for >>electronics then what's the attraction? > >Yeah, I was a little surprised to see in their FAQ's that they say it is >NOT recommended for electronics use... considering the commercial CLEARLY >shows a person using it on electronics! > >I guess its another example of do as a I say and not as I do (eh, who am >I kidding, all these "as seen on TV products" use them on TV in ways that >they tell you not to use them) > Hi It is something like the Sears ad where they took a pair of pliers to the axle nut of a bicycle. They even used one of the people that ran a house fixer-up show to do it. He should have been ashamed of him self. I couldn't believe they were actually doing it with a smile. Dwight From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 12 11:29:04 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1105550944.856.19.camel@weka.localdomain> On Wed, 2005-01-12 at 17:02 +0000, Philip Pemberton wrote: > In message > chris wrote: > > > >the attraction is to all the people that burn themselves WHENEVER they > > >pick up a soldering iron... > > > > I thought those burns where a right of passage in using an iron!?! > > Yep - picking up the hot end of a soldering iron is another one. Yes, I've > done that once. That was my first experience of a soldering iron when I was about ten :-) I promptly spent the morning melting holes in anything plastic that I could find, once I'd stopped yelling. From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 12 11:30:33 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 12 Jan 2005 11:26:25 EST." <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200501121730.j0CHUXWs025331@mwave.heeltoe.com> "John Allain" wrote: > >Anybody know when it really was 6 and for extra credit what >those original domain names were? I registered cayman.com in '87 and it's now it's in the "first 100". So 6 in '85 does not seem completely out of whack. I suspect symbolics.com was the first ".com" but I don't really know. You can guess who the first .edu's were - just look at an old arpanet map. (yes, there I was, sitting on my horse - in '87 - watching the prairie grass blow and wondering what the *hell* those long iron rails were for... little did I know they would bring 63 million settlers! :-) -brad From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Jan 12 11:31:28 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Philip Pemberton" > >In message > chris wrote: > >> >the attraction is to all the people that burn themselves WHENEVER they >> >pick up a soldering iron... >> >> I thought those burns where a right of passage in using an iron!?! > >Yep - picking up the hot end of a soldering iron is another one. Yes, I've >done that once. That was reason I went out and bought a proper stand for the >iron. > Hi It is mostly learning to not reach for it when it is falling. You should jsut let it fall. Dwight From aek at spies.com Wed Jan 12 11:39:47 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... Message-ID: <20050112173947.C78D84D7D@spies.com> >Interesting story, but I find it hard to believe that emailing outside >of academic and military circles was done much at all back in 1985. You obviously weren't around then, were you? The tough part was finding shell accounts you could get. The Well was one of the first. I know that's what I had an account on in '85. And Apple most certainly was exchanging email. The original 'apple vax' (apple.com later) was a 780 that lived in the top floor of Mariani 1. I got my first job at Apple from a posting on ba.jobs that came through that machine. From melamy at earthlink.net Wed Jan 12 11:50:37 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: <24258464.1105552238953.JavaMail.root@skeeter.psp.pas.earthlink.net> "rights of passage" are fine, but not everytime... the medical co-pay would be a killer -----Original Message----- From: chris Sent: Jan 12, 2005 11:33 AM To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: "Cold heat" soldering? >the attraction is to all the people that burn themselves WHENEVER they >pick up a soldering iron... I thought those burns where a right of passage in using an iron!?! -chris From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 12:00:04 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <20050112164524.39424.qmail@web52804.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > Check out the "1985" section here: > http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/ It's neat to know that the "first registered domain" is still around, albeit in a much lesser form of its former glory: http://www.symbolics.com/ -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Wed Jan 12 12:04:22 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? Message-ID: <0501121804.AA23672@ivan.Harhan.ORG> First of all, there is nothing wrong with using the word "registered" in 1985. SRI-NIC (the original ARPANET/Internet registry) had existed long before 1985. It originally registered hosts and even their users, but when domains were invented (RFC 882/883 timeframe, 1983-ish) SRI-NIC was registering them too. As for DNS use in 1985, consider that 4.3BSD, the first Berkeley release with DNS, was released in early 1986, and was definitely working well inside Berkeley in 1985. So Berkeley.EDU was up in 1985, and its DNS implementation incorporated the changes between 882/883 and 1034/1035, i.e., 1034/1035-style DNS was in operation in 1985 two years before being formally codified in the RFCs. In fact I just checked WHOIS and BERKELEY.EDU was registered on 1985-04-24. Since it was one of the first, it is in fact quite plausible that there were indeed 6 domain records in the SRI-NIC registry in 1985. MS From williams.dan at gmail.com Wed Jan 12 12:05:17 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <26c11a64050112100541465671@mail.gmail.com> > Hi > It is mostly learning to not reach for it when it is > falling. You should jsut let it fall. > Dwight > > Also when you accidently melt the stand don't try and wipe off the molten plastic with the wet sponge on the stand. When I was about 15 I had the a perfect imprint of the soldering iron on my thumb and finger. Dan From randy at s100-manuals.com Wed Jan 12 12:06:42 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? References: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <000e01c4f8d1$7aa4f1e0$2492d6d1@randylaptop> From: "Dwight K. Elvey" > >From: "Philip Pemberton" >> >>In message >> chris wrote: >> >>> >the attraction is to all the people that burn themselves WHENEVER they >>> >pick up a soldering iron... >>> >>> I thought those burns where a right of passage in using an iron!?! >> >>Yep - picking up the hot end of a soldering iron is another one. Yes, I've >>done that once. That was reason I went out and bought a proper stand for >>the >>iron. >> > > Hi > It is mostly learning to not reach for it when it is > falling. You should jsut let it fall. > Dwight That's what they make cords for. Always grab the cord when it is falling. Randy From tarsi at binhost.com Wed Jan 12 10:46:04 2005 From: tarsi at binhost.com (Nathan Pralle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E5544C.5050207@binhost.com> >>the attraction is to all the people that burn themselves WHENEVER they >>pick up a soldering iron... One definately might think that if you burn yourself every time you pick up a soldering iron, perhaps you shouldn't be getting anywhere near one. If your accuracy is that bad, save yourself the trouble and stay away from electronics in general. That'd be like a doctor who cuts himself on every scalpel he picks up. "New! Dull sharp scalpel! Never cut yourself again, gets sharp for an instant, then instantly dull again! Do your own appendectomy!" Erk. Nathan From emu at ecubics.com Wed Jan 12 12:10:12 2005 From: emu at ecubics.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <200501121730.j0CHUXWs025331@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501121730.j0CHUXWs025331@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <41E56804.4090009@ecubics.com> Brad Parker wrote: > I suspect symbolics.com was the first ".com" but I don't really know. DEC likes to be the first one. Check: http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Digital/timeline/compaq-d.htm It was 1985 cheers From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 12:07:47 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <200501121724.JAA02804@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > It is something like the Sears ad where they took > a pair of pliers to the axle nut of a bicycle. They > even used one of the people that ran a house fixer-up > show to do it. He should have been ashamed of him > self. I couldn't believe they were actually doing > it with a smile. That was Bob Vila, and actually he was employing one of those gripper wrenches that automatically adjust to any nut size. They work pretty well. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 12:49:26 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <41E56804.4090009@ecubics.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, emanuel stiebler wrote: > Brad Parker wrote: > > > I suspect symbolics.com was the first ".com" but I don't really know. > > DEC likes to be the first one. Check: > > http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Digital/timeline/compaq-d.htm > > It was 1985 $ whois symbolics.com Registrant: Symbolics Technology, Inc (SYMBOLICS-DOM) c/o Ropes & Gray C.I. Armistead 1 International Place Boston, MA 02110-2624 US Domain Name: SYMBOLICS.COM Administrative Contact: Schmidt, David (DSW796) dkschmidt@COMPUSERVE.COM Symbolics, Inc P.O. Box 10862 BURKE, VA 22009 US (703) 455-0430 fax: (703) 440-0388 Technical Contact: Network Solutions, LLC. (HOST-ORG) customerservice@networksolutions.com 13200 Woodland Park Drive Herndon, VA 20171-3025 US 1-888-642-9675 fax: 571-434-4620 Record expires on 16-Mar-2007. >>>Record created on 15-Mar-1985. Database last updated on 12-Jan-2005 13:48:18 EST. OK $ whois dec.com Registrant: Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P (DOM-134233) 2055 State Highway 249 Houston TX 77070 US Domain Name: dec.com Registrar Name: Alldomains.com Registrar Whois: whois.alldomains.com Registrar Homepage: http://www.alldomains.com Administrative Contact: Compaq Computer Corporation (NIC-344520) Compaq Internet Domain Name Registrar 20555 State Highway 249 Houston TX 77070 US domainreg@compaq.com +1.2815188427 Fax- - Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Center Network Operations (NIC-398252) Alldomains.com 1800 Sutter St. Suite 100 Concord CA 94520 US hostmaster@alldomains.com +1.9256859600 Fax- +1.9256859620 >>> Created on..............: 1985-Sep-30. Expires on..............: 2009-Sep-29. Record last updated on..: 2003-Nov-07 20:32:13. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Jan 12 12:57:10 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <7c583a2c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> "Dwight K. Elvey" wrote: > It is mostly learning to not reach for it when it is > falling. You should jsut let it fall. It wasn't falling - it was laying on a desk. I picked it up, but I picked up the wrong end. Sizzle sizzle... Now I've got a solder station - unfortunately dropping the iron tends to drag the solder station with it, until the DIN plug pops out, at which point the iron plummets to the floor, usually landing tip-first. That does not do much good for the heating element... I've had soldering irons burn out due to the quantities of burnt flux and such that accumulate on the element after a while. The element gets insanely hot, then the ceramic element shatters. Thankfully my solder station seems to be a little more resistant to that sort of damage. %DEITY knows what would happen if the sensor went dead-short though... Later. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... I've got 256K of RAM, so why can't I run Windows 3.1? From cb at mythtech.net Wed Jan 12 13:16:35 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: >It wasn't falling - it was laying on a desk. I picked it up, but I picked up >the wrong end. Sizzle sizzle... Some how many moons ago, I managed to pick up a butane iron by grabbing the heater on it. The tip of my index finger covered the glowing red air hole. That was fun as I screamed and literally had to peel the iron off my now crispy finger tip (taking a good deal of charred flesh with it). -chris From paulpenn at knology.net Wed Jan 12 13:17:36 2005 From: paulpenn at knology.net (Paul A. Pennington) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... References: <41E48D37.2040207@pacbell.net><001a01c4f850$ebb004f0$0500fea9@game> <000d01c4f8be$d20c1b60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <004701c4f8db$6098a800$6401a8c0@ibm6go1addn6c0> John wrote: >> perturbed, he wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him > > Interesting story, but I find it hard to believe that emailing outside > of academic and military circles was done much at all back in 1985. Maybe Tom Jennings can explain it to you :-) Paul Pennington Augusta, Georgia From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 12 13:28:09 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 12 Jan 2005 11:10:12 MST." <41E56804.4090009@ecubics.com> Message-ID: <200501121928.j0CJS9Cp000381@mwave.heeltoe.com> emanuel stiebler wrote: >Brad Parker wrote: > >> I suspect symbolics.com was the first ".com" but I don't really know. > >DEC likes to be the first one. Check: > >http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Digital/timeline/compaq-d.htm heh. Mr. Bell should have run a "whois" :-) or, more likely, no one at DEC concidered Symbolics a computer company. symbolics.com 3/15/85 dec.com 9/30/85 -brad From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 13:29:21 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, chris wrote: > That was fun as I screamed and literally had to peel the iron off my now > crispy finger tip (taking a good deal of charred flesh with it). Mmmmm, now I'm hungry for some barbecue. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From melamy at earthlink.net Wed Jan 12 13:44:47 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: <29487114.1105559088520.JavaMail.root@grover.psp.pas.earthlink.net> that way the hot tip lands on your ankle or leg instead of the floor where is can ruin the finish... -----Original Message----- From: Randy McLaughlin That's what they make cords for. Always grab the cord when it is falling. Randy From randy at s100-manuals.com Wed Jan 12 13:45:22 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... References: <41E48D37.2040207@pacbell.net><001a01c4f850$ebb004f0$0500fea9@game><000d01c4f8be$d20c1b60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> <004701c4f8db$6098a800$6401a8c0@ibm6go1addn6c0> Message-ID: <001e01c4f8df$42d24b10$2b3dd7d1@randylaptop> > John wrote: > > >>> perturbed, he wrote an email to steve jobs to inform him >> >> Interesting story, but I find it hard to believe that emailing outside >> of academic and military circles was done much at all back in 1985. > > Maybe Tom Jennings can explain it to you :-) > > Paul Pennington > Augusta, Georgia I think Dan Rather has some emails dating back to the 70's written in HTML :-) Randy From allain at panix.com Wed Jan 12 14:09:53 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... References: <20050112173947.C78D84D7D@spies.com> Message-ID: <050101c4f8e2$ae934180$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > You obviously weren't around then, were you? Too square, it seems. [8] My emailing was all inside the company 1980-1987. It was fun enough to keep me off Compuserve which seemed like the popluar way to internet at that time, provided it gatewayed to outside services, which I suspect it did, smaller BBS'es probably didn't. > The tough part was finding shell accounts you could get. > The Well was one of the first. I know that's what I had What we're trying to find out, on two threads now, is how life was before registered domain names. It would be nice to see what a full email header looked like before 1985. I was in Well territory in 1988. Had too much fun in the real world to do virtual on my personal time. The Foothill/Wierd/Halted thing was too damn great. John A. From aek at spies.com Wed Jan 12 14:46:27 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... Message-ID: <20050112204627.9AC1B4F82@spies.com> What we're trying to find out, on two threads now, is how life was before registered domain names. -- In the unix world, uucp and netnews, both using bang separated pathnames. Tom could explain the details of FIDOnet, which had gateways. Then there were all the other corparate/educational nets with their own naming rules (bitnet,decnet and dec's internal networks). Most people had slow point-point links at the periphery. From aek at spies.com Wed Jan 12 14:50:13 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... Message-ID: <20050112205013.186BB4DCA@spies.com> I was in Well territory in 1988. -- When I was on, it was a vax 750 running BSD with just the start of all that community stuff. I just used it for mail and reading news, from a normal shell. -- The Foothill/Wierd/Halted thing was too damn great. -- Weird Stuff in Milpitas was great. That was where I found most of my Xerox stuff. With 20/20 hindsight (and more space) I should have grabbed things like the PDP12 that came in and the PERQ 1. Halted didn't (and still doesn't) do much for me. I got to know the last batch of folks running Haltek pretty well, and I was the one that bought their data book collection when they were forced out. From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 12 14:57:52 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 12 Jan 2005 15:09:53 EST." <050101c4f8e2$ae934180$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200501122057.j0CKvqeS009251@mwave.heeltoe.com> "John Allain" wrote: > >What we're trying to find out, on two threads now, is how life >was before registered domain names. It would be nice to >see what a full email header looked like before 1985. it depended on where you were. I have MIT host tables from way way back which certainly allow rfc802 (1981) style email addressing, i.e. jtw@xx.lcs.mit.edu style address. Us poor folk in UUCP land had to use "bang style" address. From most places on the internet you could reach me as "harvard!gcc-milo!brad". At one point there where hybrid bang/at addresses. Yuck. Here's one from a guy I worked with at the time, in '86: ucdavis!lll-crg!seismo!harvard!gcc-milo!zrm@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Zigurd R. Mednieks) blech. still, I miss 'ihnp4' and will always wonder where Indian Hills is. -brad ps: Zigard, if you read this, email me! :-) From jpl15 at panix.com Wed Jan 12 15:06:00 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501122057.j0CKvqeS009251@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501122057.j0CKvqeS009251@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Brad Parker wrote: > > ps: Zigard, if you read this, email me! :-) > www.google.com: "+Zigurd +Mednieks" sheesh... John From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 15:17:37 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Need Altos Tape Interface Program (TIP) In-Reply-To: <200501111829.j0BITZlw025173@ms-smtp-01-eri0.ohiordc.rr.com> References: <200501111829.j0BITZlw025173@ms-smtp-01-eri0.ohiordc.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050112131311.X998@localhost> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Barry Watzman wrote: > Subject: Need Altos Tape Interface Program (TIP) > > > I have several versions, circa 1982-1985, of Alloy's "TIP" tape program. > However, there is nothing about them that is Altos specific, they had a > "general purpose" S-100 interface board. I believe that they are all 8-bit > CP/M-80 programs. Contact me if you want to discuss further. Around 1980 I wrote a rather large backup program, in 8080 assembly (MAC), for the CP/M and 100 Allow tape board with a DEI DC300/DC450XL drive. It did savesets, directories, searches, date matching ad nauseum. AND I have all the sources for it, if you want it. The company I worked for, CSSN, is loooong gone, and I don't think they sold a single copy! The tape format is embarrassing, but there's low level drivers at least, and it will do simple saves. Command line but mainly a command processor of it's own wit hit's own scripting language. If anyone wants it I'll suck it out of the cp/m machine and email it to you. It has some amusing features, one of which is a special-purpose disassembler/relocator; the IO port used for the Alloy card is a parameter, but the 8080 IN and OUT instructions aren't parameterized; it disasembles itself and patches all the IO instructions. Ugh. From mcesari at comcast.net Wed Jan 12 15:18:09 2005 From: mcesari at comcast.net (Mike Cesari) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501122057.j0CKvqeS009251@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501122057.j0CKvqeS009251@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <754FB4C1-64DF-11D9-822A-000A956B167C@comcast.net> On Jan 12, 2005, at 1:57 PM, Brad Parker wrote: > > blech. still, I miss 'ihnp4' and will always wonder where Indian > Hills is. > > -brad > > ps: Zigard, if you read this, email me! :-) > Heh. Indian Hill is a Bell Labs location in Naperville, IL. This is where 5ESS (and other switching) development went on for AT&T/Lucent. (I worked there until late 2001.) Now I can't remember what ihnp4 was. It was either an Amdahl or a VAX, depending on era. Mike From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 15:18:39 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Need Altos Tape Interface Program (TIP) In-Reply-To: <200501111829.j0BITZlw025173@ms-smtp-01-eri0.ohiordc.rr.com> References: <200501111829.j0BITZlw025173@ms-smtp-01-eri0.ohiordc.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050112131824.P998@localhost> On Tue, 11 Jan 2005, Barry Watzman wrote: > I have several versions, circa 1982-1985, of Alloy's "TIP" tape program. > However, there is nothing about them that is Altos specific, they had a > "general purpose" S-100 interface board. I believe that they are all 8-bit > CP/M-80 programs. Contact me if you want to discuss further. I also have 3 of these boards, but no drives. From dan at ekoan.com Wed Jan 12 15:28:10 2005 From: dan at ekoan.com (Dan Veeneman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Indian Hill, was Re: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501122057.j0CKvqeS009251@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501122057.j0CKvqeS009251@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050112162425.0598cc10@mail.marcal.com> At 03:57 PM 1/12/05, you wrote: >still, I miss 'ihnp4' and will always wonder where Indian Hills is. For those of us in Chicagoland at the time, Indian Hill Network Processor 4 (ihnp4) was near and dear. It was a VAX running at AT&T Bell Labs in Naperville, Illinois and handled an enormous (for the time) amount of electronic mail. Later I managed to get a UUCP feed from Motorola in Schaumburg, which was closer to my house and thus a less expensive phone call. --Dan From aek at spies.com Wed Jan 12 15:26:04 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... Message-ID: <20050112212604.6F6654DCA@spies.com> > I miss 'ihnp4' and will always wonder where Indian Hills is. ihnp4 was an impressive machine, indeed. much of the uucp traffic in the midwest went through it. Bell Labs Indian Hill is on the far west side of Chicago. 5ESS was developed there. A friend that worked there was the first person I knew who had Unix running at home (starting with mini-unix, then V6) From river at zip.com.au Wed Jan 12 03:49:51 2005 From: river at zip.com.au (river) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Intel SBC-116 (National BLC-116) Message-ID: <010201c4f88c$0fdf0340$bf20083d@river> Hi, Does anyone have the cct diagram for this board? It's an I/O, ROM, RAM M/Bus-I expansion board. river -------------- next part -------------- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.10 - Release Date: 10/01/05 From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 16:04:13 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050112140118.K998@localhost> BBN.COM, 24 April 1985. They umm made the IMPs. Like all such things it's a false question kinda. The implication is that before this "six domains" there wasn't an internet, but it's a false measure. In The Beginning was the HOSTS file. It still exists, vestigially, on unix /etc/hosts. When N is small, listing all the hosts in a single file is the thing to do. When N > annoyance you look around for a new solution (or someone to blame, if you are in a large corporation). From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 16:12:54 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <7c583a2c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> References: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> <7c583a2c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <20050112140537.M998@localhost> For anything approximating real work, you simply need a temp. regulated soldering station. There's inexpensive ones. The tip doesn't get hotter-and-hotter, it regulates reasonably well. They usually come with stands and a place for a sponge. My iron-plated soldering iron tips last years (>> 5 years). Usually until I nick them or, of course, drop them tip first, which they seem to like what with the cord to orient them that way on their downward course. I have of course reflexively grabbed for it and caught the hot barrel. Not for some time. Brown and white smelly cracked and painful skin is pretty good mammilian feedback! You want 50 watts or more. DOn't forget, there's temperature and there's heat ... nothing more annoying than a 750 degree tip that gets cold when you touch the work. It is difficult to do even half-assed quality work with those crap-ass wood-burner things with the screw-in heating elements. The tips suck, always pitted, temperatire all over the place. Jameco sells a tolerable station for under US$50 new. Having a shitty tool says you don't care. You don't need a lot of expensive tools, good dykes, needle-nose, soldering station, good solder, greenie screwdriver, etc and you can get one at a time even if you're relatively poor. From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 16:19:32 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <200501121724.JAA02804@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501121724.JAA02804@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <20050112141503.B998@localhost> Yet another infomercial. A bucket of weight loss (or is that muscle-build) "supplement" botox win! win! win! get laid free soldering bits eliminate debt whatsthedifference? nothing at all. On the other hand, Weller still makes some OK soldering stations. You only need one. From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 16:31:40 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <050101c4f8e2$ae934180$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20050112173947.C78D84D7D@spies.com> <050101c4f8e2$ae934180$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <20050112142128.P998@localhost> > What we're trying to find out, on two threads now, is how life > was before registered domain names. It would be nice to > see what a full email header looked like before 1985. Sorry, but you have the cart before the horse there. Hidden "header" implies RFC822 et al, but "email" not very broadly defined, doesn't require 'internet email' at all. It's not a semantic game. 822 type mail was simply "the winner" but the field was and still is large. Its valid to take the current most-popular, rfc822, and trace it's history back, but that won't show you all the things that went before, only those in that thread, and even that requires throwing out a lot of hard-to-categorize systems and techniques, and you can't call the resulting story "the story of email". It's common to do that sort of thing, but it's wrong. This is a general historiographic problem, but here there's thousands of other schemes. FidoNet started in 1984, probably the first amateur email system, but there were many, many other email systems that predated it by decades. Hell SAGE had multiple sites and modems, electronic transmission and storage of human-addressed email is a really obvious idea once you have a few givens. Western Union did automatic, electrical-plus-electronic unattended store-and-forward of telegrams (in a few high-traffic areas), that's pushing "e-mail" pretty hard! From tpeters at mixcom.com Wed Jan 12 16:29:04 2005 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: cool - Classic Computers 2005 Calendar In-Reply-To: References: <41A37AA5.31999.6DED93F5@localhost> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050112162616.0ae4ea58@localhost> Just got my Classic Computers 2005 Calendar, and it's a beaut. I was flipping through it, maintaining two mental counts: one of machines I'd never seen before and one of machines I used to sell or service! The final tallies are left as an exercise for the reader. At 12:29 PM 11/23/2004 -0800, you wrote: >On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, Hans Franke wrote: > > > Well, even he's only second... The first Vintage Computer > > Calender is out since Mai: > > > > > http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=8101&item=5140836431&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW > >Please buy one to help Hans pay for the container load of old computer >stuff he's shipping back to Munich. He'll then make a second calendar >featuring the stuff going over the on the container, and you can brag to >your nerd friends that you "helped" with it. People forget years and remember moments. --Ann Beattie --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters@nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, Cisco Certified CCNA From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 16:36:59 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050112204627.9AC1B4F82@spies.com> References: <20050112204627.9AC1B4F82@spies.com> Message-ID: <20050112143153.W998@localhost> On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote: > In the unix world, uucp and netnews, both using bang separated > pathnames. Tom could explain the details of FIDOnet, which had > gateways. Then there were all the other corparate/educational > nets with their own naming rules (bitnet,decnet and dec's internal > networks). Most people had slow point-point links at the periphery. In FidoNet, every node (host) in the net has a complete map of the network. The first pass was a simple "host" file ala /etc/hosts, but it ended up a distributed/assembled reasonably smart symbolic thing. It never fully did what I thought it ought to -- use the echomail mechanism to redundantly distribute nodelist fragments from which your system would assemble on the pieces you needed. (Echomail was a multiply-redundant, self-healing, amorphously-connected database system used to deliver "echo" mail, the functional equivelant of USENET. It was developed by Jeff Rush ("The Shadow", Dallas TX) not me. It used FidoNet (FSC001) as a transport mechanism. Echomail is a spectacularly wonderful mechanism. There was even a robust voting system developed using it, and people don't come in flavors more paranoid than FidoNet sysops; if it pleased them it's gotta be good.) From jpl15 at panix.com Wed Jan 12 16:38:44 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Soldering injury tales Message-ID: >From age 15 to 17, I worked after-school at a car stereo company, which, back then (1968+) meant 8-track mostly, some 4T, and a few 'exotic' cassette players. One late spring afternoon, after having been 'out' most of the night, full day of school, warm late afternoon. music playing - John fell asleep in the middle of replacing a fried transistor and nodded off - actually I nodded *onto* my soldering iron and was awakend by the smell and the sizzle of a neat, surf-board shaped patch of skin being branded into my *forehead*. So I got to spend the next three weeks going to classes and explaining the tribal markings I'd given myself. Of course, over the years, I've grabbed my share of the stupid end of hot irons, including dropping one while I was working on the power supply of my [ob:classiccmp] PDP11/34. Cheers John PS: I was *not*, however, using Nassau solder. I was saving *that* for eBay... ;} From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 12 16:41:35 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: <41E4055F.3070204@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <39439.64.139.41.130.1105569695.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Peter wrote: > One thing that doesn't ring true for me is when he says the not one line > of code was taken from Xerox. I was involved in a project to make a LAB > interface (A-D/D-A I/O bits) for the first (128K) MAC. The earliest > development software was full of Xerox copyright notices... I was also an early Mac developer, back when you had to use a Lisa to develop for the Mac. I don't recall seeing any Xerox copyright notices. If there were only a few I could believe I might have overlooked some, but I don't think it could have been "full of" such notices. The Pascal compiler had a copyright notice from the company that wrote it, but other than that most of the notices said "Apple Computer". The only thing I remember with Xerox notices was the Smalltalk-80 port. It would have been really difficult for Apple's engineers to use any code from Xerox even if they'd wanted to do so. The Xerox code was mostly written in BCPL, Mesa, and Smalltalk, and Apple didn't have compilers for those (though they did port Smalltalk, which was incredibly slow on the Mac). The Mac code was written in a little bit of Pascal and a whole lot of 68K assembly. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 12 16:46:27 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20050112141607.77831.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <40278.64.139.41.130.1105569987.squirrel@64.139.41.130> John wrote: > Something's been bothering me since I read it. > In the newspaper's el-cheapo weekend supplement* > it stated that: > Registered Internet Domain names, 2005: 63 million, > which is believable, but then said > Registered Internet Domain names, 1985: 6. > > This doesn't seem right. 200 I'd believe, but not 6. > 20 companies and 60 Universities I'd believe, not 6. The DNS spec (RFC 882 and 883) wasn't published until November 1983, and it took a while for DNS to replace the old hosts files. In 1985 there were still many sites that weren't yet using DNS. Even so, 6 does sound too low even for 1-Jan-1985. From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jan 12 16:54:04 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <20050112142128.P998@localhost> Message-ID: > Hell SAGE had multiple sites and modems, electronic transmission > and storage of human-addressed email is a really obvious idea once > you have a few givens. AUTODIN - the network before the Arpanet. Made by... > Western Union did automatic, electrical-plus-electronic unattended > store-and-forward of telegrams (in a few high-traffic areas), > that's pushing "e-mail" pretty hard! It was pretty damn complex, actually, and ran using modified model 28 Teletypes. The warehouse I cleared out in New Jersey a couple of years ago had some of the equipment, and the greenkeys people sopped them up. Some of the things were pretty cool - a 400 cps (!) paper tape punch, model 28s with a rare HEREIS feature, still others that could defer incoming messages to paper tape as temporary storage if the printer mechanism was in use, and so on. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From aek at spies.com Wed Jan 12 16:58:50 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... Message-ID: <20050112225850.E4FE54F5A@spies.com> > The earliest > development software was full of Xerox copyright notices... The only direct connection I can think of (which wouldn't have contained Xerox copyrights) was Bill Duval's assembler, which was developed on an Alto. The SUMACC port of PCC would have had lots of MIT/ATT (c)'s, though. There may have been some Silicon Valley Software (c)'s in things like the PASCAL compiler. From pcw at mesanet.com Wed Jan 12 17:07:41 2005 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <39439.64.139.41.130.1105569695.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Eric Smith wrote: > Peter wrote: > > One thing that doesn't ring true for me is when he says the not one line > > of code was taken from Xerox. I was involved in a project to make a LAB > > interface (A-D/D-A I/O bits) for the first (128K) MAC. The earliest > > development software was full of Xerox copyright notices... > > I was also an early Mac developer, back when you had to use a Lisa to > develop for the Mac. I don't recall seeing any Xerox copyright notices. > If there were only a few I could believe I might have overlooked some, > but I don't think it could have been "full of" such notices. I will talk to the guy that was doing the software development. It may have been some other linkage to Xerox other than a copyright notice. It really stuck in my mind at the time. Peter Wallace From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 17:06:25 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050112205013.186BB4DCA@spies.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote: > Weird Stuff in Milpitas was great. That was where I found > most of my Xerox stuff. With 20/20 hindsight (and more space) > I should have grabbed things like the PDP12 that came in and > the PERQ 1. Oh the stuff I didn't know to grab when I first went to WeirdStuff in Milpitas back in, oh, 1993. I only recall seeing a couple Lisas there (priced at what I thought was way too much at I think $50 each). I did get this interesting Northern Telecom terminal phone (that I still haven't gotten to work...I never got the right power supply with it). > Halted didn't (and still doesn't) do much for me. I got to Too bad Halted doesn't ever budged on their as-is prices. Not that they have much of anything that cool. > know the last batch of folks running Haltek pretty well, and > I was the one that bought their data book collection when they > were forced out. It's a shame Haltek went away. Excess Solutions may be the next to go unfortunately. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 17:13:17 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050112212604.6F6654DCA@spies.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote: > > > I miss 'ihnp4' and will always wonder where Indian Hills is. > > ihnp4 was an impressive machine, indeed. much of the uucp traffic > in the midwest went through it. > > Bell Labs Indian Hill is on the far west side of Chicago. 5ESS was > developed there. A friend that worked there was the first person I > knew who had Unix running at home (starting with mini-unix, then V6) Ah, the memories. I remember how elYte one used to be if you actually had Unix running at home. People went apeshit over getting a copy of SCO for cheap. I think that was probably a big part of the initial attraction to Linux: a Unix box of your own. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 17:18:15 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <20050112142128.P998@localhost> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > What we're trying to find out, on two threads now, is how life > > was before registered domain names. It would be nice to > > see what a full email header looked like before 1985. > > Sorry, but you have the cart before the horse there. Hidden > "header" implies RFC822 et al, but "email" not very broadly > defined, doesn't require 'internet email' at all. It's not a > semantic game. 822 type mail was simply "the winner" but the > field was and still is large. > > Its valid to take the current most-popular, rfc822, and trace it's > history back, but that won't show you all the things that went > before, only those in that thread, and even that requires throwing > out a lot of hard-to-categorize systems and techniques, and you > can't call the resulting story "the story of email". It's common > to do that sort of thing, but it's wrong. This got me thinking. I can make a really good argument (at some point, not now, no time) that e-mail could never have gotten as big (universal, nearly ubiquitous, one common standard) as it did without the modern (1990+) Internet, which could not have gotten where it is today with Linux. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Jan 12 17:26:34 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E5B22A.4060908@mdrconsult.com> James wrote: > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, James wrote: > > >>On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: >> >> >>>I'd seen the commercials for this instant-on battery-powered >>>soldering iron and wondered if I should add it to my tool box. >>> >>>I saw this FAQ on Thinkgeek: >> >>I fucking thought so. I've been trying to figger out how it works and the >>only answer I could come up with is that there is no heat, just a dead >>short that makes the object-to-be-soldered get hot. > > > > I appologize for my language, I thought I was replying to a different list > where such language isn't uncommon. Ooops! 8-) Doc From waltje at pdp11.nl Wed Jan 12 17:43:46 2005 From: waltje at pdp11.nl (Fred N. van Kempen) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:55 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > cheap. I think that was probably a big part of the initial attraction to > Linux: a Unix box of your own. Actually, we had MINIX a long time before that, and, on the PC's then, and some effort, that offered everything one needed. When time passed, and 286PM came, MINIX supported it. Then the 386PM came, and.. MINIX supported it, altho not in the best way. THAT fueled the linux thing. This happened to be at the same time where Usenet/UUCP were slowly phased out, and direct-IP access was coming in, eventually in the form of the www thing. People not only wanted "a unix", they also wanted full connectivity with it, meaning IP. But, yeah, having "unix at home" was a big thing at the time. I had Sun's at a very early stage, and MINIX for playing. Then the first MicroVAX II found its way into my room at the top floor of the house (_with_ Ultrix tapes !) and er, the rest I am trying to block out :) --f From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Jan 12 18:25:31 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <20050112140537.M998@localhost> References: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> <7c583a2c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> <20050112140537.M998@localhost> Message-ID: <5968582c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <20050112140537.M998@localhost> Tom Jennings wrote: > For anything approximating real work, you simply need a temp. > regulated soldering station. There's inexpensive ones. The tip > doesn't get hotter-and-hotter, it regulates reasonably well. I'm not sure if it would come under the same classification as a Pace or a Weller, but I've got an Antex 660TC (the one with the temperature-set wheel, not the one with the display - that's the 690SD). > You want 50 watts or more. DOn't forget, there's temperature and > there's heat ... nothing more annoying than a 750 degree tip that > gets cold when you touch the work. I think mine's a 50W. . Yep. 24V, 50W with temperature feedback. > It is difficult to do even half-assed quality work with those > crap-ass wood-burner things with the screw-in heating elements. > The tips suck, always pitted, temperatire all over the place. > Jameco sells a tolerable station for under US$50 new. Amen to that. I tried to repair a Jupiter Ace with an Antex XS (25W, no temperature control). They're OK for tinning wires and such, but hopeless for any form of PCB-level repair. > Having a shitty tool says you don't care. You don't need a lot of > expensive tools, good dykes, needle-nose, soldering station, good > solder, greenie screwdriver, etc and you can get one at a time > even if you're relatively poor. I picked up the 660TC when Maplin decided that ?130 was "a little too excessive" and dropped the price to ?60. I only ever use the XS for tinning wire or quick connector-resoldering sessions. If it's on any longer than 30 minutes or so, it hits about 400C. If the bit isn't secure, it'll go right up to 490 and blow the element. Thankfully the 660TC doesn't do that, and the iron (and cable) are much lighter and thus easier to grip. Next item to buy: a proper fume extractor or similar. Later. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... I am not young enough to know everything. From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 18:52:14 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050112165145.M998@localhost> On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, William Donzelli wrote: > with a rare HEREIS feature, still others that could defer incoming > messages to paper tape as temporary storage if the printer mechanism was > in use, and so on. Adds a new meaning to "spool"! From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 18:59:14 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050112165417.R998@localhost> On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > This got me thinking. I can make a really good argument (at some point, > not now, no time) that e-mail could never have gotten as big (universal, > nearly ubiquitous, one common standard) as it did without the modern > (1990+) Internet, Abolutely agree. > which could not have gotten where it is today with > Linux. > Absolutely disagree :-) I have no holy axes to grind, but linux came along too late to affect much of the pre CO/RE (1994 or so, commercial/research) split foundational work (where the little unixes thrived) and too small in numbers to have set conventional standards since then. From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 19:12:04 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050112170104.J998@localhost> > cheap. I think that was probably a big part of the initial attraction to > Linux: a Unix box of your own. It didn't take much hardware to run a real unix in 1994, even: http://wps.com/archives/wps.com.11Apr1994/wps-hardware.html 40MHz 386 and 16M RAM. And I ran a business on it. Multiple (2, 3) users. As far as I recall, the problems were not technical per se, but downloading sources and compiling, and the "sysgen" process was obscure. It actually wasn't that hard, 386/bsd you edited some junk in a config file and compiled. Default kernel and all that. No modules. I was a hardcore DOS weenie when I brought that particular system up, had never gone to a university so had no contacts there, but I did have two friends who had done this, one with substantial knowledge, whom I got a lot of hints from probably. It was stuff like *this* and not linux that made the early internet explode. No fault of linux, it simply wasn't around then. (Ugh, and I had an UNLIMITED BSD/I site license, for which paid like $100 (seriously), from the "factory", talk about deals of the century. Around 1995? It got sold with the rest of the assets of tlg.net. I gave the original BSD/I box away a few years back to a collector friend. I was storing glue in it (it once was just an old box :-)) From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 12 19:16:14 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <5968582c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> References: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> <7c583a2c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> <20050112140537.M998@localhost> <5968582c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <20050112171326.K998@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Philip Pemberton wrote: >> Having a shitty tool says you don't care. I'd like to amend that to a more reasonable "having all shitty tools..." We all have some crap tools, but some few critical ones need to be decent! > Next item to buy: a proper fume extractor or similar. What's wrong with holding your breath? (Seriously, for extended bouts I have (only recently) started using an odd side-exit muffin fan for this. The scratchy throat thing I used to get when I was an electronics technician just CAN'T be good for you!) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 12 19:01:51 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050112083356.0579cff0@mail> from "John Foust" at Jan 12, 5 08:37:45 am Message-ID: > > > I'd seen the commercials for this instant-on battery-powered > soldering iron and wondered if I should add it to my tool box. >From what you quoted below, add it to your toolkit if you like, but don't use it on any classic computer, especially not if it's likely to end up on my bench,,,, -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 12 19:04:35 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: from "Vintage Computer Festival" at Jan 12, 5 07:33:07 am Message-ID: > The commercials on TV that I was seeing a few weeks ago seemed to think > that ordinary people like housewives and weekend fix it up schlubs would > somehow find a use for a soldering iron. They showed the hands of a lady > soldering some piece of kitchen ware and some doofus doing some very light Eeek... I'd not want to trust soft soldering (which is what this must be) for something like that.... > repair (broken battery wire or something equally lame) on some gadget. > And I'm like, yeah right. Who fixes anything these days (I'm being > rhetorical, Tony) and what of anything that's made today is conducive to > being repaired in the home with a soldering iron? That depends on the home, and the soldering iron :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 12 19:07:20 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: from "Philip Pemberton" at Jan 12, 5 05:02:50 pm Message-ID: > Yep - picking up the hot end of a soldering iron is another one. Yes, I've > done that once. That was reason I went out and bought a proper stand for the > iron. And don't have the mains lead where somebody can trip over it. I only made that mistake once, the iron was pulled back in my hand just far enought that I was gripping it by the metal element shaft...... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 12 19:11:25 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: from "Vintage Computer Festival" at Jan 12, 5 10:07:47 am Message-ID: > That was Bob Vila, and actually he was employing one of those gripper > wrenches that automatically adjust to any nut size. They work pretty > well. ... for rounding thr corners off the nuts. Seeriously, like just about every other hardware hacker, I have at least one adjustable spanner. But I never use it if I have the right size 'fixed' spanner or socket available, which considering I have metric from 2.5mm to 41mm, AF from 3/16" to 1~1/2", and BSW, etc, is not often.... -tony From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 12 20:03:58 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: Hayes "Government model" MODEM? Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050112210358.00920210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I stopped at a surplus place today and found a NIB Hayes "Government Model" 2400 baud MODEM. The box says "Government Use Only". Does anybody know what the story is about that? Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 12 20:08:35 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050112210835.0094f100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 01:04 AM 1/13/05 +0000, you wrote: >> The commercials on TV that I was seeing a few weeks ago seemed to think >> that ordinary people like housewives and weekend fix it up schlubs would >> somehow find a use for a soldering iron. They showed the hands of a lady >> soldering some piece of kitchen ware and some doofus doing some very light I don't know about the rest of you but I'm sick of these commercails showing some bumbling idiot trying to do something. I wouldn't believe ANYTHING they say and I'd avoid anything that they're selling like the plague. Joe From CCTalk at catcorner.org Wed Jan 12 20:35:42 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: Hitachi 4Drive CD enclosure and controller Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C69@mail.catcorner.org> I have available for the picking, an external cabinet with 4 Hitachi interface CD-ROM drives (TCDR-4000). I also have the TCD-IF8P interface card (from Todd engineering), the install and driver disks and connecting cable. THESE ARE NOT SCSI DRIVES. It also comes with a bunch of the cadies for the CD's. Copyright and dates codes are from 1992 so this is on topic. According to what I can find, none of this is supported in any of the current PC environment, and it doesn't run on any of the classic stuff I collect. Well, I guess I could get it running in one of the DOS machines I use for emulating and testing, but I have no real desire to do so. If anyone has any need for this unit, please let me know off list. It is VERY HEAVY (about 20+ pounds). Whoever wants it would have to pay for shipping from New Jersey, or come pick it up. That's all I'm asking for, but if you have any old Tandy/TRS-80 stuff (not the PC stuff, the older units), please let me know. If you're just gonna gut it, please don't ask. I can do that myself and install a bunch of SCSI drives if I so desired. All of this is "AS IS", but I would hate to trash it if anyone has a need for it. Kelly From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 12 21:09:27 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <20050112140537.M998@localhost> References: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> <7c583a2c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> <20050112140537.M998@localhost> Message-ID: <88C9A664-6510-11D9-9D58-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> On Jan 12, 2005, at 2:12 PM, Tom Jennings wrote: > greenie screwdriver, What kind of screwdriver is a "greenie" screwdriver? The one I have has a reversible shaft, one end has a reversible bit with two flat-blades, and the other end has a reversible bit with two philips blades. From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 12 21:24:12 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <20050112165417.R998@localhost> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > This got me thinking. I can make a really good argument (at some point, > > not now, no time) that e-mail could never have gotten as big (universal, > > nearly ubiquitous, one common standard) as it did without the modern > > (1990+) Internet, > > Abolutely agree. > > > > which could not have gotten where it is today with > > Linux. > > > > Absolutely disagree :-) I have no holy axes to grind, but linux > came along too late to affect much of the pre CO/RE (1994 or so, > commercial/research) split foundational work (where the little > unixes thrived) and too small in numbers to have set conventional > standards since then. Allow me to explain my premise. What Linux did was allow any nerd to now have their own unix box. The next step was then to be able to take advantage of this crazy cool thing called the Internet. Primarily, the killer-app was Usenet and e-mail, but of course for nerds there was other wondrous stuff online. So now these nerds started seeking out ways that they could connect to the internet. The ease of having your own unix box drove that. Now, some of these nerds realized if they added an extra phone line they could give friends access to the internet through their box. Some realized they could SELL internet access to other people. In fact, I was an investor in a pretty early ISP in the Sacramento area that was started by a very young friend of mine, and is still thriving today. This begat the Mom&Pop ISP boom. Pretty soon, big companies like the Bells, Sprint, MCI, etc. started to take notice that people were making money selling access to the Internet. Within a couple years (1995ish) they started to jump on the bandwagon. Then began a huge influx of new users to this thing called e-mail and the internet and, very soon after that, the World Wide Web, that only a couple years before didn't even know this thing existed. The rest is history. My contention, and again, I can make a good argument (much better than this) if I had more time, but if Linux had not come around, the adoption of the internet by the public at large would have been a lot longer in coming. Linux was the lubrication that enabled quick penetration of internet into the mainstream. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From jpl15 at panix.com Wed Jan 12 21:39:07 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: test Message-ID: ? From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 12 21:31:49 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <200501121700.MAA15347@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <20050112141607.77831.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> <004b01c4f8c3$76b374c0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> <200501121700.MAA15347@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050112210734.05054790@mail> At 10:53 AM 1/12/2005, you wrote: >There was an earlier form of DNS which existed in 1985; RFCs 882 and >883, which 1034 and 1035 replace, are dated 1983. In as much as I'd love to see my alma-dropout-mater credited, I'd love to see a better history of DNS's development. These Internet timelines are endlessly copied and repeated without attribution or citations. Useless! Most of them say that DNS was first developed at UW-Madison (or I should say "the University of Wisconsin", which is sort of like the way people say someone's from the "East Coast" when they really mean "New York City".) Paul Mockapetris' name is on RFC 882. His bio doesn't say Madison: http://www.nominum.com/bio.php?id=2 Here's an interview: http://www.theregister.com/2003/06/24/dns_creator_considers_the_internets/ But I think the timelines must be referring to some previous DNS-like incarnation, perhaps a spin-off of some other project. I have vague memories of gasping in awe at 1+ meg net-wide 'hosts' files circa 1983 on VAXes running Unix at UW-Madison. The citations in those RFCs mention "The Design of the CSNET Name Server", with one of the authors being UW-Madison's Larry Landweber: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~lhl/ but even this bio doesn't claim a stake in DNS, at least directly. - John (Just old enough to have had business cards with bang notation for my email address.) From jpl15 at panix.com Wed Jan 12 21:44:36 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: This just in... Message-ID: >Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 >From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org >To: jpl15@panix.com >Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... Interesting... Cheers Not Unsubbed From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 12 21:39:27 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501121701.j0CH1kr9022311@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501121701.j0CH1kr9022311@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050112213432.0517b0a8@mail> At 11:01 AM 1/12/2005, Brad Parker wrote: >Ah for the day when Steve Jobs and Scott McNealy could read their own email >and respond... In the spring of '94, I sent a short message to billg@microsoft.com and he answered the same day. A few months later, the Wall Street Journal published his email address and that was all over. - John From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 12 21:50:22 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: References: <20050112165417.R998@localhost> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050112214804.0560c830@mail> At 09:24 PM 1/12/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > Some realized they could SELL internet >access to other people. In fact, I was an investor in a pretty early ISP >in the Sacramento area that was started by a very young friend of mine, >and is still thriving today. This begat the Mom&Pop ISP boom. To be fair, there were plenty of "become an Internet provider in 90 days" mom & pop ISPs who also used turn-key BSD-based boxes. If anything was driving people towards Unix, it was TCP/IP and Unix's tools that were standard for using the Internet. Chicken and egg. - John From jrice54 at vzavenue.net Wed Jan 12 21:57:24 2005 From: jrice54 at vzavenue.net (James Rice) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E5F1A4.20503@vzavenue.net> Me too. John Lawson wrote: > >> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 >> From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org >> To: jpl15@panix.com >> Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > > > > > > And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... > > Interesting... > > > Cheers > > Not Unsubbed > -- www.blackcube.org The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 12 21:59:32 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 >>From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org >>To: jpl15@panix.com >>Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > > > > >And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... > > Interesting... > > >Cheers > >Not Unsubbed I just got one as well. Let's see if I get this... Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 12 22:00:37 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 22:44:36 -0500 (EST), John Lawson wrote: > > >Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 > >From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > >To: jpl15@panix.com > >Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > > And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... I got one too... -ethan From jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to Wed Jan 12 22:02:56 2005 From: jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> Anyone else get this message? From jimmydevice at verizon.net Wed Jan 12 22:02:08 2005 From: jimmydevice at verizon.net (JimD) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E5F2C0.4080301@verizon.net> chris wrote: >>the attraction is to all the people that burn themselves WHENEVER they >>pick up a soldering iron... >> >> > >I thought those burns where a right of passage in using an iron!?! > >-chris > > > > > As a kid, I once dropped a 40 Watt iron on the floor, Bending over to retrive it, the chair tipped over and I landed on the iron palm down. Still have the scar, 35 years later ;-) Jim Davis. From pcw at mesanet.com Wed Jan 12 22:04:33 2005 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: <41E5F1A4.20503@vzavenue.net> Message-ID: Me Three? On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, James Rice wrote: > Me too. > > John Lawson wrote: > > > > >> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 > >> From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > >> To: jpl15@panix.com > >> Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > > > > > > > > > > > > And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... > > > > Interesting... > > > > > > Cheers > > > > Not Unsubbed > > > > > -- > www.blackcube.org The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers > > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics From jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to Wed Jan 12 22:05:27 2005 From: jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E5F387.30907@compsys.to> Zane H. Healy wrote: >>> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 >>> From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org >>> To: jpl15@panix.com >>> Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list >> >> And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... >> > Jerome Fine replies: I received your message - obviously! Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine From jpl15 at panix.com Wed Jan 12 22:05:25 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: Unsub message full headers Message-ID: Return-Path: X-Original-To: jpl15@panix.com Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org (dewey.classiccmp.org [209.145.140.57]) by mail3.panix.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6ED27981D2 for ; Wed, 12 Jan 2005 22:35:52 -0500 (EST) Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dewey.classiccmp.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id j0D3W1MF002092 for ; Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:32:11 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org To: jpl15@panix.com Message-ID: Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 Precedence: bulk X-BeenThere: cctalk@classiccmp.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 List-Id: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" X-List-Administrivia: yes Sender: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org Errors-To: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.80/663/Tue Jan 11 16:44:48 2005 clamav-milter version 0.80j on dewey.classiccmp.org X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-104.7 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00,NO_REAL_NAME, USER_IN_WHITELIST autolearn=ham version=2.64 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.64 (2004-01-11) on dewey.classiccmp.org Cheers John From tothwolf at concentric.net Wed Jan 12 22:06:19 2005 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> References: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Anyone else get this message? I just got it. -Toth From john at guntersville.net Wed Jan 12 22:05:42 2005 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: This just in... References: <41E5F1A4.20503@vzavenue.net> Message-ID: <41E5F396.E1F02EDF@guntersville.net> I just got one also. From the headers it looks like someone is playing games. Attached are the headers. Received: by www (mbox john) (with Cubic Circle's cucipop (v1.31 1998/05/13) Wed Jan 12 21:51:04 2005) X-From_: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org Wed Jan 12 21:50:35 2005 Envelope-to: john@guntersville.net Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org ([209.145.140.57]) by www.guntersville.net with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1Cow0J-0008SF-00 for ; Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:50:35 -0600 Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dewey.classiccmp.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id j0D3k781003034 for ; Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:46:07 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org To: john@guntersville.net Message-ID: Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:37 -0600 Precedence: bulk X-BeenThere: cctalk@classiccmp.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 List-Id: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" X-List-Administrivia: yes Sender: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org Errors-To: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.80/663/Tue Jan 11 16:44:48 2005 clamav-milter version 0.80j on dewey.classiccmp.org X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-104.7 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00,NO_REAL_NAME, USER_IN_WHITELIST autolearn=ham version=2.64 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.64 (2004-01-11) on dewey.classiccmp.org X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 X-UIDL: fb60252277060000 James Rice wrote: > > Me too. > > John Lawson wrote: > > > > >> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 > >> From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > >> To: jpl15@panix.com > >> Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > > > > > > > > > > > > And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... > > > > Interesting... > > > > > > Cheers > > > > Not Unsubbed > > > > -- > www.blackcube.org The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers From news at computercollector.com Wed Jan 12 22:08:09 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> Message-ID: <20050113040810.98928.qmail@web52803.mail.yahoo.com> Yeah I just got that too! What the...!? --- "Jerome H. Fine" wrote: > Anyone else get this message? > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 646 readers and counting! From vax9000 at gmail.com Wed Jan 12 22:08:16 2005 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> References: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> Message-ID: me On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:02:56 -0500, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Anyone else get this message? > From thedm at sunflower.com Wed Jan 12 22:08:47 2005 From: thedm at sunflower.com (Bill Girnius) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list References: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> Message-ID: <003801c4f925$94e04b50$6401a8c0@barton> yup ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jerome H. Fine" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 10:02 PM Subject: Re: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > Anyone else get this message? > From jpl15 at panix.com Wed Jan 12 22:11:55 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: Looks like cctech as well... Message-ID: We now pause our regularly-scheduled maillist for: CHAOS! Cheers A. Turing's Machine From george at rachors.com Wed Jan 12 22:12:09 2005 From: george at rachors.com (George Leo Rachor Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> Message-ID: Looks like everybody did.... George Rachor ========================================================= George L. Rachor Jr. george@rachors.com Hillsboro, Oregon http://rachors.com United States of America Amateur Radio : KD7DCX On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Anyone else get this message? > From cvisors at gmail.com Wed Jan 12 22:16:04 2005 From: cvisors at gmail.com (Benjamin Gardiner) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: <41E5F387.30907@compsys.to> References: <41E5F387.30907@compsys.to> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:05:27 -0500, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Zane H. Healy wrote: > > >>> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 > >>> From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > >>> To: jpl15@panix.com > >>> Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > >> > >> And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... > >> > > > Jerome Fine replies: > > I received your message - obviously! > > Sincerely yours, > > Jerome Fine > > Its odd I just received one of these too. weird... Benjamin -- kisses on the dancefloor in my past i need some comfort just like you beating like a bass drum time goes by i want the last dance just like you Covenant - Bullet From bernd at kopriva.de Wed Jan 12 22:25:09 2005 From: bernd at kopriva.de (Bernd Kopriva) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050113055701.20A9C393AB@linux.local> Me too :-( ... Ciao Bernd On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 22:06:19 -0600 (CST), Tothwolf wrote: >On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > >> Anyone else get this message? > >I just got it. > >-Toth > > Bernd Kopriva Tel: 07195 / 179452 Weilerstr. 24 E-Mail : bernd@kopriva.de 71397 Leutenbach From dave04a at dunfield.com Wed Jan 12 22:53:45 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: Homebuilt S-100 TRS-80s - initial report Message-ID: <20050113045344.LUUM8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Hi Guys, Well --- I played with these two machines this evening. Case anyone missed my original posting - as part of a sizable load of equipment I picked up this past weekend, I received two homebrew S-100 systems which are reported to be complete implementations of a TRS-80 on S-100 cards. They had been stored for a long time in a cottage, so they were quite dirty (fortunately no evidence of mice!) - Removed all cards, cleaned up the slots and connections, checked out the power supply, reinserted the cards, hooked up a Zenith monitor and fired the first one up... Immediately got a "Cass?" prompt, then "Memory size?", and finally: Radio Shack Model III BASIC .... normal Model III stuff ... READY > yup - the thing actually works! This one has: WAMECO CPU-2 Z80 CPU card SSM VB1B video card, with fairly extensive modifications, presumably to make it TRS-80 video compatible. A standard S-100 memory card (didn't write the type down). A homebuilt card which has EPROM copies of the TRS-80 ROMs, as well as a fair bit of logic, speaker circuit, keyboard interface --- I would guess "Everything else" from the TRS-80. So, I moved on to the second one - this one has the same cards as the one above, plus a homebuilt disk controller card. Cleaned it up, checked the supply, powered it up and --- NOTHING! Then I remembered that you need to hold BREAK at reset/power-up on TRS-80s with disks to get to ROM basic ... Tried holding BREAK and voila! - same prompts as above! So, I hooked up the drives, powered on - sure enough, Drive 1 came on... Put in a TRS-DOS disk for the Model III, and hit reset --- Next thing I know, I'm in TRS-DOS, running exactly like a Model III. !!! As Sellam put it so eloquently ... this things are effing cool! Will take pics this weekend, and try to get them (and more of the new stuff) on the site sometime next week - will post a notice when ready. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From tomhudson at execpc.com Wed Jan 12 23:03:41 2005 From: tomhudson at execpc.com (Tom Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> References: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> Message-ID: <41E6012D.5060902@execpc.com> I got TWO of 'em! I WIN!!! -Tom P.S. One at 9:07PM, one at 9:23PM -- Thomas Hudson http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Anyone else get this message? > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 12 23:11:47 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: ANSWER (dumping) Message-ID: <004e01c4f92e$62098760$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Answer to "why did I get dumped" "what did I do wrong" "what gives" etc. etc. short answer: No one was actually unsubscribed. Ignore it. long answer: I'm spending a lot of time to get the new classiccmp server up. Actually, I put the new mirrored drives into a different machine... and I'm moving all services to that machine one at a time (theres more than just the list to move). Once I get everything moved and working, I will then just moved the mirrored drives and controller to the new (old) system. So while I was moving the subscriber lists I was subbing and unsubsubbing "en-masse", but not to the current list server (huey), but to the new (hidden) list server (dewey) that is not in production yet and not running the list. I specifically put a command line option on the unsub en-masse command that was supposed to prevent sub/unsub notices from going out (-a n -w n). Obviously there is a bug and it sends out the messages anyways. But if you look at the unsub message headers carefully, you'll see that they are from dewey, not huey, so no one was actually affected (the list is still on huey for now). Jay From tomhudson at execpc.com Wed Jan 12 23:12:16 2005 From: tomhudson at execpc.com (Tom Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E60330.5030005@execpc.com> My favorite part of the TV ad is where people are gushing about how they won't get burned by this soldering iron. You know, if you can't use a freakin' soldering iron without burning your eye out or something, you shouldn't be using it at all. I have soldered millions of joints and can count the number of times I've burned myself on one hand. (Of course, it's the hand I didn't burn off with my trusty "normal" soldering iron...) -Tom Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >The commercials on TV that I was seeing a few weeks ago seemed to think >that ordinary people like housewives and weekend fix it up schlubs would >somehow find a use for a soldering iron. They showed the hands of a lady >soldering some piece of kitchen ware and some doofus doing some very light >repair (broken battery wire or something equally lame) on some gadget. >And I'm like, yeah right. Who fixes anything these days (I'm being >rhetorical, Tony) and what of anything that's made today is conducive to >being repaired in the home with a soldering iron? > > -- Thomas Hudson http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 12 23:12:41 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: Hey people Message-ID: <005801c4f92e$82053e10$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Chill Out From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 12 23:26:23 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: so.... Message-ID: <008001c4f930$6c4e8c50$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I guess the suprise is out (to those who inspected the headers)... The new machine has spamassassin and clamAV on it... primarily so that the moderator won't have to moderate spam. This will make my job (and the other list moderator helpers jobs) infinitely more bearable. It'll be nice to moderate about 150 emails a day instead of a thousand+. Also, when it's all done... look for some nice enhancements to the list archives. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 12 23:37:17 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: server names Message-ID: <00b201c4f931$f1c6fc40$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> too many have asked.... Huey was (and for a few days more at least 'is') the real hostname of the classiccmp server, because that was the system name for our HP2000/Access system in high school. But since I got my own real HP2000/Access system running at home... well... in the words of the highlander "there can be only one". So the new classicmp server is named Dewey, after the DEC PDP-11/03 running RT-11/TSX+ in my high school. Yes, my home system is named louie.classiccmp.org, after the third computer my high school had, a EC-1 analog computer :) Jay From lbickley at bickleywest.com Wed Jan 12 23:40:32 2005 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> References: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> Message-ID: <200501122140.32008.lbickley@bickleywest.com> I think we've all received that message. Lyle On Wednesday 12 January 2005 20:02, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Anyone else get this message? -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From GOOI at oce.nl Thu Jan 13 01:07:39 2005 From: GOOI at oce.nl (Gooijen H) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list Message-ID: <3C9C07E832765C4F92E96B06BDC0747A011134DF@gd-mail03.oce.nl> No, it's a draw. For the real #1 :~), I got the first at 4:15, the second at 6:32 (both "West-Europe" time, during the winter that's UTC-2). - Henk, PA8PDP. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Tom Hudson > Sent: donderdag 13 januari 2005 6:04 > To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > > > I got TWO of 'em! I WIN!!! > > -Tom > > P.S. One at 9:07PM, one at 9:23PM > > -- > Thomas Hudson > http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website > http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More > http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club > http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration > http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects > > > Jerome H. Fine wrote: > > > Anyone else get this message? From tothwolf at concentric.net Thu Jan 13 01:12:28 2005 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: Hitachi 4Drive CD enclosure and controller In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C69@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C69@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > I have available for the picking, an external cabinet with 4 Hitachi > interface CD-ROM drives (TCDR-4000). I also have the TCD-IF8P interface > card (from Todd engineering), the install and driver disks and > connecting cable. THESE ARE NOT SCSI DRIVES. It also comes with a bunch > of the cadies for the CD's. Copyright and dates codes are from 1992 so > this is on topic. > > According to what I can find, none of this is supported in any of the > current PC environment, and it doesn't run on any of the classic stuff I > collect. Well, I guess I could get it running in one of the DOS machines > I use for emulating and testing, but I have no real desire to do so. I'll add that I've used these and still have a single drive and controller card packed away somewhere. From what I remember, those particular Hitachi drives were sold directly to Todd engineering/(enterprise?) who then packaged them in chassis and sold them with controller cards. I have some literature from them filed away somewhere, but I don't think I still have the DOS driver. IIRC, the protocol is really simple, and it shouldn't be hard to hack up a *nix driver for one of these if someone was so inclined. (I believe the only reason I kept the drive I have is that I'd planned to do just this...but I've never gotten around to it.) Of course, the drives are single speed and certainly aren't CDDA capable, but they would work fine for text files or something ;) Also, Todd *did* package and sell some early SCSI Hitachi drives, but the drives mentioned above are most definitely *not* SCSI. I still have a single speed SCSI drive that they sold packed away somewhere too. It still worked last time I used it... These days I have a Pioneer DRM-5004X that holds most of my cdrom collection, so I haven't been using these older drives for quite some time. (Yes, the DRM-5004X is actually on topic now...it came out in the early 1990s and its drives are adapted from the DRM-604X, which came out in 1991-1992 or so.) Geek points for those who remember these drives without using Google ;) -Toth From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Thu Jan 13 01:17:23 2005 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:56 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list Message-ID: <22934.1105600643@www6.gmx.net> Tom Hudson wrote: > I got TWO of 'em! I WIN!!! > >-Tom > >P.S. One at 9:07PM, one at 9:23PM Also got it twice (with exactly the same time stamps as you). If there is somebody playing games, s/he should better be careful or might be sued if shocked list members suffer heart attacks due to these bad news! -- Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de +++ Sparen Sie mit GMX DSL +++ http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl AKTION für Wechsler: DSL-Tarife ab 3,99 EUR/Monat + Startguthaben From kelly at catcorner.org Wed Jan 12 09:59:39 2005 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C68@mail.catcorner.org> From: Joe R. Subject: RE: Lots of S-100 card docs avail/wanted > At 09:53 PM 1/11/05 -0500, you wrote: >> -----Original Message----- > I think I may have one of these. Years ago I picked up a large metal > chassis that I was told was a TRS-6000 and IIRC it did have TRS cards > in it but it was NOT in the usual plastic chassis (I have one of them > too). I pulled it apart and looked at it and as best I can remember it > has 3 Mb of RAM, a 68000 CPU and a Z-80 CPU and a LOT of serial ports. > I also got a huge stack of TRS-6000 disks and docs with it. I thought > perhaps it was a TRS-6000 that someone had taken apart and mounted > in a metal chassis but your message makes me wonder. It's been > years since I looked at the thing and I don't remember what > form-factor cards are in it. > > Joe Joe: If you're ever interested in unloading this, and/or the disks let me know. If you ever get a chance, I'd love to see some pictures of this beast! Kelly From gtn at rbii.com Wed Jan 12 14:22:45 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <200501121730.j0CHUXWs025331@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501121730.j0CHUXWs025331@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On Jan 12, 2005, at 12:30 PM, Brad Parker wrote: > (yes, there I was, sitting on my horse - in '87 - watching the prairie > grass blow and wondering what the *hell* those long iron rails were > for... little did I know they would bring 63 million settlers! :-) I remember thinking back then... "someone should snarf london.com, or japan.com... might be worth something one day". I never did get around to it, even after 1991/1992 when it was clear the web was starting to take off. From gtn at rbii.com Wed Jan 12 15:25:10 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501122057.j0CKvqeS009251@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501122057.j0CKvqeS009251@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <70A468F8-64E0-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 12, 2005, at 3:57 PM, Brad Parker wrote: > Us poor folk in UUCP land had to use "bang style" address. From most > places on the internet you could reach me as "harvard!gcc-milo!brad". > FIDONET too... From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 13 03:24:43 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <41E6012D.5060902@execpc.com> References: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> <41E6012D.5060902@execpc.com> Message-ID: On Jan 12, 2005, at 9:03 PM, Tom Hudson wrote: > I got TWO of 'em! I WIN!!! > > -Tom > nope, I got two of them as well, and r comes before t.. I Win? :^) From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Jan 13 04:25:54 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: References: <41E5F2F0.3040608@compsys.to> <41E6012D.5060902@execpc.com> Message-ID: <26c11a6405011302254c9d1186@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 01:24:43 -0800, Ron Hudson wrote: > > On Jan 12, 2005, at 9:03 PM, Tom Hudson wrote: > > > I got TWO of 'em! I WIN!!! > > > > -Tom > > > > nope, I got two of them as well, and r comes before t.. > > I Win? :^) > > I win because gmail automatically put in the spam folder. I was wondering what you where all going on about. Dan From cmurray at eagle.ca Thu Jan 13 05:33:54 2005 From: cmurray at eagle.ca (Cmurray) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Message 34 - unsubscribed Message-ID: <200501131133.j0DBXsuK011926@inferno.eagle.ca> Message: 34 Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:08:16 -0500 From: 9000 VAX Subject: Re: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII me On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 23:02:56 -0500, Jerome H. Fine wrote: >> Anyone else get this message? I got this message TWICE, within 1/2 hr and midnight to boot!!! From dbetz at xlisper.mv.com Thu Jan 13 05:55:55 2005 From: dbetz at xlisper.mv.com (David Betz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1499C05A-655A-11D9-B076-000D9335D6E2@xlisper.mv.com> I got two copies of this message. On Jan 12, 2005, at 11:04 PM, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > > Me Three? > > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, James Rice wrote: >> Me too. >> >> John Lawson wrote: >> >>> >>>> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 >>>> From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org >>>> To: jpl15@panix.com >>>> Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... >>> >>> Interesting... >>> >>> >>> Cheers >>> >>> Not Unsubbed >>> >> >> >> -- >> www.blackcube.org The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned >> Computers >> >> > > Peter Wallace > Mesa Electronics > From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Thu Jan 13 06:19:06 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFCAB@exchange.olf.com> Same here?? Ram -----Original Message----- From: Tothwolf [mailto:tothwolf@concentric.net] Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 11:06 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Anyone else get this message? I just got it. -Toth (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jan 13 06:26:13 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 12 Jan 2005 15:22:45 EST." Message-ID: <200501131226.j0DCQDMC027950@mwave.heeltoe.com> Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > >On Jan 12, 2005, at 12:30 PM, Brad Parker wrote: >> (yes, there I was, sitting on my horse - in '87 - watching the prairie >> grass blow and wondering what the *hell* those long iron rails were >> for... little did I know they would bring 63 million settlers! :-) > >I remember thinking back then... "someone should snarf london.com, or >japan.com... might be worth something one day". I never did get around >to it, even after 1991/1992 when it was clear the web was starting to >take off. I registered 'american.com' in um, 95 an it caused a bit of a stir :-) seems the folks at american university (american.edu) didn't like that (but hey, the company was called 'american internet' so it seemed natural). (I know the whois says 98 but the original registration was way before that) This was before the namespace land grab - once that started no one looked back. In the end no one really cared and I didn't make any money off the name. It's now held by a large corporation who will probably do nothing with it. hi ho. -brad From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 13 07:46:01 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Hey people In-Reply-To: <005801c4f92e$82053e10$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005801c4f92e$82053e10$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1105623961.2462.20.camel@weka.localdomain> On Wed, 2005-01-12 at 23:12 -0600, Jay West wrote: > Chill Out k :-) Damn coincidences - I had a disk fail (or start to) in the home mailserver this week, so I thought I'd been booted off the list as too many messages weren't getting through to me :-) (luckily I had a spare identical drive, so a quick 'dd' and a filesystem check and all's back to normal here...) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 13 07:47:58 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: <1499C05A-655A-11D9-B076-000D9335D6E2@xlisper.mv.com> References: <1499C05A-655A-11D9-B076-000D9335D6E2@xlisper.mv.com> Message-ID: <1105624078.2462.22.camel@weka.localdomain> Is this international top-post day or something? ;-) On Thu, 2005-01-13 at 06:55 -0500, David Betz wrote: > I got two copies of this message. > > On Jan 12, 2005, at 11:04 PM, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > > > > > Me Three? > > > > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, James Rice wrote: > >> Me too. > >> > >> John Lawson wrote: > >> > >>> > >>>> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 > >>>> From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > >>>> To: jpl15@panix.com > >>>> Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... > >>> > >>> Interesting... > >>> > >>> > >>> Cheers > >>> > >>> Not Unsubbed > >>> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> www.blackcube.org The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned > >> Computers > >> > >> > > > > Peter Wallace > > Mesa Electronics > > -- "We've had a lot of loonies around this place, but you're the first one who thought the sunrise was made out of stale beer. Now are you going to pick up your flute and leave, or shall I part your hair with this crowbar?" From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Jan 13 07:52:01 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: <1105624078.2462.22.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1499C05A-655A-11D9-B076-000D9335D6E2@xlisper.mv.com> <1105624078.2462.22.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <26c11a64050113055241cf6aa9@mail.gmail.com> Don't know, could be ) On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:47:58 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote: > Is this international top-post day or something? ;-) > > On Thu, 2005-01-13 at 06:55 -0500, David Betz wrote: > > I got two copies of this message. > > > > On Jan 12, 2005, at 11:04 PM, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > > > > > > > > Me Three? > > > > > > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, James Rice wrote: > > >> Me too. > > >> > > >> John Lawson wrote: > > >> > > >>> > > >>>> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 > > >>>> From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > > >>>> To: jpl15@panix.com > > >>>> Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... > > >>> > > >>> Interesting... > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> Cheers > > >>> > > >>> Not Unsubbed > > >>> > > >> > > >> > > >> -- > > >> www.blackcube.org The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned > > >> Computers > > >> > > >> > > > > > > Peter Wallace > > > Mesa Electronics > > > > -- > "We've had a lot of loonies around this place, but you're the first one > who thought the sunrise was made out of stale beer. Now are you going to > pick up your flute and leave, or shall I part your hair with this > crowbar?" > From RCini at congressfinancial.com Thu Jan 13 07:57:44 2005 From: RCini at congressfinancial.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: This just in... Message-ID: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAF025@mail10.congressfinancial.com> I got one, too. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 11:01 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: This just in... On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 22:44:36 -0500 (EST), John Lawson wrote: > > >Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:07:35 -0600 > >From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > >To: jpl15@panix.com > >Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list > > And that was it - no body message, and of course, t'ain't true... I got one too... -ethan From pkoning at equallogic.com Thu Jan 13 08:25:58 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something References: <20050112142128.P998@localhost> Message-ID: <16870.34038.332549.538403@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "William" == William Donzelli writes: William> .... Some of the things were William> pretty cool - a 400 cps (!) paper tape punch, ... Wow. I've love to see one of those. The fastest I have seen was, I think, a 120 cps punch. Listening to one of those running at full speed is pretty impressive. Paper tape readers can go much faster (I've seen 2000 cps) but those are optical readers, so the job is far easier. paul From brain at jbrain.com Thu Jan 13 08:42:09 2005 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: ANSWER (dumping) In-Reply-To: <004e01c4f92e$62098760$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <004e01c4f92e$62098760$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <41E688C1.2090507@jbrain.com> Jay West wrote: > headers carefully, you'll see that they are from dewey, not huey, so > no one was actually affected (the list is still on huey for now). > > Jay Which begs the question: Is there a louie? -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations brain@jbrain.com http://www.jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Jan 13 08:55:03 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <41E60330.5030005@execpc.com> References: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050113095503.00934620@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> My "favorite" part is at the beginning when the idiot can't solder his item because the power cord is too short. I guess it never occurred to them that a soldering iron is a PORTABLE device and can be moved! They should call these things "idiot-mercails". Idiots wrote them, idiots play the part of real people and only an idiot would believe them! Joe At 11:12 PM 1/12/05 -0600, you wrote: >My favorite part of the TV ad is where people are gushing about how they >won't get burned by this soldering iron. You know, if you can't use a >freakin' soldering iron without burning your eye out or something, you >shouldn't be using it at all. I have soldered millions of joints and >can count the number of times I've burned myself on one hand. (Of >course, it's the hand I didn't burn off with my trusty "normal" >soldering iron...) > >-Tom > >Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >>The commercials on TV that I was seeing a few weeks ago seemed to think >>that ordinary people like housewives and weekend fix it up schlubs would >>somehow find a use for a soldering iron. They showed the hands of a lady >>soldering some piece of kitchen ware and some doofus doing some very light >>repair (broken battery wire or something equally lame) on some gadget. >>And I'm like, yeah right. Who fixes anything these days (I'm being >>rhetorical, Tony) and what of anything that's made today is conducive to >>being repaired in the home with a soldering iron? >> >> > >-- >Thomas Hudson >http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website >http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More >http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club >http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration >http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects > > > From jdboyd at jdboyd.net Thu Jan 13 09:32:37 2005 From: jdboyd at jdboyd.net (Joshua Boyd) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: This just in... In-Reply-To: <1499C05A-655A-11D9-B076-000D9335D6E2@xlisper.mv.com> References: <1499C05A-655A-11D9-B076-000D9335D6E2@xlisper.mv.com> Message-ID: <20050113153237.GA23087@jdboyd.zill.net> On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 06:55:55AM -0500, David Betz wrote: > I got two copies of this message. I got four. -- Joshua D. Boyd jdboyd@jdboyd.net http://www.jdboyd.net/ http://www.joshuaboyd.org/ From sheehan at sheehan.tzo.com Thu Jan 13 10:39:40 2005 From: sheehan at sheehan.tzo.com (Bill Sheehan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050112143153.W998@localhost> References: <20050112204627.9AC1B4F82@spies.com> <20050112143153.W998@localhost> Message-ID: FidoNet sysops paranoid? Which one of our enemies told you that? -- Bill (WithoutaNet sysop, 1:101/230) On Jan 12, 2005, at 5:36 PM, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote: > >> In the unix world, uucp and netnews, both using bang separated >> pathnames. Tom could explain the details of FIDOnet, which had >> gateways. Then there were all the other corparate/educational >> nets with their own naming rules (bitnet,decnet and dec's internal >> networks). Most people had slow point-point links at the periphery. > > In FidoNet, every node (host) in the net has a complete map of the > network. The first pass was a simple "host" file ala /etc/hosts, > but it ended up a distributed/assembled reasonably smart symbolic > thing. It never fully did what I thought it ought to -- use the > echomail mechanism to redundantly distribute nodelist fragments > from which your system would assemble on the pieces you needed. > > (Echomail was a multiply-redundant, self-healing, > amorphously-connected database system used to deliver "echo" mail, > the functional equivelant of USENET. It was developed by Jeff Rush > ("The Shadow", Dallas TX) not me. It used FidoNet (FSC001) as a > transport mechanism. Echomail is a spectacularly wonderful > mechanism. There was even a robust voting system developed using > it, and people don't come in flavors more paranoid than FidoNet > sysops; if it pleased them it's gotta be good.) From kth at srv.net Thu Jan 13 10:07:32 2005 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E69CC4.2000808@srv.net> Tony Duell wrote: >>The commercials on TV that I was seeing a few weeks ago seemed to think >>that ordinary people like housewives and weekend fix it up schlubs would >>somehow find a use for a soldering iron. They showed the hands of a lady >>soldering some piece of kitchen ware and some doofus doing some very light >> >> > >Eeek... I'd not want to trust soft soldering (which is what this must be) >for something like that.... > > > >>repair (broken battery wire or something equally lame) on some gadget. >>And I'm like, yeah right. Who fixes anything these days (I'm being >>rhetorical, Tony) and what of anything that's made today is conducive to >>being repaired in the home with a soldering iron? >> >> > >That depends on the home, and the soldering iron :-) > >-tony > > > I haven't seen any commercial like this. It must be a UK thing. Several years back I received an ad for an antenna to improve your TV reception. It had several intresting bits that I remember. I should probably add a lot of extra exclimation points to the end to make it more like the original, but I don't want to make myself too sick... It's a MARKETING breakthrough! It doesn't require you to pay fees for cable access because it doesn't connect to the cable system! It doesn't require you to pay fees for satellite access because it doesn't connect to the satellite system! It got its signal from the air! It attaches directly to your TV! It only costs ! From alhartman at yahoo.com Thu Jan 13 11:02:36 2005 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: <200501130531.j0D5TlYL029013@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20050113170236.33637.qmail@web13425.mail.yahoo.com> All this talk of TRS-80's on the list (Those two S-100 Systems sound COOL!!!), prompts me to ask if anyone remembers a garage project called "The Trash Compactor". Basically, some guy (a REALLY SMART guy!) reimplemented the entire Model III logic Board on a board that would fit inside a Model I case. It also incorporated the E/I and the RS-232 port, and did some other cool things. I lost the literature I used to have on this board. Anyone remember it? I wish I'd bought one, way back when... I'm STILL looking for an LNW-80 Model II.. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From dittman at dittman.net Thu Jan 13 11:07:14 2005 From: dittman at dittman.net (Eric Dittman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: <20050113170236.33637.qmail@web13425.mail.yahoo.com> from "Al Hartman" at Jan 13, 2005 09:02:36 AM Message-ID: <20050113170714.B6BC77A4E8@dittman.net> > All this talk of TRS-80's on the list (Those two S-100 > Systems sound COOL!!!), prompts me to ask if anyone > remembers a garage project called "The Trash > Compactor". > > Basically, some guy (a REALLY SMART guy!) > reimplemented the entire Model III logic Board on a > board that would fit inside a Model I case. > > It also incorporated the E/I and the RS-232 port, and > did some other cool things. > > I lost the literature I used to have on this board. > > Anyone remember it? I have a board that sounds like what you described. The company silkscreened on the board is "Norcom". The Model I case has part of the back plastic hacked out for the additional connectors. The keyboard is one of the later-model Model I keyboards with keypad. It works with the exception of one column of keys, which should be easy to fix when I get a chance. -- Eric Dittman dittman@dittman.net From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 11:12:26 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050112170104.J998@localhost> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > cheap. I think that was probably a big part of the initial attraction to > > Linux: a Unix box of your own. > > It didn't take much hardware to run a real unix in 1994, even: > > http://wps.com/archives/wps.com.11Apr1994/wps-hardware.html <...> > It was stuff like *this* and not linux that made the early internet > explode. No fault of linux, it simply wasn't around then. Hi Tom. Are you saying that Linux wasn't around in 1994? > (Ugh, and I had an UNLIMITED BSD/I site license, for which paid > like $100 (seriously), from the "factory", talk about deals of the > century. Around 1995? It got sold with the rest of the assets of > tlg.net. I gave the original BSD/I box away a few years back to a > collector friend. I was storing glue in it (it once was just an > old box :-)) That's another part of the point: Linux was free. No site license required. And it worked. Sure, even if most people could get an unlimited BSD site license for the cheap price of $100, that was still a barrier to wide mainstream adoption of Unix as a PC platform, considering DOS was effectively free and it could do a lot of what you wanted. Certainly not as much as a Unix system, let alone BSD/I, but the other thing to keep in mind was that just KNOWING that a cheapish BSD license was available was not widely known. Only those in certain college and university CS circles might have known that. I certainly don't recall knowing that you could get a BSD license in the little community college where I took some CS courses. As far as I knew, SCO was the shit if you wanted Unix on a PC (circa 1990-1991). This all changed when Linux came out. It seemed like EVERYONE found out about it as it quite literally took the hacker community by storm and spread quickly and widely. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From tbilby at rave.com Thu Jan 13 11:32:02 2005 From: tbilby at rave.com (Tad Bilby) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41E6B092.7080801@rave.com> Hi Jay, Any reason why I was automagically _un_subscribed from cctalk? Thanks, Tad cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org wrote: -- ---- Tad ******************************* From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 13 11:37:38 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: <200501131737.JAA05543@clulw009.amd.com> >From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk > >> That was Bob Vila, and actually he was employing one of those gripper >> wrenches that automatically adjust to any nut size. They work pretty >> well. > >... for rounding thr corners off the nuts. > I agree with Tony. If I saw teeth marks on a axle nut, I'd replace it. Even if the corners were not rounded, it wouldn't take a proper wrench correctly after it had plier jaws on it. Use the proper size and type of tool for each job. Such pliers should only be used for nuts in emergencies, with the understanding that that nut will need to be replaced. Dwight From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jan 13 11:39:37 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 13 Jan 2005 09:12:26 PST." Message-ID: <200501131739.j0DHdbmU009158@mwave.heeltoe.com> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: ... >where I took some CS courses. As far as I knew, SCO was the shit if you >wanted Unix on a PC (circa 1990-1991). This all changed when Linux came >out. It seemed like EVERYONE found out about it as it quite literally >took the hacker community by storm and spread quickly and widely. Well, that may have been how it seemed, but before linux was widely available there was 386bsd. and then freebsd and netbsd... (on the x86 anyway). I think 386bsd was the first unencumbered "free" unix I saw. I ran it on several of my laptops (did some serious BGP development sitting on the floor of my wife's grandmother's house :-) But to be honest, at the time, anyone with a high speed internet connection was using Sun's or VAXen. As I remember, around '92 the free *bsd-on-x86 releases got stable enough to run on the internet. Maybe it's just that I was a *bsd bigot at the time. I do remember some friends running linux also but it was shakey. This was before Alan and Alexy got into the linux networking code (i think anyway, who knows. more wine!). The networking on linux wasn't really ready for prime time as I recall whereas the networking in *bsd was pretty solid. And after Van and Sally had their way with it the TCP worked really well. I can't remember when slow start and clocking got put in, it must have been around 90-91. I remember being all excited about that at the time. -brad From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 11:41:36 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050112210734.05054790@mail> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > In as much as I'd love to see my alma-dropout-mater credited, > I'd love to see a better history of DNS's development. These Internet > timelines are endlessly copied and repeated without attribution > or citations. Useless! Agreed! Too many people tend to rely on single sources they find on the internet that are either outdated or were horribly wrong to begin with, eventually leading to the search engines being saturated with links to the original work itself or derivatives. Very frustrating. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 11:43:49 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050112214804.0560c830@mail> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > At 09:24 PM 1/12/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > Some realized they could SELL internet > >access to other people. In fact, I was an investor in a pretty early ISP > >in the Sacramento area that was started by a very young friend of mine, > >and is still thriving today. This begat the Mom&Pop ISP boom. > > To be fair, there were plenty of "become an Internet provider in 90 days" > mom & pop ISPs who also used turn-key BSD-based boxes. If anything > was driving people towards Unix, it was TCP/IP and Unix's tools > that were standard for using the Internet. Chicken and egg. But again, those "Insta-ISPs" would not have found a viable market before the Linux boom. There was simply no mainstream cognizance of this thing called the "Internet" until it slowly started seeping into the mainstream thanks to the infiltration allowed by an easy to get and use Unix, i.e. Linux. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From nock at email.arizona.edu Thu Jan 13 11:49:25 2005 From: nock at email.arizona.edu (Shawn Nock) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <41E6B092.7080801@rave.com> References: <41E6B092.7080801@rave.com> Message-ID: <1105638565.4917.2.camel@localhost.localdomain> Ditto? Please put me back on! Shawn On Thu, 2005-01-13 at 12:32 -0500, Tad Bilby wrote: > Hi Jay, > > > Any reason why I was automagically _un_subscribed from cctalk? > > > Thanks, > Tad > > > cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org wrote: > > > From alhartman at yahoo.com Thu Jan 13 11:50:10 2005 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: <200501131801.j0DI04YM034371@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20050113175010.12180.qmail@web13426.mail.yahoo.com> Wow Eric! That was QUICK! Thanks! I'd be interested to hear about your experiences with this board. Do you like it? My original Model I is not working properly at this time. My friend Tom and I will have to take a look at it more closely. It powers up, and will work stand-alone, but when attached to my E/I or an LNW E/I I have, it does not see the RAM in the E/I or access the floppies. I may simply have to resolder the gold plug on the expansion connector, OR something more insidious is wrong. This particular Model I has the Dennis Kitsz LowerCase Mod from his book (very similar to the Electric Pencil Mod), Dennis's High Speed Upgrade (4mhz if I remember correctly) with a special circuit that slows down the Mod for Cassette or Disk Access (along with a Tri-Color LED that goes Red for normal, Green for High Speed, and Orange for Auto Switch). We also built in an Audio Amplifier, Composite Video Out (for an Amber Monitor OR a TV through an RF Modulator), AND an Alpha Joystick Connector one can attach ANY Atari-Style Joystick to. I miss those days... Al > From: dittman@dittman.net (Eric Dittman) > > > All this talk of TRS-80's on the list (Those two > S-100 > > Systems sound COOL!!!), prompts me to ask if > anyone > > remembers a garage project called "The Trash > > Compactor". > > > > Basically, some guy (a REALLY SMART guy!) > > reimplemented the entire Model III logic Board on > a > > board that would fit inside a Model I case. > > > > It also incorporated the E/I and the RS-232 port, > and > > did some other cool things. > > > > I lost the literature I used to have on this > board. > > > > Anyone remember it? > > I have a board that sounds like what you described. > The company > silkscreened on the board is "Norcom". > > The Model I case has part of the back plastic hacked > out for the > additional connectors. The keyboard is one of the > later-model > Model I keyboards with keypad. > > It works with the exception of one column of keys, > which should be > easy to fix when I get a chance. > -- > Eric Dittman > dittman@dittman.net __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 11:51:16 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <22934.1105600643@www6.gmx.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Arno Kletzander wrote: > Also got it twice (with exactly the same time stamps as you). If there is > somebody playing games, s/he should better be careful or might be sued if > shocked list members suffer heart attacks due to these bad news! If the CC list is so important to you that you could potentially suffer a heart attack upon learning that you were suddenly unsubscribed then you really need to get out more often :) (And cut down on the sodium intake.) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 11:54:41 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <200501131226.j0DCQDMC027950@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Brad Parker wrote: > I registered 'american.com' in um, 95 an it caused a bit of a stir :-) > seems the folks at american university (american.edu) didn't like that > (but hey, the company was called 'american internet' so it seemed > natural). > > (I know the whois says 98 but the original registration was way before that) > > This was before the namespace land grab - once that started no one > looked back. > > In the end no one really cared and I didn't make any money off the name. > It's now held by a large corporation who will probably do nothing with > it. hi ho. I rarely let go of any domain names anymore if anything just to keep them out of the hands of the losers that scoop them up after you abandon them so they can leech off of whatever links you managed to get to your website (i.e. check out the useless losers at vcf.org). I hate those fuckers. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 11:56:32 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <16870.34038.332549.538403@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Paul Koning wrote: > >>>>> "William" == William Donzelli writes: > > William> .... Some of the things were > William> pretty cool - a 400 cps (!) paper tape punch, ... > > Wow. I've love to see one of those. The fastest I have seen was, I > think, a 120 cps punch. Listening to one of those running at full > speed is pretty impressive. > > Paper tape readers can go much faster (I've seen 2000 cps) but those > are optical readers, so the job is far easier. I don't suppose anyone ever manufactured a laser-based paper tape punch? Is that even feasible? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 13 12:02:58 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1105639378.2462.41.camel@weka.localdomain> On Thu, 2005-01-13 at 09:12 -0800, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > > > cheap. I think that was probably a big part of the initial attraction to > > > Linux: a Unix box of your own. > > > > It didn't take much hardware to run a real unix in 1994, even: > > > > http://wps.com/archives/wps.com.11Apr1994/wps-hardware.html > > <...> > > > It was stuff like *this* and not linux that made the early internet > > explode. No fault of linux, it simply wasn't around then. > > Hi Tom. > > Are you saying that Linux wasn't around in 1994? That's the year I was running the SLS distribution on a 486dx33 with 8 meg of memory - used to scream along it did. Well, apart from kernel rebuilds; they took several hours (but things back then didn't feel like they *needed* to be so fast, so it was no big deal). I got a lot of uni assigments done on that system that I would have otherwise had to use uni hardware for - to say it was just a boring old PC it sure did the job nicely. Hmm, actually it might have been as early as 1993 even when I first installed Linux, not 1994... I still had DOS on there for things like Wordperfect and 3D Studio (and games like Wolfenstein). Which is interesting... when did LILO appear? Was it around in those early days? I don't remember how I dual-booted the system if not. From dittman at dittman.net Thu Jan 13 12:08:28 2005 From: dittman at dittman.net (Eric Dittman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: <20050113175010.12180.qmail@web13426.mail.yahoo.com> from "Al Hartman" at Jan 13, 2005 09:50:10 AM Message-ID: <20050113180828.4E4437A4E9@dittman.net> > I'd be interested to hear about your experiences with > this board. Do you like it? All I've done is play around a bit. With the column of keys inoperative I can't do much until I fix it. Too bad you lost the literature. I'd love to find out more about it. Was it ever advertised or written about in "80 Micro"? > My original Model I is not working properly at this > time. My friend Tom and I will have to take a look at > it more closely. > > It powers up, and will work stand-alone, but when > attached to my E/I or an LNW E/I I have, it does not > see the RAM in the E/I or access the floppies. > > I may simply have to resolder the gold plug on the > expansion connector, OR something more insidious is > wrong. Could the cable have been damaged in storage? > This particular Model I has the Dennis Kitsz LowerCase > Mod from his book (very similar to the Electric Pencil > Mod), Dennis's High Speed Upgrade (4mhz if I remember > correctly) with a special circuit that slows down the > Mod for Cassette or Disk Access (along with a > Tri-Color LED that goes Red for normal, Green for High > Speed, and Orange for Auto Switch). > > We also built in an Audio Amplifier, Composite Video > Out (for an Amber Monitor OR a TV through an RF > Modulator), AND an Alpha Joystick Connector one can > attach ANY Atari-Style Joystick to. > > I miss those days... I find that some of the old games on the TRS-80 are more fun than games I see on today's consoles and PCs. There was more emphasis on gameplay back then. -- Eric Dittman dittman@dittman.net From classiccmp at crash.com Thu Jan 13 12:20:12 2005 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet Message-ID: <200501131820.j0DIKD8W026302@ill.crash.com> Sellam Ismail wrote: . > I can make a really good argument ... that e-mail could never have > gotten as big ... as it did without the modern (1990+) Internet, > which could not have gotten where it is today with Linux. I assume that was supposed to be "without Linux." I'll bet someone like Tom Jennings will have a totally different take on this than I do, too. [ Ah, there's his note... Clearly I've been editing this response too long. ] Where to start... I disagree about the growth of the Internet not being possible without Linux. It would have been different, perhaps, but I honestly don't think it would have changed enough to surprise someone who popped into a Linux-less parallel universe as regards email and the Internet. Might have changed a lot more regarding the popularity of open source software, but that's a different discussion. I think that the growth of email and the Internet in everyday life rode two big trends. One is the rise of CompuServe and AOL, which I'll leave for another discussion. The second was the rise of small scale ISPs in the 1993-1994 timeframe, at least in the Northeastern US, and that they were offering raw dialup IP connections. They'd give you a POP account, maybe shell access, and that set the stage to a great degree for non-corporate, non-academic participation in the Web when it came on-stage. Regular folk with Windows/Mac machines were signing up for these accounts, not just tech weenies, for all the reasons that email was popular. No long distance charges, asynchronous between sender and receiver, faster than the post, etc. I recall some who were downloading freeware and shareware like crazy, but the major thrust for this non-tech segment I observed appeared to be email, with some IRC/chat junkies. This led a gentle but steady ramp that was ready to explode with the advent of Web browsers. And the low-usage email customers were what supported the model, not the high-usage geeks who would try to nail up connections all the time for the low-ball prices. Why don't I think Linux was a major factor in this? Surely many of these ISPs used Linux? Well, maybe so. The ones I dealt with would use whatever they could get their hands on to provide the backend services they needed, and didn't care what they had to use to do it. No Linux? Hey, that free thing 386BSD works, or this 1993 fork called NetBSD. But to be honest, most of the time they very, very grudgingly spent the money for Sun gear, at least for the most critical machines/services. And then ran them without any service contract or spares on-hand, which always made me cringe... At least, this is what I ran across in my adventures, your mileage obviously varied. But again, I wouldn't give Sun credit for the spread of the 'Net and email either, for the same reason. If it hadn't been Sun, it would have been something else, and I ran into odd bits of DEC and SGI here and there. I think there were several factors coming to bear, like the NSF AUP changes, like the appearance of PCs with IP stakcs in many more homes, like falling prices for the low-end leased lines that the new ISPs depended would massively oversubscribe... ;^) You want a technical change to point to? I'd point to TCP/IP coming to Windows and the Mac. (Yes it had started much earlier, but it was now getting easier and more reliable.) I'd point to terminal servers getting good SLIP/PPP and connection accounting support. And whatever it was that prompted the Baby Bells to start providing DS0 lines and fractional T1 loops to anybody who could scratch up the cash, if that was in fact a technical change. Would many companies have done things differently without Linux? Sure. But even so, I think it would have happened at a slightly reduced pace with *BSD under the cloud of the USL/UCB lawsuit and the high price of a BSDI license -- which when I looked at it was closer to $1,000 per host, not $100 for a site license! (Might have been a built-in support cost, memory is fuzzy...) The hardware savings alone would have continued to make that a compelling combination versus $10-20k for Sun workstation. Okay, I've spouted off enough for now. I'm curious to see what other responses come in, and what others remember from that time, now as on-topic as anything else since it's more than 10 years ago. Gulp! --Steve. From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 13 12:20:14 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something Message-ID: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Vintage Computer Festival" > >On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Paul Koning wrote: > >> >>>>> "William" == William Donzelli writes: >> >> William> .... Some of the things were >> William> pretty cool - a 400 cps (!) paper tape punch, ... >> >> Wow. I've love to see one of those. The fastest I have seen was, I >> think, a 120 cps punch. Listening to one of those running at full >> speed is pretty impressive. >> >> Paper tape readers can go much faster (I've seen 2000 cps) but those >> are optical readers, so the job is far easier. > >I don't suppose anyone ever manufactured a laser-based paper tape punch? >Is that even feasible? > Hi Sure, it could be done. The only reason it hasn't been done was that the medium was obsolete by the time the LASERs were ready. I used to have fun with a 20W CO2 LASER. I could control it well enough to remove 6 or 7 layers of paper. Each time I'd cut a little deeper. It would make a pop sound and some of the paper would just be disappear :) Dwight From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 13 13:02:37 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: You have been unsubscribed from the cctalk mailing list In-Reply-To: <1105638565.4917.2.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <41E6B092.7080801@rave.com> <1105638565.4917.2.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <41E6C5CD.3020404@oldskool.org> If you received the post, and your post made it through, then I'd say you are still subscribed ;-) I just re-subscribed myself when I saw it. Chalk it up to mailman glitches... Shawn Nock wrote: > Ditto? > > Please put me back on! > > Shawn > > On Thu, 2005-01-13 at 12:32 -0500, Tad Bilby wrote: > >>Hi Jay, >> >> >>Any reason why I was automagically _un_subscribed from cctalk? >> >> >>Thanks, >>Tad >> >> >>cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org wrote: >> >> >> -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 13 13:04:44 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501131739.j0DHdbmU009158@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501131739.j0DHdbmU009158@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <41E6C64C.8010000@oldskool.org> Brad Parker wrote: > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >>where I took some CS courses. As far as I knew, SCO was the shit if you >>wanted Unix on a PC (circa 1990-1991). Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its demise, so I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC in general. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From aek at spies.com Thu Jan 13 13:10:55 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... Message-ID: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its demise, so I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC in general. -- A rundown of the history would be interesting. I recovered a very early version of the C compiler that DGC worked on, and he filled me in on some info on the really early days of the company. From Innfogra at aol.com Thu Jan 13 13:16:40 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Anyone remember Coherent Unix? Message-ID: <68.4d014537.2f182318@aol.com> I am interested in it's history. Could you summarize it a little. I still have a couple sets of their SW although I have never run it. Paxton From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 13:20:17 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501131820.j0DIKD8W026302@ill.crash.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Steven M Jones wrote: > Where to start... I disagree about the growth of the Internet not > being possible without Linux. It would have been different, perhaps, Well, if I'd made such a bold claim ("not possible") I would be on shaky ground. But what I said was "the adoption of the internet by the public at large would have been a lot longer incoming" and then explained why I feel this. > but I honestly don't think it would have changed enough to surprise > someone who popped into a Linux-less parallel universe as regards > email and the Internet. Might have changed a lot more regarding the > popularity of open source software, but that's a different > discussion. But was not Linux another major driving influence behind FOSS? Would FOSS even have that fancy acronym today were it not for Linux? Stallman and friends weren't really making much headway until Linux came about. Perhaps this has to do with Torvalds being a much better spokesman for the concept of FOSS? > I think that the growth of email and the Internet in everyday life > rode two big trends. One is the rise of CompuServe and AOL, which > I'll leave for another discussion. The second was the rise of small And which were closed, proprietary online services which eventually transformed into Internet gateways only after the Internet had "arrived" at the mainstream. Sure, once they adopted e-mail gateways to the Internet they helped prepare the phenomenon, but they were really only facilitators to a movement that was already underway. They had to adapt or be swept under the current. At this point, AOL is simply an ISP that happens to also be a content provider. What would be interesting to know is whether their content offers anything more than what the greater Internet doesn't. I doubt it. I seem to remember around 1998 or so that AOL became obsolete as an information provider, as everything you use to only be able to get from AOL was now available (in some cases for free) from the greater Internet. But I digress. > You want a technical change to point to? I'd point to TCP/IP coming > to Windows and the Mac. (Yes it had started much earlier, but it was > now getting easier and more reliable.) I'd point to terminal servers > getting good SLIP/PPP and connection accounting support. And > whatever it was that prompted the Baby Bells to start providing DS0 > lines and fractional T1 loops to anybody who could scratch up the > cash, if that was in fact a technical change. Again, TCP/IP only came to Windows and the Mac because it became necessary to offer this due to the rising popularity of Internet access. But these alone don't explain why the Internet caught on with the mainstream. Microsoft was still trying to push NetBIOS and NetBUI protocols, and Novell's IPX was incredibly widespread. OS makers ignored TCP/IP at their own peril. I'm willing to back off now, mostly because, as I mentioned, I don't have time to make a good case at this point, and I might even be willing to concede that my original comment was perhaps a bit too strong, but I am convinced that the whole movement that developed from the seed of Linux propelled adoption of the Internet that before was primarily a tool of universities and research institutes and some large corporations. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 13:21:13 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <41E6C64C.8010000@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: > Brad Parker wrote: > > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >>where I took some CS courses. As far as I knew, SCO was the shit if you > >>wanted Unix on a PC (circa 1990-1991). > > Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its > demise, so I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC in > general. I do. We used to have a copy at the company where I got my first "real" job. We never used it though. I think I actually have a copy of Coherent in my archives. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 13 13:34:44 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> On Jan 13, 2005, at 10:20 AM, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: >> >> I don't suppose anyone ever manufactured a laser-based paper tape >> punch? >> Is that even feasible? >> > > Hi > Sure, it could be done. The only reason it hasn't > been done was that the medium was obsolete by the > time the LASERs were ready. > I used to have fun with a 20W CO2 LASER. I could > control it well enough to remove 6 or 7 layers of > paper. Each time I'd cut a little deeper. It would > make a pop sound and some of the paper would just > be disappear :) > Dwight > > > OOH A new kind of media: clear mylar tape with a thin layer of paper on one side (black paper for enhanced absorption ) 16 bit wide? 32 bit wide? How would mylar and paper be for longevity. How are our oldest paper tapes doing? From h.wolter at sympatico.ca Thu Jan 13 13:42:36 2005 From: h.wolter at sympatico.ca (Heinz Wolter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> Message-ID: <005601c4f9a8$0885b9a0$3a92a8c0@maggie> Neil Franklin has a good archive - essily googled but fairly complete;) http://neil.franklin.ch/Usenet/alt.folklore.computers/20001107_Coherent -heinz ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Kossow" To: Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 2:10 PM Subject: Re: How the Mac was born... supposedly... > > > Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its demise, so > I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC in general. > > -- > > A rundown of the history would be interesting. I recovered a very early version > of the C compiler that DGC worked on, and he filled me in on some info on the > really early days of the company. > From cmcnabb at gmail.com Thu Jan 13 13:52:08 2005 From: cmcnabb at gmail.com (Christopher McNabb) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:57 2005 Subject: Anyone remember Coherent Unix? In-Reply-To: <68.4d014537.2f182318@aol.com> References: <68.4d014537.2f182318@aol.com> Message-ID: <145cecdd050113115234db8d16@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:16:40 EST, Innfogra@aol.com wrote: > I am interested in it's history. Could you summarize it a little. I still > have a couple sets of their SW although I have never run it. Coherent was a clean-room implementation of a Unix-Like system written by Mark Williams & Co. It was even "blessed" by AT&T as being non-infringing. It served my personal development needs quite well for several years until I managed to get a *real* AT&T SVR4 binary license. From medavidson at mac.com Thu Jan 13 13:58:01 2005 From: medavidson at mac.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> Message-ID: <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> At one point, there was a web site (in Europe, I believe) that had a complete archive of the Coherent distribution. Unfortunately, Coherent has very few drivers and those that exist don't play well with modern hardware. For example, Coherent's disk utility for setting up file systems absolutely has problems with drives of any reasonable size today (I had problems getting it to work with an 8 GB IDE drive, for example). Also, and I know this sounds picky, but it's not "Coherent Unix"... it's "Coherent". It has NO AT&T code in it. The Mark Williams Company wrote most of the code themselves, and eventually added support for X Windows before the company folded. Even the C compiler was theirs (and if I remember correctly, they had a great C compiler for Intel chips). When Coherent first came out, it cost something like $500... later, the price dropped to $99. Unfortunately for MWC, Coherent started becoming popular right about the time Linux took off, and it was kind of hard for them to compete. Because Coherent was a "look-alike", there were many programs used that were rather difficult to port to Coherent. I remember struggling to get UUCP working properly and having to bug MWC to fix problems so I could use Coherent for news exchange (this was back before NNTP). I had many happy months working with Coherent in those days (back when a "real" port of Unix would cost thousands of dollars), and was sorry to see it go. Mark Davidson On Jan 13, 2005, at 11:10 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > > > Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its > demise, so > I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC in general. > > -- > > A rundown of the history would be interesting. I recovered a very > early version > of the C compiler that DGC worked on, and he filled me in on some info > on the > really early days of the company. > From medavidson at mac.com Thu Jan 13 13:59:43 2005 From: medavidson at mac.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Anyone remember Coherent Unix? In-Reply-To: <68.4d014537.2f182318@aol.com> References: <68.4d014537.2f182318@aol.com> Message-ID: At one point, there was a web site (in Europe, I believe) that had a complete archive of the Coherent distribution. Unfortunately, Coherent has very few drivers and those that exist don't play well with modern hardware. For example, Coherent's disk utility for setting up file systems absolutely has problems with drives of any reasonable size today (I had problems getting it to work with an 8 GB IDE drive, for example). Also, and I know this sounds picky, but it's not "Coherent Unix"... it's "Coherent". It has NO AT&T code in it. The Mark Williams Company wrote most of the code themselves, and eventually added support for X Windows before the company folded. Even the C compiler was theirs (and if I remember correctly, they had a great C compiler for Intel chips). When Coherent first came out, it cost something like $500... later, the price dropped to $99. Unfortunately for MWC, Coherent started becoming popular right about the time Linux took off, and it was kind of hard for them to compete. Because Coherent was a "look-alike", there were many programs used that were rather difficult to port to Coherent. I remember struggling to get UUCP working properly and having to bug MWC to fix problems so I could use Coherent for news exchange (this was back before NNTP). I had many happy months working with Coherent in those days (back when a "real" port of Unix would cost thousands of dollars), and was sorry to see it go. Mark Davidson On Jan 13, 2005, at 11:16 AM, Innfogra@aol.com wrote: > I am interested in it's history. Could you summarize it a little. I > still > have a couple sets of their SW although I have never run it. > > Paxton > From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 13 14:07:24 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> Message-ID: <41E6D4FC.3010802@oldskool.org> Neil Franklin's archive (see other message in this thread) can give you a better complete history than I can. I'd be happy to answer individual questions, though :-) Al Kossow wrote: > Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its demise, so > I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC in general. > > -- > > A rundown of the history would be interesting. I recovered a very early version > of the C compiler that DGC worked on, and he filled me in on some info on the > really early days of the company. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 13 14:12:22 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> Message-ID: <41E6D626.2080307@oldskool.org> Mark Davidson wrote: > Also, and I know this sounds picky, but it's not "Coherent Unix"... it's > "Coherent". It has NO AT&T code in it. The Mark Williams Company wrote > most of the code themselves, and eventually added support for X Windows > before the company folded. Even the C compiler was theirs (and if I > remember correctly, they had a great C compiler for Intel chips). You are absolutely right; it was indeed called just "Coherent". I added the Unix as a reminder as to what Coherent was. As for no AT&T code, you are also 100% right, and in fact I believe either K or Ritchie himself (can't remember which one) came to MWC offices to verify it. > I had many happy months working with Coherent in those days (back when a > "real" port of Unix would cost thousands of dollars), and was sorry to > see it go. Yes, our founder made the fatal mistake of investing in X when he probably should have spent the money on a working TCP/IP implementation. The manual, if you can grab a copy, remains one of the very best Unix manuals in existence. It is extremely well-written by Fred Butzen, and is extremely comprehensive in not only the options to various commands but (more importantly) Unix design concepts. It was great for total beginners; in fact, I remember toward the end that Linux users were ordering Coherent just to get the manual, because Linux documentation in 1994 was nearly non-existent. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From medavidson at mac.com Thu Jan 13 14:31:13 2005 From: medavidson at mac.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <41E6D626.2080307@oldskool.org> References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> <41E6D626.2080307@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <11360EB7-65A2-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> Hi Jim-- On Jan 13, 2005, at 12:12 PM, Jim Leonard wrote: > Mark Davidson wrote: >> Also, and I know this sounds picky, but it's not "Coherent Unix"... >> it's "Coherent". It has NO AT&T code in it. The Mark Williams >> Company wrote most of the code themselves, and eventually added >> support for X Windows before the company folded. Even the C compiler >> was theirs (and if I remember correctly, they had a great C compiler >> for Intel chips). > > You are absolutely right; it was indeed called just "Coherent". I > added the Unix as a reminder as to what Coherent was. As for no AT&T > code, you are also 100% right, and in fact I believe either K or > Ritchie himself (can't remember which one) came to MWC offices to > verify it. > Yes, I remember hearing that... it was certified by AT&T to be completely free of their code. >> I had many happy months working with Coherent in those days (back >> when a "real" port of Unix would cost thousands of dollars), and was >> sorry to see it go. > > Yes, our founder made the fatal mistake of investing in X when he > probably should have spent the money on a working TCP/IP > implementation. > Ack... yep, I remember that. I had fond memories as well of learning "elle", the editor that shipped with the system. > The manual, if you can grab a copy, remains one of the very best Unix > manuals in existence. It is extremely well-written by Fred Butzen, > and is extremely comprehensive in not only the options to various > commands but (more importantly) Unix design concepts. It was great > for total beginners; in fact, I remember toward the end that Linux > users were ordering Coherent just to get the manual, because Linux > documentation in 1994 was nearly non-existent. > Yes indeed... the manual was quite impressive. In fact, I just found a copy on EBay and put in a bid for it. Mark From tomhudson at execpc.com Thu Jan 13 14:41:48 2005 From: tomhudson at execpc.com (Tom Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? In-Reply-To: <11360EB7-65A2-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> <41E6D626.2080307@oldskool.org> <11360EB7-65A2-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> Message-ID: <41E6DD0C.7050300@execpc.com> Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies with some sort of PC-based software? I used to develop software for the Ataris and some co-workers just dredged up some floppies with source code from projects I did for Atari that were never released. We're trying to dig up a functional 800 system to read them but it would save a lot of hassle if it was possible to read them directly into a PC, where we have a good emulator. -Tom -- Thomas Hudson http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Thu Jan 13 14:47:52 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFCEB@exchange.olf.com> Havent tried this, but: -----Original Message----- From: Tom Hudson [mailto:tomhudson@execpc.com] Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 3:42 PM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies with some sort of PC-based software? I used to develop software for the Ataris and some co-workers just dredged up some floppies with source code from projects I did for Atari that were never released. We're trying to dig up a functional 800 system to read them but it would save a lot of hassle if it was possible to read them directly into a PC, where we have a good emulator. -Tom -- Thomas Hudson http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Thu Jan 13 14:48:12 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFCEC@exchange.olf.com> Havent tried this, but: http://www.emulators.com/xformer.htm Cheers, Ram -----Original Message----- From: Tom Hudson [mailto:tomhudson@execpc.com] Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 3:42 PM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies with some sort of PC-based software? I used to develop software for the Ataris and some co-workers just dredged up some floppies with source code from projects I did for Atari that were never released. We're trying to dig up a functional 800 system to read them but it would save a lot of hassle if it was possible to read them directly into a PC, where we have a good emulator. -Tom -- Thomas Hudson http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 14:50:10 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050112210835.0094f100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050112210835.0094f100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050113124030.Q1169@localhost> Without a *single* exception I can recall, if it's advertised on TV it is of utterly no use to me, everything claimed is highly suspect, etc. Seriously, there's reason for this. Things advertised (more accurately, marketed) on TV are rarely 'staples' or things I decide I want (gadgets, vacations, clothes, sex, whatever) which I choose through the usual personal criteria. They are literally corporate fabrications for making money, the problem they solve is profit, not usefulness. Even or especially things that appear to be of use, like drugs, I mean really, I'm gonna decide I need a (heart, diabetes, anxiety) drug from a TV ad?!!! If it's on TV it has no usefulness and if it appears to you're probably dazzled by the shiny bauble and overlooking something. THere may be exceptions (there always is) but I doubt it's better than 1 in 1000. "We make buying easier!" yeah it's a real problem figuring out how to get rid of all this money. I do watch TV. With a TiVo. Useful and informative shows, like Super Milk Chan, Venture Brothers, Free Speech TV, ATHF, Simpsons, movies. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 14:53:15 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <88C9A664-6510-11D9-9D58-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> References: <200501121731.JAA02808@clulw009.amd.com> <7c583a2c4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> <20050112140537.M998@localhost> <88C9A664-6510-11D9-9D58-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <20050113125033.G1169@localhost> On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Ron Hudson wrote: > What kind of screwdriver is a "greenie" screwdriver? I thought they were universal!!!! :-) about 4" long, thin flat blade, 3/32" or so, green translucent hex handle, by xcelite. Trimpots, prying chips, cutting PCB traces, punching holes in your pocket. Fancy models come with a pocket clip. Decent quality, cheap. Just knowing I own one (actually, three) makes life better. From tpeters at mixcom.com Thu Jan 13 14:54:22 2005 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Racks mount CD-ROM cabinets In-Reply-To: <145cecdd050113115234db8d16@mail.gmail.com> References: <68.4d014537.2f182318@aol.com> <68.4d014537.2f182318@aol.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050113144323.0adf1830@localhost> I've got these rack-mount boxes, several of 'em, that each have a power supply, a logical unit controller, and 7 each SCSI CD-ROM drives. 48 pounds each. Height: 7", depth: 20" behind the rack, exclusive of handles. "MDI SCSI Express" and apparently rated for 110-230 vac, 50-60 Hz. I'd give away a couple for a donation to the Mountain Dew fund. -T [Dress] One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. -- Oscar Wilde --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters@nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, Cisco Certified CCNA From classiccmp at crash.com Thu Jan 13 15:08:42 2005 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet Message-ID: <200501132108.j0DL8gtY001252@ill.crash.com> Sellam Ismail wrote: > Well, if I'd made such a bold claim ("not possible") I would be > on shaky ground. Okay, I took your original post to mean something more than you had intended. Sorry. I'd be far more interested in getting people's recollections of that period on the record, so to speak, than being "right." It's a big world, other people would have seen/remembered different things out there... Hell, maybe I was stuck in a backwater and missed all the action, who knows? > But was not Linux another major driving influence behind FOSS? As I said, or meant, open source would have changed a lot more than the spread of the Internet in a Linux-less universe. So I don't really disagree with you here. And I think we could have a really long discussion of the rise of FOSS and Linux separately from email and the Internet. At least that's my opinion, that even with a very different FOSS movement we still would have seen much the same spread of email and the 'Net. I am content to be viewed as an isolated crackpot if need be -- that was in fact a career goal of a friend of mine in college. ;^) >Steven M Jones wrote: >> One is the rise of CompuServe and AOL, which I'll leave for >> another discussion. >> > And which were closed, proprietary online services which > eventually transformed into Internet gateways only after the > Internet had "arrived" at the mainstream. Well, that would be the "other discussion." ;^) But while they were proprietary and so on, they were recognized and acceptable to a very large population. I don't say this to take anything away from the BBSes, which were still cruising along in this period; it would be interesting to see if anyone can dig up some contemporary statistics about users in the two categories. But the point was that since these services were popular, they did introduce a significant user segment to the online world including email, and they did allow email addressed to external users, all of which increased what we'd now call the network effect of Internet and email adoption. > Again, TCP/IP only came to Windows and the Mac because it became > necessary to offer this due to the rising popularity of Internet > access. Maybe yes, maybe no. This is also the era where "open systems" were being deployed on a large scale in the corporate world, and access to these systems via TCP/IP from the desktop was a key requirement. And that trend was independent of whether or not the corporation had external IP network connections, though by this period they were sprouting up all over the place too. In that world in New York and Boston if we had to use a PC, we made sure there was an IP stack and if at all possible X Windows on it. For the home users I was talking about earlier there were packages like Trumpet Winsock and Russ Nelson's Crynwr packet drivers. I seem to recall Mac fans taunting me about how easy MacTCP was to setup, but I'm not clear on the timing for that... All I mean to point out is that there were other strong factors behind TCP/IP coming to the Windows/Mac platform. And while the corporate users would pay, the realities of the academic budget ensured that something cheap/free would be available to meet the same needs. Anyways, I hope that at some point you get a chance to write up what you saw happening around that time with the small ISPs and Linux, and share it with us. That goes for the other list members too; I was hoping for a wider response, and especially views from outside the US. I've been focusing on the 1993-4 period because of the way it set the stage for growth once the Web caught on, but feel free to roll forward or backward too. Then again, maybe this is the wrong forum. I'll let the silence be my guide... --Steve. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 15:12:18 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050113125355.Y1169@localhost> On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > What Linux did was allow any nerd to now have their own unix box. The > next step was then to be able to take advantage of this crazy cool thing > called the Internet. Primarily, the killer-app was Usenet and e-mail, but > of course for nerds there was other wondrous stuff online. So now these > nerds started seeking out ways that they could connect to the internet. > The ease of having your own unix box drove that. Now, some of these nerds > realized if they added an extra phone line they could give friends access > to the internet through their box. Some realized they could SELL internet > access to other people. In fact, I was an investor in a pretty early ISP > in the Sacramento area that was started by a very young friend of mine, > and is still thriving today. This begat the Mom&Pop ISP boom. Pretty > soon, big companies like the Bells, Sprint, MCI, etc. started to take > notice that people were making money selling access to the Internet. > Within a couple years (1995ish) they started to jump on the bandwagon. > Then began a huge influx of new users to this thing called e-mail and the > internet and, very soon after that, the World Wide Web, that only a couple > years before didn't even know this thing existed. The rest is history. > > My contention, and again, I can make a good argument (much better than > this) if I had more time, but if Linux had not come around, the adoption > of the internet by the public at large would have been a lot longer in > coming. Linux was the lubrication that enabled quick penetration of > internet into the mainstream. Except that during the buildup of the corner ISPs, which I was intimately involved in, linux more or less didn't exist. The sharing-of-leased-lines-to-the-internet smallscale ISP thing started around 1992 (more or less) when it became obvious the CO/RE split was going to happen, converging with Moore's Law technology changes (9600+ modems and widespread and cheap systems capable of running TCP/IP). Torvalds announced his plan for linux in 1991. That same year, a full-blown unix was available, 386/bsd. By 1992, 1993, 1994, 386/bsd and then free, net, etc were around. http://www.computerhope.com/history/unix.htm This is no criticism of linux; it simply wasn't usable in 1992 like unix was. I love linux, it's great software, made for a huge activist-y community, plus it slapped the unix distros into line to some degree. My assumption is that CERTAINLY, RFC822 style TCP port 25 mail was deeply established as the de facto standard for "email" by the internet explosion, which was implemented 99% on unix, not linux. What you say is true, linux has had a massive effect, but well after such standards were in place. The linux world didn't have to "help convince the world RFC822 was the way to go", it was a done deal long before it arrived on the scene. I'm more thankful that the likes of Microsoft etc didn't get to determine much of this stuff. Whew! From classiccmp at crash.com Thu Jan 13 15:22:01 2005 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: <200501132122.j0DLM1Ap001822@ill.crash.com> Tom Jennings wrote: > Ron Hudson wrote: >> What kind of screwdriver is a "greenie" screwdriver? >> > I thought they were universal!!!! :-) The yahoo's running airport security in Columbus or Des Moines confiscated my only greenie sometime before the TSA took over airport screening, but well after 9/11. It had remained in my carry-on for several trips shortly before this, but this time when they did a complete hand-check of my bag, they decided this was an Instrument of Terror. I thought it was the only way to tighten up the screws in my glasses, but didn't argue with the nice (ahem) man. I could buy another one, but this was the one given to me when I took a work-study job in the Engineering department at college and learned to solder random serial cables... --Steve. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 15:29:01 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: <20050112204627.9AC1B4F82@spies.com> <20050112143153.W998@localhost> Message-ID: <20050113132652.O1169@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Bill Sheehan wrote: > FidoNet sysops paranoid? Which one of our enemies told you that? Which one's you got? So what's it to you? PS: I object to the tone of your message and will be flaming your net host coordinator, the region coordinator, FidoSnooze, and a few off-topic echos just for good measure! (To the rest of you: that's a FidoNet joke.) From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 15:35:15 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <20050113124030.Q1169@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > I do watch TV. With a TiVo. Useful and informative shows, like > Super Milk Chan, Venture Brothers, Free Speech TV, ATHF, Simpsons, > movies. Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman! And of course, South Park and The Daily Show. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From aek at spies.com Thu Jan 13 15:38:25 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet Message-ID: <20050113213825.4C92E3F23@spies.com> I seem to recall Mac fans taunting me about how easy MacTCP was to setup, but I'm not clear on the timing for that... -- Apple introduced MacTCP in Oct, 1988. NCSA, UofM, and Stanford packages were available before that. Primary applications were Telnet, FTP, Mail of various flavors and Gopher. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 15:38:38 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050113133246.C2639@localhost> > Are you saying that Linux wasn't around in 1994? I know it *existed* then, and for a couple of years. I don't recall it being a player though, like the little unixes were. Once they were ported you got the whole thing. > That's another part of the point: Linux was free. So were the unixes. It's the same as today; download for free, buy a distro copy and buy support. BSD/I we paid for when we went pro, and could bug them for fixes, etc. This is bordering on religion, I don't care enough about the religious aspects to argue it. My experience was, all of the smallish end sites, and tiny, small and medium ISPs, developers, etc all ran unix or KA9Q on DOS. San Francisco and Silicon Valley, 1992 - 1996. Never ran across a linux during that time, and I used to work on a lot of systems, travelled to the Least Coast to talk with other little ISPs, I don't remember a single linux system in use. Again, it's not a criticism, it's only timing. From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 15:50:15 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501132108.j0DL8gtY001252@ill.crash.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Steven M Jones wrote: > I'd be far more interested in getting people's recollections of > that period on the record, so to speak, than being "right." It's > a big world, other people would have seen/remembered different > things out there... Hell, maybe I was stuck in a backwater and > missed all the action, who knows? I totally concur. Getting these oral histories down now (and having the benefit of automated archiving and the ability to search them in the future) is incredibly useful. > seen much the same spread of email and the 'Net. I am content > to be viewed as an isolated crackpot if need be -- that was in > fact a career goal of a friend of mine in college. ;^) His name wasn't Ted Kaczynksi by any chance? ;) > >> One is the rise of CompuServe and AOL, which I'll leave for > >> another discussion. > >> > > And which were closed, proprietary online services which > > eventually transformed into Internet gateways only after the > > Internet had "arrived" at the mainstream. > > Well, that would be the "other discussion." ;^) But while they > were proprietary and so on, they were recognized and acceptable > to a very large population. I don't say this to take anything > away from the BBSes, which were still cruising along in this > period; it would be interesting to see if anyone can dig up some > contemporary statistics about users in the two categories. But > the point was that since these services were popular, they did > introduce a significant user segment to the online world > including email, and they did allow email addressed to external > users, all of which increased what we'd now call the network > effect of Internet and email adoption. But my original assertion was that the rapid rise, development and adoption of the Internet to the mainstream masses was propelled by Linux. And while you had "e-mail", unless we're talking about Internet e-mail (and notwithstanding Fidonet), it was based in closed, proprietary systems that were not interconnected. The introduction to the Internet was an afterthought, only when it proved itself to be indispensable to their viability as a business. Another thing is that we've had the internet since the 1960s. Many people tried to bring predecessors of the Web (e.g. Videotex) systems to the US in the 1980s and failed. But in the 1990s, even amidst a severe economic recession, the Internet caught on and boomed. Why? What was the difference between the 1980s and the 1990s? After all, the technology was all in place in the 1980s for the Internet to take off (the BBS' show this) but it didn't. Why not? > > Again, TCP/IP only came to Windows and the Mac because it became > > necessary to offer this due to the rising popularity of Internet > > access. > > Maybe yes, maybe no. This is also the era where "open systems" > were being deployed on a large scale in the corporate world, > and access to these systems via TCP/IP from the desktop was a > key requirement. And that trend was independent of whether or > not the corporation had external IP network connections, though > by this period they were sprouting up all over the place too. But what time period are we talking about? Very early 1990s or closer to the middle 1990s? I seem to remember it being the latter. And also keep in mind that wasn't the clear winner until at least 1994. Novell was still trying to press IPX until at least 1995-1996 when it was clear the market was not buying their argument. > All I mean to point out is that there were other strong factors > behind TCP/IP coming to the Windows/Mac platform. And while the > corporate users would pay, the realities of the academic budget > ensured that something cheap/free would be available to meet the > same needs. But again, did the adoption of Internet occur as a result of "Open Standards" or was it the other way around? I believe it was the latter. > Anyways, I hope that at some point you get a chance to write up > what you saw happening around that time with the small ISPs and > Linux, and share it with us. That goes for the other list > members too; I was hoping for a wider response, and especially > views from outside the US. I've been focusing on the 1993-4 > period because of the way it set the stage for growth once the > Web caught on, but feel free to roll forward or backward too. I'll have to catch up with my friend one day and make sure I have all the technical details down. I know their systems included at least one Sun box in the mix, but the first system he put up and hooked some modems to was definitely a Linux box. > Then again, maybe this is the wrong forum. I'll let the silence > be my guide... This list is for the discussion of computer history, which certainly includes the Internet ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From aek at spies.com Thu Jan 13 15:59:04 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Subject: apple's internet connectivity Message-ID: <20050113215904.AD9844F4B@spies.com> For yucks, I did a google groups search for the earliest news posting I made from apple. My sig had: UUCP: {mtxinu,sun,nsc,voder}!apple!aek ARPA: aek@apple.apple.com This was mid-1988, so that was our uucp connectivity at the time. I also noticed that my previous posting about MacTCP and Gopher would have been incorrect, since Gopher servers didn't appear til '91 or so. From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 15:58:32 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050113133246.C2639@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > Are you saying that Linux wasn't around in 1994? > > I know it *existed* then, and for a couple of years. I don't recall > it being a player though, like the little unixes were. Once they > were ported you got the whole thing. I recall differently. By the start of 1994 I had a a Linux box running on a spare 486 with a modem (two actually IIRC), a fully functional TCP/IP stack and PPP so I could connect to my friend's burgeoning Linux ISP. And I still have that box with a ton of pr0n on it that could have only come from the Usenet to prove this all ;) > This is bordering on religion, I don't care enough about the I think it may be more a case of differing recollections, but more than that, different experiences, influences, and environments. It is clear that there were a lot of options in the early 1990s, but which ones were the most viable, and which ones contributed most to the explosive growth of the internet? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 16:07:33 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050113135629.E2639@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > But again, those "Insta-ISPs" would not have found a viable market before > the Linux boom. There was simply no mainstream cognizance of this thing > called the "Internet" until it slowly started seeping into the mainstream > thanks to the infiltration allowed by an easy to get and use Unix, i.e. > Linux. Sorry, but that's simply not true. I was there, in the business. Most of the early adopters (say 1992 - 1996) were mostly unix-based. Most of them were technology companies, tiny and medium (our customers) a few largish (nvidia). Windows and Apple could and did do TCP/IP (however poorly) starting in 1995? Dial-on-demand PPP and SLIP. That was the "killer app" for the "mainstream" not linux. If I sound like I'm linux-bashing, which I'm not, you sound, to me, like you are trying to force-fit linux into places it simply wasn't. Linux wasn't there not due to quality, desire, intent, etc, simply because it wasn't ready yet. It's not a judgement call. Nearly every down-stream-from-us ISP consisted of: * commercial routing gear, Livingston, Cisco, etc * a unix host for port services (smtp, http, dns, radius) * portmasters or equiv. for dialin ports (ppp, slip) * baskets of modems, later T1 and channel splitters * end-user sites, windows, macintosh, unix, in that order That final item is what drove it economically. All of them were early adopters. By 1996 the up slope was steep, and TCP/IP was built-in; linux was growing fast by then, but Win/Apple grew far, far more in numbers. From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jan 13 16:10:00 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <16870.34038.332549.538403@gargle.gargle.HOWL> References: <20050112142128.P998@localhost> <16870.34038.332549.538403@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Message-ID: <62454.64.139.41.130.1105654200.squirrel@64.139.41.130> > Paper tape readers can go much faster (I've seen 2000 cps) but those > are optical readers, so the job is far easier. Yes, well, optical paper tape punches should be able to go really fast too, but they'd be rather expensive. The trick is to keep the paper from catching fire. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 16:14:10 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050113141155.T2639@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > But was not Linux another major driving influence behind FOSS? ?!?! What on earth is FOSS? I can't even gogole it. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 16:19:40 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> References: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Ron Hudson wrote: >>> I don't suppose anyone ever manufactured a laser-based paper tape punch? >>> Is that even feasible? > OOH A new kind of media: clear mylar tape with a thin layer of paper on one > side > (black paper for enhanced absorption ) 16 bit wide? 32 bit wide? > > How would mylar and paper be for longevity. How are our oldest paper tapes > doing? Oh, now this thread I like! Paper and mylar longevity is very good. Good old fiche has a projected 500 year life. Paper can last a long time but machine handling criteria is different than for books. A thin mylar strip, say standard 1" wide, with an optical reader you wouldn't need to make holes, only dark spots. Use a laser whose output the tape isn't transparent to; a "1" is a heat-distorted/discolored spot. A smaller spot for the "sprocket" hole/index. The smaller sprocket hole provides sufficient lead on a read-strobe pulse inherently on paper tape, same would go for this. Write speed would be limited by energy put onto the tape and fast enough to avoid blurring the spot due to motion. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 16:21:10 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> Message-ID: <20050113142030.B2639@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Mark Davidson wrote: I remember it, though I never used it. Didn't Mark WIlliams Co make some good-quality CP/M-80 software too? I seem to recall they were real stand-out in quality. From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 13 16:21:15 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Subject: apple's internet connectivity In-Reply-To: <20050113215904.AD9844F4B@spies.com> from Al Kossow at "Jan 13, 5 01:59:04 pm" Message-ID: <200501132221.OAA13896@floodgap.com> > I also noticed that my previous posting about MacTCP and Gopher would > have been incorrect, since Gopher servers didn't appear til '91 or so. Did TurboGopher come out that early? I thought it emerged '92-'93 era (I remember that being the real heyday of Gopher, at least for me). PLUG: relive the old days! gopher.floodgap.com -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck?! -- Ryoga, "Ranma 1/2" ---- From emu at ecubics.com Thu Jan 13 16:29:23 2005 From: emu at ecubics.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <20050113141155.T2639@localhost> References: <20050113141155.T2639@localhost> Message-ID: <41E6F643.4080504@ecubics.com> Tom Jennings wrote: > On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >> But was not Linux another major driving influence behind FOSS? > > > ?!?! What on earth is FOSS? I can't even gogole it. "Free and Open Source Software" you find it even with gogole ;-) From emu at ecubics.com Thu Jan 13 16:32:14 2005 From: emu at ecubics.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> References: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> Message-ID: <41E6F6EE.4070206@ecubics.com> Tom Jennings wrote: > Oh, now this thread I like! > > Paper and mylar longevity is very good. Good old fiche has a > projected 500 year life. Paper can last a long time but machine > handling criteria is different than for books. > > A thin mylar strip, say standard 1" wide, with an optical reader > you wouldn't need to make holes, only dark spots. > > Use a laser whose output the tape isn't transparent to; a "1" is a > heat-distorted/discolored spot. A smaller spot for the "sprocket" > hole/index. And make it a little thicker, let it rotate a little, and you got a CD ;-) From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 16:40:10 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050113143908.U2639@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > But my original assertion was that the rapid rise, development and > adoption of the Internet to the mainstream masses was propelled by Linux. As far as I know, there is no factual basis to this claim. From cb at mythtech.net Thu Jan 13 16:40:38 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... Message-ID: >but which ones were >the most viable, and which ones contributed most to the explosive growth >of the internet? That would be the flood of AOL floppies, and the run of $300 PCs after rebate because you signed up for AOL for 3 years at $20/mn. Everyone who was "hip" was getting online. AOL made it hip, and everyone who thought they could suck a dime out of the public joined in. The internet was just convenient because college students were talking about it, and it was free content that these fly by night ISPs could offer, while charging the same rate AOL/CompuServe/Prodigy et all were charging for their "custom" content. At least that is the way I saw it go in the mid 90's. -chris From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 16:42:01 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Subject: apple's internet connectivity In-Reply-To: <20050113215904.AD9844F4B@spies.com> References: <20050113215904.AD9844F4B@spies.com> Message-ID: <20050113144033.N2639@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote: > UUCP: {mtxinu,sun,nsc,voder}!apple!aek > ARPA: aek@apple.apple.com So that was you!!! I remember seeing it now, who knows where. My memory is crappy, it assembles things when it feels like it, and often resists even prodding. From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 13 16:43:35 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? In-Reply-To: <41E6DD0C.7050300@execpc.com> References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> <41E6D626.2080307@oldskool.org> <11360EB7-65A2-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> <41E6DD0C.7050300@execpc.com> Message-ID: <41E6F997.6070203@oldskool.org> Tom Hudson wrote: > Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies > with some sort of PC-based software? While Atari 8-bit disks are FM and MFM (compatible with PC), I am not aware of any programs to do it. (update) Try looking here: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/section-76.html -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 13 16:47:58 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <62454.64.139.41.130.1105654200.squirrel@64.139.41.130> References: <20050112142128.P998@localhost> <16870.34038.332549.538403@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <62454.64.139.41.130.1105654200.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <41E6FA9E.1090707@oldskool.org> Eric Smith wrote: >>Paper tape readers can go much faster (I've seen 2000 cps) but those >>are optical readers, so the job is far easier. > > Yes, well, optical paper tape punches should be able to go really fast > too, but they'd be rather expensive. The trick is to keep the paper > from catching fire. Hah, that's nothing. I used to calculate Mandelbrot fractals on my abacus. The pictures were quite beautiful, but the noise was deafening! -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 13 16:48:55 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050113132652.O1169@localhost> References: <20050112204627.9AC1B4F82@spies.com> <20050112143153.W998@localhost> <20050113132652.O1169@localhost> Message-ID: <41E6FAD7.30901@oldskool.org> Tom Jennings wrote: > PS: I object to the tone of your message and will be flaming your > net host coordinator, the region coordinator, FidoSnooze, and a > few off-topic echos just for good measure! > > (To the rest of you: that's a FidoNet joke.) You will be happy to know that my friend Jason Scott has recently finished that particular portion of his BBS documentary. DVDs should be ready in about 6 weeks. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 13 16:51:08 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050113133246.C2639@localhost> References: <20050113133246.C2639@localhost> Message-ID: <41E6FB5C.9090208@oldskool.org> Tom Jennings wrote: > This is bordering on religion, I don't care enough about the > religious aspects to argue it. My experience was, all of the > smallish end sites, and tiny, small and medium ISPs, developers, > etc all ran unix or KA9Q on DOS. San Francisco and Silicon Valley, > 1992 - 1996. Never ran across a linux during that time, and I used > to work on a lot of systems, travelled to the Least Coast to talk > with other little ISPs, I don't remember a single linux system in > use. > > Again, it's not a criticism, it's only timing. I have to concur; my friend and I were thinking of creating our own ISP business back in 1993, and our best prospect for a system was an old Harris box running a proprietary Unix (which we were overjoyed to inherit!). I didn't install Linux *at all* until 1994, with an early Slackware distro with kernel 1.1.12. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk Thu Jan 13 16:54:50 2005 From: ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk (Lawrence Wilkinson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <16870.34038.332549.538403@gargle.gargle.HOWL> References: <20050112142128.P998@localhost> <16870.34038.332549.538403@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Message-ID: <1105656890.25100.27.camel@ljw.me.uk> On Thu, 2005-01-13 at 14:25, Paul Koning wrote: > Paper tape readers can go much faster (I've seen 2000 cps) but those > are optical readers, so the job is far easier. At this stage I have to jump in with an impressive 5000cps example (albeit 5bit) from 1944; of course it is: http://www.picotech.com/applications/colossus.html (This is a nice page on the optical reader) -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360 From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 13 16:57:57 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <41E6D626.2080307@oldskool.org> from Jim Leonard at "Jan 13, 5 02:12:22 pm" Message-ID: <200501132257.OAA13636@floodgap.com> > Yes, our founder made the fatal mistake of investing in X when he probably > should have spent the money on a working TCP/IP implementation. Now that's a real shame, because one of my dreams is to have Secret Weapons of Commodore running on a Secret Weapon: the Commodore 900, which ran Coherent on a Z8001. Was there any kind of networking support at all? -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Out of my mind (back in an hour). ------------------------------------------ From tomhudson at execpc.com Thu Jan 13 17:07:43 2005 From: tomhudson at execpc.com (Tom Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? In-Reply-To: <41E6F997.6070203@oldskool.org> References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> <41E6D626.2080307@oldskool.org> <11360EB7-65A2-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> <41E6DD0C.7050300@execpc.com> <41E6F997.6070203@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <41E6FF3F.9080007@execpc.com> Cool! Thanks for the link, I guess it's time to roll out my MS-DOS antique and slap a 5.25 drive into it... -Tom Jim Leonard wrote: > > While Atari 8-bit disks are FM and MFM (compatible with PC), I am not > aware of any programs to do it. > > (update) Try looking here: > http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/section-76.html -- Thomas Hudson http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects From jpl15 at panix.com Thu Jan 13 17:14:15 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Subject: apple's internet connectivity In-Reply-To: <20050113144033.N2639@localhost> References: <20050113215904.AD9844F4B@spies.com> <20050113144033.N2639@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > My memory is crappy, it assembles things when it feels like it, > and often resists even prodding. > Try odd prodding, or even mark and/or space prodding. To prod, or not to prod... Cheers Double Mnemonia From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 13 18:19:17 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <1105656890.25100.27.camel@ljw.me.uk> References: <20050112142128.P998@localhost> <16870.34038.332549.538403@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <1105656890.25100.27.camel@ljw.me.uk> Message-ID: <1105661957.2462.68.camel@weka.localdomain> On Thu, 2005-01-13 at 22:54 +0000, Lawrence Wilkinson wrote: > On Thu, 2005-01-13 at 14:25, Paul Koning wrote: > > > Paper tape readers can go much faster (I've seen 2000 cps) but those > > are optical readers, so the job is far easier. > > At this stage I have to jump in with an impressive 5000cps example > (albeit 5bit) from 1944; of course it is: > > http://www.picotech.com/applications/colossus.html > > (This is a nice page on the optical reader) I believe they can get 8000cps out of the rebuild (made from original components) running it flat-out, but heat becomes a problem and so it's kept at 5000 normally. Not bad going at all. (aside: the Colossus rebuild is technically off limits to the public at present; I'm normally there on a Saturday at least though so yell if you happen to be visiting the park) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 13 18:28:53 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Thorn EMI Proton Detection System Commodore PET (UK) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1105662533.2481.77.camel@weka.localdomain> On Tue, 2005-01-11 at 16:00 +0000, listmailgoeshere@gmail.com wrote: > A friend of mine who works for a large local organisation rescued this > fascinating piece of kit from being thrown in a dumpster. It is a > modified PET (the later series without the cassette drive) with the > "Commodore" name strip replaced with a "Thorn EMI" one. > > ... > Another contact I have at this place is a collector of old computers > so I suspect he will have his eye on this, however he has a PET in his > collection already, so if this unit is of particular historical > importance and someone wants it for their museum where it will go on > display (Witchy? Jules?) I might be able to get it for you on this > basis. I could certainly try. I see Chris already spotted this one! It certainly seems worth saving one way or the other. Wherabouts in the country is it located? As Chris says, is there any chance of any documentation / software being saved with it (and any related apparatus that it may have been used with - custom hardware's far more interesting when it's complete and can be shown doing something) At the very least though it should be saved as-is just as an example of a PET being put to an atypical use. We don't have room at the museum currently to display it, but we could certainly put it into dry storage with a view to eventually having it on public display. cheers Jules From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 13 18:44:42 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? Message-ID: <200501140044.QAA05719@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Tom Jennings" > >On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Ron Hudson wrote: > >> What kind of screwdriver is a "greenie" screwdriver? > >I thought they were universal!!!! :-) > >about 4" long, thin flat blade, 3/32" or so, green translucent hex >handle, by xcelite. Trimpots, prying chips, cutting PCB traces, >punching holes in your pocket. Fancy models come with a pocket >clip. Decent quality, cheap. Just knowing I own one (actually, >three) makes life better. > I always referred to them as being a "tweak". A small piece of shrink tubing to slide up when doing trim pots. Dwight From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 13 18:52:07 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: References: <200501132108.j0DL8gtY001252@ill.crash.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050113183626.054de780@mail> At 03:50 PM 1/13/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >But my original assertion was that the rapid rise, development and >adoption of the Internet to the mainstream masses was propelled by Linux. And how do you propose to show this? Are there surveys of mom & pop ISPs circa mid-90s that show they were actually using Linux over other Unix-like OSes? For what part of their business? I don't think you'll be able to show that. Because it's going to be much harder to think Linux had much influence when you look at the sheer number of Net-capable systems out there. It would be far easier for me to proclaim that the rise of Windows 95 and then Windows 98 caused the rise of the Internet, from the sheer number of those users who wanted to use the Net. Looking back through my online mail archives from 1994 forward, I must've been using Linux before 1994, because the earliest message I had with "Linux" it was a chat with Larry McVoy (now of Bitkeeper), who was one of the other computer-heads hanging around in the basement of the CompSci building when I was in college. I remember working very hard in the late 80s and early 90s to get my PCs, Macs and Amigas running NFS and TCP/IP and 'ftp' so they could talk to each other. In my software business in the mid-90s, we relied heavily on a Slackware box as a central Samba/NFS file server and 'cvs' repository, as well as a parallel Unix development system for debugging an SGI version of our product. - John From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 13 18:55:42 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> References: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050113185354.05701c80@mail> At 04:19 PM 1/13/2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >Use a laser whose output the tape isn't transparent to; a "1" is a >heat-distorted/discolored spot. A smaller spot for the "sprocket" >hole/index. Yes, reflectance rather than mechano-optical hole-or-not would be much faster. Like a CD, but flexible, on a spool. Much great surface area than a 34 mm radius band on a 120 mm disc. - John From ICS at Core.com Thu Jan 13 19:09:56 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Wanted: Used electronic / Computer resellers Message-ID: <004401c4f9d5$c39a34f0$242fc4d8@icsdevelopment> Anyone know of Used or Salvage Electronic / Computer equipment resellers in the Maryland, Virginia area? or of a Mr. Wilson Drummond that buys from the NASA auctions? From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 19:27:59 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:58 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <41E6F643.4080504@ecubics.com> References: <20050113141155.T2639@localhost> <41E6F643.4080504@ecubics.com> Message-ID: <20050113172740.L2639@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, emanuel stiebler wrote: >> ?!?! What on earth is FOSS? I can't even gogole it. > > "Free and Open Source Software" you find it even with gogole ;-) GOt it. Jus tnever saw it as "F O S S" before. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 19:28:40 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <41E6F6EE.4070206@ecubics.com> References: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> <41E6F6EE.4070206@ecubics.com> Message-ID: <20050113172818.K2639@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, emanuel stiebler wrote: >> Use a laser whose output the tape isn't transparent to; a "1" is a >> heat-distorted/discolored spot. A smaller spot for the "sprocket" >> hole/index. > > And make it a little thicker, let it rotate a little, > and you got a CD ;-) Ayup!! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 13 18:56:30 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050113095503.00934620@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> from "Joe R." at Jan 13, 5 09:55:03 am Message-ID: > > My "favorite" part is at the beginning when the idiot can't solder his > item because the power cord is too short. I guess it never occurred to them > that a soldering iron is a PORTABLE device and can be moved! They should I think I've mentioned it before, but one of the first things I made up when I got some US 234V mains plugs was a short lead with one of those on one end and a UK 13A socket on the other. This is used to run my soldering iron from the power controller sockets in my PDP11 systems -- it's a lot easier to take the iron to the machine than vice versa :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 13 18:57:48 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <41E69CC4.2000808@srv.net> from "Kevin Handy" at Jan 13, 5 09:07:32 am Message-ID: > >>The commercials on TV that I was seeing a few weeks ago seemed to think > >>that ordinary people like housewives and weekend fix it up schlubs would > >>somehow find a use for a soldering iron. They showed the hands of a lady > >>soldering some piece of kitchen ware and some doofus doing some very light [...] > > > I haven't seen any commercial like this. It must be a UK thing. No it's not. I've never seen such a commercial (AFAIK they don't exist in the UK), but from the description given I can deduce that I certainly don't need this tool! -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 13 19:01:59 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: <20050113170236.33637.qmail@web13425.mail.yahoo.com> from "Al Hartman" at Jan 13, 5 09:02:36 am Message-ID: > > All this talk of TRS-80's on the list (Those two S-100 > Systems sound COOL!!!), prompts me to ask if anyone > remembers a garage project called "The Trash > Compactor". > > Basically, some guy (a REALLY SMART guy!) > reimplemented the entire Model III logic Board on a > board that would fit inside a Model I case. No, but I did start to do something similar -- namely modify an M1 to run M3 software. I got 48K on the M1 mainboard (a fairly easy mod, since 64K DRAMs were available), I got M3 BASIC running from EPROM, and I was going to wire-wrap the disk controller, clock interrupt, RS232 port, etc circuitry (I didn't care about the extra characters on the display or the 1500 baud cassette interface). I never finished it though ;-(. The reason was that in the middle of the project I went to a radio rally, and a chap had a couple of real M3s for sale. Of course I bought one. I still have it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 13 19:07:24 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: <20050113180828.4E4437A4E9@dittman.net> from "Eric Dittman" at Jan 13, 5 12:08:28 pm Message-ID: > > This particular Model I has the Dennis Kitsz LowerCase > > Mod from his book (very similar to the Electric Pencil > > Mod), Dennis's High Speed Upgrade (4mhz if I remember > > correctly) with a special circuit that slows down the > > Mod for Cassette or Disk Access (along with a > > Tri-Color LED that goes Red for normal, Green for High > > Speed, and Orange for Auto Switch). > > > > We also built in an Audio Amplifier, Composite Video > > Out (for an Amber Monitor OR a TV through an RF > > Modulator), AND an Alpha Joystick Connector one can > > attach ANY Atari-Style Joystick to. > > > > I miss those days... There's nothing to stop you doing this sort of thing these days!. There are plenty of suitable machines around, you can still get most of the components, or suitable substitutes, etc. I certainly still make add-ons for my classic computers. > > I find that some of the old games on the TRS-80 are more fun > than games I see on today's consoles and PCs. There was more > emphasis on gameplay back then. Amen to that!. Some of the most fun games I've found are those in the HP67 Games Pac (this is a programmable calculator with 224 program steps, a numeric-only display, etc). I am sorry but the modern PC games are just not interestign to me _at all_. -tony From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 19:35:02 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050113185354.05701c80@mail> References: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> <6.2.0.14.2.20050113185354.05701c80@mail> Message-ID: <20050113173343.H2639@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > At 04:19 PM 1/13/2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >> Use a laser whose output the tape isn't transparent to; a "1" is a >> heat-distorted/discolored spot. A smaller spot for the "sprocket" >> hole/index. > > Yes, reflectance rather than mechano-optical hole-or-not > would be much faster. Like a CD, but flexible, on a spool. > Much great surface area than a 34 mm radius band on a 120 mm disc. So... what's the chance of doing this with a solid-state laser? Say 9 of them? The idea of high-speed papertape (sic) thrills me. I know I'm sick, but I don't want to stop. From cube1 at charter.net Thu Jan 13 19:41:11 2005 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: What is this RK05 style pack? In-Reply-To: <16859.64876.647594.111421@gargle.gargle.HOWL> References: <002901c4f332$eca42030$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20050113192630.03efd2e0@cirithi> With no sector ring, it could not be hard sectored. That means either soft sectored or intended to store analog data. The 2315 pack is indeed what the RK series was set up for. It is also what the IBM 1130 used. I had no idea that any 360 systems had used them. From what I read at http://www.thegalleryofoldiron.com/2044.HTM the /44 was an odd beast (as was the /20). Jay Jaeger At 09:45 AM 1/5/2005 -0500, Paul Koning wrote: > >>>>> "Ashley" == Ashley Carder writes: > > Ashley> A couple months ago I acquired a new, still in the plastic > Ashley> wrap, still in the box, never opened disk pack that at first > Ashley> glance appeared to be an RK05. I finally decided to look > Ashley> further at it to see if it was a 12 sector or 16 sector RK05 > Ashley> pack, since it had no identifying label or markings. > > Ashley> Upon further inspection, I found that it did not have the > Ashley> usual rim on the hub, where normally you would be able to > Ashley> count the thin notches to determine whether it was a 16 > Ashley> sector or 12 sector RK05. Instead, it has a short, rounded, > Ashley> unnotched rim where normally it would have the tall thin rim > Ashley> with notches. Otherwise it looks just like an RK05. The > Ashley> case is interchangeable. I actually took it apart so I could > Ashley> use the case on another RK05 pack that had a decent platter > Ashley> but a bad outer case. > > Ashley> What is this thing? RK03? > >I have no idea, but here's a far out thought... some IBM 360 >mainframes (the 360 model 44 for example) have an RK05 style drive in >them. Reading the 360 model 44 functional description (on >bitsavers.org) suggests that probably isn't right -- that disk (Model >2315) is described as having 16 fixed size sectors. Hm, that would >mean an RK08 pack would fit??? > >Strange to have hard sectoring here, given that IBM 360 mass storage >normally used variable-size records on a track. > > paul --- Jay R. Jaeger The Computer Collection cube1@charter.net From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 13 20:10:14 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501132257.OAA13636@floodgap.com> References: <200501132257.OAA13636@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <41E72A06.5050201@oldskool.org> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>Yes, our founder made the fatal mistake of investing in X when he probably >>should have spent the money on a working TCP/IP implementation. > > Now that's a real shame, because one of my dreams is to have Secret Weapons > of Commodore running on a Secret Weapon: the Commodore 900, which ran > Coherent on a Z8001. Was there any kind of networking support at all? None whatsoever. Coherent may still have been killed by Linux, but it was killed at least 2-3 years early by the lack of TCP/IP networking (even PPP or SL/IP!) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 20:44:26 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <20050113141155.T2639@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > But was not Linux another major driving influence behind FOSS? > > ?!?! What on earth is FOSS? I can't even gogole it. Free/Open Source Software It's relatively new. I was baffled by it too but caught on soon enough. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 20:46:02 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <20050113143908.U2639@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > But my original assertion was that the rapid rise, development and > > adoption of the Internet to the mainstream masses was propelled by Linux. > > As far as I know, there is no factual basis to this claim. Not yet (maybe not ever, but at least not yet ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From allain at panix.com Thu Jan 13 20:49:15 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet References: <200501132108.j0DL8gtY001252@ill.crash.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050113183626.054de780@mail> Message-ID: <028001c4f9e3$a310dbe0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Some dated Pico-factoids from me: First home Internet connection: PC486Win3.1 running 1994 Spry software, "Internet-in-a-box" over long distance dial-up! usually begun after 11:00 pm, for cost purposes. http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?docid=1P1:28530391 First copy of Linux: Yggdrasil, same time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil_Linux First home ISP: Public Access Networks (Panix NY) running on Suns. The Spry stuff was pretty decent. It did cooperative multitasking better than Microsofts own stuff. Of course it did, what am I saying? John A. From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 20:53:08 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? In-Reply-To: <41E6F997.6070203@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: > Tom Hudson wrote: > > Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies > > with some sort of PC-based software? > > While Atari 8-bit disks are FM and MFM (compatible with PC), I am not aware of > any programs to do it. > > (update) Try looking here: > http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/section-76.html Has no one ever heard of APE? http://www.atarimax.com/ It's been around for a while now. "APE is an astounding new product that unleashes the POWER of your Atari 8 Bit computer, by making all the resources of your PC available for its use! Using only an inexpensive PC to Atari interface cable, APE provides super enhanced disk drive, modem, printer, ApeLoader Interactive Menu, PC MIRROR services, AND MORE!" -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 13 20:57:08 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050113183626.054de780@mail> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > At 03:50 PM 1/13/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >But my original assertion was that the rapid rise, development and > >adoption of the Internet to the mainstream masses was propelled by Linux. > > And how do you propose to show this? Are there surveys of mom & pop Research? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 13 21:24:59 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Computer Museum of America closing? Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050113211907.050837b8@mail> "The museum will be closed to the public beginning January 15, 2005 due to a lack of funding. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. For further information or to help financially, call David Weil at (619) 464-8220 or email dweil@computer-museum.org". http://www.computer-museum.org This also included the North American Datacomm Dept., http://www.nadcomm.com/ , as run by Greenkeys member Don House: "The museum is closing tomorrrow. I got the call about an hour ago. The college is no longer able to fund it. David is looking for someone to take over funding and provide a new location in the San Diego area. Anyone with some connections, for God's sake help us. I am very depressed." - John From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Jan 13 21:27:26 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > That would be the flood of AOL floppies, and the run of $300 PCs after > rebate because you signed up for AOL for 3 years at $20/mn. > > Everyone who was "hip" was getting online. AOL made it hip, and everyone > who thought they could suck a dime out of the public joined in. The > internet was just convenient because college students were talking about > it, and it was free content that these fly by night ISPs could offer, > while charging the same rate AOL/CompuServe/Prodigy et all were charging > for their "custom" content. > > At least that is the way I saw it go in the mid 90's. You saw very correctly. Saw it with my own eyes... William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org (ex william@ans.net and integrat@usr.com) ^ Jack R is probably still mad. From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Jan 13 21:32:23 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> Message-ID: > A thin mylar strip, say standard 1" wide, with an optical reader > you wouldn't need to make holes, only dark spots. > > Use a laser whose output the tape isn't transparent to; a "1" is a > heat-distorted/discolored spot. A smaller spot for the "sprocket" > hole/index. Its been done. The amount of information on a tape was impressive, even by todays standard, but the syste, went nowhere. I don't even recall the name of the company. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From news at computercollector.com Thu Jan 13 21:36:09 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Computer Museum of America closing? In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050113211907.050837b8@mail> Message-ID: <20050114033609.42972.qmail@web52808.mail.yahoo.com> I just left a voicemail for David. As soon as he gets back to me, I'll post an update. - Evan --- John Foust wrote: > > "The museum will be closed to the public beginning January 15, 2005 > due to a lack of funding. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. > For further information or to help financially, call David Weil > at (619) 464-8220 or email dweil@computer-museum.org". > > http://www.computer-museum.org > > This also included the North American Datacomm Dept., http://www.nadcomm.com/ > , > as run by Greenkeys member Don House: > > "The museum is closing tomorrrow. I got the call about an hour ago. > The college is no longer able to fund it. David is looking for > someone to take over funding and provide a new location in the > San Diego area. Anyone with some connections, for God's sake help us. > I am very depressed." > > - John > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 646 readers and counting! From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 13 21:40:07 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050113193806.V80834@shell.lmi.net> > > A thin mylar strip, say standard 1" wide, with an optical reader > > you wouldn't need to make holes, only dark spots. > > Use a laser whose output the tape isn't transparent to; a "1" is a > > heat-distorted/discolored spot. A smaller spot for the "sprocket" > > hole/index. On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, William Donzelli wrote: > Its been done. The amount of information on a tape was impressive, even by > todays standard, but the syste, went nowhere. I don't even recall the name > of the company. How about Emanuel Goldberg's "Rapid Selector"? Or Vannevar Bush's Memex that was based on it (photocells with bits stored on photographic film) From bkr at WildHareComputers.com Thu Jan 13 21:51:22 2005 From: bkr at WildHareComputers.com (Bruce Ray) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: << Nova 4/X rescue >> Message-ID: <025901c4f9ec$53a38540$89eafea9@newhare> G'day Latent "Nova-heads" - A "distress rescue situation" exists for a Nova 4/X system , dual 9-track tape drives, top-loader disk drive in a 3-bay rack, in Bakersfield, CA. I was told by a representative of the owner of this system that it will be trashed or "donated to a local charity" by Saturday. Please contact me off-list for more details if you can help save this nice system. Bruce Bruce Ray Wild Hare Computer Systems, Inc. bkr@WildHareComputers.com ...preserving the Data General legacy: www.NovasAreForever.com From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 13 22:03:12 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: ebay HP book Message-ID: <011b01c4f9ed$f7b8b820$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Item # 5156451806 This is one of the best books to have for HP collectors. It pulls together many different manuals into one reference book. It's got a lot of hardware info, but you can almost think of this book being to the HP software what the CE handbook is to HP software. Lots of good stuff :) Jay From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jan 13 22:31:07 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <028001c4f9e3$a310dbe0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> References: <200501132108.j0DL8gtY001252@ill.crash.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050113183626.054de780@mail> <028001c4f9e3$a310dbe0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200501140433.XAA08500@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Some dated Pico-factoids from me: > First home Internet connection: > PC486Win3.1 running 1994 Spry software, Unless you mean "first home Internet connection for [you]", no, I had it earlier than that myself. (I know it was before 1994 because it was while I was still living alone, which ended - at least temporarily - during 1993.) I had a "metallic circuit" (dry copper) from home to the university I worked at at the time.... /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From classiccmp at crash.com Thu Jan 13 22:41:29 2005 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet Message-ID: <200501140441.j0E4fTKk021729@ill.crash.com> John Allain wrote: > First home ISP: Public Access Networks (Panix NY) > running on Suns. A friend of mine was involved in the startup of Panix and has said several times that the original platform was A/UX, of all things. He's been on and off the list from time to time, maybe I can get him to tell the tale... --Steve. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 22:52:13 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Computer Museum of America closing? In-Reply-To: <20050114033609.42972.qmail@web52808.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050114033609.42972.qmail@web52808.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050113205001.F647@localhost> > --- John Foust wrote: >> "The museum will be closed to the public beginning January 15, 2005 >> due to a lack of funding. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. >> For further information or to help financially, call David Weil >> at (619) 464-8220 or email dweil@computer-museum.org". I hate to drool over the corpse, but they've allegedly got LGP-21 paper tapes and such "somewhere in the warehouse", no time or resources to locate it... This would be the only extant copy of LGP-21 software in the world. I would really like a copy (emphasis on copy). Any ideas? Seems rude to ask David about this at this point. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 23:05:48 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501140433.XAA08500@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200501132108.j0DL8gtY001252@ill.crash.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050113183626.054de780@mail> <028001c4f9e3$a310dbe0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> <200501140433.XAA08500@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20050113205505.C647@localhost> The Little Garden was doing "nail up" SLIP connections to the net well before 1992 when I took it over. John Gilmore, John Romkey, and Trusted Information Systems shared a 56K circuit to UUnet back when Rick Adams ran it. They figure out "hey we could get onto the inter net for less than $5000!" in feact it cost $15K... 3COM Brouters (ugh, nasty boxen) and old AGSs. 56K from UUnet to TIS, from there to 814 University Palo Alto, there to Gilmore's house in SF. At 814 and toad hall were DOS boxes running KA9Q. Each had 4 serial ports. Each "member" bought a pair of modems (all sorts, from Trailblazers on down) had PacBell install a phone line at 814 Univ. or Toad Hall, and one at their own house. One modem was installed at (say) 814, and connected to a serial port. At the "home" end you'd arrange your machine to dial into 814, *forever*. Works in the U.S. where you got "flat rate" phone service. Telco didn't like it, didn't understand it, and got confused when they saw the line offhook 24/7, clipped on a buttphone and heard Funny Noises. That's "nail up" as opposed to dial-up. I inherited it since everyone else was too busy to add the backlog of people wanting In to this scheme. I regularized it, collected $250 for install (1/4th of a KA9Q box), $70/month and you got a real connection to the internet and a static Class C address block. From tomj at wps.com Thu Jan 13 23:09:27 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: DNS history? (fwd) Message-ID: <20050113210835.D647@localhost> I asked my friend Randy who has done a lot of DNS work. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 18:06:15 -0800 From: Randy Bush Subject: Re: DNS history? > Anything written? i googled. the first entry seems written by someone who could read rfcs and then add political spin. is far too terse and short. nothing else looks interesting i would ask on inter-hist list randy From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Thu Jan 13 23:11:40 2005 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Switcher PS temperature... Message-ID: In the ongoing saga of my OSI C4P-MF that had a PS melt down at VCF east, I determined that the whole thing, in operation, draws 7.2 amps at 5 volts. The two stock 5V supplies are rated for 3 amps each. They are obviously being over stressed. I can't point my finger at any particular "bad" component... everything seems to work just fine when given sufficient current and nothing seems to be drawing more than a few percent out of spec. Anyway, being tired of running it belly up with a large fan blowing on the PSs, I identified a small switcher that would nicely fit in some spare space near the original supplies. You can't actually remove the original supplies, their frames are integral to the structure of the machine. The supply is a Power-One MAP42-1005 available used (and cheap) from WeirdStuff (note URL broken across lines): http:www.weirdstuff.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp ?product_id=4158&czuid=1104890632078 spec sheet here: http://xtronics.com/stock/pdf/map40.pdf It's rated for 8 amps with no significant airflow (if I understand the specs correctly) so, I'm not even pushing it to its limit. Anyway, after about 10 minutes of operation with the case open and the new PS sitting off to one side (clear all around), the two heat sinks are too hot to touch. Is that normal operation for this kind of supply? Maybe I got a bad one from WeirdStuff? Or could this be some additional clue as to something wrong somewhere else in the computer? According to my meter, the voltage is spot on 5 volts and the current is 7.2 amps. Any suggestions appreciated. From nico at farumdata.dk Fri Jan 14 00:27:37 2005 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> <41E6D626.2080307@oldskool.org><11360EB7-65A2-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> <41E6DD0C.7050300@execpc.com> Message-ID: <004a01c4fa02$273fd5b0$2101a8c0@finans> From: "Tom Hudson" Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? > Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies > with some sort of PC-based software? > Hi Tom I've got a format in my conversion system saying "Atari 800 XL". You are welcome to send me the floppies, and I'll see if it works (I've never tried that format!) Nico From netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net Fri Jan 14 02:35:58 2005 From: netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net (David Vohs) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050111133905.0092ab80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050110223309.00925500@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050110223309.00925500@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050111133905.0092ab80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <1105691758.24469.212732236@webmail.messagingengine.com> Oh sweet! What disk size? (2.5", 3.5", or 5.25") Also, are you willing to part with one of them? On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:39:05 -0500, "Joe R." said: > Yes I did. And I think I also have another around here somewhere. > > Joe David M. Vohs Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. "Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. "Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2. "Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board. "Scout": Otrona Attache. (prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II. "TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander + "Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000. "Neon": Zenith Minisport. From melamy at earthlink.net Fri Jan 14 05:21:50 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Switcher PS temperature... Message-ID: <9117781.1105701711339.JavaMail.root@dewey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> one of the key specs for power transistors is operating temperature. When near the top end of dissipation, the case can be past the temerpature of boiling water and still be able to dissipate 60% of what its top rating is (typical for 2N3055 power transistor anyway). If you want to make absolutely sure, then get the part number and find the specs on it. Measure the case temperature and then the emitter and collector voltages. The difference between the two times the output current of 7.2 amps will give you the wattage it is trying to dissipate. Refer to the specs to see if the temperature vs dissipation is within spec. A simpler solution is just run it and see if it eventually blows up... (it is probably okay) best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- From: Bill Sudbrink hot to touch. Is that normal operation for this kind of supply? Maybe I got a bad one from WeirdStuff? Or could this be some additional clue as to something wrong somewhere else in the computer? According to my meter, the voltage is spot on 5 volts and the current is 7.2 amps. Any suggestions appreciated. From dvcorbin at optonline.net Fri Jan 14 06:36:34 2005 From: dvcorbin at optonline.net (David V. Corbin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <20050112140118.K998@localhost> Message-ID: >>> >>> Like all such things it's a false question kinda. The >>> implication is that before this "six domains" there wasn't >>> an internet, but it's a false measure. In The Beginning was >>> the HOSTS file. It still exists, vestigially, on unix /etc/hosts. >>> And also eexists on Windows boxes..... From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 14 06:37:30 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:20:17 PST." Message-ID: <200501141237.j0ECbUD4021782@mwave.heeltoe.com> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: ... >concede that my original comment was perhaps a bit too strong, but I am >convinced that the whole movement that developed from the seed of Linux >propelled adoption of the Internet that before was primarily a tool of >universities and research institutes and some large corporations. I don't really want to continue this thread, but I think you are mistaken. The earlier comment by Steven Jones was more accurate, IMHO. Lots of small ISP's opened up and offered POP and shell accounts. Lots of folks at home using mac's and pc's dialed in using PPP. This was the start of the swell. Microsoft started paying attention because several companies were making a lot of money selling tcp/ip stacks. I remember when they started showing up at IETF meetings. Linux was around but it was not the driver or the grease. If anything it was people like UUNet and the hoard of small 56k, T1 and frame relay box makers. Heck, for that matter I'd give serious credit to AOL also. -brad From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Jan 14 07:09:40 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: References: <6.2.0.14.2.20050113183626.054de780@mail> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050114070854.0494a9e0@mail> At 08:57 PM 1/13/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: >> And how do you propose to show this? Are there surveys of mom & pop >Research? No, no, no... so called "re-search" only persuades those fools who haven't already made up their minds about a pet theory. - John From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 14 07:16:41 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:38:38 PST." <20050113133246.C2639@localhost> Message-ID: <200501141316.j0EDGgJx023249@mwave.heeltoe.com> Tom Jennings wrote: ... >religious aspects to argue it. My experience was, all of the >smallish end sites, and tiny, small and medium ISPs, developers, >etc all ran unix or KA9Q on DOS. San Francisco and Silicon Valley, >1992 - 1996. Never ran across a linux during that time, and I used Remember 'the little garden'? That was my inspiration. Paul Vixie was behind it I think. As I recall it was in La Honda, not far from where I went to summer camp as a kid. If I've got it wrong please correct me. As I recall (dimly) 'the little garden' was the first home grown ISP I ran into. Something like a T1 and 10 modems in a closet; They ran their own DNS, mail & dialin. I think they had actually end-to-end connactivity for most users, however (i.e. it wasn't just shell accounts, it was real routing to the home). The was before I had set foot in MAE-east and the concept was mind expanding. (at the time I had a 56k and 2 ISDN lines into my condo and the phone guys thought I was some kind of nut :-) this was '92-93 I think) -brad From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Jan 14 07:18:34 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <20050113173343.H2639@localhost> References: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> <6.2.0.14.2.20050113185354.05701c80@mail> <20050113173343.H2639@localhost> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050114071022.0494ac70@mail> At 07:35 PM 1/13/2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >So... what's the chance of doing this with a solid-state laser? >Say 9 of them? The idea of high-speed papertape (sic) thrills me. >I know I'm sick, but I don't want to stop. Why stop at nine? Optical scanning of a tape via linear CCD or video chip or reflected laser must be scads faster than mechanical methods (from pins in holes, to helical scan mag tape). But why limit yourself to perpendicular rows? Sounds like what you want is a dense 2D barcode, like the UPS and USPS codes, but somehow sequential, flowing, 2 1/2 D. The hard part is picking the medium, I'd think. You want something that'll do a fast detectable change that'll keep over time, burnable by a power-enough laser. They speak of mylar tape, but my TTY stuff is so old I've never seen it. Will it detectably deform if you heat it? I've loved brainstorming about these sorts of barcoding schemes. It seems to me that it's a big missing hole in the convergence that everyone's always talking about. There's few super-easy ways to move a URL from print automagically into a computer, and RFID seems almost clunky compared to burning microscopic bar codes all over the surface of objects. - John From pkoning at equallogic.com Fri Jan 14 09:14:32 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Switcher PS temperature... References: Message-ID: <16871.57816.806000.113351@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "Bill" == Bill Sudbrink writes: Bill> It's rated for 8 amps with no significant airflow (if I Bill> understand the specs correctly) so, I'm not even pushing it to Bill> its limit. Anyway, after about 10 minutes of operation with Bill> the case open and the new PS sitting off to one side (clear all Bill> around), the two heat sinks are too hot to touch. Is that Bill> normal operation for this kind of supply? No. It makes sense for power supplies to get very noticeably warm at their design load, because they are optimized for that load, and it is quite acceptable for various parts (like the transformers) to heat up by 10 or 20 degrees at load. But if a heat sink is too hot to touch, that means the transistors mounted on it are quite a lot hotter yet, which means they won't last long. One possibility is that the original design was correct for the stated load, and then it was hacked up by butchers who wanted to trim down the cost and didn't care that it invalidated the original design. Apparently this happens. It was documented at length in a recent article in either QST or QEX (U.S. amateur radio publications), in which the author took one of those butchered supplies, reversed the butchery, and redid some parts to make it a general purpose bench supply. It's an excellent article, very well written if you want to understand better how those supplies work. paul From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jan 14 08:46:35 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Are there any Zenith Minisport owners in the house? In-Reply-To: <1105691758.24469.212732236@webmail.messagingengine.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050111133905.0092ab80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050110223309.00925500@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050110223309.00925500@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050111133905.0092ab80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050114094635.0090c100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Both are 3.5". I've beentold that they will work with some of the other Zeniths as well. Joe At 10:35 PM 1/13/05 -1000, you wrote: >Oh sweet! What disk size? (2.5", 3.5", or 5.25") > >Also, are you willing to part with one of them? > >On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 13:39:05 -0500, "Joe R." said: >> Yes I did. And I think I also have another around here somewhere. >> >> Joe > >David M. Vohs >Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian > >Computer Collection: > >"Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. >"Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II. >"Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. >"Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III. >"Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. >"Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. >"Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2. >"Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board. >"Scout": Otrona Attache. >(prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II. >"TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander + >"Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000. >"Neon": Zenith Minisport. > > From vcf at siconic.com Fri Jan 14 10:04:19 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: << Nova 4/X rescue >> In-Reply-To: <025901c4f9ec$53a38540$89eafea9@newhare> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Bruce Ray wrote: > G'day Latent "Nova-heads" - > > A "distress rescue situation" exists for a Nova 4/X system , dual 9-track > tape drives, top-loader disk drive in a 3-bay rack, in Bakersfield, CA. I > was told by a representative of the owner of this system that it will be > trashed or "donated to a local charity" by > Saturday. > > Please contact me off-list for more details if you can help save this nice > system. That's going to be difficult. Bakersfield is centrally located smack dab in the middle of southern and northern California, bisected by I5, but it's still effectively the middle of nowhere. Even if you were able to make it up or down there, you wouldn't want to go. It's like a gulag. Ok, it's not that bad, but no one goes to Bakersfield unless forced by some reason. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Fri Jan 14 10:07:47 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Computer Museum of America closing? In-Reply-To: <20050113205001.F647@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > --- John Foust wrote: > > >> "The museum will be closed to the public beginning January 15, 2005 > >> due to a lack of funding. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. > >> For further information or to help financially, call David Weil > >> at (619) 464-8220 or email dweil@computer-museum.org". > > > I hate to drool over the corpse, but they've allegedly got LGP-21 > paper tapes and such "somewhere in the warehouse", no time or > resources to locate it... > > This would be the only extant copy of LGP-21 software in the > world. I would really like a copy (emphasis on copy). Any ideas? > Seems rude to ask David about this at this point. The message does not say the museum is closing and disbanding, but only closing to the general public. This would imply to me that, at least for a short while, they are still allowing researchers. Unless, of course, they worded the announcement improperly, because the latter part of the message certainly does imply they are in distress. At any rate, I would suggest you contact David and ask him if it'd be possible to access the tapes. Don't ask it in such a way that implies you're afraid it's now or never. Just say you're interested in getting it for research purposes (which is true). -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Fri Jan 14 10:11:00 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Switcher PS temperature... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > It's rated for 8 amps with no significant airflow (if I > understand the specs correctly) so, I'm not even pushing > it to its limit. Anyway, after about 10 minutes of > operation with the case open and the new PS sitting off > to one side (clear all around), the two heat sinks are too > hot to touch. Is that normal operation for this kind of > supply? Maybe I got a bad one from WeirdStuff? Or > could this be some additional clue as to something wrong > somewhere else in the computer? According to my meter, > the voltage is spot on 5 volts and the current is 7.2 amps. > Any suggestions appreciated. There is something else seriously wrong in my estimation. There is no reason a computer of that size should be drawing more than a few amps. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Fri Jan 14 10:13:33 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050114070854.0494a9e0@mail> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > At 08:57 PM 1/13/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > >> And how do you propose to show this? Are there surveys of mom & pop > >Research? > > No, no, no... so called "re-search" only persuades those fools > who haven't already made up their minds about a pet theory. Ok, then I'll hammer it into everyone's skull like a big galvanized nail until I'm "proven" right. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From lcourtney at mvista.com Fri Jan 14 10:45:45 2005 From: lcourtney at mvista.com (Lee Courtney) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Heads Up - VAX 750, 785, 8550 etc. Available In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi all, For those so inclined there are several VAX's and Digital related items available in this week's auction at Auction-BDI in San Jose (CA). Items of interest: SJ-205 1 Unit(s) DIGITAL SERVER 834BA-TE SJ-206 1 Unit(s) CIPHER TAPE DRIVE M990110-00-0100U SJ-207 1 Unit(s) DIGITAL SERVER 34650-XA SJ-208 1 Unit(s) CIPHER TAPE DRIVE M990110-00-0100U SJ-217 1 Unit(s) DIGITAL TAPE DRIVE TA78 SJ-228 1 Unit(s) CABINET WITH DISK DRIVES SJ-229 1 Unit(s) DIGITAL CABINET WITH DISK DRIVES VAX8550 SJ-230 1 Unit(s) DIGITAL CABINET WITH DISK DRIVES VAX8550 SJ-231 1 Unit(s) EMPTY CABINET SJ-232 1 Unit(s) CABINET WITH DISK DRIVES SJ-233 1 Unit(s) DIGITAL CABINET WITH DISK DRIVES VAX11/785 SJ-234 1 Unit(s) DIGITAL EMPTY CABINET SJ-281 1 Unit(s) DIGITAL SERVER VAX11/750 SJ-283 1 Unit(s) DIGITAL STORAGE CABINET VAX700-610 SJ-284 5 Unit(s) Mislabelled as SUN JAVA STATIONS 600-5753-01 See http://www.auctionbdi.com/fullauctionlist.asp for info and pics. Cheers, Lee C. From news at computercollector.com Fri Jan 14 11:25:06 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Computer Museum of America closing? In-Reply-To: <20050114033609.42972.qmail@web52808.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050114172506.41025.qmail@web52805.mail.yahoo.com> Touched base with David this morning, will have that update tonight. - Evan --- Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > I just left a voicemail for David. As soon as he gets back to me, I'll post > an > update. > > - Evan > > --- John Foust wrote: > > > > > "The museum will be closed to the public beginning January 15, 2005 > > due to a lack of funding. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. > > For further information or to help financially, call David Weil > > at (619) 464-8220 or email dweil@computer-museum.org". > > > > http://www.computer-museum.org > > > > This also included the North American Datacomm Dept., > http://www.nadcomm.com/ > > , > > as run by Greenkeys member Don House: > > > > "The museum is closing tomorrrow. I got the call about an hour ago. > > The college is no longer able to fund it. David is looking for > > someone to take over funding and provide a new location in the > > San Diego area. Anyone with some connections, for God's sake help us. > > I am very depressed." > > > > - John > > > > > > > ===== > Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! > > -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address > -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us > -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all > -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com > -- 646 readers and counting! > From alhartman at yahoo.com Fri Jan 14 11:48:25 2005 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: <200501132135.j0DLZ6YL037228@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20050114174825.62478.qmail@web13426.mail.yahoo.com> From: dittman@dittman.net (Eric Dittman) > > I'd be interested to hear about your experiences with > > this board. Do you like it? > All I've done is play around a bit. With the column of keys > inoperative I can't do much until I fix it. > Too bad you lost the literature. I'd love to find out more > about it. Was it ever advertised or written about in "80 > Micro"? It may have been. I lost all my 80-Micro Magazines too... I seem to remember it being reviewed at least once. > I find that some of the old games on the TRS-80 are more fun > than games I see on today's consoles and PCs. There was more > emphasis on gameplay back then. I know.. My sister and I used to play "Galaxy Invasion" for HOURS... I also miss all the Star Trek like games, like Time Trek, Super Star Trek and Star Trek 3.5. It's amazing that NOBODY has written a Star Trek Game for current computers that let's you just explore the Galaxy, fight Klingons if you like, but just have fun... EGA Trek on PC's was cool. Shame he never continued developing that... As for the Trash Compactor Info... Someday as I go through old boxes of stuff I might find it. I'd be surprised to find I threw it out... It must be buried in the bottom of a box somewhere.. That, and information on the "Hydra" board. I think I have one. Which is an ISA Board that Emulates a MacPlus on a PC using an EGA Monitor for output. I bought this card that someone told me was a Hydra Board, but he had no software or manuals for it. Maybe someday I'll get it to work. Al > -- > Eric Dittman > dittman@dittman.net __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jan 14 12:08:09 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Computer Museum of America closing? In-Reply-To: <20050113205001.F647@localhost> References: <20050114033609.42972.qmail@web52808.mail.yahoo.com> <20050113205001.F647@localhost> Message-ID: <32957.64.169.63.74.1105726089.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Tom wrote: > I hate to drool over the corpse, but they've allegedly got LGP-21 > paper tapes and such "somewhere in the warehouse", no time or > resources to locate it... > > This would be the only extant copy of LGP-21 software in the > world. I would really like a copy (emphasis on copy). Any ideas? The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA has an LGP-21 which is a candidate for the next restoration project after the PDP-1 is completed. I do not know whether CHM has any LGP-21 software, but we would certainly like to get copies of anything that can be found. I'm willing to drive to San Diego with a reader/punch if need be. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jan 14 12:13:09 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Switcher PS temperature... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <32966.64.169.63.74.1105726389.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Bill wrote: > Anyway, after about 10 minutes of > operation with the case open and the new PS sitting off > to one side (clear all around), the two heat sinks are too > hot to touch. Is that normal operation for this kind of > supply? No. They're expected to be hot, but you should be able to keep your fingers on them for a couple of seconds. WARNING: The heat sinks on open-frame switchers may be electrically hot as well as thermally. Eric From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 14 12:24:33 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 14 Jan 2005 08:13:33 PST." Message-ID: <200501141824.j0EIOXlJ011093@mwave.heeltoe.com> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >Ok, then I'll hammer it into everyone's skull like a big galvanized nail >until I'm "proven" right. when all you have is a hammer... :-) -brad From aek at spies.com Fri Jan 14 12:33:44 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Computer Museum of America closing? Message-ID: <20050114183344.4AF774D79@spies.com> > This would be the only extant copy of LGP-21 software in the > world. I would really like a copy (emphasis on copy). Any ideas? This seems very odd. Paul Pierce doesn't have any in the LGP User's Group collection? Either way, it would be a good thing to get the CMA paper tapes read and verified. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jan 14 13:09:25 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:51:59 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501141824.j0EIOXlJ011093@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: Your message of "Fri, 14 Jan 2005 08:13:33 PST." <200501141824.j0EIOXlJ011093@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <33061.64.169.63.74.1105729765.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Sellam wrote: > Ok, then I'll hammer it into everyone's skull like a big galvanized nail > until I'm "proven" right. Brad wrote: > when all you have is a hammer... :-) Everything looks like a thumb? From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Jan 14 13:24:44 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Switcher PS temperature... Message-ID: <200501141924.LAA06196@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Eric Smith" > >Bill wrote: >> Anyway, after about 10 minutes of >> operation with the case open and the new PS sitting off >> to one side (clear all around), the two heat sinks are too >> hot to touch. Is that normal operation for this kind of >> supply? > >No. They're expected to be hot, but you should be able to >keep your fingers on them for a couple of seconds. > >WARNING: The heat sinks on open-frame switchers may be >electrically hot as well as thermally. Yes, like 400+ VDC with an ampere or 2 of capacity. Dwight > >Eric > > From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Jan 14 13:29:39 2005 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Switcher PS temperature... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > It's rated for 8 amps with no significant airflow (if I > > understand the specs correctly) so, I'm not even pushing > > it to its limit. Anyway, after about 10 minutes of > > operation with the case open and the new PS sitting off > > to one side (clear all around), the two heat sinks are too > > hot to touch. Is that normal operation for this kind of > > supply? Maybe I got a bad one from WeirdStuff? Or > > could this be some additional clue as to something wrong > > somewhere else in the computer? According to my meter, > > the voltage is spot on 5 volts and the current is 7.2 amps. > > Any suggestions appreciated. > > There is something else seriously wrong in my estimation. There is no > reason a computer of that size should be drawing more than a few amps. Well, among other things, it is pushing 48K of 2114 static ram. A few odd chips are low power, but most are not. The video is almost exclusively built from 74 series chips, again no low power versions. I've thought about trying to locate a large quantity of the low power CMOS 2114s... any ideas for a source? Thanks, Bill From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 15:41:50 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc. In-Reply-To: <200501141316.j0EDGgJx023249@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501141316.j0EDGgJx023249@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <20050114132303.O704@localhost> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Brad Parker wrote: > Remember 'the little garden'? That was my inspiration. Paul Vixie was > behind it I think. As I recall it was in La Honda, not far from where I > went to summer camp as a kid. If I've got it wrong please correct me. Well I have a lot of stuff from this era -- I had a life-killing disk crash and backup tape death in 1992, so I have nothing before Jan 93 ecept for the recent CP/M recovery. But I have pretty much everything from TLG/the little garden. Here's the oldest thing I cold find that was meta enough to be interesting. The context is, I ran the thing that was erroneously called a "cooperative" though we were very co-operative in fact. I ran the network, and started this (very fidonewsish) monthly news mailing to all members of tlg. This is the earliest mailing I have (I think). (It was originally 'the little garden', no d/b/a or anything. It later incorporated as TLGnet, Inc.) notes; ANything named "nos" are NOS boxen -- Phil Karn's ham radio KA9Q code that just so happened to do TCP/IP routing. It was quasi-stable. We ran it on single-floppy, 2MB 40MHz 386's. cygnus used to be housed in a couple of residential apartments at 814 University, Palo Alto, hence we put a POP there. Looks like wps.com (was fido, now turing) was pingable (386/bsd) Jan 93. I suppose I should put all this crap on the website for googling. -------------------------------------------------- (Phone numbers obscured -- tomj 14 Jan 2005) Brief news about The Little Garden, February 1993. I am *finally* connected to the internet, rather than just mailing through a gateway to/fro FidoNet. Some new members again this month. Unlike previous months, I have personally and recently verified every system's DNS data (with NIC.DDN.MIL down to the SOA). I will continue to check new members, and will followup and repair or otherwise deal with 'down' systems. Once such is tsoft.net. Their DNS data was corrupt, and then a dead modem took them off the air. I put a loaner modem in place, awaiting final repair/ replacement, and I will make sure their DNS is working ASAP. gnu-age.com is down with hardware troubles; due to a job change Joe might not be coming online again. If you notice trouble in the little garden, please notify me; I will do what I can to solve problems, and increasingly, try to head them off before they happen. Two items follow this message: the current, updated contact list (corrected phone numbers and additional backup email addresses for many), followed by an ASCII map of the end leafs of the little garden; handy if you suspect network troubles, and want numeric IP addresses to ping for testing, if nothing else. The Little Garden Network: Contacts List, February 93 Member Contact Email Phone ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TLG everybody the-little-garden@cygnus.com Alternet Operations[*] ops@uunet.uu.net +1 703 xxx xxxx 24hrs TIS John Sebes ejs@ba.tis.com +1 415 xxx xxxx mv site Rich Feiertag feiertag@ba.tis.com +1 415 xxx xxxx mv site Nancy Kelem kelem@ba.tis.com +1 415 xxx xxxx mv site Steve Crocker crocker@tis.com +1 301 xxx xxxx MD site Cygnus John Gilmore gnu@cygnus.com +1 415 xxx xxxx mv site gnu@toad.com +1 415 xxx xxxx sf site Stu Grossman grossman@cygnus.com +1 415 xxx xxxx mv site Jean Marie Diaz ambar@cygnus.com +1 415 xxx xxxx mv site Jim Wilson wilson@cygnus.com +1 415 xxx xxxx pa site Pozar Tim Pozar pozar@kumr.lns.com +1 415 xxx xxxx site (h) +1 415 xxx xxxx (w) Hoover Kenton Hoover shibumi@joes.garage.com +1 415 xxx xxxx (h) shibumi@turbo.bio.net +1 415 xxx xxxx (w) CFCL Rich Morin rdm@cfcl.com +1 415 xxx xxxx site xxx xxxx Tharp Phil Tharp tharp@adobe.com +1 415 xxx xxxx (w) ptharp@cif.com +1 415 xxx xxxx (h) (CIF.COM DOESN'T EXIST: use cif.ba.tis.com for now) Lever Edward Elhauge ee@lever.lever.com +1 415 xxx xxxx x314 site (w) Richard Couture richard@myrddin.imat.com +1 415 xxx xxxx site (h) Wired Mark Seiden mis@wired.com +1 415 xxx xxxx site (wired@well.sf.ca.us) +1 415 xxx xxxx site (jonathan@casa.stanford.edu) Joe Arceneaux jla@gnu-age.com +1 415 xxx xxxx h (GNU-AGE.COM IS DOWN) Michael Park mikep@dragoman.com +1 415 xxx xxxx h (mikep@abekas.com) +1 415 xxx xxxx w tsoft Mike Durkin mdurkin@tsoft.net +1 805 xxx xxxx h (mdurkin@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu) (TSOFT.NET IS DOWN) Paul Goldstone paul@traveler.com +1 415 xxx xxxx h ;NEW MEMBERS David Muir Sharnoff +1 510 xxx xxxx h (muir@cogsci.berkeley.edu) wsrcc Wolfgang Rupprecht wolfgang@wsrcc.com +1 510 xxx xxxx h (wolfgang@mgm.mit.edu) Tom Jennings tomj@wps.com +1 415 xxx xxxx h/w Mark Seiden mis@seiden.com +1 415 xxx xxxxxx xxxx (mis@usenix.org) [*] Note: Only TIS should call Alternet. [**] Note: An "URGENT" message will get fast response Map of the little garden universe, member-centric. This is meant as a guide, rather than the current Absolute Truth. Useful for pinging various hosts'n'routers when you suspect trouble. Meet your neighbors! Tom Jennings tomj@fido.wps.com 4 Feb 93 [NOTE: All addresses are in Class B subnet 140.174.xx.xx; eg. .85.1 is shorthand for 140.174.85.1.] to the big room and beyond ^ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | . +-------+ . +-------+ |gw-mv- |.24.1 .23.253 |gw-liv.| |pa.cyg |---------------|cygnus.|---+--------------- ethernet |nus.com| . | .com | | +-------+ . +-------+ | .9.1 | . | | . | .23.13 | . (814 Univ., +-------+ .9.2 | . Palo Alto) | nos1. | +-------+ . |cygnus.| --> member IPs |gw-pa- | . | .com | | sf.cyg| . +-------+ |nus.com| . +-------+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5.2 | | | | . . . . . .|. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | (Toad Hall, San Francisco) | .5.1 | +-------+ | gw. | | toad. | | com | +-------+ .2.23 | | +-------+---------------+---------------+--------- ethernet | | | | | | .2.66 | .2.69 | .2.71 | +-------+ +-------+ +-------+ | nos1. | | nos2. | | nos3. | | toad. | | toad. | | toad. | | com | | com | | com | +-------+ +-------+ +-------+ | <----- Member SLIP connections -----> | Router names appear in UPPER CASE. Toad Hall, San Francisco ----------------------------------------------------------------- Routers in series with San Francisco TLG members' IP addresses: gw-mv-pa.cygnus.com gw-pa-sf.cygnus.com gw.toad.com [Subnets .83.xx, .84.xx, and .86.xx through .89.xx routed to 2.23] [CHECK THIS!] Router (56K termination): GW.TOAD.COM .2.23 On the local ethernet: --- domain ------ gate -- dest -- subnet -- user -- name, etc toad.com .2.1 gnu (John Gilmore) nos1.toad.com .2.66 Router for TLG members, see below nos2.toad.com .2.69 Router for TLG members, see below nos3.toad.com .2.71 Router for TLG members, see below mofo.toad.com .2.20 curt (Curt Mayer) NOS1.TOAD.COM .2.66 (Router for the following members) .8.xx (Subnet allocated to SLIP ports) --- domain ------ gate -- dest -- subnet -- user -- name, etc kumr.lns.com .8.1 .8.2 .7.xx pozar (Tim Pozar) .8.1 .8.2 .66.xx pozar (Tim Pozar) joes.garage.com .8.128 .8.130 .69.xx shibumi (Kenton Hoover) cfcl.com .8.65 .8.66 .42.xx rdm (Rich Morin) lever.com .8.193 .8.194 .20.xx ee (Ed Elhauge) NOS2.TOAD.COM .2.69 (Router for the following members) .73.xx (Subnet allocated to SLIP ports) --- domain ------ gate -- dest -- subnet -- user -- name, etc myrddin.imat.com .73.1 .73.2 .70.xx richard (Richard Couture) gnu-age.com .73.129 .73.130 .71.xx jla (Joe Arceneaux) wired.com .73.193 .73.194 .72.xx chance (Jonathan Steuer) .73.65 .73.66 .82.xx (David Sharnoff) NOS3.TOAD.COM .2.71 (Router for the following members) .74.xx (Subnet allocated to SLIP ports) --- domain ------ gate -- dest -- subnet -- user -- name, etc wps.com .74.1 .74.2 .77.xx tomj (Tom Jennings) (unassigned) .74.193 .74.194 .78.xx (unassigned) .74.65 .74.66 .79.xx (unassigned) .74.129 .74.130 .80.xx University Ave, Palo Alto ----------------------------------------------------------------- Routers in series with Palo Alto members' IP addresses: gw-mv-pa.cygnus.com gw-liv.cygnus.com nos1.cygnus.com.cygnus.com Router (56K termination): GW-LIV.CYGNUS.COM .23.253 On the local ethernet: --- domain ------ gate -- dest -- subnet -- user -- name, etc ecotone.toad.com .23.9 hugh (Hugh Daniels) sendai.cygnus.com .23.12 (Rich Pixley) moria.cygnus.com .23.22 wilson (Jim Wilson) kitsup.cygnus.com .23.40 (Sean Fagan) NOS.CYGNUS.COM .23.13 Router for the following members: .85.xx (Subnet allocated for NOS use) (Note that the Portmaster doesn't use a dest. SLIP address; we keep them allocated for consistency. Four bit submasks are used because there are 10 ports per box.) --- domain ------ gate -- dest -- subnet -- user -- name, etc dragoman.com .85.2 .85.1 .86.xx mikep (Mike Park) wsrcc.com .85.66 .85.65 .88.xx wolfgang (Wolfgang Rupprecht) tsoft.net .85.130 .85.129 .87.xx mdurkin (Mike Durkin) traveler.com .85.194 .85.193 .89.xx paul (Paul Goldstone) seiden.com? .85.226 .85.225 .90.xx mark (Mark Seiden) (unassigned) .91.xx (unassigned) .92.xx Pozar's two-bit(tm) addressing 4-bit m m m m 2-bit m m (.1) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 (.2) 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 (.129) 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 (.130) 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 (.65) 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 (.66) 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 (.193) 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 (.194) 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 15:48:28 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: the little garden / TLGnet, Inc 2 In-Reply-To: <200501141316.j0EDGgJx023249@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501141316.j0EDGgJx023249@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <20050114134311.E704@localhost> Here's another major milestone for little garden... getting kicked off Alternet! Rick Adam's biggest mistake -- if he hadn't done this, we wold have remained a "share", but instead we ended up with T1 to Sprint Gov't Systems Division (remember, thi sis all before the CO/RE split) and a real colo at 444 Market (MFS) for $250/month! We were the first customer for them. Man was this all so flaky! ANther one of those monthly mailings. No redacting this time. --------------------------------------------- The Little Garden news, April, 1993. This is about 100 lines long. If you are in a hurry, please refer to the last section at least, search for ":::" three times, about line 75, regarding our relationship with Alternet. ::: TLG was pretty stable this month, size-wise. One person, M. Strata Rose, is soon to be connected in Palo Alto. Phonelines, etc are the order of the day. There are a lot of Zyxel 1496E modems in the little garden; they are fast and easy to use, but the pre-6.00 EPROM version has a rather annoying bug, that dumps the connection most commonly during FTPs of largish files, though it happens other times too. There are other, less-important bugs. There is a 6.00 version that fixes that, plus introduces a new bug something to do with result codes, which probably matters a lot less. 6.01 will probably fix that too. The Portmaster in Palo ALto remains reliable, with one crash during someone testing their system, a possible Portmsater bug. It's being persued. It's been quite stable otherwise. Members connected via Toad Hall had a flurry of crashes in the NOS routers, all within about a 24 hr. period. NOS seems to do this. There is some vague pattern to it; sometimes I visit the site and find some remote site hammering TONS of UDP packets to various TLG members, these seem to be involved in the crashes, though the relationship is obscure. After about 10 reboots in a 12 hr. period, both nos1 and nos2 stay up for weeks or more. Wierd. 'nos3' in toad hall is really a 386BSD box, with one port in use; me. It's been very, very reliable. The problem is, the TTY driver doesn't understand "Carrier Detect", so when I lose carrier for any reason, I have to dial into the net, telnet to nos3, KILL -9 , then I can reconnect. Sigh. Once we get the patched driver installed... but I can't FTP the sources because my Zyxel drops carrier on long files... But it's stable, and performance is excellent. ::: WHICH BRINGS ME TO this: Pozar and I and others have been talking about how nice it would be to have a box on the ethernet at Toad Hall (for starters) that would run news, and nothing but news, and take a lot of the load off of toad.com. TLG doesn't have a budget, and so there's no hardware to use. It could have a numberof uses; it could be the news server for everyone tied in at Toad Hall. You could also have an account on it to read news on, rather than dragging mail to your box, for those of us who only read bits of it around the edges, avoiding having to peek into friends boxes that only carry a few groups, etc. The idea is that it would be something like 386BSD, with 600MB of hard disk, partitioned such that DISK FULL wouldn't halt things, etc. (This box has an additional function as file server for the routers; see below.) The problem is that we don't have any extra hardware, mainly disks. Volunteers, anyone? We need probably 600MB or more, no sense in driving ourselves crazy with less. 386BSD seems a good choice, and the drivers allow mixing types; we could install two 150MB ESDI drives with two IDE drives to make the 600MB. We need: power supply, case, 386 motherboard, 4MB memory minimum disk drives, ethernet card. Mix'n'match is fine, ugly cases fine, etc. Keep this in mind... I will assemble, install and maintain the connectivity part. Obviously this would work just fine in Palo Alto too. (A future brainstorm: when/(if) we swap 386BSD into the existing NOS boxes, the one-floppy, 2meg machines will have zero space for Unix utilities, beyond the routing tables and VI. This news box could also act as the server for additional, optional binaries etc for the routers; the routers would remain reliable, stand-alone boxes.) ::: AND FINALLY -- to be brief (just for contrast) the little garden is looking for a new Internet carrier. Relations with Alternet are umm strained, and a mutual decision was made to look elsewhere. We have info requests pending with some and are in discussion with some other internet carriers. I was hoping to have at this time mor info on the range of offers and opportunities, but like everything else in the world it goes slowly. I had expected to hear back from people this week, but here it is Thursday already. So John GIlmore thinks it's a good time to have a meeting to discuss all this, and I couldn't agree more. How about The Little Garden meeting at it's namesake, the Little Garden Restaurant in Palo Alto? In two weeks? Say 13 April, a Tuesday, 7pm or so? Because of the importance of this, I'll post the meeting and reason separately from this monthly boilerplate. The date and location are not 'hard', so suggestions are certainly welcome; though the Palo Alto location is probably a reasonable compromise physically for all TLG members. From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 15:56:04 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050114071022.0494ac70@mail> References: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> <20050113141500.U2639@localhost> <6.2.0.14.2.20050113185354.05701c80@mail> <20050113173343.H2639@localhost> <6.2.0.14.2.20050114071022.0494ac70@mail> Message-ID: <20050114135026.T704@localhost> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: >> So... what's the chance of doing this with a solid-state laser? >> Say 9 of them? The idea of high-speed papertape (sic) thrills me. >> I know I'm sick, but I don't want to stop. > > Why stop at nine? Optical scanning of a tape via linear CCD > or video chip or reflected laser must be scads faster than > mechanical methods (from pins in holes, to helical scan mag tape). Well, I have a particular project in mind for that but I agree with you -- why stop there? > But why limit yourself to perpendicular rows? Sounds like what > you want is a dense 2D barcode, like the UPS and USPS codes, > but somehow sequential, flowing, 2 1/2 D. Well.. I simply hadn't considered anything else! But an N x M array reading the tape, could do high density with redundancy and correction, and make finding the edges of pits easy. > The hard part is picking the medium, I'd think. You want something > that'll do a fast detectable change that'll keep over time, > burnable by a power-enough laser. They speak of mylar tape, > but my TTY stuff is so old I've never seen it. Will it detectably > deform if you heat it? I was thinking more generically here, 'thin mylar tape' from other industries, but whatever. > I've loved brainstorming about these sorts of barcoding schemes. > It seems to me that it's a big missing hole in the convergence > that everyone's always talking about. There's few super-easy ways > to move a URL from print automagically into a computer, and RFID > seems almost clunky compared to burning microscopic bar codes all > over the surface of objects. Well my crazy project could in fact use something higher density than old style! From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 16:04:08 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Computer Museum of America closing? In-Reply-To: <20050114183344.4AF774D79@spies.com> References: <20050114183344.4AF774D79@spies.com> Message-ID: <20050114140258.A704@localhost> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote: >> This would be the only extant copy of LGP-21 software in the >> world. I would really like a copy (emphasis on copy). Any ideas? > > This seems very odd. Paul Pierce doesn't have any in the LGP User's > Group collection? No, apparently. LGP-30 yes, a far more common machine than the '21 but not compatible. > Either way, it would be a good thing to get the CMA paper tapes read > and verified. I belive some of the tapes are crumbling and need special handling. Often I've foudn that only the outside dozen feet or so crumble, protecting the inner turns. From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 16:05:06 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: << Nova 4/X rescue >> In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050114140426.A704@localhost> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > Ok, it's not that bad, but no one goes to Bakersfield unless forced by > some reason. That's not nice! :-) True though. From gtn at rbii.com Thu Jan 13 11:23:10 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: <200501131226.j0DCQDMC027950@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501131226.j0DCQDMC027950@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2005, at 7:26 AM, Brad Parker wrote: > I registered 'american.com' in um, 95 an it caused a bit of a stir :-) > seems the folks at american university (american.edu) didn't like that > (but hey, the company was called 'american internet' so it seemed > natural). My recent win was getting ebt.com, which is a company that I used to work at, and whose assets (some of them anyway), we now own. The whois on that is 93... EBT was one of the founding members of the W3C, and I wanted to preserve the time stamp. From gtn at rbii.com Thu Jan 13 15:21:38 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501131739.j0DHdbmU009158@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501131739.j0DHdbmU009158@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <1C5424B8-65A9-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 13, 2005, at 12:39 PM, Brad Parker wrote: > I think 386bsd was the first unencumbered "free" unix I saw. I ran it > on several of my laptops (did some serious BGP development sitting on > the floor of my wife's grandmother's house :-) Yeah... then there was the really weird stuff with Bill. After the first release, it all seemed to fall apart, and Linux kind of fell into the hole it left behind. From gtn at rbii.com Thu Jan 13 15:26:17 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <1105639378.2462.41.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1105639378.2462.41.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2005, at 1:02 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: > Hmm, actually it might have been as early as 1993 even when I first > installed Linux, not 1994... I did the first port of linux to a foreign platform... starting with 0.2 I think, then 0.9{5,6,8?} to the NEC PC9801. I never really *used* Linux seriously until around '96. I really wanted to use 386bsd... but the whole "road less travelled" thing, then silence... From gtn at rbii.com Thu Jan 13 15:32:07 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501131820.j0DIKD8W026302@ill.crash.com> References: <200501131820.j0DIKD8W026302@ill.crash.com> Message-ID: <931D702A-65AA-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 13, 2005, at 1:20 PM, Steven M Jones wrote: > Regular folk with Windows/Mac machines were signing up for these > accounts, not just tech weenies, for all the reasons that email was > popular. Not only that, but because of Windows/Mac TCP/IP, corporations really jumped on the bandwagon too, and they allowed more liberal access to the Internet. It was like people suddenly discovered the Internet, and in the space of a couple of years, everyone was doing email. The WWW really helped to push things along too... URL's and the browsers made it much easier to do things, than say, remembering to ftp to gatekeeper.dec.com. Linux had nothing to do with most of this... most of the early web servers were on other platforms. > You want a technical change to point to? I'd point to TCP/IP coming > to Windows and the Mac. Yep. Once TCP/IP really took off, the rest, as they say, was history. From gtn at rbii.com Thu Jan 13 15:34:10 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <41E6C64C.8010000@oldskool.org> References: <200501131739.j0DHdbmU009158@mwave.heeltoe.com> <41E6C64C.8010000@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2005, at 2:04 PM, Jim Leonard wrote: > Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its > demise, so I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC > in general. I think I have a derivative here somewhere for the PC9801... called "Let's C" from memory. In the same place as ASCII Minix... From gtn at rbii.com Thu Jan 13 15:47:04 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2005, at 2:20 PM, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > But was not Linux another major driving influence behind FOSS? Would > FOSS > even have that fancy acronym today were it not for Linux? Stallman and > friends weren't really making much headway until Linux came about. > Perhaps this has to do with Torvalds being a much better spokesman for > the concept of FOSS? Absolutely not. Linux was, more than anything, more or less just good timing. A lot of people were on the Internet/Usenet, interested in hacking on OS's. I don't know about anyone else, but I hacked 386bsd, Linux, MINIX, VSTa, A concurrent MSDOS clone, etc. etc. When Linux came along... it really couldn't do anything useful, but it was a learning experience for a lot of people, and *fun* (and of course, 386bsd went AWOL). The FSF was pretty big at the time... gcc etc. were widely used, and a lot of younger guys, Linus included, were attracted to open source because it provided a great learning channel. > Again, TCP/IP only came to Windows and the Mac because it became > necessary > to offer this due to the rising popularity of Internet access. I don't think so... this was really because corporate standardisation of TCP/IP put pressure on MS/Apple. The Internet wasn't the purpose, corporate infrastructure was. For example, at NEC, most people didn't even know about the Internet... all you could ever do was email (thank goodness for the DEC ftp->mail gateway!)... but TCP/IP enable corporate data sharing etc. > but I am > convinced that the whole movement that developed from the seed of Linux > propelled adoption of the Internet that before was primarily a tool of > universities and research institutes and some large corporations. From what I've seen, Linux had little to do with it... OSS was going to take off one way or another. From gtn at rbii.com Thu Jan 13 15:56:54 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501132108.j0DL8gtY001252@ill.crash.com> References: <200501132108.j0DL8gtY001252@ill.crash.com> Message-ID: <09E49430-65AE-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 13, 2005, at 4:08 PM, Steven M Jones wrote: > Anyways, I hope that at some point you get a chance to write up > what you saw happening around that time with the small ISPs and > Linux, and share it with us. That goes for the other list > members too; I was hoping for a wider response, and especially > views from outside the US. I've been focusing on the 1993-4 > period because of the way it set the stage for growth once the > Web caught on, but feel free to roll forward or backward too. I was in Japan at the time... accessing the Internet via email gateways at work, and dialup to a VAX box at home. At least in Japan, I saw Linux have really little impact on Internet adoption... even now, I don't think Linux is as significant as most people think. I bet that if Linux went away tomorrow, that within 3 years, something would fill the void. As it is, *BSD remain very good alternatives, even though they don't have the same network effects going for them. From my perspective, a lot of the OSS hype came from somewhat self-serving people. Seriously... ESR seem{s|ed} like a traitor to me in some ways... From gtn at rbii.com Thu Jan 13 16:25:01 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2005, at 4:50 PM, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > But my original assertion was that the rapid rise, development and > adoption of the Internet to the mainstream masses was propelled by > Linux. > And while you had "e-mail", unless we're talking about Internet e-mail > (and notwithstanding Fidonet), it was based in closed, proprietary > systems > that were not interconnected. The introduction to the Internet was an > afterthought, only when it proved itself to be indispensable to their > viability as a business. It's all network effects... open standards typically win in the long run because of network effects. The closed systems ended up needing to communicate, so they ended up using the Internet. Then people were stuck maintaining 2 systems... and everyone knows that doesn't last for long. > Another thing is that we've had the internet since the 1960s. Many > people > tried to bring predecessors of the Web (e.g. Videotex) systems to the > US > in the 1980s and failed. Network effects again. Why do you think Europe, Japan etc. lead the US vis-a-vis cell phone usage? From gtn at rbii.com Thu Jan 13 16:26:20 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Subject: apple's internet connectivity In-Reply-To: <20050113215904.AD9844F4B@spies.com> References: <20050113215904.AD9844F4B@spies.com> Message-ID: <26181296-65B2-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 13, 2005, at 4:59 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > I also noticed that my previous posting about MacTCP and Gopher would > have been incorrect, since Gopher servers didn't appear til '91 or so. Gopher preceded HTTP by a bit... probably appeared in '88/89? From steve.dresner at nbcuni.com Thu Jan 13 16:46:10 2005 From: steve.dresner at nbcuni.com (Dresner, Steve (NBC Universal)) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: FW: [Fwd: Old Teletype Paper] Message-ID: <0A182D9227F2464C827141EBC7CF9172017DF7C8@dcapr103anbc.nbc.com> Erik: Your guys took good care of me last time...again, I'm in need of yellow-ish, old teletype paper...prefer one box for our boss. Any suggestions? Thanks for your time. Steve Dresner/Producer "The George Michael SportsMachine" WRC-TV Sports 4001 Nebraska Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20016 202.885.4127 From vax at purdue.edu Thu Jan 13 17:22:00 2005 From: vax at purdue.edu (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <20050113124030.Q1169@localhost> References: <3.0.6.32.20050112210835.0094f100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20050113124030.Q1169@localhost> Message-ID: <200501131822.00803.vax@purdue.edu> On Thursday 13 January 2005 15:50, Tom Jennings wrote: > I do watch TV. With a TiVo. Useful and informative shows, like snipped... > Venture Brothers, ATHF, Simpsons, Indeed! :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing -- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcac From ap007h5122 at blueyonder.co.uk Fri Jan 14 12:23:19 2005 From: ap007h5122 at blueyonder.co.uk (Alan Paton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: interak Message-ID: <000801c4fa66$1fe7a720$6600a8c0@R2D2> Hi Errol I have just seen your message on the web, while searching for some other stuff. I expect by now I am too late but I have a working Interak which I still use quite a bit. I like making up new cards + interfaces for it. I have also modified the cpm bios to enable an 80 character screen. (The original monitor card could only display 64 characters as you probably know.) If you still have any related items - hardware, software or documentation - I would be very interested. I live in Hilperton, Trowbridge Wiltshire. Hopefully, Alan --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.642 / Virus Database: 410 - Release Date: 24/03/2004 From tomj at fiche.wps.com Fri Jan 14 15:49:36 2005 From: tomj at fiche.wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: the little garden / TLGnet Inc 3 and last Message-ID: <200501142149.j0ELnak1003703@fiche.wps.com> >From admin@tlg.org Mon Jan 31 12:41:58 1994 Received: from relay1.UU.NET by fnord.tlg.org (8.3/wps.com-hackery) id MAA02194; Mon, 31 Jan 1994 12:41:41 -0800 Received: from cygnus.com by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AAwbgs08709; Mon, 31 Jan 94 15:42:49 -0500 Received: from fenchurch.MIT.EDU by cygnus.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17472; Mon, 31 Jan 94 12:42:42 PST Received: from localhost by fenchurch.MIT.EDU id PAA13164; Mon, 31 Jan 1994 15:40:49 -0500 Date: Mon, 31 Jan 94 15:40:47 EST From: "M. Strata Rose" Reply-To: strata@fenchurch.MIT.EDU To: private-garden@cygnus.com Cc: strata@fenchurch.MIT.EDU X-Tlg-Info: The Little Garden Network-- affordable Internet today! X-Tlg-Info: Finger info@tlg.org for info, speeds from 14400 to 56K & T1 X-Tlg-Info: San Francisco - Santa Cruz - Berkeley - San Jose areas Subject: meeting notes Message-Id: Status: OR I feel officially silly-- after typing in the meeting minutes a few days ago, I realized I hadn't actually *posted* them. Luckily I remembered this before calling Tom and asking what was wrong with the mailing list....anyway, here they are, I apologize for the delay. Tim, John, Tom, and others, feel free to correct or clarify my summations and/or paraphrasings of what you actually said, I was taking brief notes and trying to keep up with the flow of conversation and topic-jumping. This also makes them somewhat disjoint topically, but I felt that keeping the meeting flow in the transcript was more important than trying to group topics after the fact. Pull up the message with the posted agenda in another buffer and you can see what we were trying to stick to... Notes from TLG Meeting at 444 Market St. POP, 1/19/94 Tim Pozar, TomJ, & John G. suggest $800/mo as T1 colocation. Hubbub, folks start talking about IP redirect services. TomJ runs mini-service ("scamatron") for IP-redirect stuff via telnet. John Hargin [Harkins?] is TLG customer who is doing colocation, has own rate structure. Discussion as to saving space in crowded POP. Strata offers possible second POP location in Sunnyvale. Mark from WIRED mentions their expansion plans, have budgeted space for colocation facilities. Tim & co point out that physical site of 444 Market is very security conscious and that colocation would have access problems regardless of space, only very few people on access list now and they don't have time to babysit colocated machines. Various arguments on topic of "I want to colocate for reliability and won't use the full bandwidth, shouldn't I be able to pay less". Metering/analysis software need brought up by various. John mentions HNMS, Hierarchical Network Mgmt System, could do metering we need. Company is negotiating with Cygnus for support of HNMS, it will be released to public if they work out a contract. John will file FOIA to get it otherwise (assuming it looks interesting enough). WRT wider pipes and response from Toad POP folks, John offers to widen pipe to T1 to Toad for better latency if he can get Toad POP community to help with the $500/mo difference. Response from Toad folks present is enthusiastic, looks like it will happen. Given that, there is some amount of space w/TLG member physical access for colocation on T1 ether, talk to John for details as to how that's progressing and what the availability is. T1 colocation rate still applies, BTW. Offical thanks to KKSF (Tim Pozar's employers) for donating ~$3K of vital wiring & etc Stuff to the setup at 444 Market; they will have SLIP connection with fees waived for some considerable time approximating their donation to the cause. TLG info business cards passed out, Rich Morin donated his extra cardstock from his business printing and had his printer do up all his extra sheets with the card design. Contact him to get a handfull to give out to interested parties, still has sheets that haven't been cut to card-size yet. NNTP servers: newsfeeds are our primary traffic on TLG in the opinion of those who've been watching our traffic, lots of it going down skinny pipes. John Harkins has NNTP service for nominal fee to TLG members, much less than UUNET. Possible Cygnus donation of Sparc 1+ for NNTP server mentioned, John G. is upgrading hoptoad. Edward Elhauge is interested in setting up Garden-wide NNTP on a fee basis. General agreement that having an NNTP server on each POP would be desirable to keep traffic of leaf sites local to POP. Bill Custer agrees to organize 814 University NNTP server, Edward E. & Fen will organize Toad NNTP server. People in either of those POP communities should get in touch with those folks to see what they can do to help or donate in the way of time/materials-- they're organizing a volunteer effort, not committing to doing it singlehandedly. The 814 University POP is now moving to the TLG "pay your own POP" model; it has been subsidized for a while now. Basic arrangement similar to Toad's-- leased line is paid by TLG, 56K rate of $325/mo is paid by POP Responsible Party/Group, TLG gives them $10 kickback for each 14400 connection at POP. Dollar amounts paid by individuals at 814 will not differ by more than a few bucks per person after conversion says TomJ. John G. asks assembled members for support for conversion, general assent. Bandwidth issues for usage-based rates comes up yet again, from discussion of whether 814 University folks are using more than their "fair share" since they have multiple machines on POP-local ethernet. Various folks draw formal attention to "are we growth-based or do we parcel out bits grudgingly?"-- ie do we assume we will keep adding T1 connectivity from the outside if we need the bandwidth? [yes] We need to set some baseline rates for "measured rate", ie you should be able to get a wide pipe and not use the full width, but be charged for a combination of bit usage and latency. More discussion of whether or not measuring will put noticeable drag on the net, nothing conclusive. Coming up with the abovementioned charging model would also facilitate POP startup, since folks could pay to have a wider pipe than they would use put in for future expansion, grow more slowly and need a smaller group to spawn a POP. Various pricing models proposed, ranging from John G. 64K steps to latency baserate + stepped usage. Issue needs more exploration, dropped for this meeting. POP Security-- right now anyone could compromise a single host and sniff passwords for anyone elseon TLG net, this is Not Good. Stu, TomJ, Tim, John G are setting up router ring topology and bridging POP-local traffic so that the routers don't touch cross-POP hosts, each router touches only other routers who in turn talk to local POP hosts. Good idea, general kudos to them. Now a WWW (World Wide Web) server on TLG.ORG, PC-based BSD unix box; TLG members running Web servers can put a pointer URL on TLG.ORG "Member Web Servers" page, contact TomJ or Tim P about this. March issue of WIRED will carry TLG ad, will run every other month. TLG.ORG is mostly DNS, admin info, the mailing lists. Stu, TomJ, Tim, and Tom's new intern Flesh have accounts, tlg-ops. Dave Sharnoff mentions he gateways his email to newsgroup format on his machine, talk about need for downstream/POP based mailing lists, hard to contact neighbors on local POP when TLG.ORG is out if that's where all the mailing lists are! Kee points out that TomJ has made sublists but we still need per-POP access lists so people can offload local POP maint and make POPS more independent. John G mentioned Randy Bush is doing profiles/lists of toasternets, contact him (Randy) if you want info or have listings. Will be published in paper and HTML/Web served. Tim Pozar needs 300M drive & Adaptec controller for 444 Market, spontaneous hat passing nets $350. Nice work & a good feeling... Tim P. is working with McGraw-Hill on a pending 56K connection in San Mateo to TLG. He has asked them about colocation of TLG equipment to make a San Mateo POP but they are wary. Peter & Tim will investigate if Frame Relay makes sense for this pipe, McGraw is apparently in or near a building loaded with net-goodies. Various folk point out that random closet rental can bridge TLG service gap between Palo Alto and SF. There is concern about McGraw & another potential TLG customer sucking down "too much" bandwidth. John G talks a little about how you buy latency with a T1, not stricly bandwith, but still there are no guarantees on speed. We [TLG] have never guaranteed constant bandwidth, ie 56K pushed to 56K 7x24, but instead worked out varying rates so that we approximate bandwidth by steps (14400, 56K, T1) with rates that let the bigger connections take a bigger share of the cost. Dave Sharnoff mentions WRT latency, he chunks his NNTP data down to the smallest packet size he can to keep decent latency on simultaneous typing/telnet access on his link, suggests it as a technique to improve 14400 connection performance. John G & Tim suggest that he is dragging down overall network performance by doing this, don't recommend it but no clear consensus on what the effect would be if more folks were doing it. TomJ talks about statistical multiplexing briefly. TomJ: wants help by skillset. Fen suggests mailing list for potential helpers. Tim P offers gopher list for helpers skills. Peter suggest finger account for help@tlg.org w/contact list, also setup a help mailback of info using the vacation program. Tim P mentions SJ POP, send potentials to TomJ, we would like to start one. NOS boxes-- only one left, TomJ praises the Livingston boxes for running smoothly once set up, notes that the documentation was hell though. More general discussion of problem solving-- several people brought up a suggestion that we should do PacBell-like cost recovery on troubleshooting. If the problem turns out to be on your end, charge time and materials for looking into it. Need more discussion on how to implement this. Trouble tickets: we need some kind of system; Cygnus has one that we could adapt, and NEARNET has a free FTP-able one as well. Roger Klorese commits to looking into various systems on our behalf. Thanks Roger! TomJ does virtual intro of Randy Mills aka Flesh, his new "intern" (Flesh couldn't make it due to a last-minute schedule conflict). Tom has budgeted $100/mo at first, and mentions that both his and Flesh's stipends should go up as TLG starts breaking even/getting ahead. Flesh has been educating himself in PC tech and BBS stuff, is sharp and interested. TomJ has set him up with a connection on the maintainance port of the 444 Market router w/2400 baud TCP/IP, will upgrade to 9600 when he can scrounge modems. Fen donates pair of 9600 baud modems on the spot, cool. TomJ comments as an aside that he's enthused about getting more folks like Flesh involved with TLG, people from the non-techy side of the world, punks, artists and the like. The Spreadsheet: Tom has new estimates, so spreadsheet at meeting is gloomier than real picture. He observes that we seem to be growing by approx $500/mo. We have to spend $2400 to start up new T1's, $600 for new 14400 (TLG buying ports for new customers to connect to). TomJ has done approximations of a step-up curve where cost/resources/new members are tied into steps where we have to expand. Tom T mentions that we should encourage folks to upgrade their SLIP/PPP connections when the new modem chipsets are widely available in May, as it leverages our current ports into higher revenue without additional cost to us. More grumbling/concerns over large customers (corporations, network services) potentially "sucking dry" the pipe. TomJ points out that all of TLG averaged less than 56K over 5 min spikes in September. John G points out that the entire Internet was on T1 in 1993, w/many 56K interconnects, and that the arpanet/Internet was on 56K for years. Slight digression into T1 costs of our competition, Tim P says Barrnet is cheapest, $600+/month for T1 but (gotcha) no resale. Mini-history review of Barrnet decision, went to no resale because of "predatory" ANS routing pricing for downstream resellers (figure of $55K/year/service provider-reseller was mentioned). Tom's salary: nothing really decided except that TomJ deserves more money and less hours, and that Flesh's presence and a help-list will alleviate the latter complaint but that we need more members and to start running more in the black to work on the $$ issue. John G reminds folks that there's also the matter of eventually repaying his $10K TLG starter loan at more than $40/month, too. WRT TomJ's hours and offloading, we will try to formalize some of the written docs that he has done and put them where they are easier to get to. TomJ has already set up some docs on tlg.org for FTP, we will put up HTML (Web) and probably gopher stuff too. Strata volunteers to edit and otherwise help assemble docs. TimP has partial book/manual, as does TomJ. Rich suggests monthly open house/class for TLG newbies. General enthusiasm for this idea. Peter says have them bring in their machine and just *set it up* as part of the class/workshop, and/or put together a kit like the one the WELL sells for new members, sales of the kit can help with TLG cash problem as well. Robert points out that SW developers and the phone company slam folks for asking questions and taking tech time if the answers are in the manuals/provided docs, maybe we need to do this too (cost recovery again). Will Kreth mentions BAIL (Bay Area Internet Literacy?) and their toasternet classes, they have a committed space reservation that they don't fully use and may be open to letting TLG host/cohost classes in the space. Will will post BAIL info to TLG list, also bail-list-request@well.sf.ca.us for info on their classes. Send mail to strata@fenchurch.mit.edu re: skills you have that might be helpful to TLG members getting connected and/or maintaining their connection. List ones you are comfortable with volunteering to newbies as well as more experienced folks, and don't list things you know that you consider a potential waste of your limited time, ie for a routing expert to be spending an hour on the phone telling someone how to configure their modem. Strata will collate and post a list, as well as periodic updates as we get new members. That's basically it, folks... ************************************************************************* M. Strata Rose Unix & Network Consultant, SysAdmin & Internet Information Virtual City Network (tm) strata@virtual.net | strata@hybrid.com | strata@fenchurch.mit.edu From aek at spies.com Fri Jan 14 16:14:43 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc. Message-ID: <20050114221443.DCE3F4FF7@spies.com> > Remember 'the little garden'? Great little Chinese place on El Camino just before Arastradero. RIP From vcf at siconic.com Fri Jan 14 16:19:02 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: << Nova 4/X rescue >> In-Reply-To: <20050114140426.A704@localhost> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > Ok, it's not that bad, but no one goes to Bakersfield unless forced by > > some reason. > > That's not nice! :-) > > True though. Well, let's put it this way: I've probably spent more time there than anyone on this list at least, and most of that time was in the county jail ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 14 16:50:14 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:56:54 EST." <09E49430-65AE-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> Message-ID: <200501142250.j0EMoE1W028920@mwave.heeltoe.com> Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: ... >ESR seem{s|ed} like a traitor to me in some ways... who's ESR? -brad From medavidson at mac.com Fri Jan 14 16:56:21 2005 From: medavidson at mac.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: <200501131739.j0DHdbmU009158@mwave.heeltoe.com> <41E6C64C.8010000@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <81E35278-667F-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> On Jan 13, 2005, at 1:34 PM, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > > On Jan 13, 2005, at 2:04 PM, Jim Leonard wrote: >> Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its >> demise, so I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC >> in general. > > I think I have a derivative here somewhere for the PC9801... called > "Let's C" from memory. In the same place as ASCII Minix... > > "Let's C" was MWC's low-cost C development system for the PC. It came with a cool spiral-bound manual, and consisted of their C compiler, debugger and libraries. When they first came out with it (I believe it was $75, or something like that), they had a contest and I won a free copy from them. Mark Davidson From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 17:06:42 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <931D702A-65AA-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> References: <200501131820.j0DIKD8W026302@ill.crash.com> <931D702A-65AA-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> Message-ID: <20050114145857.O704@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > Yep. Once TCP/IP really took off, the rest, as they say, was history. But the precursor to all of that was the fact that it stopped being government funded; only non-commercial uses were allowed. (In 1992, you had to have some awareness of what was allowed; .com could use .edu (as an example) network resources IFF it was directly related to .edu work; .com could do anything with .com, and .edu anything with .edu. The .edu::.com relationship was what required finesse. By removing all gov't money sources and releasing from contracts etc it was commercializable. A few were there from the start and knew it, Alternet/UUnet, PSI, and others. A few, like Stanford's BARRnet, had no clue of their own and resisted it when he tripped over it. It's also simply *NOT TRUE* that industry created the internet, like many of them fabricate; it was quite well developed loooong before business got there. As aDARPA project, funded off to one side, it was allowed to develop technically and, it turns out critically, culturally. My friend Paulina Borsook wrote about this in her excellent but bit-the-hand-that-fed book CYBERSELFISH. Industry doesn't like social or cultural critique, turns out. (I'm just being an asshole, Paulina knew precisely what she was doing.) From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 17:09:12 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050114150851.E704@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > Network effects again. Why do you think Europe, Japan etc. lead the US > vis-a-vis cell phone usage? Ayup I agree with you 101% on network effect! From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 17:09:44 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: FW: [Fwd: Old Teletype Paper] In-Reply-To: <0A182D9227F2464C827141EBC7CF9172017DF7C8@dcapr103anbc.nbc.com> References: <0A182D9227F2464C827141EBC7CF9172017DF7C8@dcapr103anbc.nbc.com> Message-ID: <20050114150935.A704@localhost> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Dresner, Steve (NBC Universal) wrote: > Your guys took good care of me last time...again, I'm in need > of yellow-ish, old teletype paper...prefer one box for our boss. > Any suggestions? Thanks for your time. www.wetnc.com From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jan 14 17:33:03 2005 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: ANSWER (dumping) References: <004e01c4f92e$62098760$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <41E856AF.7F5C3E@msm.umr.edu> the info is much appreciated jay, sorry to put extra chores off on to you. jim From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Jan 14 17:51:20 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501142250.j0EMoE1W028920@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501142250.j0EMoE1W028920@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <200501141851.20738.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Friday 14 January 2005 17:50, Brad Parker wrote: > Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > ... > > >ESR seem{s|ed} like a traitor to me in some ways... > > who's ESR? http://www.catb.org/~esr/ Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Jan 14 17:52:19 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: << Nova 4/X rescue >> In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200501141852.19654.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Friday 14 January 2005 17:19, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > and most of that time was in the county > jail ;) Now THIS needs to be explained. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 18:03:05 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: FW: [Fwd: Old Teletype Paper] In-Reply-To: <20050114150935.A704@localhost> References: <0A182D9227F2464C827141EBC7CF9172017DF7C8@dcapr103anbc.nbc.com> <20050114150935.A704@localhost> Message-ID: <20050114160248.R704@localhost> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >> Your guys took good care of me last time...again, I'm in need >> of yellow-ish, old teletype paper...prefer one box for our boss. >> Any suggestions? Thanks for your time. > > www.wetnc.com OH CRAP, it's www.WESTNC.com > From Innfogra at aol.com Fri Jan 14 18:11:33 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Heads Up - VAX 750, 785, 8550 etc. plus Kaypros IIs Message-ID: <1dc.347145a6.2f19b9b5@aol.com> Plus two Kaypro IIs in lot 286. Quite the mix of stuff in the lot. It will be a fun auction. Can you give some feedback afterwards how things went for those of us that can't attend? From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 14 18:15:23 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: << Nova 4/X rescue >> In-Reply-To: from Vintage Computer Festival at "Jan 14, 5 02:19:02 pm" Message-ID: <200501150015.QAA20436@floodgap.com> > > > Ok, it's not that bad, but no one goes to Bakersfield unless forced by > > > some reason. > > > > That's not nice! :-) > > > > True though. > > Well, let's put it this way: I've probably spent more time there than > anyone on this list at least, and most of that time was in the county > jail ;) Wasn't it Frank Giffords who said the most important thing he ever did in his life was getting out of Bakersfield? ("Where are you from originally?" "Los Angeles." "No, your ancestors." "Oh, them. Bakersfield.") -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- "I am Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated." ------ From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Fri Jan 14 18:11:00 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: FW: [Fwd: Old Teletype Paper] In-Reply-To: Tom Jennings "Re: FW: [Fwd: Old Teletype Paper]" (Jan 14, 15:09) References: <0A182D9227F2464C827141EBC7CF9172017DF7C8@dcapr103anbc.nbc.com> <20050114150935.A704@localhost> Message-ID: <10501150011.ZM16049@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 14 2005, 15:09, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Dresner, Steve (NBC Universal) wrote: > > > Your guys took good care of me last time...again, I'm in need > > of yellow-ish, old teletype paper...prefer one box for our boss. > > Any suggestions? Thanks for your time. > > www.wetnc.com www.westnc.com ^ -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 14 18:16:48 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Subject: apple's internet connectivity In-Reply-To: <26181296-65B2-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> from Gavin Thomas Nicol at "Jan 13, 5 05:26:20 pm" Message-ID: <200501150016.QAA17130@floodgap.com> > > I also noticed that my previous posting about MacTCP and Gopher would > > have been incorrect, since Gopher servers didn't appear til '91 or so. > > Gopher preceded HTTP by a bit... probably appeared in '88/89? Not that early. RFC 1436 originally appeared in 1991, so I wouldn't think much earlier than 1990. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Coffee. Delight. Border. May I see your passport please? -- Firesign Theater From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Jan 14 18:19:11 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc. Message-ID: <200501150019.QAA06286@clulw009.amd.com> >From: aek@spies.com > > > > >> Remember 'the little garden'? > >Great little Chinese place on El Camino just before Arastradero. > >RIP > > Hi Some how, I am missing the context of the "The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc." messages. What the heck is all this about? Dwight From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 14 18:24:53 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: << Nova 4/X rescue >> In-Reply-To: from Vintage Computer Festival at "Jan 14, 5 08:04:19 am" Message-ID: <200501150024.QAA20318@floodgap.com> > That's going to be difficult. Bakersfield is centrally located smack dab > in the middle of southern and northern California, bisected by I5, but I thought it was CA 99 (old US 99) that went through Bakersfield. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. -- Kronecker ----------- From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Fri Jan 14 18:17:22 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: FW: [Fwd: Old Teletype Paper] In-Reply-To: Tom Jennings "Re: FW: [Fwd: Old Teletype Paper]" (Jan 14, 16:03) References: <0A182D9227F2464C827141EBC7CF9172017DF7C8@dcapr103anbc.nbc.com> <20050114150935.A704@localhost> <20050114160248.R704@localhost> Message-ID: <10501150017.ZM16071@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 14 2005, 16:03, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > >> Your guys took good care of me last time...again, I'm in need > >> of yellow-ish, old teletype paper...prefer one box for our boss. > >> Any suggestions? Thanks for your time. > > > > www.wetnc.com > > OH CRAP, it's > > www.WESTNC.com You beat me to it. Trybus and wncsupply also sell 1" tape (now mainly for CNC machines but I think they mostly do mylar or laminated tape. BTW, you really want oiled tape for a teletype. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From aek at spies.com Fri Jan 14 18:33:21 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc. Message-ID: <20050115003321.DBA5D5021@spies.com> Some how, I am missing the context of the "The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc." messages. What the heck is all this about -- "The Little Garden" was one of the earliest ISPs on the mid-peninsula. There were a few others, like meernet, who are still around. I have been told it was named for a the resturant by the same name. Tom could probably give more details. This was around the same time that spies.com moved from Apple to General Magic then later to what became WebTV. Spies was also the home of rotten.com. When what became ebay.com was just starting, he asked Andy to put the auction service on spies. Andy didn't want to, so he used a domain he had for the 'east bay'. From news at computercollector.com Fri Jan 14 18:49:55 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Computer Museum of America closing -- article posted Message-ID: <20050115004955.33270.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> As promised... an article about the museum's status and future is now posted on my homepage, http://news.computercollector.com. The link is below the "About us" heading. ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 647 readers and counting! From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 19:07:11 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc. In-Reply-To: <20050115003321.DBA5D5021@spies.com> References: <20050115003321.DBA5D5021@spies.com> Message-ID: <20050114170057.K704@localhost> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote: > "The Little Garden" was one of the earliest ISPs on the mid-peninsula. There > were a few others, like meernet, who are still around. meernet was a customer of TLG! the little garden -- and other toasternets (as they were called) at the time -- stirred a lot of shit in the internet. Our policy was essentially "you own your own words" and we allowed resale at any and all level of service. Period. No questions asked. Try that today! It wasn't allowed then either -- which is why we were kicked off alternet. The existing soon-to-be-ISPs (alternet, psi, etc) all wanted the whole pie for themselves. We sold do-it-yourself T1 to the internet for $800/month, and told you how to order your own circuits, how to buy your own router and CSU, how to config etc. MCI didn't sell T1's within a few hundred miles of us -- really. We sold T1 internet to Nevada; the cost of the ckt (at $22/mi/mo) still saved them money over MCI et al. And we allowed resale. via.net, scruz.net (early on) all the little value-addeds in the bay area were our customers. MCI charged $2400/mo for the same thing we did (with more hand0holding though), made you buy a router from them (inflated) didn't let you into it, and disallowed resale -- exceptions were made in our neighborhoods. We sold 24/7 28K nailup for $85/mo; 56K frame with 19K CIR for < $50/mo. CHEEP!! ANd made money doing it. > > I have been told it was named for a the resturant by the same name. Tom could > probably give more details. > > This was around the same time that spies.com moved from Apple to General Magic > then later to what became WebTV. Spies was also the home of rotten.com. When > what became ebay.com was just starting, he asked Andy to put the auction service > on spies. Andy didn't want to, so he used a domain he had for the 'east bay'. > From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 14 19:00:19 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc. In-Reply-To: <200501150019.QAA06286@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501150019.QAA06286@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <20050114165819.M704@localhost> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > Some how, I am missing the context of the "The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc." > messages. What the heck is all this about? Telepathy? Sorry. Context was early internet, small ISPs, Brad mentioned little garden, which was an internet-share, named after a restaurant people met in, and which became an ISP (the people, not the reastuarant, which became defunct). Those files were monthly mailings to tlg members, and I thought they revealed some of the flavor of those early (1993) internet days. From CCTalk at catcorner.org Fri Jan 14 20:48:37 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6B@mail.catcorner.org> OK, for a little on topic. Before I go tearing the whole machine apart..... I am the proud new owner of a nice example of the IBM 5155. This thing is in pretty good shape. Turned it on, A: did a quick seek and the I was into BASIC. So far, so good. Now, I'm trying to boot DOS. I have several known good DOS 3.1 boot floppies on 360K disks. I keep an old 486 with a 360K drive just for this (and for creating disks for my Tandy model 4). Anyway, the original A: drive only gives a "boot failure". The B: drive (after a cable swap) boots sometimes. Taking out these drives looks to be a MAJOR undertaking. Not along the lines of multiple years, but they are pretty securly installed. However, I'd like to keep them because they have the IBM faceplate. Now, for the questions... Are these Qume drives subject to any known failure? Should I just dig in, remove these drives and give them a good cleaning and lubricating? I'm used to working with the big 8" drives, where everything is a bit larger. What is the best way to clean the heads? Lint free swab and 90% Isopropyl alchohol? Cleaning disk? Nail file ;-) What's the consensus? Any suggestions or comments in general about this machine? Thanks, Kelly From lemay at cs.umn.edu Fri Jan 14 20:55:53 2005 From: lemay at cs.umn.edu (lemay@cs.umn.edu) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Minc-11 available in Minneapolis Message-ID: <200501150255.UAA24602@caesar.cs.umn.edu> If someone is interested in obtaining a minc-11 setup on its stand with a RX02, and including a VT105 terminal, this is available at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis campus. -Larry LeMay lemay@cs.umn.edu From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 14 21:24:59 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Off-topic but On-topic (list stuff) Message-ID: <009f01c4fab1$cb5335c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Is anyone aware of a *nix program to go through mailbox format mail files, and removing duplicate emails (I would guess by message id). In addition, I'd like to split up a single very large mbox file into separate chunks, say... 200mb each. Would be nice if the program would show the date ranges of emails in the chunk. Yes, I can write something like this, but before I spend the time on it I was wondering if anyone had, or knew of, a tool to do this. I'm trying to get the complete mailing list archives in order. There are definitely chunks of the archives missing (so if anyone has a complete set back to the start, just send them to me on CD *grin*). There's always been a few chunks missing, and I'd really like to get it all back together for the new server. Plus, set up some stuff to automate maintenance of the raw mbx's which are running "just a tad large" right now. Thanks for any help.... (off list please) Jay West From aek at spies.com Fri Jan 14 21:58:28 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Off-topic but On-topic (list stuff) Message-ID: <20050115035828.CA84D4DCE@spies.com> > Thanks for any help.... (off list please) -- actually, I'd be interested in this as well, since I have mail going back to the early 80's From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 14 21:51:47 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:00 2005 Subject: Minc-11 available in Minneapolis In-Reply-To: <200501150255.UAA24602@caesar.cs.umn.edu> References: <200501150255.UAA24602@caesar.cs.umn.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 20:55:53 -0600 (CST), lemay@cs.umn.edu wrote: > If someone is interested in obtaining a minc-11 > setup on its stand with a RX02, and including a > VT105 terminal, this is available at the University > of Minnesota, Minneapolis campus. Oooh... even if I were home, that'd be too far away. I have a MINC, but like so many, the stand was retained when the machine was tossed, and it only has a couple of lab modules. Someday, I'd like to sit down with a list of all the available options and try to come up with a reasonable project for all the gear (at work we use a fair number of NIM crates and modules for similar tasks) -ethan From Innfogra at aol.com Fri Jan 14 22:00:16 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <1d6.3451757d.2f19ef50@aol.com> I, too, am interested in the question of how to lube and maintain the floppies. I need to go through a several 5 1/4 in full height floppy drives myself. And the first has IBM on the front also. Thanks for the help, Paxton Astoria, OR From Innfogra at aol.com Fri Jan 14 22:02:13 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc. Message-ID: <1f6.429d701.2f19efc5@aol.com> I really enjoyed the history and reading the minutes. Glad you saved them. Older than 10 years also. Thanks, Paxton Astoria, OR From jcwren at jcwren.com Fri Jan 14 23:34:39 2005 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Hayes "Government model" MODEM? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050112210358.00920210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050112210358.00920210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <41E8AB6F.205@jcwren.com> Joe, I worked at Hayes for 3 years, but don't remember this modem, so I emailed some friends of mine who were there before me. Jeff seems to recall there were two government model modems (although I only found part numbers for one). One was basically just a sticker that proclaimed it to be for government use only, and did nothing special. The other version has an empty chip socket intended for a WD2003A DES chip. There may be some extra AT commands that set an encryption key. If so, the data from the serial port would be encrypted before being pushed out to the modem chipset. Jeff recalls writing code to test the chip, but doesn't recall anyone actually writing code to support it, although he wasn't sure how we'd pawn it off on a customer if we didn't have support for it. Sorry I can't find any more information on it. I talked to Dale Heatherington, who said he was gone after that came out, and Jeff Inskeep, who was there until the lights were turned off. He had a hand in almost every product designed after the S-100 mode (SB-103, maybe?) and Smartmodem 300. --jc Joe R. wrote: > I stopped at a surplus place today and found a NIB Hayes "Government >Model" 2400 baud MODEM. The box says "Government Use Only". Does anybody >know what the story is about that? > > > Joe > > > > From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 15 00:08:50 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Off-topic but On-topic (list stuff) In-Reply-To: <009f01c4fab1$cb5335c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <009f01c4fab1$cb5335c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <20050114220717.S1420@localhost> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > Is anyone aware of a *nix program to go through mailbox format mail files, > and removing duplicate emails (I would guess by message id). procmail will do this. man procmailex I think. There's a specific example for just this problem. You can cat a spool to procmail and it will write them wherever the rule sez. From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 15 00:32:41 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: MWC (was: Re: How the Mac was born... supposedly...) In-Reply-To: <81E35278-667F-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> References: <200501131739.j0DHdbmU009158@mwave.heeltoe.com> <41E6C64C.8010000@oldskool.org> <81E35278-667F-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> Message-ID: <41E8B909.5040407@oldskool.org> Mark Davidson wrote: > > "Let's C" was MWC's low-cost C development system for the PC. It came > with a cool spiral-bound manual, and consisted of their C compiler, > debugger and libraries. When they first came out with it (I believe it > was $75, or something like that), they had a contest and I won a free > copy from them. Much of the compiler work, at least when I got there, was done by Charles Fiterman, who was the kind of genius that could whip up a C compiler for a new platform in about 2 weeks -- and a peephole optimizer in another week -- but if you gave him a task that was way too easy for him, he would do it almost without thinking and there would be dumb obscure bugs caused by things like incorrect order of operations, misplaced semicolons, etc. I fondly remember him as a bit eccentric and very smart (in fact, most of the people who worked at MWC were incredibly smart, and I'm not just saying this because I worked there, it's the honest truth). Charles later left Mark Williams Company to form Geodesic (sp?) Systems to build and market a garbage collection library for C. I still have boxes of disks for the MWC C compiler for Atari ST. :-) No Let's C though, although I remember Let's C being advertised in Byte and Dr. Dobbs' before I worked there. The thing about MWC compilers is that they were *excellent* at optimizing for size. Not speed, but size. This led to some obscure tricks in the output bytecode that made you scratch your head in a disassembler, but it was worth it on systems with such limited memory. While we eventually ported gcc to the 386 version of Coherent, I still held great respect for the MWC compiler (even though it was K&R, not ANSI) because of the ludicrously small executables it produced. My numbers may be off, but I seem to remember that a statically-linked binary of GNU TAR as produced by gcc at that time was ~256K, while the same program statically-liked from the MWC compiler was ~50K. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 15 00:37:11 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Off-topic but On-topic (list stuff) In-Reply-To: <20050115035828.CA84D4DCE@spies.com> References: <20050115035828.CA84D4DCE@spies.com> Message-ID: <41E8BA17.1020308@oldskool.org> Al Kossow wrote: > > Thanks for any help.... (off list please) > > actually, I'd be interested in this as well, since I have mail going back > to the early 80's I don't know about splitting on message/byte boundaries, but if the entire goal is archival, maybe another approach is best: Mailman, the software you're using, has a facility to suck in mbox-format files, so maybe you could just suck the entire thing in? Otherwise, a nifty program called mhonarc will take mbox files and turn them into threaded HTML page archives. I have mail going back to 1991 that is all searchable and threaded -- very nice. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sat Jan 15 00:53:25 2005 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore S Bekkedal) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop Message-ID: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> Hello, cctech! I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on this computer. I tried taking the path of turning it on and just doing a copy that way. No such luck - the plasma display has a garbled and not stable display - text is garbled to the point that I can't read it, and it basically looks like it's about to go straight to hell. It does boot from harddisk - I feared that the plasma might be sensitive to power variations or something like that, and thus tried getting the machine apart. After struggling to get the harddrive in sight (the braindead (%(/% &(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug non-detatchable!!) it has a strange plug and from what I can tell has about 26 pins (I was counting on the ribbon, and I'm quite tired, so that may be wrong) and the disk seems to be of JVC manufacture. What does the plasma shakiness/garbledness mean? What type is the disk? Can I get it out and use it on another machine, or do i have to put the POS back together? Is the floppy drive 1.44M? Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called FrameWorks? If and when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format - what is it? Text processing? Database? If I get the data off this machine, very cool things will come my way - at least an LSI-11, and maybe a lot more!! *giggle like schoolgirl* So any help is greatly appreciated! MTIA, -- Tore S Bekkedal From classiccmp at crash.com Sat Jan 15 02:02:35 2005 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: The start of PANIX, the NYC ISP Message-ID: <200501150802.j0F82ac1000425@ill.crash.com> John Allain and others mentioned PANIX recently on the 90's Internet Boom thread. I got a response from my friend David Spector, who helped out with Panix. At the time he was working as a UNIX system manager and senior systems programmer at NYU's business school. David identified the systems used as the Mac IIfx, but the IIfx wasn't introduced until 1990. The IIx was introduced in late 1988. Since he pegs the time as early 1988, the machines in question must be a Mac II with PMMU; David still has the receipts somewhere and might verify this sometime. This period would correspond with the announcement of A/UX in February of 1998. (These introduction dates are taken from the book Apple Confidential 2.0 by Owen Linzmayer.) Here's what David had to say: =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= With regard to PANIX... In a nutshell, I helped start PANIX, which was funded by my old friend Alexis Rosen, by supplying the developer discount that bought a couple of MacIIfx's. I provided the UNIX expertise to get everything up and running; they ran A/UX and we used nuBus-based serial cards (name escapes me at the moment... I'll surely remember it later). At the time I was the Senior Systems Programmer at NYU's Graduate School of Business (long before it was the "Stern School of Business." The original machines lived for a while on my dining room table in my 5th floor walkup on 18th St & 8th Ave in Chelsea and used my spare lines with a couple of Zyxcel 9600bps modems until we got the machines configured correctly and did all sorts of hacking on the serial drivers for those (at the time) very kool (now, they would be dreadful) serial boards. After the systems were set up we moved everything to Jim Baumbach's Brooklyn Height's basement where we had 16 phone lines brought in. The MacIIfx's lived on top of a hand-wired plexus UNIX machine that Jim had liberated from one of his past lives. At the time (late 80s) the only other interesting dial-up in NY was Echo (East Coast Hang Out) run by Stacey Horn; I mean there were lots of BBSes but nothing at all resembling either Echo or PANIX. Echo, by the way, was considered by most people to be the East Coast equiv. of TheWell. I had an account on echo for a zillion years... still have my panix account too, of course.. As an ex-Systems Programmer from Courant (the NYU Academic Computing Facility) I arranged for Panix to get mail and news from NYU via UUCP (Bill Russell, a great friend and mentor, was NYU's Network Manager); the path was ...ihnp4!{cmcl2,acf4}!panix. They didn't get a real Internet connection until the ARPAnet/NSFNet split happened and the rules loosened up which if I recall correctly was a UUNet connection in about 1990. ..ah! those were the days... feel free to pass on to whomever might be interested in such historical tidbits. David HM Spector =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 15 02:04:19 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> References: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> Message-ID: <20050114235604.W1420@localhost> On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop > that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was > doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on > this computer. I assume this thing runs Windows? Any idea what version? Boot from floppy (why not just try 1.44M?)? DOS. Run kermit. Transfer /*.* via serial port. Go get lunch, dinner, sleep, it'll be done in the morning. Beats working on it. Time best spent reading or watching TV than working out faster methods. If the screen is unstable w/DOS then it's likely unretrievable hardware failure. Is the screen usable when you access the ROM BIOS setup? > &(/¤/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug > non-detatchable!!) it has a strange plug and from what I can tell has > about 26 pins (I was counting on the ribbon, and I'm quite tired, so > that may be wrong) ??? isn't this an LCD laptop? I can't imagine the interface to the screen is anything but proprietary. From gtn at rbii.com Fri Jan 14 21:28:05 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501142250.j0EMoE1W028920@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200501142250.j0EMoE1W028920@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <783095DC-66A5-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 14, 2005, at 5:50 PM, Brad Parker wrote: > > Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > ... >> ESR seem{s|ed} like a traitor to me in some ways... > > who's ESR? Eric Raymond From gtn at rbii.com Fri Jan 14 21:33:35 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <81E35278-667F-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> References: <200501131739.j0DHdbmU009158@mwave.heeltoe.com> <41E6C64C.8010000@oldskool.org> <81E35278-667F-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> Message-ID: <3CE976F6-66A6-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 14, 2005, at 5:56 PM, Mark Davidson wrote: > > On Jan 13, 2005, at 1:34 PM, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > >> >> On Jan 13, 2005, at 2:04 PM, Jim Leonard wrote: >>> Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its >>> demise, so I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or >>> MWC in general. >> >> I think I have a derivative here somewhere for the PC9801... called >> "Let's C" from memory. In the same place as ASCII Minix... >> >> > "Let's C" was MWC's low-cost C development system for the PC. I have the PC9801 derivative. The original PC9801 was *very* similar to the IBM PC (I heard rumours that IBM was forced by MITI to share), but the BIOS was subtly different. On The PC9801, the video memory was 16 bits per character, and there was no BIOS call to write to the VRAM... so you had to write display routines yourself (as an self-respecting PC hacker did). The funny thing is that it was possible to write an interrupt handler to capture character display calls, so you could actually run many PC programs on the PC9801. From gtn at rbii.com Fri Jan 14 21:40:38 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <20050114145857.O704@localhost> References: <200501131820.j0DIKD8W026302@ill.crash.com> <931D702A-65AA-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> <20050114145857.O704@localhost> Message-ID: <38A76CE0-66A7-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 14, 2005, at 6:06 PM, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > >> Yep. Once TCP/IP really took off, the rest, as they say, was history. > > But the precursor to all of that was the fact that it stopped > being government funded; only non-commercial uses were allowed. Perhaps... I think the real pressure was a social one. BBS's (I ran one on a hacked WWIV(?) for a while in Japan), AOL etc. and corporate email gave people a desire to find ways to communicate. Once social pressure built, the path of least resistance was taken IMHO. > It's also simply *NOT TRUE* that industry created the internet, > like many of them fabricate; it was quite well developed loooong > before business got there. I never said industry did: quite the opposite if anything. Industry *used* the Internet, and thereby raised awareness of it. From gtn at rbii.com Fri Jan 14 21:47:43 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Subject: apple's internet connectivity In-Reply-To: <200501150016.QAA17130@floodgap.com> References: <200501150016.QAA17130@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <3678E294-66A8-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 14, 2005, at 7:16 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> I also noticed that my previous posting about MacTCP and Gopher would >>> have been incorrect, since Gopher servers didn't appear til '91 or >>> so. >> >> Gopher preceded HTTP by a bit... probably appeared in '88/89? > > Not that early. RFC 1436 originally appeared in 1991, so I wouldn't > think > much earlier than 1990. Nah... original discussions about WWW/HTTP were in the '89/90 timeframe (I'd have to check the exact dates), and gopher existed then, and indeed, if gopher development had changed course just a little, it might have killed the WWW before it even got started (assuming WWW means HTTP+HTML). The first RFC for HTTP didn't appear until it'd been around for about 6 years... From andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk Sat Jan 15 03:15:58 2005 From: andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk (Andy Holt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> Message-ID: <001a01c4fae2$d332ef20$4d4d2c0a@atx> > Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called FrameWorks? If and > when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format - > what is it? Text processing? Database? This will be Framework - probably Framework II or III (there was a Framework IV, but that style of program was essentially obsoleted by the improving Windows applications). FW was A-Ts "all-in-one" database/WP/spreadsheet and a very nice program to use. It's a pity that none of the Windows office applications had such an visible "frames that contain either data or other frames" metaphor. There are downloadable import filters for FW files for MS office that should still be hiding somewhere on Microsoft's site. If truly desperate you can take advantage of the fact that the .FW2/.FW3 files are mostly text and use a good text editor to recover things. Andy -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 From dr.ido at bigpond.net.au Sat Jan 15 05:49:58 2005 From: dr.ido at bigpond.net.au (Dr. Ido) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20050115214958.01683cc0@pop-server> At 07:53 AM 1/15/05 +0100, you wrote: >Hello, cctech! > >I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop >that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was >doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on >this computer. > >I tried taking the path of turning it on and just doing a copy that way. >No such luck - the plasma display has a garbled and not stable display - >text is garbled to the point that I can't read it, and it basically >looks like it's about to go straight to hell. It does boot from harddisk >- I feared that the plasma might be sensitive to power variations or >something like that, and thus tried getting the machine apart. > >After struggling to get the harddrive in sight (the braindead (%(/% >&(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug >non-detatchable!!) it has a strange plug and from what I can tell has >about 26 pins (I was counting on the ribbon, and I'm quite tired, so >that may be wrong) and the disk seems to be of JVC manufacture. > >What does the plasma shakiness/garbledness mean? > >What type is the disk? Can I get it out and use it on another machine, >or do i have to put the POS back together? > >Is the floppy drive 1.44M? Did you try connecting an external monitor? I'm pretty sure they have a CGA video output. Otherwise, from memory the same display panel was used in the Compaq Portable III and a couple of other machines. Of course if the problem in your 3100 is not the plasma panel, but the video on the motherboard this will not help. The hard disk sounds like a type I have seen in several other laptops of that era (Zenith comes to mind). I bought one loose once not knowing what it originally came from intending to put it in a Zenith, but could never get it working properly. >From some of the 1st T3100s had 720KB floppy drives, but all the ones I've actually dealt with had 1.44MB. > >Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called FrameWorks? If and >when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format - >what is it? Text processing? Database? > >If I get the data off this machine, very cool things will come my way - >at least an LSI-11, and maybe a lot more!! *giggle like schoolgirl* So >any help is greatly appreciated! >From memory it was one of those integrated packages that included a word processor, spreadsheet and possibly more. If they are just word processor documents something should be able to read it, even if it's just the file viewer in XTGold (which can save text as ASCII). From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Sat Jan 15 05:42:55 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: Tom Jennings "Re: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop" (Jan 15, 0:04) References: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> <20050114235604.W1420@localhost> Message-ID: <10501151142.ZM17146@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 15 2005, 0:04, Tom Jennings wrote: > > [ Attachment (text/plain): 1058 bytes > Character set: X-UNKNOWN ^^^^^^^^^ Where did that come from? :-) > I assume this thing runs Windows? Any idea what version? It could easily be DOS. Frameworks was a DOS office applications suite. IIRC it included a word processor, a spreadsheet, and a basic database. Borland bought out Ashton Tate but they kept Frameworks as a DOS suite. I think Frameworks is still around, and it should run under windows, so if Tore can get the files off the machine they should be usable. Ah yes, I've just found www.framework.com (they seem to have dropped the "s"). Tore, I think you should ask around and see if anyone has an old copy you could borrow. > ??? isn't this an LCD laptop? I can't imagine the interface > to the screen is anything but proprietary. A lot of older Toshibas are plasma displays. Tore said this one is plasma, so it must be fairly old and probably runs DOS or Windows 3.1. I agree, Kermit might not be a bad way to get the files off. The .exe file from MS-Kermit will easily fit on a 720K floppy, and version 3.15 will also run under Win95 (and probably XP, I can't remember if I tried that last time I used it because I upgraded the old bench PC to Linux after a few days). You can get it from http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/mskermit.html -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From brad at heeltoe.com Sat Jan 15 05:59:23 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 14 Jan 2005 16:19:11 PST." <200501150019.QAA06286@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <200501151159.j0FBxNQQ028902@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Dwight K. Elvey" wrote: > Some how, I am missing the context of the "The Little Garden / TLGnet Inc." >messages. What the heck is all this about? "The Little Garden" was one of the first (perhaps the first) "co-op" ISP's. The were certainly a trailblazer. It was formed by a bunch of people who desperately wanted internet connectivity, before such thing was widely available. At that time there were not a lot of rules and certainly no books or papers on the subject. You could count the people who really knew what was going on two hands and you could find them all at any IETF meeting. It wasn't even clear for a long time if commercial internet (i.e. selling bandwidth) was allowed. And owning things, like network numbers or domain names wasn't even a concideration. needless to say all that got sorted out but in the early days there was just a lot of prairie grass and few guys on horseback. -brad From dave04a at dunfield.com Sat Jan 15 06:28:46 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop Message-ID: <20050115122845.EIAG20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> >Hello, cctech! > >I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop >that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was >doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on >this computer. > >I tried taking the path of turning it on and just doing a copy that way. >No such luck - the plasma display has a garbled and not stable display - >text is garbled to the point that I can't read it, and it basically >looks like it's about to go straight to hell. It does boot from harddisk >- I feared that the plasma might be sensitive to power variations or >something like that, and thus tried getting the machine apart. > ... >Is the floppy drive 1.44M? If it's a T3100 (8Mhz), the floppy drive is 720k - if it's a T3100E (12Mhz), the floppy drive should be 1.44M. If it boots to DOS, or you can get to a DOS prompt (ALT-F4/Enter in Win 3.x), then you should be able to communicate with the DOS prompt via a terminal on the serial port: CTTY COM1 [I recall that the default speed is somewhat low, but it won't really matter as long as you can figure out what it is with your terminal emulator - if you like you can blind-type a MODE command first to set the serial parameters] Once you get to a DOS prompt, you can format diskettes and copy files to them - Don't try to run any non-command-line software! Another option would be to use INTERLNK - you can "blind type" the MODE and COPY CON: commands required for RCOPY and then run INTERSVR, or you can prepare a DOS boot disk that runs INTERSVR in the AUTOEXEC and boot the machine from floppy. You could also use the boot disk approach to get LAPLINK running on the machine etc... As long as the machine is still actually running, it shouldn't be that hard to get the data off - Enjoy the LSI-11. Regards, -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From allain at panix.com Sat Jan 15 08:58:42 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6B@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <006f01c4fb12$b53be140$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > Any suggestions or comments in general about this machine? I gave myself 30 minutes to get one of those going once. I got access to just about all subsystems/components in that time. The coolest thing that really made me like the machine was that the video monitor was IIRC 5V,NTSC in, picture out. Very easy to use. - - - You might want to try Rewriting fresh floppies on a true 360K drive, heat,time, and 1.2M drives all can degrade the data to some degree. John A. From james at jdfogg.com Sat Jan 15 09:02:57 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (James) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <006f01c4fb12$b53be140$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, John Allain wrote: > > Any suggestions or comments in general about this machine? I used to rely on a little program called dipset.exe (or .com?) that would display the values for the motherboard configuration dipswitches. Very handy. Now.. do any copies exists anymore? From doc at mdrconsult.com Sat Jan 15 09:41:48 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <20050114235604.W1420@localhost> References: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> <20050114235604.W1420@localhost> Message-ID: <41E939BC.8020502@mdrconsult.com> Tom Jennings wrote: > On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > >> &(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug >> non-detatchable!!) it has a strange plug and from what I can tell has >> about 26 pins (I was counting on the ribbon, and I'm quite tired, so >> that may be wrong) > > > ??? isn't this an LCD laptop? I can't imagine the interface > to the screen is anything but proprietar > y. Every laptop I've ever stripped had a different lead count on the LCD ribbon cable. The ribbon is not only the video signal, but power/adjustment for the backlight and LCD. Doc From CCTalk at catcorner.org Sat Jan 15 10:13:38 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6D@mail.catcorner.org> > From: John Allain [mailto:allain@panix.com] > Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 9:59 AM > > > Any suggestions or comments in general about this machine? > > I gave myself 30 minutes to get one of those going once. > I got access to just about all subsystems/components in that time. > The coolest thing that really made me like the machine was that the > video monitor was IIRC 5V,NTSC in, picture out. Very easy to use. You're correct about disassembly. It was much easier than I thought. The biggest problem was getting to the drive mounting bolts on the side by the expansion cards. After removing all the cards, there was just enough room for a socket and ratchet to fit in there. > - - - > You might want to try Rewriting fresh floppies on a true 360K drive, > heat,time, and 1.2M drives all can degrade the data to some degree. I do use a 360K drive in my 486 just for creating these discs. I guess I wasn't clear on this. Now, by disassembling and cleaning the B: drive, I was able to get the machine booting off this drive (cabled as A:). However, the same cleaning procedure on the A: drive did not allow it to boot. I still have to clean the heads. Maybe that'll make a difference. If not, I think I may have other Qume drives without the IBM monniker on them that I can swap the bezels with. I just have to dig through the cabinent and see what'll fit. > > John A. > Thanks, Kelly From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sat Jan 15 10:33:02 2005 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore S Bekkedal) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.20050115214958.01683cc0@pop-server> References: <3.0.3.32.20050115214958.01683cc0@pop-server> Message-ID: <1105806782.8243.93.camel@fortran> On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 21:49 +1000, Dr. Ido wrote: > Did you try connecting an external monitor? I'm pretty sure they have a > CGA video output. Otherwise, from memory the same display panel was used > in the Compaq Portable III and a couple of other machines. Of course if > the problem in your 3100 is not the plasma panel, but the video on the > motherboard this will not help. The problem seems analog - my worry was not the legibility of the screen, I could probably semi-blind-copy the documents, but if this was indicative of an impending PSU BBQ party. It seemed like one of those parts that would be very anal about voltage variations... I have a VGA monitor, no CGAs around, but I also have a 9-pin to 15-pin male-male cable - but aren't the voltages different? -- Tore S Bekkedal From jpero at sympatico.ca Fri Jan 14 20:14:06 2005 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero@sympatico.ca) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> Message-ID: <20050115071306.RIZC1919.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> > Hello, cctech! > > I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop > that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was > doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on > this computer. > > I tried taking the path of turning it on and just doing a copy that way. > No such luck - the plasma display has a garbled and not stable display - > text is garbled to the point that I can't read it, and it basically > looks like it's about to go straight to hell. It does boot from harddisk > - I feared that the plasma might be sensitive to power variations or > something like that, and thus tried getting the machine apart. > > After struggling to get the harddrive in sight (the braindead (%(/% > &(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug Tore, You need to locate another working 3100 and put the hd in it and transfer contents to more modern computer via parallel cable file transfer utility (like laplink) 3100 is very old laptop (very heavy) and best to be upgraded to newer notebook and always back up data. That hd itself is also high failure rate. Very careful with it and as you have discovered it's non-standard hd too! Cheers, Wizard From paulpenn at knology.net Sat Jan 15 11:02:16 2005 From: paulpenn at knology.net (Paul A. Pennington) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop References: <20050115122845.EIAG20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <005101c4fb23$f79a7ae0$6401a8c0@ibm6go1addn6c0> Dave wrote: > ...you can prepare a DOS boot disk that runs INTERSVR > in the AUTOEXEC and boot the machine from floppy. This is the right answer. Your problem is ideal for the INTERLNK/INTERSVR program. It works like a network -- you don't need to type or read the screen on one of the machines. It works over serial or parallel connections. Set it up on two working computers to get the cable and two boot floppies correctly configured. Not easy, but you'll never have to do it again -- just boot the floppies. Paul Pennington Augusta, Georgia From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 15 11:08:07 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: the little garden / TLGnet, Inc 2 In-Reply-To: <20050114134311.E704@localhost> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > (A future brainstorm: when/(if) we swap 386BSD into the existing NOS > boxes, the one-floppy, 2meg machines will have zero space for Unix > utilities, beyond the routing tables and VI. This news box could also > act as the server for additional, optional binaries etc for the routers; > the routers would remain reliable, stand-alone boxes.) This struck me overall as how we used to be able to do so much with so little. Now, a 2MB Unix machine would be some embedded router type product the size of a modem. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 15 11:28:48 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: << Nova 4/X rescue >> In-Reply-To: <200501141852.19654.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Friday 14 January 2005 17:19, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > and most of that time was in the county > > jail ;) > > Now THIS needs to be explained. :) My old job was developing automated collect call systems for the prison/jail industry. Not quite as evil as the Military-Industrial Complex but I might still be paying off the bad karma acquired through that. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 15 11:32:12 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: << Nova 4/X rescue >> In-Reply-To: <200501150024.QAA20318@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > That's going to be difficult. Bakersfield is centrally located smack dab > > in the middle of southern and northern California, bisected by I5, but > > I thought it was CA 99 (old US 99) that went through Bakersfield. You're right. I-5 is to the west of Bakersfield but the town (now a city I guess) has grown such that it now almost touches I-5. I should say that Bakersfield is not THAT bad anymore. There are parts of it that are kind of quaint (in a positive sense) these days (especially the older parts of town). And it has certainly grown up. Bakersfield used to be this far off place that my dad would take us to do pheasant hunting. Now it's a good place to stop off for a few minutes to grab some grub on the way to LA, and it's got a few thrift shops where I've pulled some neat stuff out of over the years. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu Sat Jan 15 11:23:03 2005 From: wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu (Martin Scott Goldberg) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? In-Reply-To: <41E6DD0C.7050300@execpc.com> from "Tom Hudson" at Jan 13, 2005 02:41:48 PM Message-ID: <200501151723.j0FHN4Mb031063@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> >Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies >with some sort of PC-based software? > >I used to develop software for the Ataris and some co-workers just >dredged up some floppies with source code from projects I did for Atari >that were never released. We're trying to dig up a functional 800 >system to read them but it would save a lot of hassle if it was possible >to read them directly into a PC, where we have a good emulator. > >-Tom Hi Tom, I'm assuming you want to pull the data off the disks? There's two options, the SIO2PC and the 10502PC. The SIO2PC is a SIO->PC Serial interface that lets you hook up an Atari 8 bit, as well as chained drives to a PC. the 10502PC lets you just hook up a floppy drive to your PC. You can buy already made SIOTOPC kits here: http://www.atariage.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=45_56&products_id=107 and here (including the required software): http://www.atarimax.com/ AtariMax also sells the 10502PC setup (refered to as ProSystem). Hope that help. Marty ClassicGaming.Com Museum of Home Video Gaming And Computing www.classicgaming.com/gamingmuseum Atari Gaming Headquarters www.atarihq.com From wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu Sat Jan 15 11:27:51 2005 From: wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu (Martin Scott Goldberg) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? In-Reply-To: <41E6DD0C.7050300@execpc.com> from "Tom Hudson" at Jan 13, 2005 02:41:48 PM Message-ID: <200501151727.j0FHRqTB017940@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> >Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies >with some sort of PC-based software? > >I used to develop software for the Ataris and some co-workers just >dredged up some floppies with source code from projects I did for Atari >that were never released. We're trying to dig up a functional 800 >system to read them but it would save a lot of hassle if it was possible >to read them directly into a PC, where we have a good emulator. > >-Tom Just to add to my previous post (after rereading your message), no, there's no way to read an Atari 8 bit floppy directly on a pc floppy. The methods I mentioned are the most common among Atari 8 bit hobbyists for transfering data back and forth. 1050 drives are cheap enough on Ebay, as are Atari 8 bits in general. Marty ClassicGaming.Com Museum of Home Video Gaming And Computing www.classicgaming.com/gamingmuseum Atari Gaming Headquarters www.atarihq.com From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 15 11:43:33 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Off-topic but On-topic (list stuff) In-Reply-To: <009f01c4fab1$cb5335c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > I'm trying to get the complete mailing list archives in order. There are > definitely chunks of the archives missing (so if anyone has a complete set > back to the start, just send them to me on CD *grin*). There's always been a > few chunks missing, and I'd really like to get it all back together for the > new server. Plus, set up some stuff to automate maintenance of the raw mbx's > which are running "just a tad large" right now. Ugh. That is very unfortunate to hear! I'd always thought the archiving was being done continuously from the start. It would suck majorly if we aren't able to restore at least 95% of the archives. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 15 12:08:00 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <001a01c4fae2$d332ef20$4d4d2c0a@atx> References: <001a01c4fae2$d332ef20$4d4d2c0a@atx> Message-ID: <41E95C00.4080306@oldskool.org> Andy Holt wrote: > It's a pity that none of the Windows office applications had such an visible > "frames that contain either data or other frames" metaphor. Uh, OLE? :-) I've been embedding information into Office documents for over a decade... -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 15 12:09:37 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <1105806782.8243.93.camel@fortran> References: <3.0.3.32.20050115214958.01683cc0@pop-server> <1105806782.8243.93.camel@fortran> Message-ID: <41E95C61.5000901@oldskool.org> Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > I have a VGA monitor, no CGAs around, but I also have a 9-pin to 15-pin > male-male cable - but aren't the voltages different? Voltages aside, the technologies are completely different; it won't work. I would follow the "boot-a-floppy-and-transfer-via-kermit" method. Or use a DOS-based program like FastLynx or even the built-in transfer in DOS 6.x's intersvr/interlnk programs. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 15 12:51:07 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <38A76CE0-66A7-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> References: <200501131820.j0DIKD8W026302@ill.crash.com> <931D702A-65AA-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> <20050114145857.O704@localhost> <38A76CE0-66A7-11D9-B446-000D93520A84@rbii.com> Message-ID: <20050115105010.T1420@localhost> On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: >> It's also simply *NOT TRUE* that industry created the internet, >> like many of them fabricate; it was quite well developed loooong >> before business got there. > > I never said industry did: quite the opposite if anything. Industry *used* > the Internet, and thereby raised awareness of it. I didn't mean to imply that you made that mistatement, sorry if I gave that impression. Just wanted to emphasize it in general. Not that it's much of a problem with this crowd, really. From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 15 12:56:16 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Good deal on DEC VT520 terminals Message-ID: I've got a surplus of these DEC VT520 terminals that I'd like to clear out of here so I'm proposing what I think is a good deal. Normally I sell them for $25 each but I'll offer TWO for the low low price of only $35 plus shipping. Since the keyboard for these things is about 2.5 times the width of the terminal itself, and because the terminals don't weigh that much, shipping will not be too much more than shipping for just one. So you actually get a pretty good deal here. But you have to buy two ;) For more information on the DEC VT520, check out my VCM listing: http://marketplace.vintage.org/view.cfm?ad=1158 If you're interested, let me know and I'll setup the listing on the VCM so you can go nab it. I'll create the listings on an as-requested basis to save myself time. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 15 13:00:09 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Convex Meta Series Cabinet Message-ID: I got in a Convex Meta Series 19" cabinet. It's in terrific condition and has a cool black and metallic silver color scheme. Unfortunately, the rest of the Convex has been gutted :( And not by me, BTW. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem terribly useful as a generic cabinet for non-Convex stuff. It doesn't have standard rails for mounting your basic rackmount type gear. It has a power supply at the base that used to power the Convex, and also has four power strips lining the back side. A very nice cabinet, but of limited use unless you're a Convex junkie. So if anyone wants it, it's yours. Because of its weight, I doubt you'd want to ship it, in case you're really after one for some ridiculous reason. If you do want me to ship it, e-mail me privately and we'll discuss. Otherwise, any local takers come and get it. If it isn't gone by next week, off to the scrapyard :( Photo available upon request. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From lbickley at bickleywest.com Sat Jan 15 13:15:57 2005 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Good deal on DEC VT520 terminals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200501151115.57056.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Sellam, Hold a couple of "good ones" for me and I'll pick them up on my next trip to Sonora in a week or so. Cheers, Lyle On Saturday 15 January 2005 10:56, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > I've got a surplus of these DEC VT520 terminals that I'd like to clear out > of here so I'm proposing what I think is a good deal. Normally I sell > them for $25 each but I'll offer TWO for the low low price of only $35 > plus shipping. Since the keyboard for these things is about 2.5 times the > width of the terminal itself, and because the terminals don't weigh that > much, shipping will not be too much more than shipping for just one. So > you actually get a pretty good deal here. But you have to buy two ;) > > For more information on the DEC VT520, check out my VCM listing: > > http://marketplace.vintage.org/view.cfm?ad=1158 > > If you're interested, let me know and I'll setup the listing on the VCM so > you can go nab it. I'll create the listings on an as-requested basis to > save myself time. -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 15 13:55:08 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050115115416.T17361@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, James wrote: > I used to rely on a little program called dipset.exe (or .com?) that would > display the values for the motherboard configuration dipswitches. Very > handy. > Now.. do any copies exists anymore? If they're the same as the PC and XT, then INT 11h returns them as 16 bits in AX. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 15 13:59:06 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6D@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6D@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <20050115115714.G17361@shell.lmi.net> > Now, by disassembling and cleaning the B: drive, I was able to get the > machine booting off this drive (cabled as A:). However, the same cleaning > procedure on the A: drive did not allow it to boot. I still have to clean > the heads. Maybe that'll make a difference. If not, I think I may have other > Qume drives without the IBM monniker on them that I can swap the bezels > with. I just have to dig through the cabinent and see what'll fit. THe early, original Qumetrak 142 drives have my nomination for the second to worst drive ever, coming in right after the early versions of the BASF 2/3 height drives. The Qume drive was SO slow, that PC-DOS 2.10 had to extend the times to prevent timeouts on normal disk I/O. From kth at srv.net Sat Jan 15 13:34:32 2005 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <20050115071306.RIZC1919.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> References: <20050115071306.RIZC1919.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> Message-ID: <41E97048.9090803@srv.net> jpero@sympatico.ca wrote: >>Hello, cctech! >> >>I recently recieved a call from a friend of a friend regarding a laptop >>that has come into her posession after a coworker of her died. She was >>doing some sort of environmental research, and all her work is stored on >>this computer. >> >>I tried taking the path of turning it on and just doing a copy that way. >>No such luck - the plasma display has a garbled and not stable display - >>text is garbled to the point that I can't read it, and it basically >>looks like it's about to go straight to hell. It does boot from harddisk >>- I feared that the plasma might be sensitive to power variations or >>something like that, and thus tried getting the machine apart. >> >>After struggling to get the harddrive in sight (the braindead (%(/% >>&(/?/&%# engineers at Toshiba made the screen cable plug >> >> > >Tore, > >You need to locate another working 3100 and put the hd in it and >transfer contents to more modern computer via parallel cable file >transfer utility (like laplink) > >3100 is very old laptop (very heavy) and best to be upgraded to newer >notebook and always back up data. > >That hd itself is also high failure rate. Very careful with it and >as you have discovered it's non-standard hd too! > >Cheers, > >Wizard > > A lot of these laptops have a VGA connector on them, Try attaching a monitor to it and see if that works Ok. Sometimes you have to type some keys on the keyboard to switch to the VGA port, but you will need to search for a manual for that laptop to find out what it is. From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jan 15 14:31:25 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <20050115115714.G17361@shell.lmi.net> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6D@mail.catcorner.org> <20050115115714.G17361@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <33124.64.169.63.74.1105821085.squirrel@64.169.63.74> > The early, original Qumetrak 142 drives have my nomination for the second > to worst drive ever, coming in right after the early versions of the BASF > 2/3 height drives. > The Qume drive was SO slow, that PC-DOS 2.10 had to extend the times to > prevent timeouts on normal disk I/O. Shugart developed a much worse drive that thankfully never made it into production. It was assembled on a bent-metal frame instead of a casting, and instead of a stepper motor for head positioning, it used a mechanism similar to an 8-track tape. Each step pulse advanced the head position by one track, but only in one direction, and it was *incredibly* slow. Once you got to the last track (I'm not sure if that was 34 or 39), the next step pulse would return the carriage to track 0, which took even longer. This was intended to be a very low cost drive, but would have required software changes since disk controller chips and normal software expect to have bidirectional seek. We played with a prototype for a few hours and decided that our customers wouldn't want it. From jpero at sympatico.ca Sat Jan 15 10:46:25 2005 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero@sympatico.ca) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <1105806782.8243.93.camel@fortran> References: <3.0.3.32.20050115214958.01683cc0@pop-server> Message-ID: <20050115214524.NARU19622.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> > On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 21:49 +1000, Dr. Ido wrote: > > > Did you try connecting an external monitor? I'm pretty sure they have a > > CGA video output. Otherwise, from memory the same display panel was used Tore, Correct. This is CGA output. Monitors now don't support CGA due to timings and pin layout is totally different. Get another working T3100 or find a working CGA monitor which is awfully hard to find. But easier to find another T3100 even it has bad HD too. ask around. I had no problem disassembling their older T3100 laptops. Key is to remember to remove first four screws (bottom) that holds keyboard at front edge and tilt keyboard up and out, carefully disconnect couple delicate ribbon cables, then rest of disassembly is easy. The specs is 286 12mhz, 1MB. Either 10MB or 20MB HD, usually have 1.44MB if your has "e" Very few got extra memory added. 1. Nobody runs any favor of windows even 3.11 on this limited resources like T3100 so don't quip up about windows. It is DOS machine. 2. Winders between even old 95 and 3.11 is totally different that getting both connected by network (ethernet) is a challege on 3.11 because you have to install and manually write up a script to run the ethernet stuff before starting 3.11. This is why I said laplink or microsoft's data transfer utility (found on dos starting from 6.x). 3. Data recovery means you do NOT write anything to the HD which means you must find another machine that works and move the HD to working one or have someone repair that notebook first. Then run laplink 5.x off the floppy only on both machines with data transfer parallel cable connected to both machines and suck the data to good machine even pentium machine will do. 4. Used pentium notebooks is plenty and parts easy to get from ebay. I particularly like solo 2300 series and inexpensive. > Tore S Bekkedal Cheers, Wizard From jpero at sympatico.ca Sat Jan 15 10:46:25 2005 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero@sympatico.ca) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <1105806782.8243.93.camel@fortran> References: <3.0.3.32.20050115214958.01683cc0@pop-server> Message-ID: <20050115214828.IKSX25979.tomts25-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> > On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 21:49 +1000, Dr. Ido wrote: > > > Did you try connecting an external monitor? I'm pretty sure they have a > > CGA video output. Otherwise, from memory the same display panel was used Tore, Correct. This is CGA output. Monitors now don't support CGA due to timings and pin layout is totally different. Get another working T3100 or find a working CGA monitor which is awfully hard to find. But easier to find another T3100 even it has bad HD too. ask around. I had no problem disassembling their older T3100 laptops. Key is to remember to remove first four screws (bottom) that holds keyboard at front edge and tilt keyboard up and out, carefully disconnect couple delicate ribbon cables, then rest of disassembly is easy. The specs is 286 12mhz, 1MB. Either 10MB or 20MB HD, usually have 1.44MB if your has "e" Very few got extra memory added. 1. Nobody runs any favor of windows even 3.11 on this limited resources like T3100 so don't quip up about windows. It is DOS machine. 2. Winders between even old 95 and 3.11 is totally different that getting both connected by network (ethernet) is a challege on 3.11 because you have to install and manually write up a script to run the ethernet stuff before starting 3.11. This is why I said laplink or microsoft's data transfer utility (found on dos starting from 6.x). 3. Data recovery means you do NOT write anything to the HD which means you must find another machine that works and move the HD to working one or have someone repair that notebook first. Then run laplink 5.x off the floppy only on both machines with data transfer parallel cable connected to both machines and suck the data to good machine even pentium machine will do. 4. Used pentium notebooks is plenty and parts easy to get from ebay. I particularly like solo 2300 series and inexpensive. > Tore S Bekkedal Cheers, Wizard From ICS at Core.com Sat Jan 15 16:13:50 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Nova 4 system Message-ID: <006701c4fb4f$7eb3fe90$7028c4d8@icsdevelopment> Anyone have any news about the fate of the Nova 4 system in Bakersfield? ,George From swtpc6800 at comcast.net Sat Jan 15 16:50:00 2005 From: swtpc6800 at comcast.net (Michael Holley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Original TV Typewriter Message-ID: <002201c4fb54$8bfb66b0$0900a8c0@downstairs2> I have added more information on Don Lancaster's original TV Typewriter to my web site. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/TV_Typewriter.htm I have put up the complete set of plans, the 24 page booklet you had to send away for. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/TV_Typewriter/TV_Typewriter_Reprint.htm I have 300 dpi and 600 dpi tiff files but they are very large. Ask if you want them. There is a real copy on eBay now with a starting price of 1.95. (Item number: 5744207804.) I already have two copies so I won't be bidding. I also have some pictures of a real TV Typewriter build by Bob Rethemeyer. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/TV_Typewriter/Rethemeyer.htm Michael Holley www.swtpc.com/mholley From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 15 17:15:29 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Nova 4 system In-Reply-To: <006701c4fb4f$7eb3fe90$7028c4d8@icsdevelopment> References: <006701c4fb4f$7eb3fe90$7028c4d8@icsdevelopment> Message-ID: <20050115151448.O1420@localhost> On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, George & Oksana Wiegand wrote: > Anyone have any news about the fate of the Nova 4 system in Bakersfield? I'm going to fetch it on Monday. Story when I get back. From ICS at Core.com Sat Jan 15 17:17:15 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:01 2005 Subject: Nova 4 system References: <006701c4fb4f$7eb3fe90$7028c4d8@icsdevelopment> <20050115151448.O1420@localhost> Message-ID: <008901c4fb58$5a305fb0$7028c4d8@icsdevelopment> Very Good!!! Thanks for the news. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Jennings" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 6:15 PM Subject: Re: Nova 4 system > On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, George & Oksana Wiegand wrote: > > > Anyone have any news about the fate of the Nova 4 system in Bakersfield? > > I'm going to fetch it on Monday. Story when I get back. > From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 15 17:33:11 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called FrameWorks? If and > when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format - > what is it? Text processing? Database? It's a suite: word processor, database, spreadsheet, and allowed you to move data from one application to the other with ease. I have the manuals for the first version but no software apparently. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 15 17:47:26 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <005101c4fb23$f79a7ae0$6401a8c0@ibm6go1addn6c0> Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Paul A. Pennington wrote: > Your problem is ideal for the INTERLNK/INTERSVR program. It works like > a network -- you don't need to type or read the screen on one of the > machines. It works over serial or parallel connections. > > Set it up on two working computers to get the cable and two boot > floppies correctly configured. Not easy, but you'll never have to do it > again -- just boot the floppies. Assuming INTERSVR configures one of the serial or parallel ports properly upon booting... -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From dave04a at dunfield.com Sat Jan 15 19:46:38 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop Message-ID: <20050116014637.MDQT8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> >> Set it up on two working computers to get the cable and two boot >> floppies correctly configured. Not easy, but you'll never have to do it >> again -- just boot the floppies. > >Assuming INTERSVR configures one of the serial or parallel ports properly >upon booting... It should, as the T3100 ports I believe look like standard hardware (I can set it up and get it working if you want me to verify etc.). Worse case, you can set ports and serial speed on the command line, so it might take a few tries with the boot disk - but you should be able to get it working. Regards, DAve -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 15 18:50:58 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6B@mail.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 14, 5 09:48:37 pm Message-ID: > > OK, for a little on topic. Before I go tearing the whole machine apart..... Actually, they're not that difficult to work on.... I've had one _totally_ apart (including the PSU and monitor sections) and I've done a lot worse. > > I am the proud new owner of a nice example of the IBM 5155. This thing is in > pretty good shape. Turned it on, A: did a quick seek and the I was into > BASIC. So far, so good. Now, I'm trying to boot DOS. I have several known > good DOS 3.1 boot floppies on 360K disks. I keep an old 486 with a 360K > drive just for this (and for creating disks for my Tandy model 4). > > Anyway, the original A: drive only gives a "boot failure". The B: drive > (after a cable swap) boots sometimes. Taking out these drives looks to be a > MAJOR undertaking. Not along the lines of multiple years, but they are I assume you've got the case off, and the upper shield over the logic boards (if it's present, it wasn't fitted in all machines). To get the drives out, you take out all the expansion cards behind them, and unplug the cables. On the right side, you remove the metal bracket that supported the back end of the drives and loosen the front mounting screw. On the left side, AFAIR, there's only one screw which, again, you loosen. You can get a 3/16" AF spannee in there, I think even a small socket and right-angled bar will go in. The drive then slides out backwards. You have to remove the top drive before the bottom one (and put the bottom one back in first. > pretty securly installed. However, I'd like to keep them because they have > the IBM faceplate. > > Now, for the questions... > > Are these Qume drives subject to any known failure? Should I just dig in, > remove these drives and give them a good cleaning and lubricating? I'm used Certainly clean them. A trace of lubricant on the head slide rails can't hurt, but only a trace. You might want to dismantle the spindle assembly to lubricate its bearings too. I forget exactly how to do this (and while I have a scheamtic of these drives in the IBM O&A TechRef, I don't have the Qume service manual), but normally the rotor comes off the bottom either by 3 screws holding it to the hub or by a central screw which may well be _left handed_! > to working with the big 8" drives, where everything is a bit larger. What is > the best way to clean the heads? Lint free swab and 90% Isopropyl alchohol? > Cleaning disk? Nail file ;-) What's the consensus? Cotton bud (or swap) and pure isopropyl alcohol (propan-2-ol). > > Any suggestions or comments in general about this machine? It's a PC/XT at heart. The motherboard is the IBM PC/XT board, and it'll therefroe take the 640K mod (which I am sure is well-known). The video card is the nromal CGA card, the floppy controller is also normal. Any other I/O cards are optional, but if they're IBM ones, they're the standard IBM ones. The PSU is similar to the PC/XT PSU, but not identical. Mine looks to have been made by Zenith. The monitor has a sompositie video input which is connected to the 4 pin header on the CGA card that was originally intended for an RF modulator. The keyboard also seems to be the PC/XT one, in a different case. Anything else you need to know? I have the IBM Techrefs covering this machine, so I've got full schematics, etc. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 15 19:37:46 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <006f01c4fb12$b53be140$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> from "John Allain" at Jan 15, 5 09:58:42 am Message-ID: > > > Any suggestions or comments in general about this machine? > > I gave myself 30 minutes to get one of those going once. > I got access to just about all subsystems/components in that time. I seem to remember needing Bristol Spline keys to take the PSU and monitor out of the chassis and tamperproof Torx drivers to get the PSU apart.... > The coolest thing that really made me like the machine was that the > video monitor was IIRC 5V,NTSC in, picture out. Very easy to use. I _think_ it's a 12V power input to the monitor, but I would have to get the manuals out to be sure. -tony From CCTalk at catcorner.org Sat Jan 15 20:04:03 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6E@mail.catcorner.org> > From: Fred Cisin [mailto:cisin@xenosoft.com] > Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 2:59 PM > > > Now, by disassembling and cleaning the B: drive, I was able > > to get the machine booting off this drive (cabled as A:). > > However, the same cleaning procedure on the A: drive did > > not allow it to boot. I still have to clean > > the heads. Maybe that'll make a difference. If not, I think > > I may have other Qume drives without the IBM monniker on > > them that I can swap the bezels with. I just have to dig > > through the cabinent and see what'll fit. > > THe early, original Qumetrak 142 drives have my nomination > for the second > to worst drive ever, coming in right after the early versions > of the BASF 2/3 height drives. > The Qume drive was SO slow, that PC-DOS 2.10 had to extend > the times to prevent timeouts on normal disk I/O. Well, I just went through the "closet-o-drives" and I don't have any other Qumes laying around. Furthermore, the DS/DD drives I do have the card edge connector on the wrong side. The included cable is not long enough to plug one of these in and leave the one working original drive. Does anyone have the service manual online for this drive? I would really like to get the Qume drive working, but don't know where to go next. I guess I could swap the boards between the two units, but that'll only tell me if it is electronic or electro-mechanical. Other than that, any suggestions for figuring out if it is alignment, broken sensor, or something electrical? Here is what's happening with this drive: The computer goes through it's mem-test, then advances the head. The head retracts, then the system immediately dumps to cassette basic. It doesn't even seek again. I don't have an oscilloscope handy, and wouldn't know exactly what to look for anyway. Thanks for any help. Kelly From dave04a at dunfield.com Sat Jan 15 20:24:24 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <20050116022423.OPII20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> >Other than that, any suggestions for figuring out if it is alignment, broken >sensor, or something electrical? IIRC, you mentioned that the other drive works, and you were able to boot DOS? If so, setup the faulty drive as drive B:, boot DOS, and try formatting a blank disk in the B: drive - if it works and you can read/write files to the drive, the it is probably just a little out of alignment (You will probably find that the disks it makes cannot be accessed on other drives). Assuming this doesn't work, what error message does DOS give whwn trying to access the drive? Also, normally the system will try much longer to access the drive if it is seeing sector pulses - if it behaves pretty much the same with the diskette in as with it out, then you may have an index sensor problem. With power off, manually move the head out some distance from track-0 - does it step back when the system starts - does it perform the "Seek test" at power- up and does it look and sound exactly like the other drive? - if no to any of these, perhaps there is a problem in stepping/track select, track-0 sensor. Also, "scopes are your friend" - of you have one, take a look at what is going on at the interface when you try and access the drive - you should see the select line go low, look for index pulese, step pulses, track-0 detect, data from the drive etc. - it might be fairly obvious what the problem is. I assume you have already done this, but clean the head, and check all connectors for even a little corrosion (edge, head, steppers etc.), especially if it has been sitting around for a long time - same goes for config jumpers and option blocks A good cleaning often does wonders! Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From chenmel at earthlink.net Sat Jan 15 20:41:59 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Original TV Typewriter In-Reply-To: <002201c4fb54$8bfb66b0$0900a8c0@downstairs2> References: <002201c4fb54$8bfb66b0$0900a8c0@downstairs2> Message-ID: <20050115214159.3326c0db.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Sat, 15 Jan 2005 14:50:00 -0800 "Michael Holley" wrote: > I have added more information on Don Lancaster's original TV > Typewriter to my web site. > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/TV_Typewriter.htm > > I have put up the complete set of plans, the 24 page booklet you had > to send away for. > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/TV_Typewriter/TV_Typewriter_Reprint.htm > > I have 300 dpi and 600 dpi tiff files but they are very large. Ask if > you want them. > > There is a real copy on eBay now with a starting price of 1.95. (Item > number: 5744207804.) I already have two copies so I won't be bidding. > > I also have some pictures of a real TV Typewriter build by Bob > Rethemeyer. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/TV_Typewriter/Rethemeyer.htm > > Michael Holley > www.swtpc.com/mholley > I have Lancaster's 'Cheap Video Cookbook' in my bookcase, which is a fascinating book, taking low-level cheats and tweaks to an extreme, to get video output on the first generation hobby computers. I.e. the 'upstream tap' and SCAN micoinstruction'. Stealing signals off the address buss, using side effects to generate 'fast enough' signals. Chapter 4 has plans for the TVT 6-5/8, a 7 i.c. video interface as 'hackerish' as Wozniak's first Disk Interface for the Apple. The stuff in the Cheap Video Cookbook always involves 'cheating' video out of your system using machine language and tapping into the address buss, etc. Writing software with 'scope probe in hand, all that good stuff. -Scott From news at computercollector.com Sat Jan 15 20:51:20 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? Message-ID: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> It's only "slightly" off-topic because what I'm building is a new case for my Apple 1 "Replica 1" board. I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. The guy at the plastic supply company tried selling me a special drill bit, but I'm hesitant about that. Does anyone has hands-on experience and tips (vs. just speculation) about working with this stuff? This computer will be on display as some public events, so the final appearance is very important. ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 653 readers and counting! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 15 20:53:06 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6E@mail.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 15, 5 09:04:03 pm Message-ID: > Well, I just went through the "closet-o-drives" and I don't have any other > Qumes laying around. Furthermore, the DS/DD drives I do have the card edge > connector on the wrong side. The included cable is not long enough to plug > one of these in and leave the one working original drive. Does anyone have > the service manual online for this drive? I would really like to get the Not on-line, but at least I have a schematic. It doesn't look very complicated either. > Qume drive working, but don't know where to go next. I guess I could swap > the boards between the two units, but that'll only tell me if it is > electronic or electro-mechanical. > > Other than that, any suggestions for figuring out if it is alignment, broken > sensor, or something electrical? The alignment adjustments, in general, are what are known as 'interchangeability adjustments'. In other words, if they're a bit off, the drive will be able to format, read, and write its own disks, but those disks will not be useable on other drives, and vice versa. So what you do first is to hook the drive up as B: and try formatting a blank disk in it. Note that if, for some reason, the machine thinks it only has one drive, it'll map A: _and_ B: to that drive. You'll get some obvious messages if this has happened, in which case the problem is certainly not just alignment. If the problem is more than alignment, then you need a 'scope, logic probe or logic analyser. A drive exerciser is fun too, but by no means essential as you cna talk to the PC's disk controller card and get it to, e.g. start the spindle motor and move the heads around. What I'd do first is start the motor with a scratch disk in the drive and check you get pulses (at 5 Hz) on the index/ line. Then I'd try stepping the head in and out, and see if the track0 sensor line changes correctly. After that you'll probably delving into the read/write amplifiers... > > Here is what's happening with this drive: > The computer goes through it's mem-test, then advances the head. The head > retracts, then the system immediately dumps to cassette basic. It doesn't > even seek again. This sounds like track0 sensor problems. I assume you've blown the dust out of the sensor? If you have a multimeter and logic probe, I'll dig out the schematic and tell you what to look for. -tony From CCTalk at catcorner.org Sat Jan 15 21:06:11 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6F@mail.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk [mailto:ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk] > Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 9:53 PM > > Qume drive working, but don't know where to go next. I > guess I could swap > > the boards between the two units, but that'll only tell me if it is > > electronic or electro-mechanical. > > > > Other than that, any suggestions for figuring out if it is > alignment, broken > > sensor, or something electrical? > > The alignment adjustments, in general, are what are known as > 'interchangeability adjustments'. In other words, if they're > a bit off, > the drive will be able to format, read, and write its own disks, but > those disks will not be useable on other drives, and vice versa. > > So what you do first is to hook the drive up as B: and try > formatting a > blank disk in it. Note that if, for some reason, the machine > thinks it > only has one drive, it'll map A: _and_ B: to that drive. > You'll get some > obvious messages if this has happened, in which case the problem is > certainly not just alignment. Well, I did this and learned something VERY important. The disk only formatted as 180K. So, it doesn't see that it is a double sided drive. The same diskette put back in the working drive formatted to 360K. So, how do these drives tell if they're dealing with SS vs. DS meadia? Does it just look for a signal from the second head? Is there another sensor that indicates "yep - double sided". This is how it works with 8" drives. The index hole is in a physically different spot. Thank you for all of your help so far!! > This sounds like track0 sensor problems. I assume you've > blown the dust > out of the sensor? If you have a multimeter and logic probe, > I'll dig out > the schematic and tell you what to look for. Yes, I have blown the dust out of the sensors. See above. How do these drives signal that they are DS? That seems to be where the error is coming in. Any tips based on the schematic would be of help. Since all I have at the moment is a DMM and a homemade logic probe, my tools are lacking to fully solve this problem. Thanks again, Kelly Kelly From jpl15 at panix.com Sat Jan 15 21:11:25 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass > simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. The guy at the Generally this happens at the instant the drill-bit "breaks through" and grabs a chunk of material at the edge of the hole. This 'jam' communicates the torque to the plastic which, being somewhat brittle, cracks and/or breaks. One thing you can do is pilot-drill it with a much smaller drill, and then run the big drill half-way through, flipping the work over and then drilling from the other side so the holes meet in the middle. This takes some accuracy, and a 'jig' on a drill-press, so that the holes line up. As well, when working with Plexiglass (or Perspex) - it collects scratches and scrapes which must then be polished back out. So the less you work with it, the prettier it is. Why not just ask the plastic place to drill it for you? Most will be happy to do this for a few bucks. I've had a lot of custom high-voltge fixtures made at various plastic supply houses - you give 'em a scketch or drawing and they do the work very nicely, since that's what they do for a living... If you do drill it yourself - the secret is to go very slowly and lightly - getting extremely careful lnear the end of the hole... use a variable speed drill if you can and taek it easy. Get some small scraps of the same material if you can, and practice on them... Cheers John From paulpenn at knology.net Sat Jan 15 21:51:09 2005 From: paulpenn at knology.net (Paul A. Pennington) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop References: Message-ID: <001801c4fb7e$9d63c8f0$6401a8c0@ibm6go1addn6c0> Sellam wrote: > Assuming INTERSVR configures one of the serial or parallel ports properly Yes, it takes care of all that. You don't have to touch the server computer -- just turn it on with the boot floppy in. Paul Pennington Augusta, Georgia From fmc at reanimators.org Sat Jan 15 22:01:15 2005 From: fmc at reanimators.org (Frank McConnell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501131820.j0DIKD8W026302@ill.crash.com> (Steven M. Jones's message of "Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:20:12 -0500") References: <200501131820.j0DIKD8W026302@ill.crash.com> Message-ID: <200501160401.j0G41FF9061908@lots.reanimators.org> Steven M Jones wrote: > I think that the growth of email and the Internet in everyday life > rode two big trends. One is the rise of CompuServe and AOL, which > I'll leave for another discussion. The second was the rise of small > scale ISPs in the 1993-1994 timeframe, at least in the Northeastern > US, and that they were offering raw dialup IP connections. They'd > give you a POP account, maybe shell access, and that set the stage > to a great degree for non-corporate, non-academic participation in > the Web when it came on-stage. There's another thing that I think everyone has missed: a standard API for network applications on each personal computer operating system platform. Remember the joys of TCP/IP on MS-DOS in the late 1980s? Each vendor's TCP/IP stack had its own interface to network drivers, and its own interface for applications. So you had to choose your network cards based on what your TCP/IP stack vendor had drivers for, and you had to choose your TCP/IP stack vendor based on what applications you wanted to run. And your application vendor wasn't liking life much either, because the MS-DOS TCP/IP stack vendors didn't always maintain API compatibility across versions of the TCP/IP stacks. The earliest things I remember were monolithic applications that included a network card driver, TCP/IP stack, and application(s). For example, there was the MIT PC/IP stuff, which comprised a driver for the 3Com 3C500 card, a TCP/IP stack that supported a whopping one TCP connection, a Telnet client with H19 terminal emulator, and a TFTP server. The idea was that you would telnet to your Unix box and use its TFTP client to control file transfers. (The initial entry of The Wollongong Group into this market was a repackaging of the MIT PC/IP as WIN/PC with a manual and a box, and there's a story that some folks at MIT saw the advertisement and said "hey, we could do that", found a good deal on some green three-ring binders, and thus was born FTP Software.) Eventually this split up into TSR-based network card drivers and TCP/IP stacks. Some of the MS-DOS TCP/IP stack vendors grew BSD-like sockets-flavored APIs, but they were often implemented as libraries that had to be linked with the application, and they weren't all completely compatible with each other nor with BSD sockets. (The Wollongong Group's WIN/TCP for DOS and PathWay Runtime for DOS worked this way, at least.) This continued into the 1990s. First there were interfaces defined so that protocol stacks could talk to network cards: FTP Software pushed the packet driver specification, Novell pushed ODI, and MICROS~1 pushed NDIS. This was basically the protocol stack vendors pushing the responsibility for the network card drivers to the network card vendors, because developing and maintaining network card drivers was starting to cost serious money as more hardware vendors got into the network card business. Then in 1990 this Windows thing took off, and the MS-DOS TCP/IP stack vendors noticed. I know TWG had a "SOCKDOS.DLL" that provided a DLL-based sockets-flavor API for Windows applications. There was some other company, JSB or something like that, that had a sort of "API harmonizer" that provided a consistent API across various DOS/Windows TCP/IP stacks. Eventually someone got the idea that the TCP/IP stack stack vendors could be providing a common DLL-based API and that is how the Windows Sockets specification came about. That's where you got to the point that someone could write a Windows-based TCP/IP application and reasonably expect it to work on any vendor's TCP/IP stack that had a WINSOCK.DLL implementation, and people did! Without that, I don't think there would have been, say, Netscape or Eudora for Windows; there certainly wouldn't have been just one of each. Of course the next step was for MICROS~1 to provide a TCP/IP stack with a WINSOCK.DLL implementation in Windows 95. There was no longer any need for third-party TCP/IP stack vendors for Windows. I think the only company in that business that has survived to date is Netmanage (who bought FTP Software). I saw a lot of this, working at The Wollongong Group starting in December 1989. I didn't get involved in it 'til very late, late 1993 or so; the market for WIN/TCP for MPE/V was winding down and I got pushed (not entirely unwillingly) into working on the TCP/IP stack for MS-DOS and then for Windows. Those of you who used PathWay Runtime 4.0 on Windows can blame me, the TCP/IP and Winsock were my primary responsibilities for that release. -Frank McConnell From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jan 15 22:11:56 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501160401.j0G41FF9061908@lots.reanimators.org> from Frank McConnell at "Jan 15, 5 08:01:15 pm" Message-ID: <200501160411.UAA13170@floodgap.com> > Remember the joys of TCP/IP on MS-DOS in the late 1980s? Remember it? I live it. The 486 DOS laptop besides me took several days to piece everything together. It runs a 3Com packet driver on top of some crufted together Card/Socket Services TSRs, and then NCSA Telnet and FTP have their own TCP stacks that will talk to it. So does Arachne, it seems. In contrast, getting WINPKT.COM and WINSOCK.DLL (Trumpet Winsock, in this case) cooperating with the DOS end of things for Win3.1 was a piece of cake. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- High explosives are applicable where truth and logic fail. ----------------- From paulpenn at knology.net Sat Jan 15 22:27:07 2005 From: paulpenn at knology.net (Paul A. Pennington) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Original TV Typewriter References: <002201c4fb54$8bfb66b0$0900a8c0@downstairs2> Message-ID: <003f01c4fb83$a3dfd7a0$6401a8c0@ibm6go1addn6c0> Michael Holley wrote: > I have added more information on Don Lancaster's original TV Typewriter to > my web site... Nice job, Michael, as usual. You always do a good job cleaning up your scans for publication. My copy has a bunch of my notes and corrections, which of course is more valuable (to me) than a "new" copy. This brought back a lot of memories for me. I built one of these from scratch back in 1975, just over a year after the article was published. I still have copies of my letters ordering all the parts, made with a real typewriter and carbon paper (remember that?). My letter to SWTPC ordering the PC boards came back marked "not available." Bummer -- I had already ordered the parts. Being a resourceful young Army staff sergeant, I made the boards from scratch by making copies of the artwork in the booklet on transparency film, and then making photographic contact prints to get a negative. Another contact print onto photo sensitive PC boards, some etching, and voila -- PC boards. I actually got this working, and used it as a terminal to talk to my Motorola 6800 "D1" evaluation board. Worked for several years before I graduated to a video card in my SWTPC computer. "Working" here means 16 lines of 32 characters. At 300 baud, it took 37 seconds to fill the screen. What a long way we've come. Paul Pennington Augusta, Georgia From tomhudson at execpc.com Sun Jan 16 00:39:10 2005 From: tomhudson at execpc.com (Tom Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41EA0C0E.8010004@execpc.com> The special plastic bits have a different point angle (typically 90 degrees vs. 118 degrees for a standard bit) making them work better with the relatively brittle Plex.. Go slowly with it. If you can get it, I also recommend using "Lucite L", which is a type of plastic which is similar to Plexiglas but machines much more smoothly without the melting seen in standard Plexiglas. I've turned Lucite L on a lathe and it cuts like butter, with nice clean shavings instead of sticky melted blobs. Drills nicely too. Good luck. -Tom Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >It's only "slightly" off-topic because what I'm building is a new case for my >Apple 1 "Replica 1" board. > >I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass >simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. The guy at the >plastic supply company tried selling me a special drill bit, but I'm hesitant >about that. Does anyone has hands-on experience and tips (vs. just >speculation) about working with this stuff? This computer will be on display >as some public events, so the final appearance is very important. > > > -- Thomas Hudson http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sun Jan 16 00:53:13 2005 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Fabricating with plastics Message-ID: <200501152253130499.1EDF1D82@192.168.42.129> Been following the discussion on fabbing HV assemblies with plexiglass. There's another type of plastic called 'Delrin' that's very hard, very durable, has high temperature resistance, and it machines, drills and cuts as easily and cleanly as aluminum (better, in many cases). I used Delrin blocks to fabricate the insulators for a high-current diode isolator bank. While that application was high-current/low-voltage, Delrin's dielectric strength is huge. It's rated for 380V/mil in that regard, and it has a resistivity rating of 1x10 to the 14th ohms per centimeter. I don't see any reason why it would be unsuitable for high-voltage insulator assemblies as well as high-current. Keep the peace(es). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 16 02:15:33 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050116001338.Y2429@localhost> On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass > simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. The guy at the > plastic supply company tried selling me a special drill bit, but I'm hesitant > about that. Does anyone has hands-on experience and tips (vs. just > speculation) about working with this stuff? This computer will be on display > as some public events, so the final appearance is very important. Plexi is a pain in the ass. Drill VERY SLOWLY. Low speed and no pressure. A small stream of water helps; it cools the cutting edge. De-stress the holes afterwards with a bevel and sandpaper on a nail. There's better plastics to sue. If it's just a flat sheet, I find lexan types much more forgiving. It's hard to bend though. > > ===== > Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! > > -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address > -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us > -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all > -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com > -- 653 readers and counting! > From cannings at earthlink.net Sat Jan 15 13:04:50 2005 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? References: Message-ID: <000901c4fb35$170e5430$6401a8c0@hal9000> Has no one ever heard of APE? > > http://www.atarimax.com/ Yes, I used there stuff some time ago. They sell ( or you can roll your own ) an interface cable that goes between an ATARI disk drive and your PC. All I can say is it does work. Their software also lets you connect an ATARI computer to your PC but I think the interface cable is slightly modified. At least this way you can get your code into your PC using an ATARI drive. Good luck ! Best regards, Steven C From stanb at dial.pipex.com Sun Jan 16 03:14:37 2005 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 15 Jan 2005 20:11:56 PST." <200501160411.UAA13170@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200501160914.JAA09455@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Cameron Kaiser said: > > Remember the joys of TCP/IP on MS-DOS in the late 1980s? > > Remember it? I live it. The 486 DOS laptop besides me took several days to > piece everything together. It runs a 3Com packet driver on top of some > crufted together Card/Socket Services TSRs, and then NCSA Telnet and FTP > have their own TCP stacks that will talk to it. So does Arachne, it seems. I've just been doing much the same thing so I can ftp stuff over to my headless 486 that thinks it's a PDP-11 - old NE2000 card, Crwnyr(sp?) driver and NCSA telnet/ftp. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb@dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From stanb at dial.pipex.com Sun Jan 16 03:04:11 2005 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 15 Jan 2005 18:51:20 PST." <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200501160904.JAA09342@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, > It's only "slightly" off-topic because what I'm building is a new case for my > Apple 1 "Replica 1" board. > > I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass > simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. The guy at the > plastic supply company tried selling me a special drill bit, but I'm hesitant > about that. Does anyone has hands-on experience and tips (vs. just > speculation) about working with this stuff? This computer will be on display > as some public events, so the final appearance is very important. I've worked with the stuff a fair bit...competition car windows, radio gear etc. - even a guitar! Use a sharp, perferably new, bit and drill slowly so as not to melt the plastic. For larger holes, drill a small pilot hole first and work your way up through the drill sizes until you get to the size you want. Don't work on it in the cold, it shatters *much* more easily when cold. Lightly coutersink each side of the hole to reduce stress build-up. Make sure the work is solidly supported on a smooth flat surface with no bits trapped underneath. Practice on a few off-cuts first. All these things found out the hard way :-) Edges can be polished with very fine wet-and-dry paper followed by metal polish or jeweller's rouge. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb@dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From jimmydevice at verizon.net Sun Jan 16 04:57:18 2005 From: jimmydevice at verizon.net (JimD) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41EA488E.309@verizon.net> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > > >>I do watch TV. With a TiVo. Useful and informative shows, like >>Super Milk Chan, Venture Brothers, Free Speech TV, ATHF, Simpsons, >>movies. >> >> > >Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman! > >And of course, South Park and The Daily Show. > > > Wow! I guess we do have something in common, Sellam. You just listed all my favorite shows. Aqua teen rules, My son bought me the DVD's for my birthday, Jim Davis ObInsult: You talked like Shake in the old days. ;-) From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Sun Jan 16 05:45:51 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: Computer Collector Newsletter "Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass?" (Jan 15, 18:51) References: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <10501161145.ZM27073@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 15 2005, 18:51, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass > simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. The guy at the > plastic supply company tried selling me a special drill bit, but I'm hesitant > about that. Does anyone has hands-on experience and tips (vs. just > speculation) about working with this stuff? This computer will be on display > as some public events, so the final appearance is very important. The biggest problem is likely to be as the drill bit breaks through. If you look at the end of a twist drill you'll see that the centre doesn't cut in the same way as the edges, and it's the force of the centre distorting the plastic as it breaks through that causes cracks. The other problem is if you don't have enough control of the drill, and the bit "snatches". Tips: use a really sharp bit drill a small pilot hole first, and maybe enlarge that to some intermediate size so the pilot hole is a little larger than the point of the final drill put the plexiglass on a smooth block of wood or spare plexiglass, hold it down *firmly*, and drill through into the wood (make sure there's no swarf from earlier holes trapped between the plexiglass and the sacrificial material) run the drill slowly enough to avoid generating heat, but keep just enough pressure on it to ensure it keeps cutting, and doesn't rub use a drill press, not a hand-held drill practice on a piece of scrap first I drill lots of plastics, some very brittle, this way. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Sun Jan 16 05:56:19 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: Stan Barr "Re: Linux and growth of Internet" (Jan 16, 9:14) References: <200501160914.JAA09455@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: <10501161156.ZM27088@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 16 2005, 9:14, Stan Barr wrote: > Hi, > > Cameron Kaiser said: > > > Remember the joys of TCP/IP on MS-DOS in the late 1980s? > > > > Remember it? I live it. The 486 DOS laptop besides me took several days to > > piece everything together. It runs a 3Com packet driver on top of some > > crufted together Card/Socket Services TSRs, and then NCSA Telnet and FTP > > have their own TCP stacks that will talk to it. So does Arachne, it seems. > > I've just been doing much the same thing so I can ftp stuff over to my > headless 486 that thinks it's a PDP-11 - old NE2000 card, Crwnyr(sp?) > driver and NCSA telnet/ftp. I built a similar setup a few months ago, but I used the Microsoft TCP/IP stuff on top of DOS 6.22. It was easy to set up, and now I have telnet, FTP, ICMP (some stacks don't support that), and the whole thing uses DHCP and mounts drives from my Samba server. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 16 07:46:02 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1105883162.7300.7.camel@weka.localdomain> On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 18:51 -0800, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass > simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. Question - is plexiglass the same as perspex, or is it a totally different animal? From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sun Jan 16 07:55:52 2005 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore S Bekkedal) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Tandberg X-terminal software? Message-ID: <1105883752.7920.7.camel@fortran> Hello! I just aquired not only a very cool TDV2200 (which is currently printing with its matrix printer the entire bash manpage, muahahaha, one hour and counting), but also a Tandberg X-terminal - this terminal needs a boot image that is to be served to it at startup. Apparently this came on a CD-ROM - does anyone have the boot files or the CDROM? TIA! -- Tore S Bekkedal From john_boffemmyer_iv at boff-net.dhs.org Sun Jan 16 07:16:38 2005 From: john_boffemmyer_iv at boff-net.dhs.org (John Boffemmyer IV) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Linux and an old IBM PS/2 8570 Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050116075925.02adfe30@mail.n.ml.org> I recently got an old IBM PS/2 8570 (as mentioned to some earlier). Been thinking about putting Linux on it as the original owner put some company proprietary software on it for some unknown network monitoring via proprietary hardware (that has since been removed before I came into possession). The big thing is that it doesn't want to boot from SCSI. I have 4 cards and the adf disks for them. 1 is an IBM (supposedly Corvette) controller. 2 are Adaptec 1640's (different year manufacture and slightly different layout/revision). The final one is a Storage Dimensions 3211B (technically a compatible, yet rarer C/D). The other thing is that I've been told it has some sort of special boot partition on the 60MB ESDI drive. The SCSI drives I'm trying to use are all 1 and 2.2GB Seagates with an external Sun 611 enclosure (again, making the 10 year rule from what I've been told). If I can get the damned thing to take the SCSI drives and not the 60MB ESDI, that would be the ideal situation. If I have to use the 60MB ESDI as the boot drive, how could I get this to work as I've never tried Linux on an MCA before and everything I find out there seems not to pertain to my situation? The other cards in the machine are an IBM Long 16/4 (DB9 out) Token Ring card and I was thinking of using a Kingston 8000 Memory card (any info on this unique piece of hardware would be greatly appreciated as all I can find are the adf's for it). Anyone know what the max size and type memory was for that card and how it was implemented? Worst case scenario is that I simply don't use it, as the bigger goal is to get the damned thing working with Linux on SCSI and Token Ring. If people are hesitant on helping me, I have a bunch of spare MCA DB9 16/4 Token Ring cards (long and short), SCSI cards (as described above) and a couple XGA and XGA2 cards wthat I'm willing to offer for shipping in exchange for help. Hell, I've even willing to give up the odd Kingston memory card if it got me some help. Any takers? Please reply off-list, thanks. -John Boffemmyer IV john at boff dash net dot nospamdhs dot org (just drop the nospam) ---------------------------------------- Founder, Network Engineer, Tech Analyst and Web Designer Boff-Net Technologies http://boff-net.dhs.org/index.html ---------------------------------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 16 09:18:33 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <10501161156.ZM27088@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> from Pete Turnbull at "Jan 16, 5 11:56:19 am" Message-ID: <200501161518.HAA33366@floodgap.com> > I built a similar setup a few months ago, but I used the Microsoft > TCP/IP stuff on top of DOS 6.22. It was easy to set up, and now I have > telnet, FTP, ICMP (some stacks don't support that), and the whole thing > uses DHCP and mounts drives from my Samba server. Showoff. ;) Did you use LAN Mangler, er, Manager, or something else? -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "Moonraker" ---------------------------------------- From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 09:28:10 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jan 2005, John Lawson wrote: > If you do drill it yourself - the secret is to go very slowly and > lightly - getting extremely careful lnear the end of the hole... use a > variable speed drill if you can and taek it easy. Get some small scraps > of the same material if you can, and practice on them... I've never had a problem with this, but then I don't drill that much plexiglass. I'd put a block of scrap wood underneath where you're drilling. That way the bit will drill completely through the plastic and into the wood in one nice motion and this should minimize any "catching" on the opposing side. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 09:37:05 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: "Cold heat" soldering? In-Reply-To: <41EA488E.309@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, JimD wrote: > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > >On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > > > > > > >>I do watch TV. With a TiVo. Useful and informative shows, like > >>Super Milk Chan, Venture Brothers, Free Speech TV, ATHF, Simpsons, > >>movies. > >> > >> > > > >Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman! > > > >And of course, South Park and The Daily Show. > > > > > > > Wow! I guess we do have something in common, Sellam. > You just listed all my favorite shows. Aqua teen rules, My son bought me > the DVD's for my birthday, > Jim Davis > ObInsult: You talked like Shake in the old days. ;-) Perhaps, but I do get more and better sex these days. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From mapleleafman at gmail.com Sun Jan 16 09:41:39 2005 From: mapleleafman at gmail.com (Brian Mahoney) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: another way to look for old stuff on the 'net Message-ID: There was a discussion here in the latter part of December about old sites on the web, someone asked about whether anyone had saved an old Google page. Anyway, here's a link to a site that has a massive archive of old web pages, they say they have 100 terabytes of material with 10 billion web pages saved : http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html Some of you will know about the site but others may not. I've done searches for the Apple site (now that I'm really into macs) as well as IBM and both Ebay and Google. The Ebay pages that come up still have all of the listings on them but when you try to click any individual link, you get a 'delisted' page. But the listings are still interesting. The Apple site dates back to when OS 8.6 was the cutting edge. Doesn't seem to be anything before 1996 but then there wasn't a whole lot out there before that anyway. Point of all this is that if you had an old site saved as a favorite, an owner's manual site for instance, you should be able to put in the url and get an archived copy of the old site. I know people who have been able to recoved lost/hijacked sites using this url and I hope some of you find it interesting. If something has disappeared on the modern web, it might still be at this site in the archives. BM From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 09:40:38 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <10501161156.ZM27088@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Pete Turnbull wrote: > On Jan 16 2005, 9:14, Stan Barr wrote: > > Hi, > > > > Cameron Kaiser said: > > > > Remember the joys of TCP/IP on MS-DOS in the late 1980s? > > > > > > Remember it? I live it. The 486 DOS laptop besides me took several > days to > > > piece everything together. It runs a 3Com packet driver on top of > some > > > crufted together Card/Socket Services TSRs, and then NCSA Telnet > and FTP > > > have their own TCP stacks that will talk to it. So does Arachne, it > seems. > > > > I've just been doing much the same thing so I can ftp stuff over to > my > > headless 486 that thinks it's a PDP-11 - old NE2000 card, Crwnyr(sp?) > > driver and NCSA telnet/ftp. > > I built a similar setup a few months ago, but I used the Microsoft > TCP/IP stuff on top of DOS 6.22. It was easy to set up, and now I have > telnet, FTP, ICMP (some stacks don't support that), and the whole thing > uses DHCP and mounts drives from my Samba server. The MS TCP/IP stack works surprisingly well. The setup program is easy to use and fairly powerful, and the accessibility you get on a DOS box is really good. It has support for a number of NICs (including the generic NE1000 and NE2000). And most of the modules can be loaded high, saving your main memory for applications. I can mount WinXP drives on my lowly DOS box would full read/write access. You don't get long filenames, of course, but you can still access any file because of the "stem" that MS puts in the filesystem to convert long names to 8.3. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 09:47:15 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? Message-ID: I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms are eluding me. Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I stick two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different base address and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me to do this) will DOS automatically recognize the second controller and extend the drive letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sun Jan 16 10:13:30 2005 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200501160813300833.20E0165F@192.168.42.129> On 16-Jan-05 at 07:47 Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms are >eluding me. > >Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I stick Indeed it is possible. There were several cards made which had two floppy ports, including the famous Compaticard. I still have such an arrangement in one of my DOS boxes, though I'm not using it at present. The expansion card itself had special BIOS on it, which allowed DOS to recognize the additional floppies (MS-DOS, by itself, would not do this). I don't believe that DOS will recognize two separate controllers. Other OS's might. Keep the peace(es). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 16 10:33:04 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050116163304.74688.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> If your PC has a USB port, then just use USB drives. It should work -- for example on my "daily driver" PC, I have a four-in-one card gadget. I can't think of why the PC would care whether the drives are floppies or otherwise. --- Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms are > eluding me. > > Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I stick > two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different base address > and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me to do this) will > DOS automatically recognize the second controller and extend the drive > letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer > Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger > http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers > ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org > ] > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 653 readers and counting! From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sun Jan 16 10:41:27 2005 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <20050116163304.74688.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050116163304.74688.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200501160841270257.20F9AB04@192.168.42.129> Ahhh... Pardon? DOS doesn't support USB ports. *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 16-Jan-05 at 08:33 Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >If your PC has a USB port, then just use USB drives. It should work -- >for >example on my "daily driver" PC, I have a four-in-one card gadget. I can't >think of why the PC would care whether the drives are floppies or >otherwise. > >--- Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >> >> I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms are >> eluding me. >> >> Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I stick >> two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different base address >> and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me to do this) will >> DOS automatically recognize the second controller and extend the drive >> letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? >> >> -- >> >> Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer >> Festival >> >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> International Man of Intrigue and Danger >> http://www.vintage.org >> >> [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage >Computers >> ] >> [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at >http://marketplace.vintage.org >> ] >> >> > > >===== >Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! > >-- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address >-- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us >-- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all >-- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com >-- 653 readers and counting! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 16 10:50:20 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <200501160841270257.20F9AB04@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: <20050116165020.96401.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> I missed the DOS part of his message. But there is always some hope -- I don't know if this will work with floppies but check out http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10215... --- Bruce Lane wrote: > Ahhh... Pardon? DOS doesn't support USB ports. > > *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** > > On 16-Jan-05 at 08:33 Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > > >If your PC has a USB port, then just use USB drives. It should work -- > >for > >example on my "daily driver" PC, I have a four-in-one card gadget. I can't > >think of why the PC would care whether the drives are floppies or > >otherwise. > > > >--- Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > >> > >> I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms are > >> eluding me. > >> > >> Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I stick > >> two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different base address > >> and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me to do this) will > >> DOS automatically recognize the second controller and extend the drive > >> letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? > >> > >> -- > >> > >> Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer > >> Festival > >> > >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >> International Man of Intrigue and Danger > >> http://www.vintage.org > >> > >> [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage > >Computers > >> ] > >> [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at > >http://marketplace.vintage.org > >> ] > >> > >> > > > > > >===== > >Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! > > > >-- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address > >-- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us > >-- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all > >-- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com > >-- 653 readers and counting! > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, > Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com > kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m > "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with > surreal ports?" > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 653 readers and counting! From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 16 10:52:10 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <200501160841270257.20F9AB04@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: <20050116165210.81697.qmail@web52808.mail.yahoo.com> Just looked again... when I put "DOS usb drivers" into Yahoo, there are various ways to accomplish this. --- Bruce Lane wrote: > Ahhh... Pardon? DOS doesn't support USB ports. > > *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** > > On 16-Jan-05 at 08:33 Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > > >If your PC has a USB port, then just use USB drives. It should work -- > >for > >example on my "daily driver" PC, I have a four-in-one card gadget. I can't > >think of why the PC would care whether the drives are floppies or > >otherwise. > > > >--- Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > >> > >> I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms are > >> eluding me. > >> > >> Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I stick > >> two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different base address > >> and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me to do this) will > >> DOS automatically recognize the second controller and extend the drive > >> letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? > >> > >> -- > >> > >> Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer > >> Festival > >> > >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >> International Man of Intrigue and Danger > >> http://www.vintage.org > >> > >> [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage > >Computers > >> ] > >> [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at > >http://marketplace.vintage.org > >> ] > >> > >> > > > > > >===== > >Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! > > > >-- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address > >-- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us > >-- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all > >-- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com > >-- 653 readers and counting! > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, > Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com > kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m > "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with > surreal ports?" > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 653 readers and counting! From arlen at acm.org Sun Jan 16 11:06:32 2005 From: arlen at acm.org (Arlen Michaels) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: <000901c4fb35$170e5430$6401a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: There's a brief review of "Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here: http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868# >From the review: "If you look at today?s boring beige boxes, or the sleek design of the Mac, it?s hard to believe that personal computers once had personality. Where homogeneity is now the norm, 20 years ago everyone marched to his own drummer, producing machines that looked, felt and worked differently, and whose data and software was totally incompatible. Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the Personal Computer, by Gordon Laing, celebrates those pioneering days in words and pictures, telling the tales of 44 early machines ranging from the MITS Altair to the NeXT Cube." Arlen Michaels From stanb at dial.pipex.com Sun Jan 16 09:53:16 2005 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 16 Jan 2005 13:46:02 GMT." <1105883162.7300.7.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <200501161553.PAA16157@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, > On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 18:51 -0800, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > > > I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass > > simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. > > Question - is plexiglass the same as perspex, or is it a totally > different animal? > They're similar, both are trade names for a type of transparent synthetic resin. Perspex is, I think, more similar to Lucite, or is that yet another trade name for the same thing? Over the years I've used "Perspex", "Lucite" and "Plexiglass" (courtesy of the US Air Force!) and they appear to be identical. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb@dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 16 11:15:25 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050116171525.81280.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> I own this, it's a nice coffee table book with many colorful photos, but don't look to it as a serious history text. --- Arlen Michaels wrote: > There's a brief review of "Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the > Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here: > > http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868# > > >From the review: "If you look at today¹s boring beige boxes, or the sleek > design of the Mac, it¹s hard to believe that personal computers once had > personality. Where homogeneity is now the norm, 20 years ago everyone > marched to his own drummer, producing machines that looked, felt and worked > differently, and whose data and software was totally incompatible. Digital > Retro: The Evolution and Design of the Personal Computer, by Gordon Laing, > celebrates those pioneering days in words and pictures, telling the tales of > 44 early machines ranging from the MITS Altair to the NeXT Cube." > > Arlen Michaels > > > > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 653 readers and counting! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 16 11:19:40 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:02 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <200501161553.PAA16157@citadel.metropolis.local> References: <200501161553.PAA16157@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: <1105895980.7317.24.camel@weka.localdomain> On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 15:53 +0000, Stan Barr wrote: > Hi, > > > On Sat, 2005-01-15 at 18:51 -0800, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > > > > > I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass > > > simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. > > > > Question - is plexiglass the same as perspex, or is it a totally > > different animal? > > > > They're similar, both are trade names for a type of transparent synthetic > resin. Perspex is, I think, more similar to Lucite, or is that yet > another trade name for the same thing? Well in that case, (for perspex anyway) as others have said, drilling slowly works, as does firmly clamping scrap material above and below the piece to be cut / drilled - I've used a jig saw pretty often for cutting that way, and never had problems with rough edges or with shattering from drilling. That's usually thin material, 2mm or so - maybe the thicker stuff is somehow more prone to breaking in this way? cheers Jules From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 16 11:29:00 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? Message-ID: <20050116172900.96175.qmail@web52803.mail.yahoo.com> Thanks to all for the good advice. I don't own a drill press, and I'm not certain about which type of plastic it is (lexan, plexi, etc.) -- I used the term 'plexiglass' generically -- and I'm storing it at my father's house so it is not handy for me to check right now. Avoiding fabrication during the cold weather will also be tough, as his workbench is in the garage, and it's very cold here in New Jersey (there is no space to work on projects like this here in my tiny apartment). Maybe I'll plug in a space heater in his garage before I start drilling and such. When the project is finished (hopefully in a couple of weeks) I will post a note about it here, photos on my web site, etc. Evan ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 653 readers and counting! From melamy at earthlink.net Sun Jan 16 11:35:09 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <20050116172900.96175.qmail@web52803.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050116172900.96175.qmail@web52803.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050116123402.03420600@mail.earthlink.net> you can also "warm" up the area with a hair dryer... At 12:29 PM 01/16/2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >Thanks to all for the good advice. >Avoiding fabrication during the cold weather will also be tough, as his >workbench is in the garage, and it's very cold here in New Jersey (there is no >space to work on projects like this here in my tiny apartment). Maybe I'll >plug in a space heater in his garage before I start drilling and such. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 16 11:40:56 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1105897256.7300.40.camel@weka.localdomain> On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 12:06 -0500, Arlen Michaels wrote: > There's a brief review of "Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the > Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here: > > http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868# Heh, that's my IBM PC in there - as I recall I gave up trying to find all of its case screws, blanking plates and second floppy that morning, so it ended up with an assortment of plates and two non-IBM clone drives from my parts shelf... :-) Looking at the website (www.digitalretro.co.uk) I had wondered about the following: "Some of the machines had scratches or marks which were digitally retouched." The hardware we assembled at Bletchley was in pretty good condition, but still not without years worth of general handling wear. Considering that, the photographers and graphics team did a pretty good job from what I've seen of the book photos. cheers Jules From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 16 11:42:04 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: <1105897256.7300.40.camel@weka.localdomain> from Jules Richardson at "Jan 16, 5 05:40:56 pm" Message-ID: <200501161742.JAA32740@floodgap.com> > The hardware we assembled at Bletchley was in pretty good condition, but > still not without years worth of general handling wear. Considering > that, the photographers and graphics team did a pretty good job from > what I've seen of the book photos. I heard they did have to cheat, of a sort, on some of the rarer models where no pristine example was at their disposal. I think the original Mac 128K was one of those, but I haven't seen the book yet. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- So what's my point? I don't know, it's fun to talk about. -- Judy Blackburn From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Sun Jan 16 11:42:24 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: Stan Barr "Re: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass?" (Jan 16, 15:53) References: <200501161553.PAA16157@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: <10501161742.ZM28007@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 16 2005, 15:53, Stan Barr wrote: > > Question - is plexiglass the same as perspex, or is it a totally > > different animal? > > > > They're similar, both are trade names for a type of transparent synthetic > resin. Perspex is, I think, more similar to Lucite, or is that yet > another trade name for the same thing? > > Over the years I've used "Perspex", "Lucite" and "Plexiglass" (courtesy > of the US Air Force!) and they appear to be identical. They're all acrylic resins, but while in my possibly limited experience Perspex and Lucite seem to be trade names for much the same stuff, Plexiglass seems to be more brittle. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 11:59:08 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: <200501161518.HAA33366@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > I built a similar setup a few months ago, but I used the Microsoft > > TCP/IP stuff on top of DOS 6.22. It was easy to set up, and now I have > > telnet, FTP, ICMP (some stacks don't support that), and the whole thing > > uses DHCP and mounts drives from my Samba server. > > Showoff. ;) > > Did you use LAN Mangler, er, Manager, or something else? LAN Manager makes the setup very easy. It allows you to specify the driver, protocol, setup the protocol (i.e. use DHCP, etc.) Very nice. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Sun Jan 16 12:04:35 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: Cameron Kaiser "Re: Linux and growth of Internet" (Jan 16, 7:18) References: <200501161518.HAA33366@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <10501161804.ZM28069@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 16 2005, 7:18, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > I built a similar setup a few months ago, but I used the Microsoft > > TCP/IP stuff on top of DOS 6.22. It was easy to set up, and now I have > > telnet, FTP, ICMP (some stacks don't support that), and the whole thing > > uses DHCP and mounts drives from my Samba server. > > Showoff. ;) > > Did you use LAN Mangler, er, Manager, or something else? Nope, I used the "Microsoft Network Client 3", which comes as a couple of DOS disks. I seem to remember having to update one of the files, and add a driver from a 3Com disk. Even so, it only took an hour or so to download and set up, including at least one false start, and some messing with HIMEM. I spent maybe an hour more messing with things to save as much space as possible. If anybody wants to try it, I bookmarked the webpage I found most helpful: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/dosclnt3.htm IPX/SPX are banned from my networks, so obviously I only installed the TCP/IP stuff. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Sun Jan 16 12:08:25 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Linux and growth of Internet In-Reply-To: Vintage Computer Festival "Re: Linux and growth of Internet" (Jan 16, 7:40) References: Message-ID: <10501161808.ZM28079@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 16 2005, 7:40, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > The MS TCP/IP stack works surprisingly well. The setup program is easy to > use and fairly powerful, and the accessibility you get on a DOS box is > really good. It has support for a number of NICs (including the generic > NE1000 and NE2000). And most of the modules can be loaded high, saving > your main memory for applications. I can mount WinXP drives on my lowly > DOS box would full read/write access. You don't get long filenames, of > course, but you can still access any file because of the "stem" that MS > puts in the filesystem to convert long names to 8.3. Yes, that's pretty much how I set it up, except I don't publish shares on Windows machines; I use samba instead. The MS client does everything I want to do with DOS, and you can upgrade the support for NICs by adding drivers, too. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ICS at Core.com Sun Jan 16 12:13:29 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Computer Education Message-ID: <008e01c4fbf7$158491c0$2b2fc4d8@icsdevelopment> Anyone have experience or know for a factor of a Bachelor's degree program that teaches computer hardware and software in a logical order and comprehensively? From ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk Sun Jan 16 12:36:37 2005 From: ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk (Lawrence Wilkinson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1105900597.2418.45.camel@ljw.me.uk> A more 'coffee table' type of book is the Taschen one: http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/books/design/all/facts/02976.htm Lots of nice photos of mainframes, minis, micros, but concentrates on the 'design' (i.e. their appearance). It has a few basic errors but the photos make up for it. In particular, the only time I have ever seen a fashion model posing with an IBM mainframe (and a 360/30 at that): http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360/photos/t360-30-4d2.jpg (Don't get too excited Sellam) On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 17:06, Arlen Michaels wrote: > There's a brief review of "Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the > Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here: > > http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868# (review snipped) > Arlen Michaels -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360 From nico at farumdata.dk Sun Jan 16 12:38:05 2005 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? References: Message-ID: <002e01c4fbfa$85074b20$2101a8c0@finans> From: "Vintage Computer Festival" To: "Classic Computers Mailing List" Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 4:47 PM Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? > > Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? ISTR that extra floppies can be added via the DEVICE command in CONFIG.SYS. I have no DOS manual handy, so I cant check it. Nico From jrkeys at concentric.net Sun Jan 16 12:49:17 2005 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) References: <1105900597.2418.45.camel@ljw.me.uk> Message-ID: <004101c4fbfc$16f2d580$1bd4ef42@66067007> Half Price Books was selling this book for $9 and Amazon was at $12. john ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lawrence Wilkinson" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 12:36 PM Subject: Re: Desktops then and now (book review) >A more 'coffee table' type of book is the Taschen one: > > http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/books/design/all/facts/02976.htm > > Lots of nice photos of mainframes, minis, micros, but concentrates on > the 'design' (i.e. their appearance). It has a few basic errors but the > photos make up for it. In particular, the only time I have ever seen a > fashion model posing with an IBM mainframe (and a 360/30 at that): > > http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360/photos/t360-30-4d2.jpg > > (Don't get too excited Sellam) > > On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 17:06, Arlen Michaels wrote: >> There's a brief review of "Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the >> Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here: >> >> http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868# > (review snipped) >> Arlen Michaels > -- > Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk > The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360 > From chenmel at earthlink.net Sun Jan 16 13:07:07 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 07:47:15 -0800 (PST) Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms > are eluding me. > > Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I > stick two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different > base address and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me > to do this) will DOS automatically recognize the second controller and > extend the drive letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? > > -- The original IBM-PC's floppy controller made provisions for four floppy drives. There are control lines to select up to four drives on the single interface. They put a 37-pin D-shape connector on the bracket of early IBM floppy controller cards so you could plug in an expansion case with two external floppy drives. I only did this once, as an experiment, to see if I could run my old WWIV BBS on floppy-drives only, to reduce the noise of the machine. (It worked, but was much slower.) I'm pretty sure the 'fix' isn't to plug in an old IBM controller, though, unless you're already talking about a vintage restoration project. But the third and fourth select lines should be available on some controllers. > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer > Festival------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- International Man of Intrigue and Danger > http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage > Computers ][ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at > http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 13:21:33 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: <1105900597.2418.45.camel@ljw.me.uk> Message-ID: On 16 Jan 2005, Lawrence Wilkinson wrote: > Lots of nice photos of mainframes, minis, micros, but concentrates on > the 'design' (i.e. their appearance). It has a few basic errors but the > photos make up for it. In particular, the only time I have ever seen a > fashion model posing with an IBM mainframe (and a 360/30 at that): > > http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360/photos/t360-30-4d2.jpg > > (Don't get too excited Sellam) That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer, and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make good computer ornaments". -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 13:23:55 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Scott Stevens wrote: > The original IBM-PC's floppy controller made provisions for four floppy > drives. There are control lines to select up to four drives on the > single interface. They put a 37-pin D-shape connector on the bracket of > early IBM floppy controller cards so you could plug in an expansion case > with two external floppy drives. > > I only did this once, as an experiment, to see if I could run my old > WWIV BBS on floppy-drives only, to reduce the noise of the machine. (It > worked, but was much slower.) > > I'm pretty sure the 'fix' isn't to plug in an old IBM controller, > though, unless you're already talking about a vintage restoration > project. But the third and fourth select lines should be available on > some controllers. I'd like to make a box with four floppy types: 5.25" 360 and 1.2, and 3.5" 720 and 1.44. I seem to recall someone here did this. I imagine I can use the integrated floppy controller and then add another board to provide the additional controller. I'll check the DOS manual to see if it says anything as Nico indicates. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From brain at jbrain.com Sun Jan 16 13:23:51 2005 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: On a tangential note concerning Panix and old Internet ISPs Message-ID: <41EABF47.7060701@jbrain.com> //.: "Panix , the oldest commercial Internet provider in New York, had its domain name 'panix.com' hijacked by persons unknown. The main effect on users is that mail sent to panix's customers is being routed to a bogus mail server run by the hijackers." / -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations brain@jbrain.com http://www.jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! From cannings at earthlink.net Sun Jan 16 13:51:33 2005 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop References: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> Message-ID: <005b01c4fc04$c7fde330$6401a8c0@hal9000> Tore, I agree with the guys that you need to not boot that machine anymore as it could screw up the remaining data on the hard drive. I would remove the hard drive and put in into a known good PC as a Secondary Master or Slave. If the laptop drive has 22 pins across ( for a total of 44 pins for top and bottom ) then you can get an adapter to plug it into a standard IDE cable and it also provides the proper power connector for standard PC power. If you can't find an adapter, Email me and I'll mail you one ( they are dirt cheap at computer swap meets ). Then just transfer the whole drive's contents ( can't be very much ) into a folder on the PC ( you could copy and paste the whole drive ) and then chuck the laptop and the old drive. This would be the fastest, most safe and least hassle solution. Regards, Steven C From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Jan 16 14:56:45 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41EAD50D.5040805@mdrconsult.com> Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > It's only "slightly" off-topic because what I'm building is a new case for my > Apple 1 "Replica 1" board. > > I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass > simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. The guy at the > plastic supply company tried selling me a special drill bit, but I'm hesitant > about that. Does anyone has hands-on experience and tips (vs. just > speculation) about working with this stuff? This computer will be on display > as some public events, so the final appearance is very important. I've never seen Plexiglas shatter or split, but small cracks in the corner of a cut or radiating from a drilled hole is very very common. Plexiglas is a nightmare to machine. That includes drilling, cutting to size, sanding, everything. It's very subject to stress fractures, which means you have to cool your cut and cut very slowly and evenly. Unless you're very good with a hand drill or have a drill press, I would recommend Lexan instead. If you do use Plexiglas, there are some things you need to do: Have some spare drill bits, saw blades, etc. You'll probably dull some, and cutting with a dulled bit is very likely to cause cracks. Cool the cut with water or a light soap solution. This reduces stress during the cut, and also carries away the fragments as you cut. Polish all cuts and radius all edges. By "polish", I don't mean "make it shiny again", but remove any tool marks and ridges, and sand the corner off the edges. Any sharp corner, inside or outside, is a "stress relief point". Sounds like a good thing, right? but stress is relieved by cracking at that point. If you're bolting this piece together, or to another assembly, use some kind of rubber/plastic grommet at attachment points. Even with a good cut and good finishing, the stress of tightening screws against the Plexiglas is still risky. Even a stiff "nylock" washer is better than nothing. I'd use Lexan if at all possible, or just build a metal or plastic case with viewing windows. If you do that, you can use clips or adhesive to hold the Plexiglas and not worry about drilling at all. Doc From stanb at dial.pipex.com Sun Jan 16 12:39:31 2005 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 16 Jan 2005 17:19:40 GMT." <1105895980.7317.24.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <200501161839.SAA18779@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi > That's usually thin material, 2mm or so - maybe the thicker stuff is > somehow more prone to breaking in this way? I've used it up to about an inch or so thick* with no problem, you've just got to be careful. Tapping holes in it is a bit laborious as you have to keep backing the tap out to clear the swarf otherwise the tap tends to jam up. Slowly and carefully is the method when working with this stuff! * _Slowly_ with a proper machine shop band-saw and pillar drill... -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb@dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Jan 16 15:14:50 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41EAD94A.8090800@mdrconsult.com> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Scott Stevens wrote: > > >>The original IBM-PC's floppy controller made provisions for four floppy >>drives. There are control lines to select up to four drives on the >>single interface. They put a 37-pin D-shape connector on the bracket of >>early IBM floppy controller cards so you could plug in an expansion case >>with two external floppy drives. >> >>I only did this once, as an experiment, to see if I could run my old >>WWIV BBS on floppy-drives only, to reduce the noise of the machine. (It >>worked, but was much slower.) >> >>I'm pretty sure the 'fix' isn't to plug in an old IBM controller, >>though, unless you're already talking about a vintage restoration >>project. But the third and fourth select lines should be available on >>some controllers. > > > I'd like to make a box with four floppy types: 5.25" 360 and 1.2, and > 3.5" 720 and 1.44. I seem to recall someone here did this. Unless you need to be able to have 2 disks of the same size active at the same time, you don't need four drives. I have a 5.25/3.5" combo drive that handles all four of those formats (and 3.5" 360K) just fine. The gorgeous part is that it occupies a single 5.25" bay. You have to be careful with the newer x86 motherboards, though - a lot of them will only configure a single floppy at the BIOS level. I don't imagine that's a big deal in this crowd though. ;) Doc From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Jan 16 15:20:26 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <41EAD94A.8090800@mdrconsult.com> References: <41EAD94A.8090800@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <41EADA9A.2000201@mdrconsult.com> Doc Shipley wrote: > Unless you need to be able to have 2 disks of the same size active at > the same time, you don't need four drives. Errk. "same physical size".... Doc From bobcaar at softhome.net Sun Jan 16 13:44:49 2005 From: bobcaar at softhome.net (Devon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050116144449.00caba78@pop.softhome.net> A circular saw can also be used to cut plexiglass easily. Just use a regular plywood blade, but put it on backwards and leave the protective film on/use tape where you make the cut. T.H.x. Devon From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 16 15:59:43 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: from Vintage Computer Festival at "Jan 16, 5 11:21:33 am" Message-ID: <200501162159.NAA12196@floodgap.com> > That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and > advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message > could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer, > and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make > good computer ornaments". You're kidding! That isn't true? -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "Live and Let Die" --------------------------------- From fernande at internet1.net Sun Jan 16 16:35:30 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Linux and an old IBM PS/2 8570 In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20050116075925.02adfe30@mail.n.ml.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050116075925.02adfe30@mail.n.ml.org> Message-ID: <41EAEC32.107@internet1.net> John, I'm not sure that booting off of the scsi is possible with the ESDI setup present. The special boot partition can be created elsewhere. You need the Reference disk and the Diagnostic disk for your machine. Both should be available on the Internet, do a Google search for MCA Mafia. Most of the MCA Mafia hangs out at comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware in Usenet. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA John Boffemmyer IV wrote: > The big thing is that it doesn't want to boot from SCSI. > The other thing is that I've been told it has some sort of special boot partition > on the 60MB ESDI drive. From fernande at internet1.net Sun Jan 16 16:35:33 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Misc available for free Message-ID: <41EAEC35.102@internet1.net> Hey all, Free, plus shipping. I have everything split into 5 groups. I don't want to split the groups up, as I don't want to be sending out 100 boxs in 100 different directions. -Commodore 128, good shape cosmetically, all cords, power supply etc, original box, but doesn't work. It would freeze up on me, and I lost interest. -Zip100 for PC's (parallel port), new---I opened it, but I can't get it to work on either of my machines. It may very well be fine, since I can't get a Micro Solutions to work on my machines either. -a box full of PC leftovers, a pair of earlier Pentium class chips, slot covers, bay covers, centronics scsi cables, internal 50 pin scsi cables, floppy cables, several fans, a small scsi drive, a small ide drive, Hayes Accura 336 modem, drive rails, blah blah blah..... -IBM AT motherboard, serial card, 8/16 bit VGA card, Adaptec 1542B scsi card, 8-bit ISA MFM ST11R HD controller, Unisys Personal Workstation 2 Multiple Port Board with splitter cable drivers and instructions. -USR Courier V Everything (older one), doesn't seem to work, but has instructions, power supply, and good shape cosmetically..... maybe you need a PS to fix one, or make it look better? Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From fernande at internet1.net Sun Jan 16 16:39:02 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Linux and an old IBM PS/2 8570 In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20050116075925.02adfe30@mail.n.ml.org> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20050116075925.02adfe30@mail.n.ml.org> Message-ID: <41EAED06.8000208@internet1.net> John, I'm not sure that booting off of the scsi is possible with the ESDI setup present. The special boot partition can be created elsewhere. You need the Reference disk and the Diagnostic disk for your machine. Both should be available on the Internet, do a Google search for MCA Mafia. Most of the MCA Mafia hangs out at comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware in Usenet. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA John Boffemmyer IV wrote: > The big thing is that it doesn't want to boot from SCSI. > The other thing is that I've been told it has some sort of special boot partition > on the 60MB ESDI drive. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 16 17:06:21 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050116150001.A33193@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms are > eluding me. > Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I stick > two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different base address > and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me to do this) will > DOS automatically recognize the second controller and extend the drive > letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? If it actually IS a PC (5150), . . . The PC and XT controller has an internal, and an external connector, each of which supports two drives. The dipswitches on the motherboard can be set for 4 floppies, in which case A:,B:,C;,and D: will be floppies, and hard drive, if any will be E:. If you set the switches for TWO drives, then the hard drive, if any, will be C:, and you'll need to use DRIVER.SYS or equivalent to access the other two drives. If it is actually an AT, . . . There are SOME disk controllers that support 4 floppies. With MOST of them, you'll need to use DRIVER.SYS. Or, you can look for a second floppy controller that supports an alternate address (the Compaticard is the most popular), and you will need some minor additional software (which is often bundled with the controller). -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 16 17:20:10 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050116150848.T33193@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > I'd like to make a box with four floppy types: 5.25" 360 and 1.2, and > 3.5" 720 and 1.44. I seem to recall someone here did this. Sure. That was close to the "standard" configuration at my office. My early (16K base) 5150 had 2 360s, a 5.25 720, a 3.5 720, and an 8" (on a separate controller) One of the XTs had 2 360s and a 720. One of my ATs had a 360, a 1.2, and 2 1.4s Another had a 360, a 1.2, a 1.4, a 2.8 (on parallel port), and a floptical (SCSI). ALL of the machines in that office had more than 2 floppies. I think that Monte ended up with most of that hardware; I don't know whether he would be able to locate it, or how much survived when the school dumpstered his collection. > I imagine I can use the integrated floppy controller and then add another > board to provide the additional controller. > I'll check the DOS manual to see if it says anything as Nico indicates. DEVICE = DRIVER.SYS /D:physical-drive-number /F:drive-type (0=360, 1=1.2, 2=720, 7?=1.4) If you are using an XT with 4 floppy support, DRIVPARM can be used to override the configuration of a drive, but NOT with the IBM BIOS! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 16 13:56:30 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6F@mail.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 15, 5 10:06:11 pm Message-ID: > > > Qume drive working, but don't know where to go next. I > > guess I could swap > > > the boards between the two units, but that'll only tell me if it is > > > electronic or electro-mechanical. > > > > > > Other than that, any suggestions for figuring out if it is > > alignment, broken > > > sensor, or something electrical? > > > > The alignment adjustments, in general, are what are known as > > 'interchangeability adjustments'. In other words, if they're > > a bit off, > > the drive will be able to format, read, and write its own disks, but > > those disks will not be useable on other drives, and vice versa. > > > > So what you do first is to hook the drive up as B: and try > > formatting a > > blank disk in it. Note that if, for some reason, the machine > > thinks it > > only has one drive, it'll map A: _and_ B: to that drive. > > You'll get some > > obvious messages if this has happened, in which case the problem is > > certainly not just alignment. > > Well, I did this and learned something VERY important. The disk only > formatted as 180K. So, it doesn't see that it is a double sided drive. The In wich case there's no point (yet) in trying to do any form of alignment. There is a real fault. > same diskette put back in the working drive formatted to 360K. So, how do > these drives tell if they're dealing with SS vs. DS meadia? Does it just > look for a signal from the second head? Is there another sensor that > indicates "yep - double sided". This is how it works with 8" drives. The > index hole is in a physically different spot. Unlike the 8" drives, there is no signle/double sided signal on the 5.25" drive interface connector, and there's no sensor for anything like that (I looked at the schematics this morning, they look pretty standard, there are 3 sensors for index. write protect, and track 0). My guess is that either : a) The side select signal does nothing due to a logic fault in the drive, and that therefore when it tries to read the second side, it gets the data from the first side. A true signle-sided drive would do this. b) There is no useful signal from the side-1 head (this is the head on the top surface of the disk, of course), either because the head is dirty/defective, or a damaged connection back to the logic board, or an electronic fault on the board. I am not sure what the software would do under those conditions -- by rights it should give errors for every sector on side-1, but it's possible it then assumes the media is really single-sided, and formats it accordingly. I think i will have to grab the schematics and see if I can talk you through the circuitry. > in. Any tips based on the schematic would be of help. Since all I have at > the moment is a DMM and a homemade logic probe, my tools are lacking to > fully solve this problem. Well, although _now_ I have some very nice test gear, I debugged my first homebrew computer (This was when homebrewing meant soldering chips to stripboard and wiring everything up, not pluging a video card into a motherboard) with an anlaogue multimeter and an LED+resitor 'logic probe'. So it certainly _can_ be done... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 16 17:14:52 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C6F@mail.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 15, 5 10:06:11 pm Message-ID: > Well, I did this and learned something VERY important. The disk only > formatted as 180K. So, it doesn't see that it is a double sided drive. The > same diskette put back in the working drive formatted to 360K. So, how do > these drives tell if they're dealing with SS vs. DS meadia? Does it just > look for a signal from the second head? Is there another sensor that > indicates "yep - double sided". This is how it works with 8" drives. The > index hole is in a physically different spot. I've got the schematic in front of me. The head selection circuitry is quite qimple, and the rest of the read/write chain is common to both heads, so presumably it's working correctly. The heads are selected by U4 (75451 dual AND gate/driver), the outputs of which are pulled to+5V, and slo drive the bases of Q7 (Head 1) and Q6 (Head 0), PN2222 transistors via restors. One input of each of the AND gates comes from the power-OK circuit, built round Q9 and Q10 (as this is common to both heads, it's working correctly), the other input comes from the sides select signal on the connector (U4b, for head 1) or from that signal inverted by U8b (7414) on U4a, for head 0. That should give you some components to check. As normal, the head switching involves diodes, in this case CR1-CR3 for head 0 and CR4-CR6 for head 1. The heads plug into the connectors A1-A7 (Head 0) and B1-B7 (Head 1), the pinout being : 1,2 : ground 3 : Erase drive 4,6 : Head select (other end of erase coil, centre-tap of read/write coil) 5 : One end of the read/write coil 7 : Other end of the read/write coil. You can check the head for continuity, but don't pass too much current through it, and if possible demagnetise it (a tape head demagnetiser is fine) after measuring it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 16 17:32:43 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: from "Vintage Computer Festival" at Jan 16, 5 07:47:15 am Message-ID: > > > I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms are > eluding me. > > Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I stick If 'PC' means an IBM5150, then yes, trivially. A: and B: connect to the intenral drive cable, C: and D: connect to the DC37 socket on the back of the card. But I guess that's not what you mean (this card supports 360K and 720K drives only, BTW). > two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different base address > and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me to do this) will The intrrupt is not the problem (you can share interrups on the iSA bus provided you don't want them both enabled at the same time, which you wouldn't here). Most controllers, alas, do not support alternative addresses, but one time, in a fit of madness, I did a cut-and-jumper mod to add an inverter to one of the address lines going to a UMC disk controller chip to get it to a different address (this was to put _6_ drives on my PC/XT, the last 2 being 8" on this hacked controller). > DOS automatically recognize the second controller and extend the drive > letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? MS-DOS, and pesumably Windows, will not support 2 disk controllers automatically , or even easily. I believe linux does, it'll even support up to 4 drives per controller (if you look at how the drive select bits are allocated to the output port, it's obvious how this would be extended for 4 drives). I wrote my on MS-DOS software to handle the 8" drives (I wanted them to read/write PERQ interchange disks, so only being able to use them from that special program was not a problem). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 16 17:07:04 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: from "John Lawson" at Jan 15, 5 10:11:25 pm Message-ID: > One thing you can do is pilot-drill it with a much smaller drill, and > then run the big drill half-way through, flipping the work over and then > drilling from the other side so the holes meet in the middle. This takes > some accuracy, and a 'jig' on a drill-press, so that the holes line up. As You can also dril from one side until the point of the drill _just_ appears on the other side, then flip the workpiece over and drill from that side. I've drilled brittle plastics using a hand drill by doing that. -tony From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 18:10:50 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <41EAD94A.8090800@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Doc Shipley wrote: > > I'd like to make a box with four floppy types: 5.25" 360 and 1.2, and > > 3.5" 720 and 1.44. I seem to recall someone here did this. > > Unless you need to be able to have 2 disks of the same size active at > the same time, you don't need four drives. > > I have a 5.25/3.5" combo drive that handles all four of those formats > (and 3.5" 360K) just fine. The gorgeous part is that it occupies a > single 5.25" bay. I've got one of those installed already. It's a Teac FD-505. My, but they're useful. I have a stash of them. Whenever I get in a PC that has one I strip out the drive before heaving the rest. What brand/model is yours? Sweet! Dell has the documentation for these drives online: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/dta/37030/ The whole impetus behind this was that I was trying to read an old 360K (might even be 320K or even 180K, I'm not sure) disk and while I could read the directory, none of the files larger than say a cluster could be read. I attributed this to the drive not being a "true" 360K drive. Fred seems to be the Guru with regards to floppy formats, and perhaps I misinterpreted what I read, but I recall him bringing up a scenario in which a disk formatted as 360K on a newer drive would not be readable on an "actual" (i.e older) 360K drive, or the other way around, or something. > You have to be careful with the newer x86 motherboards, though - a > lot of them will only configure a single floppy at the BIOS level. I > don't imagine that's a big deal in this crowd though. ;) I'm using an older 486 motherboard, and it works fine of course. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 18:12:31 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050116144449.00caba78@pop.softhome.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Devon wrote: > A circular saw can also be used to cut plexiglass easily. Just use a > regular plywood blade, but put it on backwards and leave the protective > film on/use tape where you make the cut. Hmm, never considered putting on the blade backwards. I used my table saw to cut some nylon cutting board (about 1/2" thick). It seemed to wear down the blade a bit (it strainsa tad when I cut wood now...better change it) but it worked pretty well. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 16 18:13:53 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: <200501162159.NAA12196@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and > > advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message > > could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer, > > and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make > > good computer ornaments". > > You're kidding! That isn't true? Are you being facetious? At any rate, no, in this rare case I am not kidding. The brochures and ads from the 1960s and 1970s were amazingly mysoginistic. If the editors of FHM were alive back then, they'd be doing computer industry ads. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From fmc at reanimators.org Sun Jan 16 18:33:17 2005 From: fmc at reanimators.org (Frank McConnell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: (Vintage Computer Festival's message of "Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:13:53 -0800 (PST)") References: Message-ID: <200501170033.j0H0XH6b084387@lots.reanimators.org> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> > That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and >> > advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message >> > could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer, >> > and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make >> > good computer ornaments". >> >> You're kidding! That isn't true? > > Are you being facetious? > > At any rate, no, in this rare case I am not kidding. The brochures and > ads from the 1960s and 1970s were amazingly mysoginistic. If the editors > of FHM were alive back then, they'd be doing computer industry ads. You say that like there's something bad about it. --- begin forwarded article --- From: Crash Johnson Subject: Re: old ads (was Card...) Date: 1998/11/21 Message-ID: <365775B2.C29595CC@ezonline.nospam.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <7379ef$ckf@netaxs.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Snow Crash Crew Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lisa or Jeff wrote: > > > And a slightly off-topic question inspired by the comment upthread > > about sexist terms: back in the 1960s there was a DP company that > > ran a series of ads in _Datamation_ bragging that its (computer? > > editor? whatever?) was "able to understand COBOL, FORTRAN, and > > dumb blonde". <> > If you were to look at business publications (ie trade journals and > advertisements) from the 1960s you'd be shocked at the blatant sexism. <> In my sexist youth I kept notebook called "The Role of Women in Engineering" which consisted of clippings from ads which featured naked/seminaked/shapely women used to draw attention to products in Mechanical Engineering, Design News, and Product Engineering from 1970 on. Many of these photos were shots by noted fashion photographers which were used over & over again for different products. By 1985 these had virtually disappeared from the technical magazines. So since then I have had to subscribe to People Magazine. -- Crash 'I'm so ashamed' Johnson --- end forwarded article --- -Frank McConnell From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 16 18:34:39 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: from Vintage Computer Festival at "Jan 16, 5 04:13:53 pm" Message-ID: <200501170034.QAA34624@floodgap.com> > > > That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and > > > advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message > > > could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer, > > > and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make > > > good computer ornaments". > > > > You're kidding! That isn't true? > > Are you being facetious? Unbelievably ;) -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Why is it you can only trust short, dumpy spies? -- Hogan, "Hogan's Heroes" From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 16 18:37:57 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050116144449.00caba78@pop.softhome.net> Message-ID: <20050117003758.6637.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> Backward? What does that do? --- Devon wrote: > A circular saw can also be used to cut plexiglass easily. Just use a > regular plywood blade, but put it on backwards and leave the protective > film on/use tape where you make the cut. > > T.H.x. > Devon > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 16 18:56:51 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050116164711.B33455@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > The whole impetus behind this was that I was trying to read an old 360K > (might even be 320K or even 180K, I'm not sure) disk and while I could > read the directory, none of the files larger than say a cluster could be > read. I attributed this to the drive not being a "true" 360K drive. Are you sure that the disk is in a PC-DOS format? If the diskette is 96tpi (720k 5.25) such as PC-JX, Toshiba 300, . . . then track 0 will be readbale, but the other tracks won't. OR,... if the boot sector, and/or the first byte of the FAT is wrong/different, then DOS will misunderstand the disk parameters and screw up. > Fred seems to be the Guru with regards to floppy formats, and perhaps I > misinterpreted what I read, but I recall him bringing up a scenario in > which a disk formatted as 360K on a newer drive would not be readable on > an "actual" (i.e older) 360K drive, or the other way around, or something. The most common problem is that 96tpi drives, both 720K and 1.2M, write a narrower track than 360K (about 1/6 mm wide at about 1/4mm center to center, v about 1/3mm wide at about 1/2mm center to center) Because of that, when a 96tpi drive REWRITES a track that was previously written by a 48tpi drive, it might not reliably erase all of the edges of the old track. In such a case, it should still read reliably in a 96tpi drive, but not necessarily reliably in a 48tpi. OR,... if you format a VIRGIN (or bulk erased) disk as 360 in a 1.2, it should read OK. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jan 16 19:02:01 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Computer Education In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 16 Jan 2005 13:13:29 EST." <008e01c4fbf7$158491c0$2b2fc4d8@icsdevelopment> Message-ID: <200501170102.j0H121uU029309@mwave.heeltoe.com> "George & Oksana Wiegand" wrote: >Anyone have experience or know for a factor of a Bachelor's degree program >that teaches computer hardware and software in a logical order and >comprehensively? I think this is one of the most interesting questions I've seen here in a while. I've been nipping at a nice Barolo, so I'll save real commentary till later. I'm a bit enamored with "course 6" at MIT. But I'm not in love with the mix of students. Way too skewed toward high test scores with out enough arts and common sense. Few of them lust after dancing puti sculpled by dead italian guys. But they do have a mean microprocessor lab course (6-114/6-115). I'll bet that is on the web. Recently I've run into Olin College here in Boston. I think it might have potential. I don't know enough about the curriculum to say but the students I've talked to are top notch and not afraid at all to do fundumental engineering work. I was pretty impressed with a group who flew water rockets from their quad in the middle of the night and used doppler shift to track the different phases of propulsion & flight. not bad given all they had was a sound card and matlab. and some others made a full blown pong game from a xilinx. they just fired up some verilog and went at it. I'd hire those guys. Some day I'd like to look into Carnegie Mellon. Everyone I've met from there had good fundamentals. I don't know their program but it seems to good. But as for logical order, I'm not sure. Most try to not be 'vo-tech schools' but then get lost trying to cover fundamentals. I have strong opinions but they are probably just that, opinions. I (hah) naturally believe in massaging the shoulders of the giants we all stand on, so I'd start by reproducing the Eniac in a FPGA :-) And then doing an in-depth study of Grace Hopper, followed by Gordon Bell and some of those upstart guys from Leyland Stanford. I might make a few semiconductors from scratch along the way and write a paper or two on how storage scopes really work. Oh, and a paper or two on why those holes flow the way they do. I'm still trying to figure out why those holes move they way they do. And I'd also study the Manhattan project and Enrico Fermi. But that's me. I remember I ran into a brief report on Lous Slotin when I was in high school. Ever since then I'm really careful when I pry something open with a screwdriver. -brad From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 16 19:00:41 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: from "Vintage Computer Festival" at Jan 16, 5 04:10:50 pm Message-ID: > The whole impetus behind this was that I was trying to read an old 360K > (might even be 320K or even 180K, I'm not sure) disk and while I could > read the directory, none of the files larger than say a cluster could be > read. I attributed this to the drive not being a "true" 360K drive. There is no problem reading a true 40-cylinder disk on an 80 cylinder drive (provided the software knows to double-step it). The problem comes if you write to a 40 cylinder disk on an 80 cylinder drive and then try to read it on a true 40 cylinder drive. I remember writing a FAQ about this a couple of years back.... -tony From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Sun Jan 16 18:53:47 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050116195347.0094b320@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 07:47 AM 1/16/05 -0800, you wrote: > >I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms are >eluding me. > >Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? In a REAL IBM PC? You bet! The original IBM PC Floppy drive controller had a 37 pin connector on the back panel. You could connect two drives to the internal connector and two to the external connector. Many of the thrid party FD controller cards also had the external drive port. Yes DOS will recognize the 3rd and 4th drives as C: and D: if no hard drive is installed. I don't remember what drive letters it assigns if a HD is present but I THINK they will still be C: and D:. Joe If so, how? If I stick >two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different base address >and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me to do this) will >DOS automatically recognize the second controller and extend the drive >letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? > >-- > >Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- >International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > >[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] >[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Sun Jan 16 19:01:12 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050116200112.00952760@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 02:07 PM 1/16/05 -0500, you wrote: >On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 07:47:15 -0800 (PST) >Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >> >> I know we've discussed this before but the right Google search terms >> are eluding me. >> >> Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? If so, how? If I >> stick two controllers in the PC and configure one with a different >> base address and interrupt (assuming I can find a card that allows me >> to do this) will DOS automatically recognize the second controller and >> extend the drive letters C: and D: to the drives on that card? >> >> -- >The original IBM-PC's floppy controller made provisions for four floppy >drives. There are control lines to select up to four drives on the >single interface. They put a 37-pin D-shape connector on the bracket of >early IBM floppy controller cards so you could plug in an expansion case >with two external floppy drives. I used to run four (5.25") drives with no problems. My NEC Multispeed laptop also had a provision to connect it to a PC's external drive connector and you could then access the Multispeed's two 720k 3.5" disks as the 3rd and 4th drive on the PC. I made a cable to connect the Multispeed to the PC but I loaned it and all my NEC Multispeed manuals to one of the members of this list and he never returned them. In both cases, I had to add a line or two in the Config.sys file to make DOS recognize the 3rd and 4th drives. Joe > >I only did this once, as an experiment, to see if I could run my old >WWIV BBS on floppy-drives only, to reduce the noise of the machine. (It >worked, but was much slower.) > >I'm pretty sure the 'fix' isn't to plug in an old IBM controller, >though, unless you're already talking about a vintage restoration >project. But the third and fourth select lines should be available on >some controllers. > >> >> Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer >> Festival------------------------------------------------------------- >> ----------------- International Man of Intrigue and Danger >> http://www.vintage.org >> >> [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage >> Computers ][ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at >> http://marketplace.vintage.org ] >> > From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 16 19:12:51 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <1105883162.7300.7.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> <1105883162.7300.7.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050116171214.J2429@localhost> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > Question - is plexiglass the same as perspex, or is it a totally > different animal? I believe it's the same stuff. There are so many acrylic variants these days you gotta watch out. Actual plexiglas (brandname) is very brittle. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 16 19:16:22 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050116195347.0094b320@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050116195347.0094b320@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050116171307.J33455@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Joe R. wrote: > In a REAL IBM PC? You bet! The original IBM PC Floppy drive controller > had a 37 pin connector on the back panel. You could connect two drives to > the internal connector and two to the external connector. Many of the thrid > party FD controller cards also had the external drive port. Yes DOS will > recognize the 3rd and 4th drives as C: and D: if no hard drive is > installed. I don't remember what drive letters it assigns if a HD is > present but I THINK they will still be C: and D:. Your choice, depending on the settings of the dip switches on the motherboard. If set for 2 drives, then hard disk will be C:, and you'll need to use DRIVER.SYS or equicalent for the other two floppies. If set for 4 drives, then hard disk will be E:, and floppies will be A; through D:. If you are going to have more than 5 drive letters (including RAMDISKS, CD-ROMs, etc.) then set LASTDRIVE in CONFIG.SYS. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 16 19:26:33 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050116200112.00952760@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050116200112.00952760@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050116171837.D33455@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Joe R. wrote: > I used to run four (5.25") drives with no problems. My NEC Multispeed > laptop also had a provision to connect it to a PC's external drive > connector and you could then access the Multispeed's two 720k 3.5" disks as > the 3rd and 4th drive on the PC. I made a cable to connect the Multispeed > to the PC but I loaned it and all my NEC Multispeed manuals to one of the > members of this list and he never returned them. In both cases, I had to > add a line or two in the Config.sys file to make DOS recognize the 3rd and > 4th drives. If the motherboard switches (or CMOS in >= AT) are set for 2 drives, then: DEVICE = DRIVER.SYS /D:2 /F:2 DEVICE = DRIVER.SYS /D:3 /F:2 If the switches are set for 4 drives, then you could still use DRIVER.SYS and access the drives as F: and G:, Or use DRIVPARM, with /F:2 NOTE: DRIVPARM is present in both MS-DOS and PC-DOS, but UNDOCUMENTED in PC-DOS, and is incompatible with the real IBM BIOS, although it will work with almost all aftermarket BIOS's. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Jan 16 19:26:12 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:03 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41EB1434.4010304@oldskool.org> Tony Duell wrote: > There is no problem reading a true 40-cylinder disk on an 80 cylinder > drive (provided the software knows to double-step it). The problem comes > if you write to a 40 cylinder disk on an 80 cylinder drive and then try > to read it on a true 40 cylinder drive. > > I remember writing a FAQ about this a couple of years back.... As did I, including a procedure that helps you actually get it working (http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/hardware/1.2mb_to_360k.html). -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Sun Jan 16 19:50:53 2005 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Devon wrote: > > > A circular saw can also be used to cut plexiglass easily. Just use a > > regular plywood blade, but put it on backwards and leave the protective > > film on/use tape where you make the cut. > > Hmm, never considered putting on the blade backwards. I used my table saw > to cut some nylon cutting board (about 1/2" thick). It seemed to wear > down the blade a bit (it strainsa tad when I cut wood now...better change > it) but it worked pretty well. I've used a non-ferrous metal cutting circular saw blade for cutting acrylic sheet - cuts like through butter: http://www.tools-plus.com/frelu89m010.html Here are some tips for working with acrylic: http://www.sdplastics.com/acrylic.html Mike Loewen mloewen@cpumagic.scol.pa.us The Dixie Lion Jazz Band http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/dixie.html The B9 Robot Builders Club B9-0014 http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/B9/ Old Technology Collection http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From Innfogra at aol.com Sun Jan 16 19:59:05 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? Message-ID: <199.36a8ee8f.2f1c75e9@aol.com> Western Digital made a 4 floppy controller for this. It is the 1002A-FOX F002 / 004 according to my 1996 CSC Hard Drive Bible. They say: F002 controls 4 floppys only. F004 has a BIOS on card which permits installation of 1.2 and 1.44 MB drives in XT machines that normally only support 360K or 720K drives. A note at the bottom: Uses WS-37C65 cchip, works well in 286/386 machines. You might look for one of those. Paxton Astoria, OR From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jan 16 20:38:07 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Slightly OT: tips for fabricating with plexiglass? In-Reply-To: <20050116025121.5808.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > I've heard some horror stories about whole (expensive!) sheets of plexiglass > simply breaking in half when incorrectly drilled through. The guy at the > plastic supply company tried selling me a special drill bit, but I'm hesitant > about that. Does anyone has hands-on experience and tips (vs. just > speculation) about working with this stuff? This computer will be on display > as some public events, so the final appearance is very important. Slow, Sharp, and Lubed. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 16 22:02:55 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: la120 consumables Message-ID: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Anyone know a good (cheap) source for LA120 ribbons? Jay West From nico at farumdata.dk Sun Jan 16 23:30:09 2005 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? References: <002e01c4fbfa$85074b20$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <004001c4fc55$9c81f9c0$2101a8c0@finans> > From: "Vintage Computer Festival" > > > > Is it possible to get 4 floppy drives onto a PC? I came to think of that there exist some Multi-IO EISA controllers, with 2x COM, 1x LP, 2xFloppy and 1 or 2 HDD* The ones I think of, have jumpered IO adresses and IRQ's, so it aught to be a piece of cake. The * means that the drive capacity is limited (most cant access more then 500 MB or so), but as they can be disabled, there is no problem. Nico From mike at ambientdesign.com Sun Jan 16 23:21:02 2005 From: mike at ambientdesign.com (Mike van Bokhoven) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Mac 128, was Re: Desktops then and now (book review) References: <200501161742.JAA32740@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <003101c4fc54$5ec110e0$3d00a8c0@falco> > > The hardware we assembled at Bletchley was in pretty good condition, but > > still not without years worth of general handling wear. Considering > > that, the photographers and graphics team did a pretty good job from > > what I've seen of the book photos. > I heard they did have to cheat, of a sort, on some of the rarer models where > no pristine example was at their disposal. I think the original Mac 128K was > one of those, but I haven't seen the book yet. Are these really that rare? I have a very nice one, as-new, with original carry bag, printer, external floppy, manuals, etc, but didn't think it was overly rare. I'll be happy enough if I'm wrong... Mike. From tomj at wps.com Mon Jan 17 02:59:02 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050117005025.M2429@localhost> On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Tony Duell wrote: >> same diskette put back in the working drive formatted to 360K. So, how do >> these drives tell if they're dealing with SS vs. DS meadia? Does it just >> look for a signal from the second head? Is there another sensor that >> indicates "yep - double sided". This is how it works with 8" drives. The >> index hole is in a physically different spot. Why we always sneered at the hateful 5.25's. The FATID byte is used to know the sidedness on reading; the FAT, like boot sector, is always on the first side. 160, 180, 320, 360, make up your mind! :-) > b) There is no useful signal from the side-1 head (this is the head on > the top surface of the disk, of course), For all the possibilities you state, likely cause. > Well, although _now_ I have some very nice test gear, I debugged my first > homebrew computer (This was when homebrewing meant soldering chips to > stripboard and wiring everything up, not pluging a video card into a > motherboard) with an anlaogue multimeter and an LED+resitor 'logic > probe'. So it certainly _can_ be done... Likewise! On my very first own computer, SWTPC 6800, I debugged the fact I miswired the (20mA loop) tty using a Tek 555 scope to ID the Mikbug code loop waiting for the start bit. I was too dumb to realize I should have checked for Rx into the PIA :-) Soldered every damn chip and all those molex "card edge" connectors one at a time. Ugh. Plus a whole tube of 2102's (and not 21L02's) a year later. Now I buy only laptops, nearly impossible to even open them, and quite happy with that. :-) Even having to stick in a PCMCIA card these days seems invasive. Why isn't that built in? From dr.ido at bigpond.net.au Mon Jan 17 04:18:47 2005 From: dr.ido at bigpond.net.au (Dr. Ido) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Linux and an old IBM PS/2 8570 In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20050116075925.02adfe30@mail.n.ml.org> Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20050117201847.01696e70@pop-server> At 08:16 AM 1/16/05 -0500, you wrote: >I recently got an old IBM PS/2 8570 (as mentioned to some earlier). Been >thinking about putting Linux on it as the original owner put some company >proprietary software on it for some unknown network monitoring via >proprietary hardware (that has since been removed before I came into >possession). The big thing is that it doesn't want to boot from SCSI. I >have 4 cards and the adf disks for them. 1 is an IBM (supposedly Corvette) >controller. 2 are Adaptec 1640's (different year manufacture and slightly >different layout/revision). The final one is a Storage Dimensions 3211B >(technically a compatible, yet rarer C/D). The other thing is that I've >been told it has some sort of special boot partition on the 60MB ESDI >drive. The SCSI drives I'm trying to use are all 1 and 2.2GB Seagates with What ID are the drives you are trying to boot from set to? I seem to recall that some PS/2s want the HDD set to ID 6 before they will boot off it. They could also be fussy about other settings depending on the drives. I have used Seagate SCSI drives in PS/2s before, but they were <=500MB and other than the ID 6 thing I can't remember the details. From gmanuel at gmconsulting.net Mon Jan 17 04:56:14 2005 From: gmanuel at gmconsulting.net (GManuel (GMC)) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Misc available for free In-Reply-To: <41EAEC35.102@internet1.net> Message-ID: I would be interested in the Commodore 128 group and/or the Zip Drive group. Can you please tell me what shipping would be to the 19074 zipcode. You can email me direct at gmanuel at gmconsulting dot net. Thank you in advance for your time. Greg Manuel -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Chad Fernandez Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 5:36 PM To: rescue@sunhelp.org; cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Misc available for free Hey all, Free, plus shipping. I have everything split into 5 groups. I don't want to split the groups up, as I don't want to be sending out 100 boxs in 100 different directions. -Commodore 128, good shape cosmetically, all cords, power supply etc, original box, but doesn't work. It would freeze up on me, and I lost interest. -Zip100 for PC's (parallel port), new---I opened it, but I can't get it to work on either of my machines. It may very well be fine, since I can't get a Micro Solutions to work on my machines either. -a box full of PC leftovers, a pair of earlier Pentium class chips, slot covers, bay covers, centronics scsi cables, internal 50 pin scsi cables, floppy cables, several fans, a small scsi drive, a small ide drive, Hayes Accura 336 modem, drive rails, blah blah blah..... -IBM AT motherboard, serial card, 8/16 bit VGA card, Adaptec 1542B scsi card, 8-bit ISA MFM ST11R HD controller, Unisys Personal Workstation 2 Multiple Port Board with splitter cable drivers and instructions. -USR Courier V Everything (older one), doesn't seem to work, but has instructions, power supply, and good shape cosmetically..... maybe you need a PS to fix one, or make it look better? Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA >>> FREE spam killer: http://eliminatespam.com * FREE PopUp Buster+: http://popupbuster.net From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 17 06:45:48 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1105965948.8878.5.camel@weka.localdomain> On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 01:00 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > > The whole impetus behind this was that I was trying to read an old 360K > > (might even be 320K or even 180K, I'm not sure) disk and while I could > > read the directory, none of the files larger than say a cluster could be > > read. I attributed this to the drive not being a "true" 360K drive. > > There is no problem reading a true 40-cylinder disk on an 80 cylinder > drive (provided the software knows to double-step it). The problem comes > if you write to a 40 cylinder disk on an 80 cylinder drive and then try > to read it on a true 40 cylinder drive. > > I remember writing a FAQ about this a couple of years back.... > > -tony It'd be nice if there was a FAQ about floppy formats in general TBH. Covering some of the different geomery and encoding schemes out there etc. (not necessarily mentioning any machines by name). Hmm, I don't really know how it could be structured, but the same floppy questions seem to crop up time and time again. It'd also be a good place to mention some of the different controlling hardware out there (catweasel, SCSI floppy controllers etc.) Or go nuts and turn it into a small ftp site with a FAQ *and* docs / specs for different formats, hardware etc. cheers Jules From vax9000 at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 07:48:59 2005 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Misc available for free In-Reply-To: References: <41EAEC35.102@internet1.net> Message-ID: I am interested in the "box full of PC leftovers" for the SCSI cable, SCSI disk and rails, especially. Please let me know shipping cost of the box to Cleveland, 44120. Thanks. vax, 9000 On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:56:14 -0500, GManuel (GMC) wrote: > I would be interested in the Commodore 128 group and/or the Zip Drive group. > Can you please tell me what shipping would be to the 19074 zipcode. You can > email me direct at gmanuel at gmconsulting dot net. Thank you in advance for > your time. > > Greg Manuel > > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Chad Fernandez > Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 5:36 PM > To: rescue@sunhelp.org; cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: Misc available for free > > Hey all, > > Free, plus shipping. I have everything split into 5 groups. I don't > want to split the groups up, as I don't want to be sending out 100 boxs > in 100 different directions. > > -Commodore 128, good shape cosmetically, all cords, power supply etc, > original box, but doesn't work. It would freeze up on me, and I lost > interest. > > -Zip100 for PC's (parallel port), new---I opened it, but I can't get it > to work on either of my machines. It may very well be fine, since I > can't get a Micro Solutions to work on my machines either. > > -a box full of PC leftovers, a pair of earlier Pentium class chips, slot > covers, bay covers, centronics scsi cables, internal 50 pin scsi cables, > floppy cables, several fans, a small scsi drive, a small ide drive, > Hayes Accura 336 modem, drive rails, blah blah blah..... > > -IBM AT motherboard, serial card, 8/16 bit VGA card, Adaptec 1542B scsi > card, 8-bit ISA MFM ST11R HD controller, Unisys Personal Workstation 2 > Multiple Port Board with splitter cable drivers and instructions. > > -USR Courier V Everything (older one), doesn't seem to work, but has > instructions, power supply, and good shape cosmetically..... maybe you > need a PS to fix one, or make it look better? > > Chad Fernandez > Michigan, USA > > > >>> FREE spam killer: http://eliminatespam.com * FREE PopUp Buster+: > http://popupbuster.net > > From vax9000 at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 07:48:59 2005 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Misc available for free In-Reply-To: References: <41EAEC35.102@internet1.net> Message-ID: I am interested in the "box full of PC leftovers" for the SCSI cable, SCSI disk and rails, especially. Please let me know shipping cost of the box to Cleveland, 44120. Thanks. vax, 9000 On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 05:56:14 -0500, GManuel (GMC) wrote: > I would be interested in the Commodore 128 group and/or the Zip Drive group. > Can you please tell me what shipping would be to the 19074 zipcode. You can > email me direct at gmanuel at gmconsulting dot net. Thank you in advance for > your time. > > Greg Manuel > > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Chad Fernandez > Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 5:36 PM > To: rescue@sunhelp.org; cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: Misc available for free > > Hey all, > > Free, plus shipping. I have everything split into 5 groups. I don't > want to split the groups up, as I don't want to be sending out 100 boxs > in 100 different directions. > > -Commodore 128, good shape cosmetically, all cords, power supply etc, > original box, but doesn't work. It would freeze up on me, and I lost > interest. > > -Zip100 for PC's (parallel port), new---I opened it, but I can't get it > to work on either of my machines. It may very well be fine, since I > can't get a Micro Solutions to work on my machines either. > > -a box full of PC leftovers, a pair of earlier Pentium class chips, slot > covers, bay covers, centronics scsi cables, internal 50 pin scsi cables, > floppy cables, several fans, a small scsi drive, a small ide drive, > Hayes Accura 336 modem, drive rails, blah blah blah..... > > -IBM AT motherboard, serial card, 8/16 bit VGA card, Adaptec 1542B scsi > card, 8-bit ISA MFM ST11R HD controller, Unisys Personal Workstation 2 > Multiple Port Board with splitter cable drivers and instructions. > > -USR Courier V Everything (older one), doesn't seem to work, but has > instructions, power supply, and good shape cosmetically..... maybe you > need a PS to fix one, or make it look better? > > Chad Fernandez > Michigan, USA > > > >>> FREE spam killer: http://eliminatespam.com * FREE PopUp Buster+: > http://popupbuster.net > > From wacarder at usit.net Mon Jan 17 08:00:45 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: la120 consumables References: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <019a01c4fc9c$f14ed670$f71b0f14@wcarder1> > Anyone know a good (cheap) source for LA120 ribbons? Jay, I've picked them up cheap before on eBay, just a few dollars for a 4 pack or 6 pack of ribbons. Ashley From gordon at gjcp.net Mon Jan 17 08:10:49 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: email was Mac something something In-Reply-To: <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> References: <200501131820.KAA05555@clulw009.amd.com> <2D1E4B7C-659A-11D9-817E-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <41EBC769.1020000@gjcp.net> Ron Hudson wrote: > OOH A new kind of media: clear mylar tape with a thin layer of paper on > one side > (black paper for enhanced absorption ) 16 bit wide? 32 bit wide? > > How would mylar and paper be for longevity. How are our oldest paper > tapes doing? I found a bit of paper tape the other day, lying beside the path near the block of flats where I live. It was pretty much wet through, otherwise I would have picked it up. Maybe I should have anyway. It was only about 18" long with torn ends, probably not enough to work out what it was originally. Gordon. From waltje at pdp11.nl Mon Jan 17 08:45:01 2005 From: waltje at pdp11.nl (Fred N. van Kempen) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > > I registered 'american.com' in um, 95 an it caused a bit of a stir :-) > > seems the folks at american university (american.edu) didn't like that > > (but hey, the company was called 'american internet' so it seemed > > natural). > > My recent win was getting ebt.com, which is a company that I used to > work at, and whose assets (some of them anyway), we now own. The whois > on that is 93... EBT was one of the founding members of the W3C, and I > wanted to preserve the time stamp. I registered Linux.com and Linux.net in early 94. And yes, those caused a stir, both and the time, and much later :) At that time, I was working at a startup in Mississippi (yes..), and later "moved in" with InfoMagic, where we decided to move operations from NJ to AZ. Since I was bored, I decided to put our T1's to better use, and started up our ISP-part of the business, which we sort-of had even in mid-1992, albeit off a 56K switched circuit using a NeXT as a shell box. --f From vcf at siconic.com Mon Jan 17 09:49:14 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <20050116164711.B33455@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > The whole impetus behind this was that I was trying to read an old 360K > > (might even be 320K or even 180K, I'm not sure) disk and while I could > > read the directory, none of the files larger than say a cluster could be > > read. I attributed this to the drive not being a "true" 360K drive. > > Are you sure that the disk is in a PC-DOS format? > If the diskette is 96tpi (720k 5.25) such as PC-JX, Toshiba 300, . . . > then track 0 will be readbale, but the other tracks won't. Actually, I'm not sure, but this is interesting to know. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From wacarder at usit.net Mon Jan 17 10:04:21 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: la120 consumables References: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <019a01c4fc9c$f14ed670$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Message-ID: <001701c4fcae$35ae2210$f71b0f14@wcarder1> > > Anyone know a good (cheap) source for LA120 ribbons? > > Jay, > > I've picked them up cheap before on eBay, just a few dollars > for a 4 pack or 6 pack of ribbons. Jay, if you can't find any (I only saw one for sale on ebay and it was $5.00), let me know. I think I have a few unopened in the plastic wrap. I just may have to dig through a few boxes of stuff to find them. Ashley From vcf at siconic.com Mon Jan 17 10:09:29 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! Message-ID: http://blog.monkeymethods.org/2005/01/bill-gates-strikes-pose-for-teen-beat.html HAHAHAHA! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From rcini at optonline.net Mon Jan 17 10:23:07 2005 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001901c4fcb0$d4c9b8d0$6501a8c0@bbrk0oksry5qza> This is absolutely hilarious! 1983...that's probably a view out of the Northrop Building. Notice the Mac in the background in the top picture. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Vintage Computer Festival Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 11:09 AM To: Classic Computers Mailing List Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! http://blog.monkeymethods.org/2005/01/bill-gates-strikes-pose-for-teen-beat. html HAHAHAHA! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage mputers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at ttp://marketplace.vintage.org ] From james at jdfogg.com Mon Jan 17 10:55:47 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (james) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1105980946.2515.1.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 11:09, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > http://blog.monkeymethods.org/2005/01/bill-gates-strikes-pose-for-teen-beat.html > > HAHAHAHA! This man worries me even more now. I've heard he was a major horndog. I don't think I'd want him anywhere near my teen daughter (if I had one). From birs23 at zeelandnet.nl Mon Jan 17 11:08:11 2005 From: birs23 at zeelandnet.nl (Stefan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: la120 consumables In-Reply-To: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <6.1.0.6.0.20050117180719.0293c868@mail.zeelandnet.nl> I think I have a few LA120 ribbons in box. If you're interested I can have a look ? Stefan. At 05:02 17-1-2005, you wrote: >Anyone know a good (cheap) source for LA120 ribbons? > >Jay West ------------------------------------------------------- http://www.oldcomputercollection.com From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jan 17 11:17:13 2005 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53678.80.242.32.51.1105982233.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> > > http://blog.monkeymethods.org/2005/01/bill-gates-strikes-pose-for-teen-beat.html > > HAHAHAHA! hehehe indeed, what a catch :) 1983 though? Naaaaaaaaah. -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Jan 17 11:21:32 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <1105980946.2515.1.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> References: <1105980946.2515.1.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <41EBF41C.60006@mdrconsult.com> james wrote: > On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 11:09, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >>http://blog.monkeymethods.org/2005/01/bill-gates-strikes-pose-for-teen-beat.html >> >>HAHAHAHA! > > > This man worries me even more now. > > I've heard he was a major horndog. I don't think I'd want him anywhere > near my teen daughter (if I had one). I think I'd carefully coach my daughter in the legal criteria for attempted sexual assault, and have her talk him into flying to Texas to visit. Doc (who, me, morals?) Shipley From fernande at internet1.net Mon Jan 17 11:37:55 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: [rescue] Misc available for free In-Reply-To: <41EAEC35.102@internet1.net> References: <41EAEC35.102@internet1.net> Message-ID: <41EBF7F3.7090509@internet1.net> Everything has been claimed, thanks! Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jan 17 12:14:48 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <1105980946.2515.1.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> References: <1105980946.2515.1.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050117121201.04ef5da8@mail> At 10:55 AM 1/17/2005, james wrote: >I've heard he was a major horndog. I don't think I'd want him anywhere >near my teen daughter (if I had one). Billionaires, even millionaires, are extremely sexy. This is sorta like the way women will say they want a man with a sense of humor, implying that Brad Pitt and Jude Law are hilarious. What's next, Bill Gates jokes? My favorite is a one-liner: "If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed... Oh wait! He does!" I think I'll work it into my next radio show. - John From james at jdfogg.com Mon Jan 17 12:40:25 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (james) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050117121201.04ef5da8@mail> References: <1105980946.2515.1.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050117121201.04ef5da8@mail> Message-ID: <1105987224.3168.0.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> > Billionaires, even millionaires, are extremely sexy. This is sorta > like the way women will say they want a man with a sense of humor, > implying that Brad Pitt and Jude Law are hilarious. A large lump in your pants does a lot to attract a woman, a lump around your wallet that is :-) From gordon at gjcp.net Mon Jan 17 12:59:29 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> References: <1105772005.8243.87.camel@fortran> Message-ID: <41EC0B11.1070803@gjcp.net> Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > > What type is the disk? Can I get it out and use it on another machine, > or do i have to put the POS back together? On my T1000ex the hard drive is just a plain ordinary 20M 2.5" drive. It has a funny daughterboard connection thing with the plug that fits into the laptop. You can remove this and just use an ordinary 44-pin to 40 + 4-pin lead. Gordon. From peters04 at techwiz.ca Mon Jan 17 13:31:39 2005 From: peters04 at techwiz.ca (Peter Sjoberg) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1105990300.5622.29.camel@picard.intra.techwiz.ca> http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/photos/microsoft.html micro-soft corp anno 1978 On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 08:09 -0800, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > http://blog.monkeymethods.org/2005/01/bill-gates-strikes-pose-for-teen-beat.html > > HAHAHAHA! From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 17 13:32:49 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids Message-ID: <200501171932.LAA08087@clulw009.amd.com> Hi I thought I'd pass on some info about these batteries. I received a laptop with a "dead" battery. The voltage as read from a meter was "0" volts. I mean dead! I first stuck it into the laptop but quickly noticed the smell of hot resistors ( bad idea ). I then connected it to a bench supply running at about 200ma. I watched the level of the voltage until it gradually came up to about 12v ( 14.4v pack ). I placed it back in the laptop and allowed it to charge until it indicated a full charge. I ran it down once to the battery low level and repeated the charge. That was last night. Leaving it for 8 hours, it seems to be maintaining its charge. Moral of the story, don't give up on these batteries. They are remarkably tough. Most NiCads batteries would not recover from such a level. Dwight From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Jan 17 13:33:55 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: la120 consumables In-Reply-To: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <41EC1323.nail8JC1IBTR7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > Anyone know a good (cheap) source for LA120 ribbons? If economy is important, re-inking used ribbons is probably still the way to go. Otherwise the Nu-Kote BM143 has the spools and the ribbon, about $6-$7 each. The ribbon is, IIRC, just a plain old typewriter ribbon width. Tim. From allain at panix.com Mon Jan 17 15:03:24 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids References: <200501171932.LAA08087@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <0b7301c4fcd7$fcf06e40$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > Most NiCads batteries would not recover from such a level. How should NiCads be stored? Sounds line 0v is a terrible idea. I usually put them away at normal discharge, about .8-1.0v and then charge a few hours before next use. All I really know is that: o. 300 recharges is about all you can expect, and o. topping off is no good My guess is that unused NiCads could reach 0v after a year or two on the shelf. If you restore a collectable and then shelve it for 10 years only to find it's dead _again_ it won't be gratifying. It might not be worth sweating this detail, however. I have noticed that NiMH prices have gone down about half over the last 5 years. John A. From dave04a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 17 15:08:36 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Anyone recognize MK4116E ? Message-ID: <20050117210835.PHAN8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Hi Guys, Still happily rooting through my big pile of ju.. er, "Fine high quality vintage material". Hit upon a big box full of assorted parts, ICs, etc. found a couple of white-ceramic 8080s, some keyboard encoders (also white-ceramic), lots of ROMs, RAMs (some very old), lots of interface logic, some disk controllers (including several 1793s which I needed but never did get around to ordering), and lots of other oddball stuff, including: about a dozen interesting looking chips, which are labled: MK4116E-3 This appear to be a 9-pin DIP ceramic carrier with two smaller chips mounted on-top - each of the smaller chips has the MK4116E-3 designation. The smaller chips also have 9 pins, however they are not DIP but rather in a 4, 5, 4, 5 arrangement all the way around the device. Anyone recognize these? My guess is some sort of RAM (dynamic)? Clearly not the same as a standard 4116 DRAM. Don't recall having seen these before (although a fair bit of trivia has drained away from the memory array over the years) - anyone know what they were used in? Still inventorying the documenation but I should have a complete list soon. Lots of S-100 hardware, NorthStar software and TRS-80 documents. Did find an original of David Ahl's "101 Basic Computer Games" published by DEC in 1973 (this one is from the 1974 2nd printing). Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From Pres at macro-inc.com Mon Jan 17 15:22:30 2005 From: Pres at macro-inc.com (Ed Kelleher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Anyone recognize MK4116E ? In-Reply-To: <20050117210835.PHAN8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20050117162052.0353aeb0@192.168.0.1> At 04:08 PM 1/17/2005, Dave Dunfield wrote: >about a dozen interesting looking chips, which are >labled: MK4116E-3 Mostek 16kx1 DRAM according to the Mostek Data book I have. -3 part is slower part 200ns access, 375ns cycle time. Says it's "industry standard". Ed K. From cvisors at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 15:32:08 2005 From: cvisors at gmail.com (Benjamin Gardiner) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: On a tangential note concerning Panix and old Internet ISPs In-Reply-To: <41EABF47.7060701@jbrain.com> References: <41EABF47.7060701@jbrain.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 13:23:51 -0600, Jim Brain wrote: > //.: > > "Panix , the oldest commercial Internet provider > in New York, had its domain name 'panix.com' hijacked by persons > unknown. The main effect on users is that mail sent to panix's customers > is being routed to a bogus mail server run by the hijackers." > > / Though I can say, that the issue has now been resolved, now to find out who did this. *sigh* all good fun. B -- kisses on the dancefloor in my past i need some comfort just like you beating like a bass drum time goes by i want the last dance just like you Covenant - Bullet From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Jan 17 15:33:07 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Anyone recognize MK4116E ? In-Reply-To: <20050117210835.PHAN8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> References: <20050117210835.PHAN8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <41EC2F13.nailB2A1CCGAX@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > labled: MK4116E-3 > This appear to be a 9-pin DIP ceramic carrie 9 pins? Surely you mean 16. > two smaller chips mounted on-top - each of the smaller > chips has the MK4116E-3 designation. For a while they would take two "bad" 4116's with good halves and glue them together in this way. There were also 4108's from around the same time that were rumored to be 4116's with a bad half... Tim. From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Jan 17 15:35:57 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: DEC version of "101 Basic Computer Games" Message-ID: <41EC2FBD.nailB5L11L6GK@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > David Ahl's "101 Basic Computer Games" published by DEC > in 1973 (this one is from the 1974 2nd printing). Does it have a DEC Order Number on it? Is it EB-04873-76? Ahl's DECUS submissions of these games are online at http://pdp-11.trailing-edge.com/rsts11/rsts-11-013/index.html http://pdp-11.trailing-edge.com/rsts11/rsts-11-014/index.html Tim. From jim.isbell at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 15:37:39 2005 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Macintosh Performa 405 Message-ID: Is this thing worth anything?? -- Jim Isbell W5JAI UltraVan #257 CAL - 27 #221 From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Jan 17 15:42:56 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids In-Reply-To: <0b7301c4fcd7$fcf06e40$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <200501171932.LAA08087@clulw009.amd.com> <0b7301c4fcd7$fcf06e40$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <41EC3160.nailB731Z16EB@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > I have noticed that NiMH prices have gone down > about half over the last 5 years. In many cases they are cheaper than NiCads now. This raises a question for refurbishing older equipment: is it always OK to just drop a set of NiMH's in place of same-size NiCad's? Most of the "stupid" NiCad battery chargers were just 0.1C trickle chargers, but the "smart" ones that looked for the voltage rise at the end of charge of a NiCad may not see this with a NiMH pack. Anyone have any experience? Last time I had to put some new Sub-C cells in my Fluke scopemeter I had to look rather hard to find true NiCads as opposed to MiMH's. Tim. From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jan 17 15:57:25 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Macintosh Performa 405 In-Reply-To: from "Jim Isbell, W5JAI" at "Jan 17, 5 03:37:39 pm" Message-ID: <200501172157.NAA12758@floodgap.com> > Is this thing worth anything?? This is basically an LCII, so price accordingly (i.e., not much). I rather like the LCIII, but the LC and LCII are rather compromised designs and I don't care for them. Even the LCIII has some cuts made, but it was a budget computer and its performance in its class was still remarkably good. I wouldn't be that generous with its predecessors, though. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas. -K. Enderbery From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 17 16:01:37 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Mac 128, was Re: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: <003101c4fc54$5ec110e0$3d00a8c0@falco> References: <200501161742.JAA32740@floodgap.com> <003101c4fc54$5ec110e0$3d00a8c0@falco> Message-ID: <20050117140021.D52001@shell.lmi.net> > > I heard they did have to cheat, of a sort, on some of the rarer models > where > > no pristine example was at their disposal. I think the original Mac 128K > was > > one of those, but I haven't seen the book yet. > Are these really that rare? I have a very nice one, as-new, with original > carry bag, printer, external floppy, manuals, etc, but didn't think it was > overly rare. I'll be happy enough if I'm wrong... It may be overly harsh, but I think that anybody who can't find a Macintosh or a PC (5150) isn't trying hard enough. From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 17 16:05:27 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids Message-ID: <200501172205.OAA08131@clulw009.amd.com> Hi I would guess that your method is most likely the best. Keeping them at full charge tends to create those metal fingers inside that short them out. Discharging them as packs tends to reverse charge some of the cells causing out gassing and cell rupturing. I don't know if the NiMH I had was drained by load or just by sitting around. It is an old machine ( about 13 or 14 years old ). I would guess that these cells have a similar problem if fully discharged as a battery stack. The laptop had no normal signs of wear like a similar one that I had ( video is failing ). It may have only been used for a year or so and then just placed in storage. Most times when I come on NiCads that have zero volts, I find the cells to have an internal short. Either NiMH have something that keeps this from happening or I was real lucky. I do know that wet NiCads ( those with vents ) are usually shipped with a shorting bar. I would guess that if one individually drained the NiCad cells, they could be stored a long time. I'll let you guys know how things are after a couple more days. Hopefully the battery will remain useful. Dwight >From: "John Allain" > >> Most NiCads batteries would not recover from such a level. > >How should NiCads be stored? >Sounds line 0v is a terrible idea. >I usually put them away at normal discharge, >about .8-1.0v and then charge a few hours before >next use. >All I really know is that: > o. 300 recharges is about all you can expect, and > o. topping off is no good > >My guess is that unused NiCads could reach 0v >after a year or two on the shelf. If you restore a >collectable and then shelve it for 10 years only >to find it's dead _again_ it won't be gratifying. > >It might not be worth sweating this detail, however. >I have noticed that NiMH prices have gone down >about half over the last 5 years. > >John A. > From pkoning at equallogic.com Mon Jan 17 16:06:39 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids References: <200501171932.LAA08087@clulw009.amd.com> <0b7301c4fcd7$fcf06e40$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> <41EC3160.nailB731Z16EB@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <16876.14063.286127.894416@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "shoppa" == shoppa classiccmp writes: >> I have noticed that NiMH prices have gone down about half over the >> last 5 years. shoppa> In many cases they are cheaper than NiCads now. shoppa> This raises a question for refurbishing older equipment: is shoppa> it always OK to just drop a set of NiMH's in place of shoppa> same-size NiCad's? Most of the "stupid" NiCad battery shoppa> chargers were just 0.1C trickle chargers, but the "smart" shoppa> ones that looked for the voltage rise at the end of charge of shoppa> a NiCad may not see this with a NiMH pack. Anyone have any shoppa> experience? I'm not sure that a trickle charger that works for NiCd is ok for NiMH, and I am positive that a fast charger for the one will NOT work right for the other. Each battery technology has its own charging rules -- lead acid, NiCd, NiMH, and the various flavors of Lithium battery are all different in very significant ways. paul From Pres at macro-inc.com Mon Jan 17 16:12:14 2005 From: Pres at macro-inc.com (Ed Kelleher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Anyone recognize MK4116E ? In-Reply-To: <41EC2F13.nailB2A1CCGAX@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <20050117210835.PHAN8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> <20050117210835.PHAN8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20050117170851.03609758@192.168.0.1> At 04:33 PM 1/17/2005, shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com wrote: > > labled: MK4116E-3 > > This appear to be a 9-pin DIP ceramic carrie > >9 pins? Surely you mean 16. > > > two smaller chips mounted on-top - each of the smaller > > chips has the MK4116E-3 designation. > >For a while they would take two "bad" 4116's with good halves and >glue them together in this way. There were also 4108's from around >the same time that were rumored to be 4116's with a bad half... Mostek's "E" package was a 16 pin leadless chip carrier .35" x .285". Connections were on all 4 sides. Mostek's "D" package was an 18 pin (9x2) DIP "Double Density" with 2 chip carriers on it. Ed K. From Innfogra at aol.com Mon Jan 17 16:11:07 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Mac 128, was Re: Desktops then and now (book review) Message-ID: <65.3ce20950.2f1d91fb@aol.com> In a message dated 1/17/05 12:28:29 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, mike@ambientdesign.com writes: I have a very nice one, as-new, with original carry bag, printer, external floppy, manuals, etc, but didn't think it was overly rare. I'll be happy enough if I'm wrong... A 128K Mac set like that is a nice collectable, especially with the docs and disks. It could make epay live up to its name. Condition is all important as are the original SW and docs. I don't know of it's rarity. Many were upgraded to 512K so there are not that many in existence. Paxton Astoria, OR From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 17 16:18:00 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids Message-ID: <200501172218.OAA08135@clulw009.amd.com> Hi My understanding is that NiMH's have a higher internal resistance when mostly discharged and should be charged slowly until the internal resistance drops. They are also suppose to be less tolorent to over charging than NiCad's. In general, I'd expect one to get poor battery life using a NiCad charger on NiMH's. 0.1C is not a trickle. 0.02-0.01C is. 0.1C will cause quite a bit of heating in a fully charged cell. 0.1C is only recommended for normal rate of charging NiCad's, not as a trickle level. Dwight >From: shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com > >> I have noticed that NiMH prices have gone down >> about half over the last 5 years. > >In many cases they are cheaper than NiCads now. > >This raises a question for refurbishing older equipment: is it always >OK to just drop a set of NiMH's in place of same-size NiCad's? Most >of the "stupid" NiCad battery chargers were just 0.1C trickle chargers, >but the "smart" ones that looked for the voltage rise at the end of charge >of a NiCad may not see this with a NiMH pack. Anyone have any experience? > >Last time I had to put some new Sub-C cells in my Fluke scopemeter I had >to look rather hard to find true NiCads as opposed to MiMH's. > >Tim. > From Pres at macro-inc.com Mon Jan 17 16:22:08 2005 From: Pres at macro-inc.com (Ed Kelleher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids In-Reply-To: <200501171932.LAA08087@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.2.20050117172105.0344e0e8@192.168.0.1> At 02:32 PM 1/17/2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: >Moral of the story, don't give up on these batteries. >They are remarkably tough. Most NiCads batteries would >not recover from such a level. One of my references for battery things: http://www.buchmann.ca/chap10-page1.asp Ed K. From jpl15 at panix.com Mon Jan 17 16:28:24 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: On a tangential note concerning Panix and old Internet ISPs In-Reply-To: References: <41EABF47.7060701@jbrain.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Benjamin Gardiner wrote: > > *sigh* > > all good fun. Let's see - all my email (and there's a lot of it - bits of it quite private) went into some 'unknown server' in Canada for what, nearly three days? Plus dozens of them bounced, and I've been auto-unsubbed from a bunch of lists - folks (my family, among others) see the 'no longer valid' message and don't think to try again, they just think I've disappeared... I wonder if PayPal sent me anything that's now compromised? I wonder if all of my credit card companies (that I pay electronically) sent me Stuff? Ben old buddy, you and I seem to have quite dissimilar definitions of "fun" - because I'm here to tell you - it was a lot of things - fun *not* being among them. Here's hoping gmail.com stays right where it belongs... John From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Jan 17 16:43:13 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:04 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids In-Reply-To: <16876.14063.286127.894416@gargle.gargle.HOWL> References: <200501171932.LAA08087@clulw009.amd.com> <0b7301c4fcd7$fcf06e40$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> <41EC3160.nailB731Z16EB@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <16876.14063.286127.894416@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Message-ID: <41EC3F81.nailCHV1GCDN5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > Each battery technology has its own charging rules... That actually makes me feel better for taking the time to hunt down real NiCads for my scopemeter. Everywhere I looked I found that the NiCads had been discontinued, eventually I found a place that still had the right physical size in stock, but even then they only had a small quantity left and they told me that they weren't gonna be getting any more. Tim. From dave04a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 17 16:51:31 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Anyone recognize MK4116E ? Message-ID: <20050117225130.TKHO20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> At 16:33 17/01/2005 -0500, you wrote: >> labled: MK4116E-3 >> This appear to be a 9-pin DIP ceramic carrie > >9 pins? Surely you mean 16. Actually - I ment to say 18 --- But I only counted one side, and my brain failed to perform the x2 for DIP between my eyes and fingers ... Thats why I said these are obviously not standard 4116 DRAM's - they are 18 pin devices! regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From dave04a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 17 16:51:34 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: DEC version of "101 Basic Computer Games" Message-ID: <20050117225133.TKHV20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> At 16:35 17/01/2005 -0500, you wrote: >> David Ahl's "101 Basic Computer Games" published by DEC >> in 1973 (this one is from the 1974 2nd printing). > >Does it have a DEC Order Number on it? Is it EB-04873-76? > >Ahl's DECUS submissions of these games are online at > > http://pdp-11.trailing-edge.com/rsts11/rsts-11-013/index.html > http://pdp-11.trailing-edge.com/rsts11/rsts-11-014/index.html > >Tim. I can't find a DEC order number - the cover has the little blocks "digital" logo in the lower right hand corner (as does the spine), and inside it says: 1st printing -- July 1973 2nd printing -- April 1974 Copyright (C) 1973, 1974 by: Digital Equipment Corporation Maynard, Massachusetts 01754 But there is also a "box" which says: Additional copies of "101 BASIC Computer Games" are available for $7.50 plus .75 postage from: Creative Computing P.O. Box 789-M Morristown, N. J. 07960 So it doesn't look as though DEC actually offered the book through it's own sales channels - at least not in 1974. -- anyone know for sure? Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 17 17:17:20 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids Message-ID: <200501172317.PAA08165@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Jameco still shows a robust selection of NiCad cells and batteries. Dwight >From: shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com > >> Each battery technology has its own charging rules... > >That actually makes me feel better for taking the time to hunt down >real NiCads for my scopemeter. Everywhere I looked I found that >the NiCads had been discontinued, eventually I found a place >that still had the right physical size in stock, but even then they >only had a small quantity left and they told me that they weren't gonna >be getting any more. > >Tim. > From vcf at siconic.com Mon Jan 17 17:19:54 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Macintosh Performa 405 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > Is this thing worth anything?? It depends on how much you're willing to pay for it. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Jan 17 17:27:06 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids Message-ID: <41EC49CA.nailDBY11EOBC@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > Jameco still shows a robust selection of NiCad cells and batteries. It's true that they have a lot listed, although I'm not sure if I'd apply the term "robust" when they don't name any manufacturers. I suppose that like any technology it gets dropped first by the big-name distributors, then the catalog houses, then the grey-market distributors like Jameco, then the surplus places. I may be anal about it but I've always been leery of buyng grey-market consumables like batteries. I guess I'll just have to lower my standards! Tim. From classiccmp at crash.com Mon Jan 17 18:03:00 2005 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: DEC Consultant's Reference Guide Message-ID: <200501180003.j0I030xv021708@ill.crash.com> [ I've been trying to organize the backlog of cctalk ] [ mail sitting unread on my server... ] Way back in September, Dan Veeneman wrote: > At a recent hamfest I picked up two volumes of > Digital Equipment Corporation's Consultant's Reference > Guide. > Does anyone have a full set of these? I might. I picked up a lot of them along with RT-11 docs when I picked up a VT103 and DSD disk/tape box many years ago. However some of the manuals fell victim to a large basement flood a few years back - over 15" of water in that section, when we got about 5" in 5 hours early one March. Frozen ground doesn't absorb much water, and I had *just* moved the home datacenter down there after watching for flooding for a couple years. Figures. Haven't had any flooding to speak of before or since. I haven't gone through them since the crisis, and I'm sorry to say some may have molded up so bad before I could deal with them that they may have been pitched. I'm gearing up for a cross-continent move, so don't look for any news on this other than an inventory of what's left as it gets packed. There was a bunch more stuff, going from memory, than the company history. In particular it included system configurations from the period in question. I recall seeing the first generation of VAXen, pdp-11s, and a number of DECSYSTEMs in there, along with software and whatnot. --Steve. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 17 17:48:40 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <1105965948.8878.5.camel@weka.localdomain> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 17, 5 12:45:48 pm Message-ID: > It'd be nice if there was a FAQ about floppy formats in general TBH. > Covering some of the different geomery and encoding schemes out there > etc. (not necessarily mentioning any machines by name). I'll stick my 5.25" MFM (PC, essentially) disk FAQ at the end of this message. You (or anyone else) is welcome ot make use of it in a more comprehensive FAQ provided you give me an acknowledgement. -tony ----------------- 5.25" floppy disk Frequently Asked Questions -------------------------------------------- 2000 A. R. Duell with comments and additions from Fred Cisin. Please feel free to distribute this document (on web sites, ftp sites, mailing lists, etc) provided this notice is intact. This doecument was written as a response to questions on the classic computer mailing list regarding the use of various types of 5.25" floppy disks in various types of drives. It attempts to explain what combinations work and why. For the moment I am only considering soft-sectored drives... 1) What types of (soft sectored) 5.25" drives are there. There are 5 common types : 48 tpi single sided, double density. These have 40 cylinders (and 40 tracks). On a PC they'd store 180K bytes, however on other systems, their capactiy could be anything from 160K to 200K. A few very early drives (Shugart SA400, for example), and systems designed to use them, only used 35 of the 40 tracks, but kept the same 48tpi track pitch 48tpi double sided, double density. These have 40 cylinders (80 tracks total, one for each cylinder on each side of the disk). This is the common PC 360K drive. When used on other types of machine, the capacity is in general twice that of the single-sided drive, or somewhere between 320K and 400K. 96 tpi, single sided, double density. These have 80 cylinders (and being single-sided, 80 tracks). These are not common on PCs, and in fact most versions of PC MS-DOS don't support them, but if used there would store 360K. The DEC RX50 is a (double) drive of this type. The capacity of these units is the same as that of the 48 tpi double sided drives (not too suprising, as they have the same number of tracks). 96 tpi, double sided, double density. Again, they have 80 cylinders (and thus 160 tracks). On a PC, they'd store 720K, although they're not commonly found on PCs, although the IBM PX=JX used them. Theyre are common on non-PC compatible MS-DOS machines, CP/M machines, Acorn BBC micros, and early-ish unix workstations, where they store between 640K and 800K depending on the formatting. 96 tpi double density drives are sometimes called 'quad density' units. 96 tpi, double sided, high density. This is the PC 1.2Mbyte drive, and is not commonly used elsewhere. These drives have several differences compared to the double density version, although the PC controller hides some of these. This drive is, in fact, somewhat similar to the 8" drive -- it uses the same data rate and even the same spindle speed (360 rpm, as against 300rpm for all the other types of drive). It thus can often be used as a substitute for an 8" drive in older machines, if connected up with a special cable. 2) What are the real differenced between the various types? The difference between single and double sided drives is obvious -- the double sided drive has an extra head (mounted on top of the disk) and a switching circuit to select between the 2 heads. In passing at this point I'll mention that single-sided drives record on the bottom (non-label side] of the disk and that this is 'side 0' on double sided units The differences between 48 tpi and 96 tpi double density drives are again fairly obvious. The head positioner (mechanism that moves the read/write head) is designed to move the head only 1/96" per step rather than 1/48". The actual head in a 96tpi is narrower (radially) than the one in a 48tpi drive so that it writes a narrower track on the disk (so that adjacent tracks don't overlap at the closer spacing). The high density drive has several differences wrt the 96 tpi double density unit. Firstly, the spindle motor rotates at 360rpm (at least in high density mode, see below) rather than the 300rpm that all other drives rotate at. Also the 'write current' (the electric current passed through the head coil to write on the disk) is higher in high density mode so as to be able to write on the special high density disks. These have a higher coercivity than normal double density disks. There is a signal on the interface connector of high density drives (at least the properly-designed ones) that, when asserted, reduces the write current to the value used with normal double density disks. In this mode, the drive will reliably work as a 96 tpi double density unit. In some drives, asserting this signal will slow the spindle motor down to 300rpm, in others, it continues to turn at 360rpm and the controller has to handle a data rate of 6/5 times times the standard 250kbps double density rate (=300kbps). The IBM PC/AT disk controller is capable of doing this. 3) What types of disks exist? All 5.25" disks that I have ever seen are coated with the magnetic oxide on both sides. A double sided disk means that both sides have been tested and shown to be reliable for storing data. A single sided disk may be one where the top side has failed this test (and the bottom side is good) or one which simply hasn't been tested on both sides. It is often claimed that single sided disks are those that have certainly failed the test on the top side, but in fact, the reliability of the disk manufacturing process was such that very few disks failed, and that therefore there simply wouldn't be enough made to sell as single-sided ones. Most single-sided disks are therefore good on both sides. I (ARD) have used a number of DEC RX50 disks that have been bulk-erased as double-sided 96 tpi disks. Since the RX50 is a single-sided 96tpi drive, there would be no reason for these disks to work reliably as double sided ones, but I have yet to have one fail. '80 track' -- 96 tpi -- double density disks do seem to be different from '40 track' -- 48 tpi ones. I suspect, without proof, that the 96 tpi ones are lower 'noise' which is important for the narrower tracks used on such drives. The original 5.25" disks were designed to be used in 48tpi drives, since that's all that there was at the time. Once 96 tpi drives became popular, many manufacturers starting making all their disks suitable for use in such drives (it was cheaper for them to have one production line) and sold them as 'universal' disks, suitable for use in 48 or 96 tpi drives, single or double sided. However, once the IBM PC and PC/AT became the only common computers to have 5.25" drives, many manufacturers went back to making 48 tpi disks only, since that was the only double density drive in common use. Therefore many modern double density (known as '360K disks') are _not_ reliable in 96tpi drives. High density disks are different. Period. The magnetic media has a different coercivity (600 oerstedt for high density disks, 300 oerstedt for all other 5.25" disks), and it can only be used in the high density drive _at the high density_. 4) What sorts of blank disks can be used in what drives? Double sided disks can always be used in single sided drives. The fact that the unused side is also perfectly good for storing data doesn't matter, of course. Some people modified the disk jacket of double sided disks by cutting an extra write protect notch and index hole (for those systems that used it, which is basically everything apart from Apple and Commodore) in it. Such disks could be used either way up in the drives so that both sides of the magnetic disk could be used, and were often known as 'flippy' disks. Some manufacturers even sold disks with the extra notch and hole pre-cut at the factory, and I've even seen the service manual for a Siemens drive with 2 write protect sensors and 2 index sensors so that a normal, unmodified disk could be used either way up. Note that doing this means that the data on one side of the disk is recorded 'backwards' (the disk is effectively spinning in the opposite direction), and thus the result cannot be read in a 2 head drive simply by selecting the other head. Even with a 2 head drive you still have to flip the disk over manually. 96 tpi double density disks can be used in 48 tpi double density drives. Again, the disk is 'better' than it needs to be, but that doesn't matter. This means that these disks can be used as follows : disk works in 96 tpi DS : 96 tpi DS, 96 tpi SS, 48 tpi DS, 48 tpi SS 96 tpi SS : 96 tpi SS, 48 tpi SS 48 tpi DS : 48 tpi DS, 48 tpi SS 48 tpi SS : 48 tpi SS For that reason, many manufacturers sold 96 tpi double sided disks as 'Universal' disks. They could be used in all types of (double density) drives. High density disks are special. They can _only_ be used in high density drives at the high density format. Similarly, high density drives will only reliably work in high density mode on such disks. But if the appropriate signal is asserted, then the high denisty drive behaves like a 96tpi double sided double density unit, and can use double density disks. 5) What combinations may work under some circumstances? Single sided disks may work in double sided drives. Firstly, some systems (many systems?) allow you to format them as single-sided, for which they are (obviously) suitable. And in many cases the 'other' side of the disk is perfectly good and the disk can be formatted as double sided. 48 tpi disks may be good enough to work in 96tpi drives. My experience suggests this is not reliable, though. 6) What about data interchange? What (already recorded) disks can be read in what sorts of drives? Let's deal with the obvious cases first. A double sided drive can read a single sided disk. The upper head is simply not used. Similarly, a double sided drive can write to an already-used single sided disk. Another obvious case is that the high density disks can only be used in high density drives. The less obvious case is the 48 tpi versus 96tpi issue. The drives were designed so that the centre line of alternate 96 tpi cylinders is the same distance from the spindle as the centre line of each 48 tpi cylinder. Thus 48 tpi disks can be read in 96 tpi drives if the drive 'double steps'. Some drives can do this in hardware (there may be a switch marked 40/80 on the drive casing), some operating systems can handle this. Since a high density drive can be 'turned into' a double density drive by asserting that signal I keep mentioning, a high denisty drive can also reliably read 48 tpi disks. 96 tpi drives writing to 48 tpi disks is a cause of many problems, which deserves its own section. Erasing a file involves writing to the disk directory, of course, and thus counts as writing to the disk. 7) What's all this about writing to 48 tpi disks in 96 tpi drives? This is perhaps the biggest cause of problems with 5.25" disks. People write a file to a 48tpi disk using a 96 tpi drive and find that the result is readable on 96 tpi drives but not on 48 tpi drives. Remember that the 96 tpi drive has a narrower head than the 48 tpi drive, so it writes a narrower track to the disk. A blank disk is one that has just been manufactured, or that has been bulk-erased. Reformatting a disk in a normal disk drive _does not_ produce a blank disk in this sense -- it writes the track pattern to the disk, with whatever width of head the drive doing the formatting uses. Suppose we take a totally blank disk and format it on a 48 tpi drive. This writes 40 tracks on each side of the disk. They may be 'empty' in the sense that they contain no user data, but they're still recorded. Then we write to it on a double-stepping 96 tpi drive. The narrower head overwrittes the middle band of some tracks, but the edges remain unchanged. A 96 tpi drive can read that perfectly well. Its narrow head only 'sees' the 'new' data down the middle of each track. But a 48 tpi drive with its wider head, sees both the old and new data. The result is a mess that the controller can't decode. So the disk is not readable on a 48 tpi drive. A similar argument shows that the same problem occurs if you take a blank disk, format it on a double-stepping 96 tpi drive, write some files to it there, write to it with a 48 tpi drive and then write to it with the double-stepping 96 tpi drive again. The result is not readable on a 48 tpi drive. And if you take a disk that has been formatted and used on a 48tpi drive and then reformat it on a double-stepping 96 tpi drive, the result may well not be readable on a 48tpi drive. Each track will have the newly-formatted narrow track down the centre and the remains of the old wider track along the outsides. If you must format a disk in a double-stepping 96 tpi drive, then either use a brand new disk (and not a preformatted one, of course), or bulk-erase the disk. In general, if you take a blank disk, format it on a double stepping 96 tpi drive and write to it there only, the result is readable both 48 tpi and 96 tpi drives. The narrower tracks generally do provide enough signal for the wider head on the 48 tpi drive provided there is nothing in the 'blank' spaces between the tracks. The simple rule is : * If you ever write to a disk in a 96 tpi drive that has already be * * written to (including formatting) in a 48 tpi drive then the result * * may well not be readable in 48 tpi drives. * From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 17 18:01:22 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Anyone recognize MK4116E ? In-Reply-To: <20050117210835.PHAN8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> from "Dave Dunfield" at Jan 17, 5 04:08:36 pm Message-ID: > about a dozen interesting looking chips, which are > labled: MK4116E-3 > > This appear to be a 9-pin DIP ceramic carrier with > two smaller chips mounted on-top - each of the smaller > chips has the MK4116E-3 designation. The smaller chips > also have 9 pins, however they are not DIP but rather in > a 4, 5, 4, 5 arrangement all the way around the device. > > Anyone recognize these? My guess is some sort of RAM > (dynamic)? Clearly not the same as a standard 4116 DRAM. Are there any other markings on them? I remember once seeing some Mostek 'chips' like these that had 2 off 4164s on top, and were essentially 128K bit DRAMs (separate CAS signals to the 2 halves IIRC). I wondef if you've found a 32K bit version made from 2 off 4116s. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 17 17:41:56 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <20050117005025.M2429@localhost> from "Tom Jennings" at Jan 17, 5 00:59:02 am Message-ID: > > b) There is no useful signal from the side-1 head (this is the head on > > the top surface of the disk, of course), > > For all the possibilities you state, likely cause. Sure, _IF_ that would cause the MS-DOS format program to assume the disk is single-sided. > > > > Well, although _now_ I have some very nice test gear, I debugged my first > > homebrew computer (This was when homebrewing meant soldering chips to > > stripboard and wiring everything up, not pluging a video card into a > > motherboard) with an anlaogue multimeter and an LED+resitor 'logic > > probe'. So it certainly _can_ be done... > > Likewise! On my very first own computer, SWTPC 6800, I debugged > the fact I miswired the (20mA loop) tty using a Tek 555 scope to Yo uhad a 555? I managed (then) without a 'scope at all. Now my 555 is alongside me with a good selection of plug-ins. I don't use it all that much -- I find a logic analyser to be a more useful instrument, but anyway. > ID the Mikbug code loop waiting for the start bit. I was too dumb > to realize I should have checked for Rx into the PIA :-) > > Soldered every damn chip and all those molex "card edge" > connectors one at a time. Ugh. Plus a whole tube of 2102's (and > not 21L02's) a year later. > > Now I buy only laptops, nearly impossible to even open them, and Yuck! I'd not want a computer I couldn't easily pull apart, and I'd not want one without proper expansion (not Useless Serial Botch). Heck, I've even played about with the processor bus in HP handheld calculators... > quite happy with that. :-) Even having to stick in a PCMCIA card > these days seems invasive. Why isn't that built in? > The stuff I want is rarely built in, because no sane person would want it... -tony From wacarder at usit.net Mon Jan 17 18:07:57 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: DEC version of "101 Basic Computer Games" In-Reply-To: <20050117225133.TKHV20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: > >> David Ahl's "101 Basic Computer Games" published by DEC > >> in 1973 (this one is from the 1974 2nd printing). > > > >Does it have a DEC Order Number on it? Is it EB-04873-76? > > > >Ahl's DECUS submissions of these games are online at > > > > http://pdp-11.trailing-edge.com/rsts11/rsts-11-013/index.html > > http://pdp-11.trailing-edge.com/rsts11/rsts-11-014/index.html > > > >Tim. > > I can't find a DEC order number - the cover has the little blocks > "digital" logo in the lower right hand corner (as does the spine), > and inside it says: > > 1st printing -- July 1973 > 2nd printing -- April 1974 > > Copyright (C) 1973, 1974 by: > Digital Equipment Corporation > Maynard, Massachusetts 01754 > > But there is also a "box" which says: > > Additional copies of "101 BASIC Computer Games" > are available for $7.50 plus .75 postage from: > Creative Computing > P.O. Box 789-M > Morristown, N. J. 07960 > > So it doesn't look as though DEC actually offered the > book through it's own sales channels - at least not in > 1974. -- anyone know for sure? > > Regards, > Dave I have a d|i|g|i|t|a|l copy of the same book, 3rd printing, March 1975. It says: Additional copies of 101 Basic Computer Games are available for $7.50 plus 50 cents postage and handling from: Software Distribution Center Digital Equipment Corporation Maynard, Massachusetts 01754 So, it looks like DEC eventually did offer the book through its sales channels. I don't see a DEC order number on it, though. I have these games loaded on my RSTS/E 11/40 system, along with various other BASIC and BASIC PLUS games of the era, including the BASIC-PLUS version of ADVENTure, which was one of the hardest things I've ever tried to locate. We had that BASIC PLUS version on our college system back in the late 1970s (1979?), and I have greenbar paper LA36 hardcopy listings of the programs and the data file. When I tried locating a machine readable copy a couple years ago, everyone told me there was no such thing, that it was only written in FORTRAN. I told them I was sitting here looking at a BASIC program listing, circa 1979. I finally found a copy that someone had scavenged from a Project Delta system in the mid 1980s and pulled down to a PC file. It had a few bugs, but I was able to fix them by debugging and looking at my hardcopy listings of a known working version. Ashley From randy at s100-manuals.com Mon Jan 17 18:30:33 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? References: Message-ID: <000c01c4fcf4$ee2d9140$563cd7d1@randylaptop> You have the cart before the horse about the SA400. Yes it is only 35 tracks and yes everyone else went 40 tracks but the SA400 came first then everyone else extended it. You had to be careful about what media you stuck in each. The first 5.25" media only had a slot long enough for 35 tracks. Your FAQ implies that drives with 40 tracks came before the SA400. I may be wrong but as I remember there was also a 100tpi drive (in both single and double sided versions) but to be fair I only remember it as being hard sectored MFM. Randy From: "Tony Duell" >> It'd be nice if there was a FAQ about floppy formats in general TBH. >> Covering some of the different geomery and encoding schemes out there >> etc. (not necessarily mentioning any machines by name). > > I'll stick my 5.25" MFM (PC, essentially) disk FAQ at the end of this > message. You (or anyone else) is welcome ot make use of it in a more > comprehensive FAQ provided you give me an acknowledgement. > > -tony > > ----------------- > 5.25" floppy disk Frequently Asked Questions > -------------------------------------------- > > 2000 A. R. Duell with comments and additions from Fred Cisin. Please feel > free to distribute this document (on web sites, ftp sites, mailing lists, > etc) provided this notice is intact. > > This doecument was written as a response to questions on the classic > computer mailing list regarding the use of various types of 5.25" floppy > disks in various types of drives. It attempts to explain what > combinations work and why. For the moment I am only considering > soft-sectored drives... > > 1) What types of (soft sectored) 5.25" drives are there. > > There are 5 common types : > 48 tpi single sided, double density. These have 40 cylinders (and 40 > tracks). On a PC they'd store 180K bytes, however on other systems, their > capactiy could be anything from 160K to 200K. A few very early drives > (Shugart SA400, for example), and systems designed to use them, only used > 35 of the 40 tracks, but kept the same 48tpi track pitch > > 48tpi double sided, double density. These have 40 cylinders (80 tracks > total, one for each cylinder on each side of the disk). This is the > common PC 360K drive. When used on other types of machine, the capacity > is in general twice that of the single-sided drive, or somewhere between > 320K and 400K. > > 96 tpi, single sided, double density. These have 80 cylinders (and being > single-sided, 80 tracks). These are not common on PCs, and in fact most > versions of PC MS-DOS don't support them, but if used there would store > 360K. The DEC RX50 is a (double) drive of this type. The capacity of > these units is the same as that of the 48 tpi double sided drives (not > too suprising, as they have the same number of tracks). > > 96 tpi, double sided, double density. Again, they have 80 cylinders (and > thus 160 tracks). On a PC, they'd store 720K, although they're not > commonly found on PCs, although the IBM PX=JX used them. Theyre are > common on non-PC compatible MS-DOS machines, CP/M machines, Acorn BBC > micros, and early-ish unix workstations, where they store between 640K > and 800K depending on the formatting. > > 96 tpi double density drives are sometimes called 'quad density' units. > > 96 tpi, double sided, high density. This is the PC 1.2Mbyte drive, and is > not commonly used elsewhere. These drives have several differences > compared to the double density version, although the PC controller hides > some of these. This drive is, in fact, somewhat similar to the 8" drive > -- it uses the same data rate and even the same spindle speed (360 rpm, > as against 300rpm for all the other types of drive). It thus can often be > used as a substitute for an 8" drive in older machines, if connected up > with a special cable. > > 2) What are the real differenced between the various types? > > The difference between single and double sided drives is obvious -- the > double sided drive has an extra head (mounted on top of the disk) and a > switching circuit to select between the 2 heads. In passing at this > point I'll mention that single-sided drives record on the bottom > (non-label side] of the disk and that this is 'side 0' on double sided > units > > The differences between 48 tpi and 96 tpi double density drives are again > fairly obvious. The head positioner (mechanism that moves the read/write > head) is designed to move the head only 1/96" per step rather than 1/48". > The actual head in a 96tpi is narrower (radially) than the one in a 48tpi > drive so that it writes a narrower track on the disk (so that adjacent > tracks don't overlap at the closer spacing). > > The high density drive has several differences wrt the 96 tpi double > density unit. Firstly, the spindle motor rotates at 360rpm (at least in > high density mode, see below) rather than the 300rpm that all other > drives rotate at. Also the 'write current' (the electric current passed > through the head coil to write on the disk) is higher in high density > mode so as to be able to write on the special high density disks. These > have a higher coercivity than normal double density disks. > > There is a signal on the interface connector of high density drives (at > least the properly-designed ones) that, when asserted, reduces the write > current to the value used with normal double density disks. In this mode, > the drive will reliably work as a 96 tpi double density unit. In some > drives, asserting this signal will slow the spindle motor down to 300rpm, > in others, it continues to turn at 360rpm and the controller has to > handle a data rate of 6/5 times times the standard 250kbps double > density rate (=300kbps). The IBM PC/AT disk controller is capable of doing > this. > > 3) What types of disks exist? > > All 5.25" disks that I have ever seen are coated with the magnetic oxide > on both sides. > > A double sided disk means that both sides have been tested and shown to > be reliable for storing data. A single sided disk may be one where the > top side has failed this test (and the bottom side is good) or one which > simply hasn't been tested on both sides. It is often claimed that single > sided disks are those that have certainly failed the test on the top > side, but in fact, the reliability of the disk manufacturing process was > such that very few disks failed, and that therefore there simply wouldn't > be enough made to sell as single-sided ones. Most single-sided disks are > therefore good on both sides. > > I (ARD) have used a number of DEC RX50 disks that have been bulk-erased > as double-sided 96 tpi disks. Since the RX50 is a single-sided 96tpi > drive, there would be no reason for these disks to work reliably as > double sided ones, but I have yet to have one fail. > > '80 track' -- 96 tpi -- double density disks do seem to be different from > '40 track' -- 48 tpi ones. I suspect, without proof, that the 96 tpi ones > are lower 'noise' which is important for the narrower tracks used on such > drives. > > The original 5.25" disks were designed to be used in 48tpi drives, since > that's all that there was at the time. Once 96 tpi drives became popular, > many manufacturers starting making all their disks suitable for use in > such > drives (it was cheaper for them to have one production line) and sold > them as 'universal' disks, suitable for use in 48 or 96 tpi drives, > single or double sided. > > However, once the IBM PC and PC/AT became the only common computers to > have 5.25" drives, many manufacturers went back to making 48 tpi disks > only, since that was the only double density drive in common use. > Therefore many modern double density (known as '360K disks') are _not_ > reliable in 96tpi drives. > > High density disks are different. Period. The magnetic media has a > different coercivity (600 oerstedt for high density disks, 300 oerstedt > for all other 5.25" disks), and it can only be used in the high density > drive _at the high density_. > > 4) What sorts of blank disks can be used in what drives? > > Double sided disks can always be used in single sided drives. The fact > that the unused side is also perfectly good for storing data doesn't > matter, of course. > > Some people modified the disk jacket of double sided disks by cutting an > extra write protect notch and index hole (for those systems that used it, > which is basically everything apart from Apple and Commodore) in it. Such > disks could be used either way up in the drives so that both sides of the > magnetic disk could be used, and were often known as 'flippy' disks. Some > manufacturers even sold disks with the extra notch and hole pre-cut at > the factory, and I've even seen the service manual for a Siemens drive > with 2 write protect sensors and 2 index sensors so that a normal, > unmodified disk could be used either way up. > > Note that doing this means that the data on one side of the disk is > recorded 'backwards' (the disk is effectively spinning in the opposite > direction), and thus the result cannot be read in a 2 head drive simply > by selecting the other head. Even with a 2 head drive you still have to > flip the disk over manually. > > 96 tpi double density disks can be used in 48 tpi double density drives. > Again, the disk is 'better' than it needs to be, but that doesn't matter. > > This means that these disks can be used as follows : > disk works in > 96 tpi DS : 96 tpi DS, 96 tpi SS, 48 tpi DS, 48 tpi SS > 96 tpi SS : 96 tpi SS, 48 tpi SS > 48 tpi DS : 48 tpi DS, 48 tpi SS > 48 tpi SS : 48 tpi SS > > For that reason, many manufacturers sold 96 tpi double sided disks as > 'Universal' disks. They could be used in all types of (double density) > drives. > > High density disks are special. They can _only_ be used in high density > drives at the high density format. Similarly, high density drives will > only reliably work in high density mode on such disks. But if the > appropriate signal is asserted, then the high denisty drive behaves like > a 96tpi double sided double density unit, and can use double density > disks. > > 5) What combinations may work under some circumstances? > > Single sided disks may work in double sided drives. Firstly, some systems > (many systems?) allow you to format them as single-sided, for which they > are (obviously) suitable. And in many cases the 'other' side of the disk > is perfectly good and the disk can be formatted as double sided. > > 48 tpi disks may be good enough to work in 96tpi drives. My experience > suggests this is not reliable, though. > > 6) What about data interchange? What (already recorded) disks can be read > in what sorts of drives? > > Let's deal with the obvious cases first. A double sided drive can read a > single sided disk. The upper head is simply not used. Similarly, a double > sided drive can write to an already-used single sided disk. > > Another obvious case is that the high density disks can only be used in > high density drives. > > The less obvious case is the 48 tpi versus 96tpi issue. The drives were > designed so that the centre line of alternate 96 tpi cylinders is the same > distance from the spindle as the centre line of each 48 tpi cylinder. > Thus 48 tpi disks can be read in 96 tpi drives if the drive 'double > steps'. Some drives can do this in hardware (there may be a switch marked > 40/80 on the drive casing), some operating systems can handle this. > > Since a high density drive can be 'turned into' a double density drive by > asserting that signal I keep mentioning, a high denisty drive can also > reliably read 48 tpi disks. > > 96 tpi drives writing to 48 tpi disks is a cause of many problems, which > deserves its own section. Erasing a file involves writing to the disk > directory, of course, and thus counts as writing to the disk. > > 7) What's all this about writing to 48 tpi disks in 96 tpi drives? > > This is perhaps the biggest cause of problems with 5.25" disks. People > write a file to a 48tpi disk using a 96 tpi drive and find that the > result is readable on 96 tpi drives but not on 48 tpi drives. > > Remember that the 96 tpi drive has a narrower head than the 48 tpi drive, > so it writes a narrower track to the disk. > > A blank disk is one that has just been manufactured, or that has been > bulk-erased. Reformatting a disk in a normal disk drive _does not_ > produce a blank disk in this sense -- it writes the track pattern to the > disk, with whatever width of head the drive doing the formatting uses. > > Suppose we take a totally blank disk and format it on a 48 tpi drive. > This writes 40 tracks on each side of the disk. They may be 'empty' in > the sense that they contain no user data, but they're still recorded. > > Then we write to it on a double-stepping 96 tpi drive. The narrower head > overwrittes the middle band of some tracks, but the edges remain > unchanged. > > A 96 tpi drive can read that perfectly well. Its narrow head only 'sees' > the 'new' data down the middle of each track. > > But a 48 tpi drive with its wider head, sees both the old and new data. > The result is a mess that the controller can't decode. So the disk is not > readable on a 48 tpi drive. > > A similar argument shows that the same problem occurs if you take a blank > disk, format it on a double-stepping 96 tpi drive, write some files to it > there, write to it with a 48 tpi drive and then write to it with the > double-stepping 96 tpi drive again. The result is not readable on a 48 tpi > drive. > > And if you take a disk that has been formatted and used on a 48tpi drive > and then reformat it on a double-stepping 96 tpi drive, the result may > well not be readable on a 48tpi drive. Each track will have the > newly-formatted narrow track down the centre and the remains of the old > wider track along the outsides. > > If you must format a disk in a double-stepping 96 tpi drive, then either > use a brand new disk (and not a preformatted one, of course), or > bulk-erase the disk. > > In general, if you take a blank disk, format it on a double stepping 96 > tpi > drive and write to it there only, the result is readable both 48 tpi and > 96 tpi drives. The narrower tracks generally do provide enough signal for > the wider head on the 48 tpi drive provided there is nothing in the > 'blank' spaces between the tracks. > > The simple rule is : > > * If you ever write to a disk in a 96 tpi drive that has already be * > * written to (including formatting) in a 48 tpi drive then the result * > * may well not be readable in 48 tpi drives. * From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 17 18:52:51 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <000c01c4fcf4$ee2d9140$563cd7d1@randylaptop> References: <000c01c4fcf4$ee2d9140$563cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050117164719.N52829@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > I may be wrong but as I remember there was also a 100tpi drive (in both > single and double sided versions) but to be fair I only remember it as being > hard sectored MFM. Micropolis did soft sectored 100tpi. (and also made 48tpi) Very nice drive, with a somewhat slow helical lead screw positioner. The Tandon TM-100-4M was also 100tpi ("M" stood for "micropolis"?) When Tony originally wrote that FAQ, we agreed that the 100tpi was obscure enough that it didn't need to be mentioned in the FAQ (along with things like the AMLYN drive) There have certainly been some strange additional variations! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From jim.isbell at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 18:56:47 2005 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Macintosh Performa 405 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Nothing to me. On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 15:19:54 -0800 (PST), Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > > > Is this thing worth anything?? > > It depends on how much you're willing to pay for it. > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > > -- Jim Isbell W5JAI UltraVan #257 CAL - 27 #221 From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 17 18:57:28 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Sellam wrote: > I'd like to make a box with four floppy types: 5.25" 360 and 1.2, and > 3.5" 720 and 1.44. I seem to recall someone here did this. You don't really need a 3.5" 720K drive. Unlike the 360K/1.2M situation with 5.25-inch drives, the 1440K 3.5" drives can reliably read and write 720K diskettes. > I'll check the DOS manual to see if it says anything as Nico indicates. IIRC, there was a driver supplied in some (but not all) versions of DOS called DRIVER.SYS which had to be installed using a "DEVICE=" command in CONFIG.SYS in order to support extra floppies. I don't recall whether it allowed specifying a base IO address for a secondary controller. They may have removed some functionality in later DOS releases. From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 17 18:58:56 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <41EAD94A.8090800@mdrconsult.com> References: <41EAD94A.8090800@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <33069.64.169.63.74.1106009936.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Doc wrote: > I have a 5.25/3.5" combo drive that handles all four of those formats > (and 3.5" 360K) just fine. The gorgeous part is that it occupies a > single 5.25" bay. Won't write 360K 5.25" disks reliably. 1.2M drives have a narrower head gap than 360K drives, because they use 96 TPI rather than 48 TPI. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 17 19:04:42 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: <41EAD94A.8090800@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <33104.64.169.63.74.1106010282.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Sellam wrote: > Fred seems to be the Guru with regards to floppy formats, and perhaps I > misinterpreted what I read, but I recall him bringing up a scenario in > which a disk formatted as 360K on a newer drive would not be readable on > an "actual" (i.e older) 360K drive, or the other way around, or something. 5.25-inch 1.2M "high-density" drives cannot reliably write to 360K disks because of the narrow head gap. They can't completely overwrite the existing format or data, so when you try to read the results on a real 360K drive (or even on a 1.2M drive with slightly different alignment), you aren't likely to be able to read it successfully. In some cases you'll read back the old data, because it still is present in two bands to the sides of the narrow band of new data. If you *must* do this, do it on an UNFORMATTED disk, i.e., one that was never formatted, or one that's really been bulk-erased well (which is hard to do). Far better to use a 360K drive for that. Fortunately the 3.5-inch drives commonly used on PCs are all 135 TPI with the same head gap, so there's no problem with 1440K drives writing 720K disks. Eric From randy at s100-manuals.com Mon Jan 17 19:07:14 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? References: <000c01c4fcf4$ee2d9140$563cd7d1@randylaptop> <20050117164719.N52829@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <003301c4fcfa$0d9700c0$563cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Fred Cisin" > On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: >> I may be wrong but as I remember there was also a 100tpi drive (in both >> single and double sided versions) but to be fair I only remember it as >> being >> hard sectored MFM. > > Micropolis did soft sectored 100tpi. (and also made 48tpi) > Very nice drive, with a somewhat slow helical lead screw positioner. > The Tandon TM-100-4M was also 100tpi ("M" stood for "micropolis"?) > > > When Tony originally wrote that FAQ, we agreed that the 100tpi was obscure > enough that it didn't need to be mentioned in the FAQ (along with things > like the AMLYN drive) > > There have certainly been some strange additional variations! > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com Trying to remember 30 years of stuff I only "worked" on one for a customer and it appeared to be an alignment problem. I didn't have an alignment disk for it so I had to send it to another shop that said they could handle it (as I remember they didn't). Randy From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 17 19:09:53 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050117121201.04ef5da8@mail> References: <1105980946.2515.1.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050117121201.04ef5da8@mail> Message-ID: <33217.64.169.63.74.1106010593.squirrel@64.169.63.74> John wrote: > What's next, Bill Gates jokes? My favorite is a one-liner: > "If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed... > Oh wait! He does!" No, even Bill isn't that rich. In fact, I don't think there's that much money in the world. From randy at s100-manuals.com Mon Jan 17 19:11:22 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? References: <41EAD94A.8090800@mdrconsult.com> <33069.64.169.63.74.1106009936.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <003a01c4fcfa$a26d9290$563cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Eric Smith" > Doc wrote: >> I have a 5.25/3.5" combo drive that handles all four of those formats >> (and 3.5" 360K) just fine. The gorgeous part is that it occupies a >> single 5.25" bay. > > Won't write 360K 5.25" disks reliably. 1.2M drives have a narrower head > gap than 360K drives, because they use 96 TPI rather than 48 TPI. > > Eric I never had any problems with the 360K written on a 1.2mb drive but I always bulk erased it first. On the other hand I usually had a (and still have) a 360K drive laying around. Randy From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 17 19:16:02 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Anyone recognize MK4116E ? In-Reply-To: <20050117210835.PHAN8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> References: <20050117210835.PHAN8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <33264.64.169.63.74.1106010962.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Dave wrote: > about a dozen interesting looking chips, which are > labled: MK4116E-3 That's the part number of the individual CLCC chips, not the complete part. The complete part is an MK4332. > This appear to be a 9-pin DIP ceramic carrier with 18 pin > two smaller chips mounted on-top - each of the smaller > chips has the MK4116E-3 designation. The smaller chips > also have 9 pins, however they are not DIP but rather in > a 4, 5, 4, 5 arrangement all the way around the device. 18 contact each, of which only 16 are used. Those are plain old 16K DRAMs. > Anyone recognize these? My guess is some sort of RAM > (dynamic)? Clearly not the same as a standard 4116 DRAM. Just two of them packaged together. > anyone know what they were used in? Some PC clones. Some Apple IIIs. Various other stuff. Eric From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 17 19:19:38 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> References: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <20050117171153.G52829@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Eric Smith wrote: > You don't really need a 3.5" 720K drive. Unlike the 360K/1.2M situation > with 5.25-inch drives, the 1440K 3.5" drives can reliably read and write > 720K diskettes. The 1.4M does, indeed seem to reliably handle 720K. The somewhat rare 67.5tpi 3.5" drive (Epson) might have the expected issues of track width. > IIRC, there was a driver supplied in some (but not all) versions of DOS > called DRIVER.SYS which had to be installed using a "DEVICE=" command > in CONFIG.SYS in order to support extra floppies. I don't recall whether > it allowed specifying a base IO address for a secondary controller. > They may have removed some functionality in later DOS releases. DRIVER.SYS was included starting with PC-DOS and MS-DOS 3.20 (when IBM started supporting 720K 3.5") A few OEM MS-DOS versions had similar drivers since 2.11 DRIVPARM was also included, but undocumented in PC-DOS, and not compatible with the real IBM BIOS. DRIVER.SYS does NOT include IO addresses, etc. It assumes that there is already full BIOS support in INT 13h -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 17 19:19:40 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? Message-ID: <200501180119.RAA08220@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Eric I think he means that as long as he stays on that drive, he has no issues. The write problem is obvious to anyone that thinks about it a little ( I hope ). 1. A truely blank disk ( bulk erased ) can be formatted and written on by a 1.2M drive and will work in most cases on a 360K drive. This may written on by a 360K drive as well and still work on a 360K. 2. Once a disk has been written on first by a 360K drive and then a 1.2M, it can only be read on a 1.2M drive! That's life. Dwight >From: "Eric Smith" > >Doc wrote: >> I have a 5.25/3.5" combo drive that handles all four of those formats >> (and 3.5" 360K) just fine. The gorgeous part is that it occupies a >> single 5.25" bay. > >Won't write 360K 5.25" disks reliably. 1.2M drives have a narrower head >gap than 360K drives, because they use 96 TPI rather than 48 TPI. > >Eric > > From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Mon Jan 17 19:29:43 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Nickel Metal Hydrids In-Reply-To: Paul Koning "Re: Nickel Metal Hydrids" (Jan 17, 17:06) References: <200501171932.LAA08087@clulw009.amd.com> <0b7301c4fcd7$fcf06e40$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> <41EC3160.nailB731Z16EB@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <16876.14063.286127.894416@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Message-ID: <10501180129.ZM1452@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 17 2005, 17:06, Paul Koning wrote: > >>>>> "shoppa" == shoppa classiccmp writes: > shoppa> This raises a question for refurbishing older equipment: is > shoppa> it always OK to just drop a set of NiMH's in place of > shoppa> same-size NiCad's? Most of the "stupid" NiCad battery > shoppa> chargers were just 0.1C trickle chargers, but the "smart" > shoppa> ones that looked for the voltage rise at the end of charge of > shoppa> a NiCad may not see this with a NiMH pack. Anyone have any > shoppa> experience? > > I'm not sure that a trickle charger that works for NiCd is ok for > NiMH, and I am positive that a fast charger for the one will NOT work > right for the other. Each battery technology has its own charging > rules -- lead acid, NiCd, NiMH, and the various flavors of Lithium > battery are all different in very significant ways. Lead-acid, lithium, various others, and NiMH/NiCd certainly need very different charging regimes, but NiMH and NiCd are very similar to each other. The most important difference is that for a NiMH you should stop the charging when the voltage flattens out, and before it starts to fall again; for a NiCd you should stop when the voltage just starts to fall again. Of course, you shouldn't let them get too hot, and you shouldn't fast-charge very cold batteries either. Maxim do a couple of inexpensive chips (MAX712/MAX713) that take the hard work out of all that; used with a thermistor, they won't fast-charge cold cells until they warm up, and they won't fast-charge until the cell voltage rises above some threshold. I've used them but I've not put enough cycles through enough cells to see what the life is like. Interestingly, Maxim's data sheet indicates that the difference between detecting the voltage slope flattening and detecting the slight fall is less important to NiMH cells, especially when the charge rate is fairly *high*. That means for a lot of applications you could safely use an NiCd charger for NiMH cells, but vice-versa would leave you with slighly undercharged NiCds. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 17 19:56:59 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <200501180119.RAA08220@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501180119.RAA08220@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <46351.64.169.63.74.1106013419.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Dwight wrote: > 2. Once a disk has been written on first by a 360K drive > and then a 1.2M, it can only be read on a 1.2M drive! Even that won't necessarily be reliable; if the head alignment is even slightly off, by an amount that would not normally cause problems with 1.2M disk interchange, it can cause problems reading 360K disks that have been written on 1.2M drives. Eric From CCTalk at catcorner.org Mon Jan 17 20:27:22 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C71@mail.catcorner.org> > > > The heads are selected by U4 (75451 dual AND gate/driver), > the outputs of > which are pulled to+5V, and slo drive the bases of Q7 (Head 1) and Q6 > (Head 0), PN2222 transistors via restors. One input of each > of the AND > gates comes from the power-OK circuit, built round Q9 and Q10 > (as this is > common to both heads, it's working correctly), the other > input comes from > the sides select signal on the connector (U4b, for head 1) or > from that > signal inverted by U8b (7414) on U4a, for head 0. That should > give you > some components to check. > Are you sure U4a drives Q6 and U4b drives Q7? Tracing the board shows them on Q7 and Q8. Yikes. Any chance you could scan the schematic and email it? 1bpp tiff, bmp or pcx would do. The higher the resoultion the better, but I could probably make due at 150dpi. You could even send it in seperate parts. I could then stitch them together. Making some preliminary measurements, it's beginning to look like a head problem. I am reluctant to actually load the heads until I have to. I still have not "cleaned" the top head thouroughly, although it seems clean examining it through a loop. I may just install a pair of known good drives in the machine and troubleshoot these two independantly. At least I would have matching drives in the machine until I can figure out what is wrong here. Thanks, Kelly From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jan 17 20:45:48 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Windows Backup program? Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050117214548.00923410@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> This past weekeend I found a ADIC 1200D DAT tape library in a scrap pile. It has a Sony DAT-2 tape drive with an autochanger and holds up to 12 tapes. I'm thinking of using it on my PC. Can anyone recommend a good (and cheap!) backup program that will work with Windows 98? Joe From CCTalk at catcorner.org Mon Jan 17 20:47:09 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C72@mail.catcorner.org> > > > The heads are selected by U4 (75451 dual AND gate/driver), > > the outputs of > > which are pulled to+5V, and slo drive the bases of Q7 (Head > 1) and Q6 > > (Head 0), PN2222 transistors via restors. One input of each > > of the AND > > gates comes from the power-OK circuit, built round Q9 and Q10 > > (as this is > > common to both heads, it's working correctly), the other > > input comes from > > the sides select signal on the connector (U4b, for head 1) or > > from that > > signal inverted by U8b (7414) on U4a, for head 0. That should > > give you > > some components to check. > > > Are you sure U4a drives Q6 and U4b drives Q7? Tracing the > board shows them > on Q7 and Q8. Yikes. Any chance you could scan the schematic > and email it? > 1bpp tiff, bmp or pcx would do. The higher the resoultion the > better, but I > could probably make due at 150dpi. > > You could even send it in seperate parts. I could then stitch > them together. > Making some preliminary measurements, it's beginning to look > like a head > problem. I am reluctant to actually load the heads until I > have to. I still > have not "cleaned" the top head thouroughly, although it seems clean > examining it through a loop. > > I may just install a pair of known good drives in the machine and > troubleshoot these two independantly. At least I would have > matching drives > in the machine until I can figure out what is wrong here. > > Thanks, > Kelly > I don't kwow what it means when I reply to my own replies, but here goes. I have the same continuity measurements on head 0 and head 1. However, if I swap the controller board (I know, Tony, you generally frown upon "swapping" for troubleshooting, but I couldn't find anything electrically), the problem stays with the drive. So, if I have the same continuity, and the problem doesn't seem to be on the controller, I can only guess either dirty or magentized heads. I noticed that if I close the drive with no media and open it slowly, the heads stick together until there is a bit of load on them to pull apart. Kind of like the are lightly magnetized. Since I don't have access to a tape head demagnitizer (hey, all I use is DTRS for my recording), how else could I demagnetize these heads? I'm going to bed now. More tomorrow. Kelly From aw288 at osfn.org Mon Jan 17 20:54:42 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: AMI Message-ID: I have a chip here, an 1101 marked "sample" with a datecode of 7103. Very likely it is a second sourced Intel 1101. The logo is a new one on me, and I think it may be a mutant AMI, but from my resources, I am just guessing. I dug up a 1970 AMI databook, and the logo does not match. The one on the book is the A over M next to I version, and the thing on the chip looks like five lines next to each other, with the first line being somewhat curved (sort of like a half-circle) and the last being a tad shorter with a dot over it. The standard mid 1970s AMI logo is simply A next to M next to I. Does anyone know if AMI tried a strange logo between the two known ones - perhaps one that matches my chip? Could this logo not be AMI? William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jan 17 21:13:07 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C72@mail.catcorner.org> from Kelly Leavitt at "Jan 17, 5 09:47:09 pm" Message-ID: <200501180313.TAA19908@floodgap.com> > I don't kwow what it means when I reply to my own replies, Can't be good. Step into my office tomorrow when you get a chance. Ignore the padded walls; they're for your protection, not mine. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. -- Shakespeare --------------- From dave04a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 17 21:27:58 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Anyone recognize MK4116E ? Message-ID: <20050118032756.URKM8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> At 17:16 17/01/2005 -0800, you wrote: >Dave wrote: >> about a dozen interesting looking chips, which are >> labled: MK4116E-3 > >That's the part number of the individual CLCC chips, not >the complete part. The complete part is an MK4332. This makes sense, and you are right, both parts are labled identically... I can't find a "whole device" part number. >> This appear to be a 9-pin DIP ceramic carrier with >18 pin Yes - I counted one side and failed to x2 before posting. >18 contact each, of which only 16 are used. Those are >plain old 16K DRAMs. > >> Anyone recognize these? My guess is some sort of RAM >> (dynamic)? Clearly not the same as a standard 4116 DRAM. > >Just two of them packaged together. So this is a 32k bit DRAM device? (which explains the 18 pins) - I don't recall running across such a beast before. Been through *LOTS* of 4116 16K DIP DRAMS, and an equally big number of 4164s over the years... Actually, now that I think of it, I do have a bag of the "doubled up" RAM chips from a IBM AT - these look like two 4116's stacked on top of each other - so these are just a variation of the same thing ...? >> anyone know what they were used in? > >Some PC clones. Some Apple IIIs. Various other stuff. Thanks. Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From dave04a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 17 21:38:59 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Anyone recognize MK4116E ? Message-ID: <20050118033858.XGLU20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Hi tony, >Are there any other markings on them? I remember once seeing some Mostek >'chips' like these that had 2 off 4164s on top, and were essentially 128K >bit DRAMs (separate CAS signals to the 2 halves IIRC). Yes, they are Mostek - and I recall the stacked 4164's in the IBM AT - I just posted that they were 4116s, but thats due to bad bits in the organic memory array - you just reminded me that they were 4164's - allowing 512K on the 256K board - ahh the days of such huge capacity... >I wondef if you've found a 32K bit version made from 2 off 4116s. It does appear that this is what these things are ... IIRC, there was a similar stacked arrangement for SRAM chips in the Radio Shack (Kyocera) Model-100 - the "8k" device was actually 4 x 2k devices on a small carrier - problem was that they brought out the 4 selects instead of address lines, so you couldn't just put in an 8k device - I bought a third party RAM chip which had an 8k device on a small board with some diodes to generate a common select (the extra address lines must have been there as well, because there was no other logic on the board) - seemed a skunkwork design to me, however it never gave me trouble (in fact it's still working). What wonderful little things get created to fill in the "gaps" in available devices... Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Jan 17 22:04:56 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <200501180119.RAA08220@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501180119.RAA08220@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <41EC8AE8.8050808@mdrconsult.com> Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > Hi Eric > I think he means that as long as he stays on that drive, > he has no issues. The write problem is obvious to anyone > that thinks about it a little ( I hope ). I don't just stay on that drive. If I did, I wouldn't need it in the first place. > 1. A truely blank disk ( bulk erased ) can be formatted > and written on by a 1.2M drive and will work in most > cases on a 360K drive. This may written on by a 360K > drive as well and still work on a 360K. > 2. Once a disk has been written on first by a 360K drive > and then a 1.2M, it can only be read on a 1.2M drive! > > That's life. No, that's wrong. At least, it's not necessarily true. I have formatted disks for an RX50 on the 1.2MB drive, written data to them on that drive, and used them on a PDP-11. I have also used floppies to back up an RSX-11S disk on "real" RX50 disks, transcribed that to PC, overwritten them on the PC without a low-level format, and read them on the PDP-11. I have had some floppies fail, but they always failed either on the RX50 drive *before* they were ever in the 1.2MB drive, or they failed format on the 1.2MB drive before they ever made it to the PDP-11. I don't doubt the information I'm reading, that the track written by the 1.2MB drive is narrower than the track written by a native 360K drive. I'll even stipulate that my experience is limited to writing disks for PDP-11s and the Altos 580 (DSQD I think; I haven't played with that box in a long while), so I can't speak to the reliability on other platforms. I *can* say that in writing, overwriting, transcribing, and reading RX50[0] floppies between a real PDP-11 and a Linux PC with a 1.2MB 5.25" drive, track width has never been an issue. The few disk failures I've had never got far enough to bring that into play. Doc [0] Both original NIB RX50-formatted 3M floppies, and 1.2MB DSHD floppies formatted according to Pat Finnegan's fdformat/superformat parameters. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 17 22:07:38 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <33217.64.169.63.74.1106010593.squirrel@64.169.63.74> References: <1105980946.2515.1.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050117121201.04ef5da8@mail> <33217.64.169.63.74.1106010593.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <200501180413.XAA11290@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> What's next, Bill Gates jokes? My favorite is a one-liner: >> "If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed... >> Oh wait! He does!" > No, even Bill isn't that rich. In fact, I don't think there's that > much money in the world. One nickel per crash, one crash per day, for each of hundred million machines, for a year, is a little over 1.8 gigabux. How rich is Billy-boy? How many Windows boxen are there? (I don't know the answer to either.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jan 17 22:28:57 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <41EC8AE8.8050808@mdrconsult.com> References: <200501180119.RAA08220@clulw009.amd.com> <41EC8AE8.8050808@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200501172328.58018.pat@computer-refuge.org> Doc Shipley declared on Monday 17 January 2005 11:04 pm: > Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > > 1. A truely blank disk ( bulk erased ) can be formatted > > and written on by a 1.2M drive and will work in most > > cases on a 360K drive. This may written on by a 360K > > drive as well and still work on a 360K. > > 2. Once a disk has been written on first by a 360K drive > > and then a 1.2M, it can only be read on a 1.2M drive! > > > > That's life. > > No, that's wrong. At least, it's not necessarily true. > > I have formatted disks for an RX50 on the 1.2MB drive, written data > to them on that drive, and used them on a PDP-11. I have also used > floppies to back up an RSX-11S disk on "real" RX50 disks, transcribed > that to PC, overwritten them on the PC without a low-level format, and > read them on the PDP-11. I have had some floppies fail, but they > always failed either on the RX50 drive *before* they were ever in the > 1.2MB drive, or they failed format on the 1.2MB drive before they ever > made it to the PDP-11. > > I don't doubt the information I'm reading, that the track written > by the 1.2MB drive is narrower than the track written by a native 360K > drive. I'll even stipulate that my experience is limited to writing > disks for PDP-11s and the Altos 580 (DSQD I think; I haven't played > with that box in a long while), so I can't speak to the reliability on > other platforms. Umm, the RX50s and Altos 580 floppies you've used are 80-track (96tpi) disks just like 1.2MB floppies. 360k floppies are 40-track (48tpi) disks. So, they're the same track width as a 1.2MB disk, not a 360k disk. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jan 17 22:31:53 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Windows Backup program? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050117214548.00923410@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050117214548.00923410@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: > This past weekeend I found a ADIC 1200D DAT tape library in a scrap pile. >It has a Sony DAT-2 tape drive with an autochanger and holds up to 12 >tapes. I'm thinking of using it on my PC. Can anyone recommend a good (and >cheap!) backup program that will work with Windows 98? > > Joe Look and see if Retrospect will work... Actually I think they just got bought out by EMC so Buyer Beware. Anyhow, I've used the Mac version with my Exabyte Jukebox and liked it. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Jan 17 22:34:09 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <200501172328.58018.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200501180119.RAA08220@clulw009.amd.com> <41EC8AE8.8050808@mdrconsult.com> <200501172328.58018.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <41EC91C1.20606@mdrconsult.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Doc Shipley declared on Monday 17 January 2005 11:04 pm: > >>Dwight K. Elvey wrote: >> >>>1. A truely blank disk ( bulk erased ) can be formatted >>> and written on by a 1.2M drive and will work in most >>> cases on a 360K drive. This may written on by a 360K >>> drive as well and still work on a 360K. >>>2. Once a disk has been written on first by a 360K drive >>> and then a 1.2M, it can only be read on a 1.2M drive! >>> >>>That's life. >> >> No, that's wrong. At least, it's not necessarily true. >> >> I have formatted disks for an RX50 on the 1.2MB drive, written data >>to them on that drive, and used them on a PDP-11. I have also used >>floppies to back up an RSX-11S disk on "real" RX50 disks, transcribed >>that to PC, overwritten them on the PC without a low-level format, and >>read them on the PDP-11. I have had some floppies fail, but they >>always failed either on the RX50 drive *before* they were ever in the >>1.2MB drive, or they failed format on the 1.2MB drive before they ever >>made it to the PDP-11. >> >> I don't doubt the information I'm reading, that the track written >>by the 1.2MB drive is narrower than the track written by a native 360K >>drive. I'll even stipulate that my experience is limited to writing >>disks for PDP-11s and the Altos 580 (DSQD I think; I haven't played >>with that box in a long while), so I can't speak to the reliability on >>other platforms. > > > Umm, the RX50s and Altos 580 floppies you've used are 80-track (96tpi) > disks just like 1.2MB floppies. 360k floppies are 40-track (48tpi) > disks. So, they're the same track width as a 1.2MB disk, not a 360k > disk. Oh. Never mind. Doc From gmanuel at gmconsulting.net Mon Jan 17 23:10:14 2005 From: gmanuel at gmconsulting.net (GManuel (GMC)) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Misc available for free Message-ID: To the owner of this equiptment. I know that you sent me a reply to this on the 17th but my wife was on my computer and I heard a whoops. LOL... She accidentally deleted your reply to me. Could you please resend it. Thank you very much, she had already cleared everything permanently by the time I got to her. LOL Thank you for your time and sorry for the inconvience, Greg Manuel -----Original Message----- From: GManuel (GMC) [mailto:gmanuel@gmconsulting.net] Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 5:56 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: RE: Misc available for free I would be interested in the Commodore 128 group and/or the Zip Drive group. Can you please tell me what shipping would be to the 19074 zipcode. You can email me direct at gmanuel at gmconsulting dot net. Thank you in advance for your time. Greg Manuel -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Chad Fernandez Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 5:36 PM To: rescue@sunhelp.org; cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Misc available for free Hey all, Free, plus shipping. I have everything split into 5 groups. I don't want to split the groups up, as I don't want to be sending out 100 boxs in 100 different directions. -Commodore 128, good shape cosmetically, all cords, power supply etc, original box, but doesn't work. It would freeze up on me, and I lost interest. -Zip100 for PC's (parallel port), new---I opened it, but I can't get it to work on either of my machines. It may very well be fine, since I can't get a Micro Solutions to work on my machines either. -a box full of PC leftovers, a pair of earlier Pentium class chips, slot covers, bay covers, centronics scsi cables, internal 50 pin scsi cables, floppy cables, several fans, a small scsi drive, a small ide drive, Hayes Accura 336 modem, drive rails, blah blah blah..... -IBM AT motherboard, serial card, 8/16 bit VGA card, Adaptec 1542B scsi card, 8-bit ISA MFM ST11R HD controller, Unisys Personal Workstation 2 Multiple Port Board with splitter cable drivers and instructions. -USR Courier V Everything (older one), doesn't seem to work, but has instructions, power supply, and good shape cosmetically..... maybe you need a PS to fix one, or make it look better? Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA >>> FREE spam killer: http://eliminatespam.com * FREE PopUp Buster+: http://popupbuster.net >>> FREE spam killer: http://eliminatespam.com * FREE PopUp Buster+: http://popupbuster.net From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 17 23:24:18 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> References: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <41EC9D82.10202@oldskool.org> Eric Smith wrote: > You don't really need a 3.5" 720K drive. Unlike the 360K/1.2M situation > with 5.25-inch drives, the 1440K 3.5" drives can reliably read and write > 720K diskettes. Yep. DOS had only one quirk, though: If you wanted to format a 720K disk in a 1440K drive, you had to specifically tell DOS to format as 720K. Otherwise, it assumes you're going for 1.4, attempts it, and fails. You can choose /f:720 with later versions of DOS; use "/t:80 /n:9" for 3.x. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 17 23:53:17 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <41EC8AE8.8050808@mdrconsult.com> References: <200501180119.RAA08220@clulw009.amd.com> <41EC8AE8.8050808@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <46805.64.169.63.74.1106027597.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Doc wrote: > I have formatted disks for an RX50 on the 1.2MB drive, written data > to them on that drive, and used them on a PDP-11. I have also used > floppies to back up an RSX-11S disk on "real" RX50 disks, transcribed > that to PC, overwritten them on the PC without a low-level format, and > read them on the PDP-11. I have had some floppies fail, but they always > failed either on the RX50 drive *before* they were ever in the 1.2MB > drive, or they failed format on the 1.2MB drive before they ever made it > to the PDP-11. RX50 and PC 1.2M formats are both 96 TPI, so this says exactly *nothing* about whether you can use 1.2M drives to write 360K disks reliably (which you can't). > I *can* say that in writing, overwriting, transcribing, and reading > RX50[0] floppies between a real PDP-11 and a Linux PC with a 1.2MB 5.25" > drive, track width has never been an issue. Because they're identical. Nothing to do with PC 360K format. From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 17 23:55:41 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <200501180413.XAA11290@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <1105980946.2515.1.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> <6.2.0.14.2.20050117121201.04ef5da8@mail> <33217.64.169.63.74.1106010593.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <200501180413.XAA11290@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <46810.64.169.63.74.1106027741.squirrel@64.169.63.74> >>> What's next, Bill Gates jokes? My favorite is a one-liner: >>> "If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed... >>> Oh wait! He does!" >> No, even Bill isn't that rich. In fact, I don't think there's that >> much money in the world. > > One nickel per crash, one crash per day, for each of hundred million > machines, for a year, is a little over 1.8 gigabux. How rich is > Billy-boy? How many Windows boxen are there? (I don't know the answer > to either.) More than 50e9, and well over 1e8. I've never used Windows for a full day with only one crash. From tomj at wps.com Tue Jan 18 02:30:37 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:05 2005 Subject: Data General 4/X haul from Bakersfield Message-ID: <20050117235605.V2429@localhost> Oh my most definitely worth it. Just a quick report, it's late, it's been a long day, 3 of 4 lanes closed on return trip adding 2 hr delay, I'll inventory later. Photos taken (in dark lab at night), will upload tomorrow. The system was a DOE project measuring the output of a test cooling tower, some coal burning experiment. The system is contained in 4 fancy blue DG racks with doors and pretty blue trim panels. Casters were left on and racks bolted to the floor of a custom mobile trailer -- double windows, monster A/C system (Bakersfield summer sun peels paint -- literally). Big analog input system wired to panel bolted to the wall, cables ran out to sensors whereeverthehelltheywere. No sun-bleached colors here! No mouse (eg. meeces, little mammals) presence detected, no birds, insects, or even humans for 20 years. Consists of: Nova 4/X, 6070 disk, two 6120/6123? vacuum column tape drives, plus a Computer Something Inc 48 channel analog input system (with full documentation), DG data acquisition system, DG isolated IO system (cage, cards, docs). Nova I think is 128K, with mapped RDOS (according to manual notes and patch tape labels). I dont know nova4 cards by eye, will deal with later. ALl spotlessly clean. It looks like it was turned off around 1984/1985 and just left alone. One brand-new-sealed-in-box cartridge for the 6070. One possibly- new-but-could-be-bad-in-box cart, plus one in the hole, for three total. Dasher RO terminal, dusty but perfect, two cases new sealed ribbons and a box of greenbar. Too bad no keyboard! Can I add one? Some big beige modem, with manual. Custom software full documentation (listings, oper man, schematics, all mans for the hdwe). Huge set (may be multiples) of DG manuals, 90% sealed never opened. 3-ring type (std DG) but no binders (also typical DG). Appears to include Everything. Two sets of DG fiche (likely software) one never opened til I opened it; I found 2nd already opened a few minutes later :-( WIll get out the reader in a week or two. About a dozen "system" tapes (backups, dumps, bootable), a couple of scratch tapes, about 8 DG patch tapes. One tape that must be a data collect from a program run. All doors were closed, so there's little dust inside cabinets; about what you'd see in a system in use for a year or so. THe trailer was well insulated and sealed, built for field use. No surface rust of any kind anywhere. I took even the listings scattered all over the floor and stepped on heavily. YOu never know. One minor mistake: the A/D system appeared to be standard telco wiring at first, so it got dyked out. The wall panel could have been unscrewed and taken home intact. Not really a big deal, as it seems likely that the AD thing will be redeployed as such, and it was just generic wiring, not DG. THe 6070 was restrained in the rack, and for shipment I had to remove the disk pack. I wiped off all the dust surrounding first to minimize contamination. I even found the orig. shipping drive dustcover! I taped the head opening shut, so the heads wouldn't zoom out (sorry, but I didn't know what else to do; circumstances didn't allow determining the right procedure and I've never shipped or unpacked one) but I put it in the truk so that the head path was perpendicular to the truck's travel eg. sideways. Inserted dustcover and clean towel over it, heads still properly retracted when I got home. The bad news: the A/C has been off for 20 years! Lots of orangy dust on the floor and rack externals. It seems more like disintegrated plastic than clay. Bubble wrap was fully disintegrated. Who knows what the heat did to the media. We'll see! Previous owner was fine; long story he got the trailer with a lot of other surplus goods, wanted to scrap the computer junk inside, told it would need to be recycled. A computer-savvy friend of his told Bruce, etc. So now my lab is at 120% (physical) capacity, which is actually a problem. I didn't really intend to packrat another computer (esp. one so large). But I do like the Nova4, even if it does have a stack pointer. The CPU, a tape, disk will certainly fit in two racks; it might fit in one. I assume systems like this one (random industrial duty) have no increased value or juice "complete", so paring it down to managable size might be in order. I'm not in a hurry -- yet. I will want my lab back at some point! On Wed I travel to Santa Fe (friend's 50th) (mine soon!) won't have time to work on it til I get back. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 02:53:58 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <20050117164719.N52829@shell.lmi.net> References: <000c01c4fcf4$ee2d9140$563cd7d1@randylaptop> <20050117164719.N52829@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 16:52:51 -0800 (PST), Fred Cisin wrote: > Micropolis did soft sectored 100tpi. (and also made 48tpi) > Very nice drive, with a somewhat slow helical lead screw positioner. > The Tandon TM-100-4M was also 100tpi ("M" stood for "micropolis"?) > > When Tony originally wrote that FAQ, we agreed that the 100tpi was obscure > enough that it didn't need to be mentioned in the FAQ (along with things > like the AMLYN drive) I'm having problems remembering off the top of my head, but didn't Commodore use 100tpi drives rather than 96tpi drives for the 8050/8250 IEEE-488 drives? Not IBM PC-compatible, but in the non-8088 world, somewhat common, n'est pas? -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 18 07:24:03 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jan 18, 5 03:53:58 am" Message-ID: <200501181324.FAA18744@floodgap.com> > I'm having problems remembering off the top of my head, but didn't > Commodore use 100tpi drives rather than 96tpi drives for the 8050/8250 > IEEE-488 drives? I don't think so (at least my 8050 isn't). Even the mega-massive SFD 1001 only uses 96tpi "quad". -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Stand by to launch beef by-product into oscillating ventilation unit ... --- From pkoning at equallogic.com Tue Jan 18 08:18:03 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? References: <1105965948.8878.5.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <16877.6811.698466.429882@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Tony, Nice discussion of the various floppy formats. One point you didn't mention is that the standard PC format has 9 sectors per track, while the DEC RX50 has 10 sectors per track. So in fact the RX50 does not have the same capacity as the double sided 48tpi PC floppies -- it has 10% more because of the higher sector count. PC floppies can read and write RX50 format, given a 96tpi capable drive. You can do it under DOS by using direct BIOS calls (int 13); under Linux, by setting the drive parameters to match the RX50 format. In addition, the RX50 logical block number to c/h/s mapping is odd. There is a 2:1 interleave, which is reasonable enough. Harder to explain is that logical block 0 is in cylinder 1, and cylinder 0 contains the last 10 blocks. I can supply details and sample code if anyone is interested (or you can find my utility "rstsflx" which has all this -- John Wilson's file server has a copy, as does Johnny Billquist if I remember right. paul From allain at panix.com Tue Jan 18 09:06:05 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Data General 4/X haul from Bakersfield References: <20050117235605.V2429@localhost> Message-ID: <004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > So now my lab is at 120% (physical) capacity, Interested to know how you set the 100% point. If we used the RCS/RI as a guide, it could be said to be at 94% floor capacity, based on observations back in 2001, where if it reached 100% you'd have to walk across the tops of the cabinets, IE the 6% is the footpaths. If you used that measure, then 120% would be saying that all the cabinets were squashed in to 9/10 their dimensions. So, what's 120% to you? PS: I'm currently trying to pack my cellar to 50%. Thanks to Steve Jones for the warning about weather&randomness, water&paper. John A. From james at jdfogg.com Tue Jan 18 09:24:18 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (james) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Data General 4/X haul from Bakersfield In-Reply-To: <004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20050117235605.V2429@localhost> <004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <1106061858.2479.2.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> > So, what's 120% to you? Several cabinets laid horizontal across the tops of other cabs :-) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 18 09:32:20 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Data General 4/X haul from Bakersfield In-Reply-To: <004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20050117235605.V2429@localhost> <004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <1106062340.10505.7.camel@weka.localdomain> On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 10:06 -0500, John Allain wrote: > > So now my lab is at 120% (physical) capacity, > > Interested to know how you set the 100% point. Presumably it depends on whether 'capacity' includes a human being or not. 120% implies that the walls are bulging :-) I suppose physical capacity might not be based on volume - e.g. for a first-floor room weight becomes a consideration (I'm looking up at the ceiling panels that are falling down here from the weight of classic hardware in the loft!) From stuart at zen.co.uk Tue Jan 18 10:06:14 2005 From: stuart at zen.co.uk (Stuart Birchall) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: wtd: (uk) apple lisa References: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41EC9D82.10202@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <006401c4fd77$a2d06b40$6c0917d4@office.zen.co.uk> Hi everyone, I had an XL some years back and regret letting it go. I like to buy a Lisa/Lisa 2 or XL to complete my collection. Good price paid for a working machine. Fixer uppers also considered, Thanks. Stu From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 18 10:08:45 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Data General 4/X haul from Bakersfield References: <20050117235605.V2429@localhost><004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> <1106061858.2479.2.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <002901c4fd77$fd20b050$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> >> So, what's 120% to you? > > Several cabinets laid horizontal across the tops of other cabs :-) That would be funny... if I wasn't currently doing that. Now it's just sad ;) I have GOT to get rid of some of my stuff! Jay From mtapley at swri.edu Tue Jan 18 09:45:46 2005 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: OT? Nickel Metal Hydrids In-Reply-To: <200501180058.j0I0wKYE090884@huey.classiccmp.org> References: <200501180058.j0I0wKYE090884@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 18:58 -0600 1/17/05, Dwight wrote: >Hi > I thought I'd pass on some info about these batteries. >I received a laptop with a "dead" battery. The voltage >as read from a meter was "0" volts. I mean dead! >I first stuck it into the laptop but quickly noticed >the smell of hot resistors ( bad idea ). I second the "bad idea" notation. I have had one (count it) one failure on a heavily used Powerbook 3400 I've had as my primary computer since they first came out (about 6 years, extensive airline travel, etc.) That was when I took a discharged NiMH battery (had been on the shelf for 3-4 years), put it into the machine with the machine plugged in, and ran the battery-cycling program Apple offered for the 5300 and 3400. Battery started to charge (maybe 20 seconds), I pulled wall power (as instructed), machine went down hard with an ugly noise and stayed down until it got a new power supply board. I didn't see the old one, but I'm morally certain the escape of some magic smoke was involved. Since then I've been very very careful to deal with near-dead NiMH batteries using a non-critical piece of hardware, rather than a built-in charger. However, same laptop and same battery are still giving good service (my secondary machine, now) so I guess I second the below as well. > Moral of the story, don't give up on these batteries. >They are remarkably tough. Most NiCads batteries would >not recover from such a level. >Dwight > -- - Mark 210-522-6025, temporary cell 240-375-2995 From cheri-post at web.de Tue Jan 18 10:40:11 2005 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Strange RK03 / RK05 clone with Plessey-controller Message-ID: <646774898@web.de> Hello everybody, just saved a disk drive with a PDP 11/23 from being trashed. Unfortunately, someone came before me and took out several parts of this beastie. The most interesting thing: A Cipher disk drive Model: SF-1221 with a Plessey controller PN: 703340-101J. A 50pin cable goes to some sort of Plessey converter, another 50pin cable from the converter to the cipher drive. The drive needs to be cleaned. On the front panel, a little plate is missing which may have housed some buttons... Moreover, I found a disk pack which goes with the drive: DEC 2200 BPI-12 Is this a RK03 or RK05 pack ? Concerning the drive and the controller: Google turned out NOTHING. Who can give me little help identifying these peripherals ? Thanks alot ! Pierre ______________________________________________________________ Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! Jetzt bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://f.web.de/?mc=021193 From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jan 18 10:40:42 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41ED3C0A.7080602@oldskool.org> Tony Duell wrote: > I'll stick my 5.25" MFM (PC, essentially) disk FAQ at the end of this > message. You (or anyone else) is welcome ot make use of it in a more > comprehensive FAQ provided you give me an acknowledgement. Very nice, and I'm glad to see you came to the same conclusion that I did (that if you bulk erase, format, and write to a 48 tpi disk in a 96 tpi drive as a 48 tpi format, it should be readable in 48 tpi drives as long as it is not written to by the 48 tpi drive. Another piece of information possibly worth noting is that my AT&T PC 6300 (the US rebranded version of the Olivetti M24) shipped with remarkable drives that, in addition to being 99% silent, were servicable as both 48 tpi and 96 tpi drives (these were NOT high-density 1.2MB drives, but rather 360K drives that, through a dip switch on the motherboard, could reliably put 80 tracks on a normal DSDD 40-track disk). I'm not sure if the support to do this came from the drives or the motherboard BIOS, but I was initially overjoyed to see that I could get 720K on disks that were meant to hold 360K. I say "initially" because I found that when set to 96 tpi, they could no longer read 48 tpi disks! I didn't like the idea of being forced to convert the formats of every diskette I owned so I never pursued it beyond a few fun tests. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From maillist at komoko.com Tue Jan 18 10:42:29 2005 From: maillist at komoko.com (maillist@komoko.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED: Strange RK03 / RK05 clone with Plessey-controller In-Reply-To: <646774898@web.de> References: <646774898@web.de> Message-ID: <200501181642.j0IGgT1F000702@host.cdnsites.com> Your message could not be delivered. The User is out of space. Please try to send your message again at a later time. From dwight.elvey at amd.com Tue Jan 18 11:35:01 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk Message-ID: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> Hi DOS has an irritating feature when asked to format a disk. If track 0 is partially readable it will fail to format, even if you use the /u option. I've been moving data from one machine to another and the source machine has a flaky drive. It sometimes trashes track 0. I've found that the only way to get around this problem is to wipe the disk with a strong magnet. Why can't it just try to format first and then check track 0. Why must it fail to format because track 0 is partially readable when I specifically asked it to unconditionally format? Dwight From randy at s100-manuals.com Tue Jan 18 11:47:26 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk References: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <002801c4fd85$c798bcd0$c53cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Dwight K. Elvey" > Hi > DOS has an irritating feature when asked to format > a disk. If track 0 is partially readable it will > fail to format, even if you use the /u option. > I've been moving data from one machine to another > and the source machine has a flaky drive. It sometimes > trashes track 0. > I've found that the only way to get around this problem > is to wipe the disk with a strong magnet. > Why can't it just try to format first and then check > track 0. Why must it fail to format because track 0 > is partially readable when I specifically asked it > to unconditionally format? > Dwight Try picking up the format program from freedos/opendos and see if it does the same. If needed it may be able to be modified. Randy From james at jdfogg.com Tue Jan 18 11:53:33 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (james) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Data General 4/X haul from Bakersfield In-Reply-To: <002901c4fd77$fd20b050$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <20050117235605.V2429@localhost> <004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> <1106061858.2479.2.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> <002901c4fd77$fd20b050$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1106070813.2711.0.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 11:08, Jay West wrote: > >> So, what's 120% to you? > > > > Several cabinets laid horizontal across the tops of other cabs :-) > > That would be funny... if I wasn't currently doing that. Now it's just sad > ;) > > I have GOT to get rid of some of my stuff! If you're anywhere near New England I might be able to help you reduce your load :-) From dwight.elvey at amd.com Tue Jan 18 12:16:11 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk Message-ID: <200501181816.KAA08638@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Randy I've written special drivers for the floppies under DOS in the past so that isn't a real issue. I just wish it would work without me having to pull out the reference books to deal with it. It works incorrectly in both MSDOS and PCDOS. It is just annoying. The /u should mean just that, unconditionally format. Dwight >From: "Randy McLaughlin" > >From: "Dwight K. Elvey" >> Hi >> DOS has an irritating feature when asked to format >> a disk. If track 0 is partially readable it will >> fail to format, even if you use the /u option. >> I've been moving data from one machine to another >> and the source machine has a flaky drive. It sometimes >> trashes track 0. >> I've found that the only way to get around this problem >> is to wipe the disk with a strong magnet. >> Why can't it just try to format first and then check >> track 0. Why must it fail to format because track 0 >> is partially readable when I specifically asked it >> to unconditionally format? >> Dwight > >Try picking up the format program from freedos/opendos and see if it does >the same. If needed it may be able to be modified. > > >Randy > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 18 12:21:25 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: HP gear available Message-ID: <000f01c4fd8a$8585d030$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I have a few empty chassis, except PS. I was saving these to try and get a few M series machines up in the shorter chassis, but my M series fixation has been satisfied via government auction so it's time to let these parts go. I'd just throw them in the trash as they are poor condition and mostly just empty chassis, but I hate to do that... (but one NICE part at the end of this list)... 1) HP 2108A cpu chassis. No M/B, just a chassis, power supply (dirty), backplanes, and crossover PCA. The power supply is the A style. Looks like a few boards are missing towards the front of the PS but that may be normal/optional, I'm not up on the A style power supply. Power supply functionality is unknown. This one includes a poor condition known dead 2108A front panel (but all switches are intact and solid). 2) HP 2108A cpu chassis. No M/B, just a chassis, power supply (dirty), backplanes, and crossover PCA. The power supply is the A style, all boards appear present. Power supply functionality is unknown. 3) HP 2108B cpu chassis. No M/B, just a chassis, power supply (known dead - B style), crossover PCA, memory backplane with broken slot, ok I/O backplane. Available immediately for free + shipping or it'll get pitched. Then, depending on which way I go with my dev cabinet as to form factors (2109 vs. 2113), I will have two chassis and power supplies and front panels (2109 or 2113) available to the list. All pristinely restored, cleaned, and tested... power supply scrubbed and refoamed, etc. and 4)... Also, I have one complete HP 21MX M-series machine (2108B) available immediately. That's the more rare M series, not the fairly common E series. It has been perfectly and carefully restored to mint cosmetics and full running condition - tested and completes all diags. I really need some cash to recoup my recent classic computer purchases so I was planning on going to ebay with this. However, I'll consider any unusually interesting trades. More to come! Jay West From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 18 12:34:24 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > DOS has an irritating feature when asked to format > a disk. If track 0 is partially readable it will > fail to format, even if you use the /u option. > I've been moving data from one machine to another > and the source machine has a flaky drive. It sometimes > trashes track 0. > I've found that the only way to get around this problem > is to wipe the disk with a strong magnet. > Why can't it just try to format first and then check > track 0. Why must it fail to format because track 0 > is partially readable when I specifically asked it > to unconditionally format? I know. It's another one of those stupid things that MS did with DOS that makes absolutely no sense. Just format the damn disk and report any errors for the USER to decide. I once came across some program on the WWW that supposedly rehabilitates such disks (most likely by doing an LLF on track 0) but unfortunately I never bookmarked it. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 12:48:29 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <200501181816.KAA08638@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501181816.KAA08638@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <26c11a6405011810486ed0c990@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:16:11 -0800 (PST), Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > Hi Randy > I've written special drivers for the floppies > under DOS in the past so that isn't a real > issue. I just wish it would work without me > having to pull out the reference books to > deal with it. > It works incorrectly in both MSDOS and PCDOS. > It is just annoying. The /u should mean just that, > unconditionally format. > Dwight > In MSDOS the /u doesn't actually mean unconditional in the normal sense. It means do not save unformat information, it will still stop if it gets errors. Dan From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Tue Jan 18 13:06:48 2005 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop Message-ID: A good MS-DOS program to use to transfer files off an old computer is Xport (search on Google for XPORT21). It includes a procedure to send itself over a serial line to the target computer, so you don't need to have a working floppy. It also includes instructions on wiring the cable. Bob Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 12:09:37 -0600 From: Jim Leonard Subject: Re: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Message-ID: <41E95C61.5000901@oldskool.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Tore S Bekkedal wrote: >I have a VGA monitor, no CGAs around, but I also have a 9-pin to 15-pin >male-male cable - but aren't the voltages different? Voltages aside, the technologies are completely different; it won't work. I would follow the "boot-a-floppy-and-transfer-via-kermit" method. Or use a DOS-based program like FastLynx or even the built-in transfer in DOS 6.x's intersvr/interlnk programs. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Tue Jan 18 13:02:55 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Strange RK03 / RK05 clone with Plessey-controller In-Reply-To: "Pierre Gebhardt" "Strange RK03 / RK05 clone with Plessey-controller" (Jan 18, 17:40) References: <646774898@web.de> Message-ID: <10501181902.ZM3159@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 18 2005, 17:40, Pierre Gebhardt wrote: > The most interesting thing: A Cipher disk drive Model: SF-1221 with a Plessey controller PN: 703340-101J. > A 50pin cable goes to some sort of Plessey converter, another 50pin cable from the converter to the cipher drive. [ ... ] > Moreover, I found a disk pack which goes with the drive: DEC 2200 BPI-12 > Is this a RK03 or RK05 pack ? AFAIK, an RK03 pack and an RK05 pack are completely interchangeable (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), and certainly have the same capacity and layout. The drives are different; RK03 drives were made by someone else (Diablo, IIRC) and rebadged by DEC, whereas the RK05 drives were actually made by DEC, and have a faster access time. If it helps, that Plessey part number is an RK05 controller. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From Innfogra at aol.com Tue Jan 18 13:45:14 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: AMI Not Message-ID: <143.3d235a25.2f1ec14a@aol.com> This is not an AMI chip. It is from a small foundry in Canada that was the first second source for intel memory chips. I was informed of the name a couple years ago when I sold some of these on epay. But did not save it. Perhaps someone on the list knows. My 1101s were from 1973. I think the foundry only existed for about three years in the early 70s. Paxton Astoria, Oregon PS, If you want to part with any I am interested. From dave04a at dunfield.com Tue Jan 18 14:20:50 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk Message-ID: <20050118202049.GIFB8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> >I once came across some program on the WWW that supposedly rehabilitates >such disks (most likely by doing an LLF on track 0) but unfortunately I >never bookmarked it. When I was selling my software on diskette, I wrote my own tools for diskette duplication, using a Victory autoloader - I also boiled-down the core functions into a one-at-a-time disk command line duplicator that works with standard floppy drives called XDISK. Like most disk-to-file copiers it will read a complete image of the floppy track by track into a disk file - unlike most file-to-disk copiers, it will low-level format, write, and verify each track in a single pass as it writes the file back to a disk. It does not care *WHAT* is previously on the disk, as the first command it issues on each track is "format track". This can be used to restore disks that DOS refuses to format due to problems in track-0 (just write out a blank floppy image) - I can send it to you if you like (runs under any version of DOS). Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jan 18 14:28:53 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <26c11a6405011810486ed0c990@mail.gmail.com> References: <200501181816.KAA08638@clulw009.amd.com> <26c11a6405011810486ed0c990@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <41ED7185.2090400@oldskool.org> Dan Williams wrote: > In MSDOS the /u doesn't actually mean unconditional in the normal > sense. It means do not save unformat information, it will still stop > if it gets errors. That's incorrect; /u really does mean an "unconditional" format in the sense that it will format/write and then verify a track. If you omit /u, format merely tests each track for readability, with no actual formatting happening. Try it yourself; even without an int 13 monitor you can time it with a stopwatch to see that omitting /u takes significantly longer. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From dwight.elvey at amd.com Tue Jan 18 15:03:21 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk Message-ID: <200501182103.NAA08716@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Dan Williams" > >On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:16:11 -0800 (PST), Dwight K. Elvey > wrote: >> Hi Randy >> I've written special drivers for the floppies >> under DOS in the past so that isn't a real >> issue. I just wish it would work without me >> having to pull out the reference books to >> deal with it. >> It works incorrectly in both MSDOS and PCDOS. >> It is just annoying. The /u should mean just that, >> unconditionally format. >> Dwight >> > In MSDOS the /u doesn't actually mean unconditional in the normal >sense. It means do not save unformat information, it will still stop >if it gets errors. > >Dan > Hi Sure but what about not reading track 0 before formatting means it should abort the formatting without first doing a low level format of that track. It is just stupid. If I completely erase the track, it formats just fine. As Sellam says, it is just stupid design. Dwight From dwight.elvey at amd.com Tue Jan 18 15:05:44 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk Message-ID: <200501182105.NAA08720@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Dave Dunfield" > >>I once came across some program on the WWW that supposedly rehabilitates >>such disks (most likely by doing an LLF on track 0) but unfortunately I >>never bookmarked it. > >When I was selling my software on diskette, I wrote my own tools for diskette >duplication, using a Victory autoloader - I also boiled-down the core functions >into a one-at-a-time disk command line duplicator that works with standard >floppy drives called XDISK. > >Like most disk-to-file copiers it will read a complete image of the floppy >track by track into a disk file - unlike most file-to-disk copiers, it >will low-level format, write, and verify each track in a single pass as it >writes the file back to a disk. It does not care *WHAT* is previously on the >disk, as the first command it issues on each track is "format track". > >This can be used to restore disks that DOS refuses to format due to problems >in track-0 (just write out a blank floppy image) - I can send it to you if >you like (runs under any version of DOS). > >Regards, >Dave >-- >dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield >dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com >com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html > > > My only issue there is that I'm never sure how big to make the various gaps. Anyway, the strong magnet works, it is just a hassle. Dwight From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 18 15:20:41 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <20050118131641.V77441@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > track 0. Why must it fail to format because track 0 > is partially readable when I specifically asked it > to unconditionally format? Because MICROS~1 is completely unclear on the concept of "unconditional". In their more recent operating systems, they are also completely unclear on the concept of "floppy boot". If one of the system files ON THE HARD DISK is bad, it CAN NOT be booted. What else can I boot an NT machine with that can read and write an NTFS partition? From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 18 15:31:32 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <41EC9D82.10202@oldskool.org> References: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41EC9D82.10202@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20050118132810.L78164@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: > Yep. DOS had only one quirk, though: If you wanted to format a 720K disk in a > 1440K drive, you had to specifically tell DOS to format as 720K. Otherwise, it > assumes you're going for 1.4, attempts it, and fails. You can choose /f:720 > with later versions of DOS; use "/t:80 /n:9" for 3.x. To add to the fun,... SOME drives had a media sensor that would adjust the write current for HD diskettes, others required that come from a signal from the controller. The early PS/2 drives did NOT have a sensor. They would "successfully" format a 720K diskette to 1.4M. (Reliability was less than perfect due to 600 Oersted v 750 ) But then, when that disk was put into a drive that had a sensor, the drive would have problems with it. From gtn at rbii.com Mon Jan 17 09:39:31 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Only 6 Domain names ?!? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 17, 2005, at 9:45 AM, Fred N. van Kempen wrote: > I registered Linux.com and Linux.net in early 94. And yes, those > caused a stir, both and the time, and much later :) Yes, I remember that. You did the networking code too right? From saanders at bellsouth.net Mon Jan 17 16:49:18 2005 From: saanders at bellsouth.net (Stuart Anderson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Seiko RC-1000 wrist terminal software req? Message-ID: <000d01c4fce6$c6f13270$0201a8c0@pentium550> Fred and Dave, I found this thread via an internet search. Did either of you find a copy of the IBM/MS-DOS software for the Seiko RC-1000 wrist terminal? I'm trying to revive mine but my computer can't read the floppy (I have a good 5.25 disk drive, the computer just can't read that particular disk.) Regards, Stuart Anderson Madison, Alabama, USA On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Dave Mitton wrote: > Does anyone have a copy of the host system software for the circa 1984 > Seiko RC-1000 watch terminal? > > I thought I had a copy that ran on DOS as a character mode app, but I > cannot find the original diskette. The original PC I used is long gone. I *used* to have one of those (actually, just threw out my broken watch a couple of weeks ago) but I do seem to remember I still have the box... that might still have the cable and the floppies. Will look for ya :) --f -- Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist Visit the VAXlab Project at http://www.pdp11.nl/VAXlab/ Visit the Archives at http://www.pdp11.nl/ Email: waltje at pdp11.nl BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Sunnyvale, CA, USA From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 19:45:34 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: la120 consumables In-Reply-To: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 22:02:55 -0600, Jay West wrote: > Anyone know a good (cheap) source for LA120 ribbons? Well, I have two I've been keeping for Fred van Kempen, and have been nagging him for a postal address to send them to for ages... if he doesn't provide one soon then I might have to send them your way ;) Fred: speak up, man! I never heard back from you about the BA23s either... Ed. From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Mon Jan 17 19:48:36 2005 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere@gmail.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: la120 consumables In-Reply-To: References: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: wrote: > On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 22:02:55 -0600, Jay West wrote: > > Anyone know a good (cheap) source for LA120 ribbons? Google says $6.95: http://www.heasterlawson.com/decprinribmo1.html Ed. From thoth2 at mac.com Tue Jan 18 01:08:13 2005 From: thoth2 at mac.com (Owen Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: VAX 6000-420 Available Message-ID: <5532583.1106032093768.JavaMail.thoth2@mac.com> Hello, world. Used to post here in another life when I was more actively collecting DEC equipment. Thought this would be a good place to start with this: I have a VAX 6000-420 with SF200 rack available for pick-up in Rhome, Texas (20-some miles north of Fort Worth). Acquired it a few years back and haven't done anything with it, so I figure I should pass it on to someone who has an interest in it. The system is in decent physical shape, some of the metal inside the SF200 rack has been bent a little, and if I remember correctly, one or two of the fingers in one of the card cages is broken. It has been stored in my father's house for the last couple of years. I have never powered it on, so I cannot tell you if it is in working condition or not. If anyone is interested, I can post pictures to my personal website. I would like to get rid of it, and I am sure my father would as well! There is no immediate hurry, however the sooner the better, I suppose. As for what I want for it, I'm not picky. DEC (especially PDP-11) stuff, SGI or Sun (especially SGI) equipment, or any old/odd/obscure workstation type equipment would be very nice. Older SGI IRIS stuff is high on my wish list, and my brother has been desperately searching for a PERQ workstation as of late. Anyway, if anyone is interested at all, email me personally and we can work something out. Thanks, -- Owen Robertson From alan.needham at HUMBERPOWER.CO.UK Tue Jan 18 12:07:23 2005 From: alan.needham at HUMBERPOWER.CO.UK (Alan Needham) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Thurlby LA160 Logic analyser Message-ID: <657956001751D511A7260002A5290E906AC5CB@MAIL_SERVER> Lee, a full user's manual is at http://www.cirrus.it/pdf/232_2942.PDF I am writing a VB6 prog to display a timing diagram from the RS232 dump as I can find NO-ONE that has got or ever had a copy of the LA-PC-Link software ! These things seem to proliferate on EBay but no-one seems to discuss them! (no-one is re-writing the ROM to provide some of the extended facilities ROM features ???) Are you (anybody?) still using an LA160 ? if so (or for more info :-) ) contact me on alan.needham_at_humberpower.co.uk From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Jan 18 12:37:53 2005 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp@gjcp.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C72@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C72@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <51498.195.212.29.75.1106073473.squirrel@195.212.29.75> > Since I don't have access to a tape head demagnitizer (hey, all I use is > DTRS for my recording), how else could I demagnetize these heads? Backside of a big soldering gun? You could take it to your friendly neighbourhood TV repair place and ask them to wave their degaussing coil at it. Or you could hold it near the edge of your monitor, and hit the degauss button. Gordon. From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 15:46:12 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <20050118131641.V77441@shell.lmi.net> References: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> <20050118131641.V77441@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <26c11a6405011813465c42c53@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 13:20:41 -0800 (PST), Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > > track 0. Why must it fail to format because track 0 > > is partially readable when I specifically asked it > > to unconditionally format? > > Because MICROS~1 is completely unclear on the concept of "unconditional". > > In their more recent operating systems, they are also completely unclear > on the concept of "floppy boot". If one of the system files ON THE HARD > DISK is bad, it CAN NOT be booted. What else can I boot an NT machine > with that can read and write an NTFS partition? > > Checkout Knoppix it can do loads of stuff with ntfs partitions. Virus checking, repairing, password changing. Dan From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 15:47:26 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <20050118132810.L78164@shell.lmi.net> References: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41EC9D82.10202@oldskool.org> <20050118132810.L78164@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <26c11a64050118134738fdd2ca@mail.gmail.com> > > To add to the fun,... > SOME drives had a media sensor that would adjust the write current for HD > diskettes, others required that come from a signal from the controller. > > The early PS/2 drives did NOT have a sensor. They would "successfully" > format a 720K diskette to 1.4M. (Reliability was less than perfect due > to 600 Oersted v 750 ) But then, when that disk was put into a > drive that had a sensor, the drive would have problems with it. > That's what hole punches are for........... Dan From cb at mythtech.net Tue Jan 18 15:47:41 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk Message-ID: >I know. It's another one of those stupid things that MS did with DOS that >makes absolutely no sense. Just format the damn disk and report any >errors for the USER to decide. > >I once came across some program on the WWW that supposedly rehabilitates >such disks (most likely by doing an LLF on track 0) but unfortunately I >never bookmarked it. I used to run into this all the time. When you format a floppy for the Mac, DOS will then report the Track 0 error and refuse to reformat it. I always just formatted the disk for DOS on my Mac to get around the problem (and then got really irked when I was told "The mac is not compatible with anything else"... REALLY, not only can I read/write PC disks, but I could read/write all the PC users files long before any of them had tools to deal with Mac files!) -chris From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 18 15:50:47 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <20050118131641.V77441@shell.lmi.net> References: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> <20050118131641.V77441@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050118154935.05ba1788@mail> At 03:20 PM 1/18/2005, Fred Cisin wrote: >In their more recent operating systems, they are also completely unclear >on the concept of "floppy boot". If one of the system files ON THE HARD >DISK is bad, it CAN NOT be booted. What else can I boot an NT machine >with that can read and write an NTFS partition? Any one of the Linux-based boot CDs that handle NTFS? Or the Sysinternals tools that handle NTFS? Or a second machine that can still read the hard disk, if you transplant it? - John From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jan 18 16:31:03 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <20050118132810.L78164@shell.lmi.net> References: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41EC9D82.10202@oldskool.org> <20050118132810.L78164@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <41ED8E27.7030706@oldskool.org> Fred Cisin wrote: > The early PS/2 drives did NOT have a sensor. They would "successfully" > format a 720K diskette to 1.4M. (Reliability was less than perfect due > to 600 Oersted v 750 ) But then, when that disk was put into a > drive that had a sensor, the drive would have problems with it. LOL! This brings back many memories. My friend and I had done this on his PS/2 and thought we were laughing all the way to the bank... I even saw an advertisement in Byte in the late 1980s hawking a 3.5" DSDD hole puncher that could turn 720K disks into 1.4MB disks. I didn't want to shell out $29.95 for the puncher so I started burning holes into my 3.5" disks with my soldering iron :-D So what was the catch? The devil, as they say, is in the details, and some of the details are hidden in the advertising copy of the puncher: "We tested over 100 punched disks for over a month, writing and reading data. With the exception of only one disk, THERE WERE NO FAILURES AT ANY TIME!" (emphasis not mine). What's wrong with this picture? They continually wrote to the disks. What I found in practice was that, if you kept writing to the disk, it did indeed work. But leave the disk in storage for 6 months, and *poof*, your data started to fade. As soon as I discovered this (by losing source code, argh!), I copied the data off of my disks, covered up the holes I had burned with stickers, reformatted the disks at the proper 720K, compressed the data, and put it back on the disk :) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jan 18 16:33:36 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <51498.195.212.29.75.1106073473.squirrel@195.212.29.75> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C72@mail.catcorner.org> <51498.195.212.29.75.1106073473.squirrel@195.212.29.75> Message-ID: <41ED8EC0.5000001@oldskool.org> gordonjcp@gjcp.net wrote: >>Since I don't have access to a tape head demagnitizer (hey, all I use is >>DTRS for my recording), how else could I demagnetize these heads? > > Or you could hold it near the > edge of your monitor, and hit the degauss button. Don't know about your monitor, but mine (Sony GPD-400) is shielded well enough that I actually tried that with a formatted 360K floppy disk and it survived. Of course, you may have just been joking :) To the original poster: Radio Shack has cheap ($12) degaussers, IIRC... -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Jan 18 16:58:17 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Data General 4/X haul from Bakersfield In-Reply-To: <004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: > PS: I'm currently trying to pack my cellar to 50%. > Thanks to Steve Jones for the warning about > weather&randomness, water&paper. You want another 0.5 percent Thursday afternoon? William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Jan 18 17:06:03 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: AMI Not In-Reply-To: <143.3d235a25.2f1ec14a@aol.com> Message-ID: > This is not an AMI chip. It is from a small foundry in Canada that was the > first second source for intel memory chips. I was informed of the name a couple > years ago when I sold some of these on epay. But did not save it. Perhaps > someone on the list knows. I think you might mean Microsystems International (later Nortec?). I suppose it could be, but the logo is not the same as those on the ML chips I have. Perhaps an early version of their logo? > My 1101s were from 1973. I think the foundry only existed for about three > years in the early 70s. These are from the start of 1971 (date codes 7102 and 7103). My ML1101As are from a tad later (7112). They do not have a logo, but I have some other chips that do (and I must say they are similar, but different). William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 18 17:16:07 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <200501182103.NAA08716@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501182103.NAA08716@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <41ED98B7.3080007@gjcp.net> Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > Sure but what about not reading track 0 before formatting > means it should abort the formatting without first doing > a low level format of that track. It is just stupid. > If I completely erase the track, it formats just fine. > As Sellam says, it is just stupid design. > Dwight I'll bet you'll find that the drive isn't seeking back to track zero correctly. All other tracks will be OK but there will be a small buildup of shite on the slider knocking the head a tiny bit "inside" the proper place for track zero. What this means is that it partially overwrites track zero, and rewrites a new one. But there will be a certain amount of interference between the two tracks, and it will not successfully read. Gordon. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jan 18 17:25:25 2005 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk References: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <41ED9AE5.4F479503@msm.umr.edu> for media portability the track 0 was the directory on some IBM formats, and probably the dos program is trying to bridge the problem by forcing the whole track to have readable sectors on it, so some other non dos programs won't blow. I had experience doing a 8" driver at one time and was surprised to find that the standard format for ibm was to have at least the first sector present, but the rest could be "deleted" sectors, the lot of which could be replaced with other data sectors, and a string of deleted ones again to add data. Also track 0 frequently tells software that the format is for the entire disk, and may have been assumed to be in a standard density, with tracks 1 thru n in a different density, determined from track 0. I think on 5 1/4" diskette formats IBM did look at a byte in the first sector to tell 320 vs 360 or 160 vs. 180 k format. Later bios' assumed a 360k format if the byte was not FF or FE, IIRC. Some non dos os's were smart when designing their disk formats to be used inthe IBM pc and kept the media byte, and some, (like Pick for the PC) were dumb and had diskettes which looked totally unformatted to the bios and to DOS when set up for their use. Jim "Dwight K. Elvey" wrote: > Hi > DOS has an irritating feature when asked to format > a disk. If track 0 is partially readable it will > fail to format, even if you use the /u option. > I've been moving data from one machine to another > and the source machine has a flaky drive. It sometimes > trashes track 0. > I've found that the only way to get around this problem > is to wipe the disk with a strong magnet. > Why can't it just try to format first and then check > track 0. Why must it fail to format because track 0 > is partially readable when I specifically asked it > to unconditionally format? > Dwight From jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to Tue Jan 18 18:07:32 2005 From: jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Windows Backup program? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050117214548.00923410@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050117214548.00923410@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <41EDA4C4.8040206@compsys.to> >Joe R. wrote: > This past weekeend I found a ADIC 1200D DAT tape library in a scrap pile. >It has a Sony DAT-2 tape drive with an autochanger and holds up to 12 >tapes. I'm thinking of using it on my PC. Can anyone recommend a good (and >cheap!) backup program that will work with Windows 98? > > Jerome Fine replies: I am not sure how cheap GHOST is for Windows 98, BUT I have found that it satisfies almost ALL of my requirements. While you MUST execute GHOST (as a backup or restore) under DOS mode, I am able to perform a backup of a 2 GBytes of file space into a compressed 800 MByte image file in about 5 minutes with an 750 MHz Pentium III system - although I do have a 100 UDMA controller for my 3 * 40 GByte hard drives - and I backup from the C: drive to the E: drive while placing the CRC file on the D: drive. After that is done, I make a second copy of each file so that both the D: and E: drives have the same pair of files. Once a month I DELETE the previous files for that month and after 4 months, I copy 4 backup files to a DVD for "permanent" storage. If you have the companion GHOST Explorer, then you are also able to inspect the individual directories and retrieve individual files from the *.GHO files. I have been doing this for about 3 years now and it seems to work quite well. Spending 5 minutes at the end of each day seems quite reasonable. If you have any other questions, .... Does anyone else use GHOST and how does it seem to be working? Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From dwight.elvey at amd.com Tue Jan 18 18:15:29 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk Message-ID: <200501190015.QAA08774@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Gordon There are a number of possibles but the track 0 sensor doesn't effect the incremental stepping mechanism used in these drives. There is no way that it can be off without being completely off and head over the wrong track. One full increment of the step is one track. This is not possible in DOS because it needs to read the headers correctly to write. It is writing so I'd guess it is more likely not a full step issue as would be caused by the track 0 sensor. Anyway, I suspect that by the sound that the unit makes, compared to a good one is that the head assembly is somehow loose or warn. It is not positioning solidly and cross writing the other tracks. All this is academic since getting inside this laptop to the level needed to repair the drive is more than it is worth. This is the unit with the failing video ( one bus bit missing ). Once I get the data off it, I may not do anything else with it. I'm even considering just transferring the hard drive. That is also major surgery on this laptop ( I know because I put an oversized [ byte wise ] drive in there myself ). These things were never intended to be taken apart. I'm mostly pissed because the stupid format command. The drive messes up about every third or fourth transfer. In only about 1/3 of those cases does it trash track 0. I then just use the magnet. Still, I see little reason why it needs to see anything on track 0 if it is doing an unconditional format. You'd think it would just step to track 0 by the sensor and format it. It would then look to see if it was OK. Dwight >From: "Gordon JC Pearce" > >Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > >> Sure but what about not reading track 0 before formatting >> means it should abort the formatting without first doing >> a low level format of that track. It is just stupid. >> If I completely erase the track, it formats just fine. >> As Sellam says, it is just stupid design. >> Dwight > >I'll bet you'll find that the drive isn't seeking back to track zero >correctly. All other tracks will be OK but there will be a small >buildup of shite on the slider knocking the head a tiny bit "inside" the >proper place for track zero. > >What this means is that it partially overwrites track zero, and rewrites >a new one. But there will be a certain amount of interference between >the two tracks, and it will not successfully read. > >Gordon. > From mapleleafman at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 18:19:41 2005 From: mapleleafman at gmail.com (Brian Mahoney) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:06 2005 Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies? In-Reply-To: <000901c4fb35$170e5430$6401a8c0@hal9000> References: <000901c4fb35$170e5430$6401a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi/ Coming in late on this one but in some of the docs on this site, the Atari 800 is mentioned. I found it while looking for Apple readers but it might work for the Atari. Documentation is pretty tough to decipher, at least for me. Might work though. BM From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 18 18:29:45 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! Message-ID: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. I went there to ship a vintage cpu, and the gentleman behind the counter took one look at my box and said "that box is in bad condition", followed by "At UPS, we don't want to deliver any packages that don't look good", and finally "we can't have the box falling apart and it's contents coming out". I asked him to please take a closer look at the box I was shipping. True, the outside had many shipping labels that had been pulled off. But I explained to him it was a custom made US military shipping carton. The walls are almost 1/2 thick cardboard with 6 inches of foam form fitting around the cpu. There were no creases in the cardboard anywhere, and no sunken surfaces. This box was far sturdier than any box in the place. He told me my only choice was to take the package to The UPS Store and have them rebox it. I think they are just trying to push business to their UPS Store fronts. This box was extremely sturdy. So... I'm boycotting UPS and just needed to vent :) Jay From lbickley at bickleywest.com Tue Jan 18 18:41:17 2005 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200501181641.17859.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Use FedEx. My company often finds they are cheaper than UPS. Lyle On Tuesday 18 January 2005 16:29, Jay West wrote: > I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. > > I went there to ship a vintage cpu, and the gentleman behind the counter > took one look at my box and said "that box is in bad condition", followed > by "At UPS, we don't want to deliver any packages that don't look good", > and finally "we can't have the box falling apart and it's contents coming > out". > > I asked him to please take a closer look at the box I was shipping. True, > the outside had many shipping labels that had been pulled off. But I > explained to him it was a custom made US military shipping carton. The > walls are almost 1/2 thick cardboard with 6 inches of foam form fitting > around the cpu. There were no creases in the cardboard anywhere, and no > sunken surfaces. This box was far sturdier than any box in the place. He > told me my only choice was to take the package to The UPS Store and have > them rebox it. > > I think they are just trying to push business to their UPS Store fronts. > This box was extremely sturdy. > > So... I'm boycotting UPS and just needed to vent :) > > Jay -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 18 18:35:27 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C71@mail.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 17, 5 09:27:22 pm Message-ID: > > > > > > > The heads are selected by U4 (75451 dual AND gate/driver), > > the outputs of > > which are pulled to+5V, and slo drive the bases of Q7 (Head 1) and Q6 > > (Head 0), PN2222 transistors via restors. One input of each > > of the AND > > gates comes from the power-OK circuit, built round Q9 and Q10 > > (as this is > > common to both heads, it's working correctly), the other > > input comes from > > the sides select signal on the connector (U4b, for head 1) or > > from that > > signal inverted by U8b (7414) on U4a, for head 0. That should > > give you > > some components to check. > > > Are you sure U4a drives Q6 and U4b drives Q7? Tracing the board shows them > on Q7 and Q8. Yikes. Any chance you could scan the schematic and email it? No, I misread it. It's Q7 and Q8 as you said. Q6 is the erase driver. > 1bpp tiff, bmp or pcx would do. The higher the resoultion the better, but I > could probably make due at 150dpi. Alas I have no scanner, and nothing to connect it to :-( -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 18 18:39:05 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C72@mail.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 17, 5 09:47:09 pm Message-ID: > I don't kwow what it means when I reply to my own replies, but here goes. I I do it all the time, but then I am know to be insane... > have the same continuity measurements on head 0 and head 1. However, if I > swap the controller board (I know, Tony, you generally frown upon "swapping" > for troubleshooting, but I couldn't find anything electrically), the problem > stays with the drive. Ah, so it certainly looks like a head problem :-( > > So, if I have the same continuity, and the problem doesn't seem to be on the > controller, I can only guess either dirty or magentized heads. I noticed > that if I close the drive with no media and open it slowly, the heads stick > together until there is a bit of load on them to pull apart. Kind of like > the are lightly magnetized. Magnetised heads are not notmally a problem with floppy drives, at least not as big a problem as dirty heads. It's a pity you don't have a 'scope. I'd ask you to connect it (differential inputs) to TP1A and TP1B, ground to TP2. Those are the outputs of the read preamplier part of U2 (3470). You could then compare the read signal from the 2 heads. > > Since I don't have access to a tape head demagnitizer (hey, all I use is > DTRS for my recording), how else could I demagnetize these heads? Can you not still buy demagnetisers? There are plenty of magnetic recording heads still in use... But I would try really cleaning it firt. It could be a speck of oxide stuck across the gap or something. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 18 18:42:40 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <200501172328.58018.pat@computer-refuge.org> from "Patrick Finnegan" at Jan 17, 5 11:28:57 pm Message-ID: > Umm, the RX50s and Altos 580 floppies you've used are 80-track (96tpi) > disks just like 1.2MB floppies. 360k floppies are 40-track (48tpi) > disks. So, they're the same track width as a 1.2MB disk, not a 360k > disk. To be _really_ pedantic, both are 80 track disks. The normal PC 360K disk is 40 _cylinders_ with 2 tracks per cylinder (double sided), 48tpi (should this strictly be 48 cpi?) The RX50 is 80 _cylinders_, 1 track per cylinder (single sided), 96 tpi. It's the number of cylinders that matters. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 18 18:46:48 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: Strange RK03 / RK05 clone with Plessey-controller In-Reply-To: <646774898@web.de> from "Pierre Gebhardt" at Jan 18, 5 05:40:11 pm Message-ID: > Moreover, I found a disk pack which goes with the drive: DEC 2200 BPI-12 > Is this a RK03 or RK05 pack ? Yes. :-) The RK03 and RK05 use the same packs. The interface between the drive and controller is also very similar. The main difference is that the RK03 is actually a Diablo Model 30 (high density version), the RK05 is a a DEC design. Incidentally, did the RK04 ever exist (by rights it'd be a low density RK05) -tony From tomj at wps.com Tue Jan 18 19:17:20 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050118120415.T1093@localhost> On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Tony Duell wrote: >>> b) There is no useful signal from the side-1 head (this is the head on >>> the top surface of the disk, of course), >> >> For all the possibilities you state, likely cause. > > Sure, _IF_ that would cause the MS-DOS format program to assume the disk > is single-sided. We're getting into the area where my memory is doing the remembering and not me, but I believe that with 5.25" diskettes, you the human tell the formatter, with the appropriate command line switch, which sidedness you want to use. If you in fact have SS drives physically installed, you will get a FORMAT ERROR iff you use /V (note the formal iff). That advice, plus $3.50, buys you coffee at Starbucks. Easy to check but I ain't got me no peecee no more. >> Likewise! On my very first own computer, SWTPC 6800, I debugged >> the fact I miswired the (20mA loop) tty using a Tek 555 scope to > > Yo uhad a 555? I managed (then) without a 'scope at all. Now my 555 is > alongside me with a good selection of plug-ins. I don't use it all that > much -- I find a logic analyser to be a more useful instrument, but anyway. Oh! No, I did it at work! It wasn't a 555, it was a 564, the storage job. Sorry for the confusion doubled. I do own a 564 now, since they are umm let's say heavily discounted today. >> Now I buy only laptops, nearly impossible to even open them, and > > Yuck! I'd not want a computer I couldn't easily pull apart, and I'd not > want one without proper expansion (not Useless Serial Botch). Heck, I've > even played about with the processor bus in HP handheld calculators... My laptop is purely a software machine. In fact, it's purely a *text* machine; I run freeBSD, everything stored as ASCII, perl scripts to drive anything complex. Portable from machine to machine. I have things that are purely hardware too. > The stuff I want is rarely built in, because no sane person would want it... Sane people? Who needs them? From them we get malls, fast food insurance forms, and warfare. From jpl15 at panix.com Tue Jan 18 19:31:49 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. And just what part of "FedEx" didn't you understand earlier?? Honestly, I avoid UPS whenever possible - our company had a UPS account because the salesman did a song-and-dance for the accountant (who doesn't have anything to do with shipping...) and we dumped the arrogant schmucks after 90 days of frustration, wrong billing, stupidity, lost/damaged [expensive: $150K] items - coupled with the most interesting take on 'customer service' since PayPal. So now we (and I personally) have FedEx accounts - it's like being rescued from some backward Communist East-European country... Well - maybe not quite *that* good, but I use FedEx for most everything except BigHeavyThings(tm) going overseas - then it's BAX Global or Total Transportation Concept in Los Angeles. Cheers John From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jan 18 19:40:21 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <33575.64.169.63.74.1106098821.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Jay wrote: > I'm boycotting UPS. I use Fedex ground, and have been very happy with them. They haven't lost or damaged any of my packages, unlike UPS. From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jan 18 19:59:20 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: >I went there to ship a vintage cpu, and the gentleman behind the >counter took one look at my box and said "that box is in bad >condition", followed by "At UPS, we don't want to deliver any >packages that don't look good", and finally "we can't have the box >falling apart and it's contents coming out". You should have demanded to speak with his supervisor. The man is obviously an idiot. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From CCTalk at catcorner.org Tue Jan 18 20:19:28 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C75@mail.catcorner.org> > From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk [mailto:ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk] > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org > > > I don't kwow what it means when I reply to my own replies, > but here goes. I > > I do it all the time, but then I am know to be insane... > > > have the same continuity measurements on head 0 and head 1. > > However, if I swap the controller board > > the problem > > stays with the drive. > > Ah, so it certainly looks like a head problem :-( > > > > > So, if I have the same continuity, and the problem doesn't > > seem to be on the > > controller, I can only guess either dirty or magnetized > > heads. > > Magnetized heads are not normally a problem with floppy > drives, at least > not as big a problem as dirty heads. > > It's a pity you don't have a 'scope. I'd ask you to connect it > (differential inputs) to TP1A and TP1B, ground to TP2. Those are the > outputs of the read preamplier part of U2 (3470). You could > then compare > the read signal from the 2 heads. I'll see if anyone in the local radio club has any I could borrow for a few evenings. I know how to use one, it's just been a few years. I have an old Heathkit scope behind me, but there's another thing waiting for my attention. The trace is about as wide as my pinky and as noisy as heck. Not real helpful I'm afraid. > > > > > Since I don't have access to a tape head demagnetizer (hey, > > all I use is > > DTRS for my recording), how else could I demagnetize these heads? > > Can you not still buy demagnetizers? There are plenty of magnetic > recording heads still in use... > > But I would try really cleaning it first. It could be a speck of oxide > stuck across the gap or something. I stopped by the local pharmacy (chemist on your side of the pond I think). I had to special order non-diluted alcohol. It should be hear tomorrow. Of course I have to work late tomorrow, so my wife will pick it up. I think Radio Shack still carries an inexpensive head demagnetizer. I'll check. It will probably be special order too. In the mean time, I put the original drive in there and one of the spare DS/DD drives I had laying around (doesn't everyone on this list?). It is now working with an A: and B: drive. Now I just need to do some cosmetic work and this little machine will be in great shape. What is the general opinion on adding an HD to this machine (if it will even work)? I've got plenty of ST-406/ST-512 interface drives and controllers for 8 bit machines. Of course I only want this for show and tell, so it is not a requirement. Kelly From tomhudson at execpc.com Tue Jan 18 20:26:48 2005 From: tomhudson at execpc.com (Tom Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <41EDC568.2040601@execpc.com> Yup, go FedEx. I had an 8-channel rack-mount KVM switch delivered by UPS one day with a huge hole punched into the side of the shipping box. It went right through the packing and the KVM cardboard box, and I figured the unit was a goner. Luckily, the thing was OK because the manufacturer had that nice foam suspension frame in there that gave it that little extra bit of space. Of course, the UPS guy had just left it on my doorstep -- I guess the shipper didn't require a signature -- I took photos before and during opening the package to prove that it was trashed by them. Luckly, I didn't need the photos. I would have thought they'd leave some kind of slip mentioning the damage. HA!!! -Tom Jay West wrote: > I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. -- Thomas Hudson http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects From fernande at internet1.net Tue Jan 18 20:33:05 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <41EDC6E1.8080304@internet1.net> One of the reasons that I stopped using UPS is because the lady at the counter always made it sound like she was doing me a favor for allowing me to ship a computer in something other than it's original box. I explained to her that the box had been thrown away in the early 80's. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From allain at panix.com Tue Jan 18 20:52:47 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <41EDC568.2040601@execpc.com> Message-ID: <007901c4fdd1$f7129980$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> What Tom said. Here's another. Got a box full of Byte magazines sent to me using UPS once. It had been ripped right in half and then taped together again with many magazines missing. Left on doorstep without explanations or apologies. I should add however, that the sender, using my pictures, was able to get a refund. John A. From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Jan 18 21:04:38 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: > I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. Does anyone actually like UPS? William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 18 21:06:49 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. > > I went there to ship a vintage cpu, and the gentleman behind the counter > took one look at my box and said "that box is in bad condition", followed by > "At UPS, we don't want to deliver any packages that don't look good", and > finally "we can't have the box falling apart and it's contents coming out". > > I asked him to please take a closer look at the box I was shipping. True, > the outside had many shipping labels that had been pulled off. But I > explained to him it was a custom made US military shipping carton. The walls > are almost 1/2 thick cardboard with 6 inches of foam form fitting around the > cpu. There were no creases in the cardboard anywhere, and no sunken > surfaces. This box was far sturdier than any box in the place. He told me my > only choice was to take the package to The UPS Store and have them rebox it. > > I think they are just trying to push business to their UPS Store fronts. > This box was extremely sturdy. > > So... I'm boycotting UPS and just needed to vent :) Use DHL. Their rates are highly competitive with both UPS and Fedex and they seem to be saturating the streets with their bright yellow trucks. I'm increasingly moving my business over to DHL since they seem to want it more. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 18 21:07:49 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <200501181641.17859.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Lyle Bickley wrote: > Use FedEx. My company often finds they are cheaper than UPS. I've found Fedex to be cheaper than UPS over all, and especially with Ground service. I also trust Fedex more than I do UPS. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 18 21:10:00 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050118154935.05ba1788@mail> References: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> <20050118131641.V77441@shell.lmi.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050118154935.05ba1788@mail> Message-ID: <20050118184712.R86702@shell.lmi.net> > >In their more recent operating systems, they are also completely unclear > >on the concept of "floppy boot". If one of the system files ON THE HARD > >DISK is bad, it CAN NOT be booted. What else can I boot an NT machine > >with that can read and write an NTFS partition? On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Dan Williams wrote: > Checkout Knoppix it can do loads of stuff with ntfs partitions. Virus > checking, repairing, password changing. Thank you An excellent possibility. I just ordered the disk, but might try downloading it tomorrow when I have access to a faster connection. On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, John Foust wrote: > Any one of the Linux-based boot CDs that handle NTFS? I just ordered Knoppix > Or the Sysinternals tools that handle NTFS? Unless I missed something,... They have lots of neat stuff that runs under NT, and they have two different programs that can READ NTFS from a 98 boot. One of them is a nice amateur attempt at an XTREE like interface, but READ ONLY. And it won't read SOME NTFS partitions (8G limit?) The other is an excellent working device driver, that deliberately won't write, to permit them to SELL that version. To fix the machine so that it can boot, I need to copy a good copy of NTVDM.EXE to it. > Or a second machine that > can still read the hard disk, if you transplant it? That's what I'll be doing next. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 18 21:10:15 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <41EC9D82.10202@oldskool.org> References: <20050116140707.0d934244.chenmel@earthlink.net> <33056.64.169.63.74.1106009848.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41EC9D82.10202@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20050118132241.G77441@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: > Yep. DOS had only one quirk, though: If you wanted to format a 720K disk in a > 1440K drive, you had to specifically tell DOS to format as 720K. Otherwise, it > assumes you're going for 1.4, attempts it, and fails. You can choose /f:720 > with later versions of DOS; use "/t:80 /n:9" for 3.x. /F:2 would also work for some versions. With XP, /T:80/N:9 seems to be the only way that still works! From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Tue Jan 18 21:23:49 2005 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik S. Klein) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <000001c4fdd6$4b8e4460$6e7ba8c0@p933> They wear brown for a reason. . . :) Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 4:30 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: no more UPS! I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. I went there to ship a vintage cpu, and the gentleman behind the counter took one look at my box and said "that box is in bad condition", followed by "At UPS, we don't want to deliver any packages that don't look good", and finally "we can't have the box falling apart and it's contents coming out". I asked him to please take a closer look at the box I was shipping. True, the outside had many shipping labels that had been pulled off. But I explained to him it was a custom made US military shipping carton. The walls are almost 1/2 thick cardboard with 6 inches of foam form fitting around the cpu. There were no creases in the cardboard anywhere, and no sunken surfaces. This box was far sturdier than any box in the place. He told me my only choice was to take the package to The UPS Store and have them rebox it. I think they are just trying to push business to their UPS Store fronts. This box was extremely sturdy. So... I'm boycotting UPS and just needed to vent :) Jay From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Tue Jan 18 21:27:44 2005 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik S. Klein) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <000501c4fdd6$d72d85d0$6e7ba8c0@p933> As far as I'm concerned, UPS wears brown for a reason. They are second only to the USPS in annoyance level. FedEx ground is my first choice for most shipments with DHL a close second if it's not too big. Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 4:30 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: no more UPS! I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. I went there to ship a vintage cpu, and the gentleman behind the counter took one look at my box and said "that box is in bad condition", followed by "At UPS, we don't want to deliver any packages that don't look good", and finally "we can't have the box falling apart and it's contents coming out". I asked him to please take a closer look at the box I was shipping. True, the outside had many shipping labels that had been pulled off. But I explained to him it was a custom made US military shipping carton. The walls are almost 1/2 thick cardboard with 6 inches of foam form fitting around the cpu. There were no creases in the cardboard anywhere, and no sunken surfaces. This box was far sturdier than any box in the place. He told me my only choice was to take the package to The UPS Store and have them rebox it. I think they are just trying to push business to their UPS Store fronts. This box was extremely sturdy. So... I'm boycotting UPS and just needed to vent :) Jay From dave04a at dunfield.com Tue Jan 18 21:28:57 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: Another bad PET rom! - and more UPS Message-ID: <20050119032856.MPLY8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Hi Guys, Had a PET 2001-8N arrive a couple of days ago - non-functional but in otherwise very nice cosmetic condition. At first I thought it was missing a ROM, as there were only 4 ROMs in the machine, however after looking at them I realized that it has BASIC 2 installed which is one ROM smaller than BASIC 4 which is what is in my virtually identical 2001-32N. Bit of debugging, and I discovered that the problem was --- yes! - yet another bad PET rom! - fortunately, it was the EDIT ROM which is the only 2K device, and hence the only device which can be directly replaced with a more commonly available 2716. (CS3 which is tied to +5 in the PET lines up with VPP, CS1 lines up with -OE, and A11 which is always low on accesses to EDIT ROM lines up with -CE). Programmed a 2716, dropped it in and up it came! Now on to UPS --- I *NEVER* use UPS - not only do they usually break things, but they charge horrendous brokerage fees to import from the US to Canada. Case in point - in spite of my explicitly telling him NOT to send via UPS - they guy sent it UPS ... Apparently because they agreed to pack it for him. To their credit, they did a non-bad job - the PET was wrapped in about 5 layers of bubble wrap, and then placed in a large box stuffed with plastic peanuts - much as I dislike PP's, the bubble wrap protected the machine from getting filled with lots of little styrofoam bits and seemed to keep it fairly centered in the box. - the machine arrived in excellent condition, although the cost for UPS packing and shipping was higher than I had agreed to. So - it arrives at my door with a bill for an additional $42 --- thats what UPS charged to provide customs with the declaration that he had filled out. ... I *NEVER* use UPS! Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jan 18 21:31:06 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >Does anyone actually like UPS? > >William Donzelli >aw288@osfn.org I doubt it! One thing I hate is how they're often the only real shipping option, and that they'll normally hold an item so that they don't get it to you in sooner than the shipper paid for. In tracking items I've seen stuff sit in the local depot for a couple days before they deliver it when it gets into town early. I was really shocked a couple weeks ago when a package showed up 3 days early! Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Jan 18 21:42:40 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <000501c4fdd6$d72d85d0$6e7ba8c0@p933> Message-ID: > As far as I'm concerned, UPS wears brown for a reason. > > They are second only to the USPS in annoyance level. I am very pleased with USPS - they never bust up anything (although they do loose them from time to time). Things are so much nicer with me and USPS now that the Dragon Lady behind the counter of the Carmel PO has retired. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 18 21:54:13 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: from William Donzelli at "Jan 18, 5 10:42:40 pm" Message-ID: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com> > I am very pleased with USPS - they never bust up anything (although they > do loose them from time to time). Things are so much nicer with me and > USPS now that the Dragon Lady behind the counter of the Carmel PO has > retired. And Priority Mail, especially if everything fits in that envelope, is cheap. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- When you don't know what you're doing, do it neatly. ----------------------- From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 18 21:58:32 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! References: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> > And Priority Mail, especially if everything fits in that envelope, is > cheap. Agreed. But I'm not sure that I've *EVER* shipping anything classic computer related that fit into an envelope ;) A pallet maybe, but not an envelope ;) Jay Staying up till the wee hours running diags tonight From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jan 18 22:01:48 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41EDDBAC.4010603@oldskool.org> William Donzelli wrote: >>I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. > > Does anyone actually like UPS? I have never had any problems RECEIVING packages... ;-) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to Tue Jan 18 22:02:49 2005 From: jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <41EDDBE9.6000402@compsys.to> >John Lawson wrote: > >On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > >> I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. > > And just what part of "FedEx" didn't you understand earlier?? > > Honestly, I avoid UPS whenever possible - our company had a UPS > account because the salesman did a song-and-dance for the accountant > (who doesn't have anything to do with shipping...) and we dumped the > arrogant schmucks after 90 days of frustration, wrong billing, > stupidity, lost/damaged [expensive: $150K] items - coupled with the > most interesting take on 'customer service' since PayPal. Jerome Fine replies: While I agree that FedEx is far better than UPS, I personally know of a big mess because the driver stated that the receiver had signed a waiver allowing the driver to leave the shipment without a signature. When FedEx admitted that they did NOT have such a waiver on file, the mess started to clear. However, that should NOT have happened in the first place. I suggest that with anything important or valuable, be sure and insist that the driver obtain a valid signature from the receiver and that the package NOT be left without a signature from the specified receiver. Otherwise, FedEx is excellent from my experience. FedEx also admit that when a shipment has a time limit and the time limit is missed, then there are no shipping charges. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jan 18 22:04:32 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com> <003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <41EDDC50.7030904@oldskool.org> Jay West wrote: >> And Priority Mail, especially if everything fits in that envelope, is >> cheap. > > Agreed. But I'm not sure that I've *EVER* shipping anything classic > computer related that fit into an envelope ;) I have a soft spot for USPS Priority Mail because they will ship you Priority Mail boxes for FREE, and I *do* use those for shipping boards of low value (ie. less than $50). And I can print postage from my printer and tape it to the box, and they will also pick it up. I can be a complete recluse! ;-D -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 18 22:20:21 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: HP 7914 drive part available Message-ID: <003a01c4fdde$312c9970$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I have a PCA for an HP 7914 disc drive, part number 07914-60001. Cosmetically good shape, but I have no 7914 nor will I likely ever. Anyone want it? Jay From cb at mythtech.net Tue Jan 18 22:59:34 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! Message-ID: >Use DHL. Their rates are highly competitive with both UPS and Fedex and >they seem to be saturating the streets with their bright yellow trucks. >I'm increasingly moving my business over to DHL since they seem to want it >more. I'll wait to see how others fair with DHL... they bought Airborne Express, which was simply THE ABSOLUTE WORST carrier there was... cheap as hell, but you got exactly what you paid for. I never had a good experience with Airborne. And after boycotting them for years, I gave in and let a guy ship me an item Airborne since he insisted they were the best (even after relaying the many many stories I had of destroy and/or delayed and/or lost packages)... low and behold, the box came in ripped to pieces with manuals hanging out the largest of the holes. No, thanks, I'll wait on DHL until I know for sure that all the Airborne people were fired. -chris From cb at mythtech.net Tue Jan 18 22:59:34 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! Message-ID: >and we dumped the arrogant schmucks >after 90 days of frustration, wrong billing, stupidity, lost/damaged >[expensive: $150K] items Er, Yup... UPS lost a weeks worth of packages on me. About 150 packages shipped over the course of a week, all via 2 day service... not a one showed up in their system, and to this day, not a one has been located. Best guess I can come up with, the driver was picking them up from the drop box, and just throwing them out all week. UPS's response... "Oh, well, if we can't find them in the system, then we can't track them. Are you sure you shipped them?" Upside... at least they never tried to charge me for the missing packs. But that is still better then Airborne used to do... overnight packs would be delayed, I'd call to find out the status, and they would tell me "it is scheduled for delivery tomorrow" (hmm... define OVERNIGHT). Next day would come, no package... I'd call again, and be told "no such package exists in the system" (hmmm... it was there YESTERDAY, when it should have been HERE!). Following day comes... package shows up, looking like a mountain lion tried to snack on it. That was just about every package I got from Airborne Express... which alas, all the early Mac Catalog dealers insisted on shipping via, so I was stuck dealing with them far longer then I wanted. -chris From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 18 23:30:02 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: Another HP card available Message-ID: <005301c4fde7$ed5bddf0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I have an extra HP microcode board, free to anyone who needs it. It's an M series only board... DMI microcode option (not FFP+DMI, just DMI). Jay West From chenmel at earthlink.net Wed Jan 19 00:10:33 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <20050119011033.79951c8a.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 22:04:38 -0500 (EST) William Donzelli wrote: > > I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the > > mouth. > > Does anyone actually like UPS? > > William Donzelli > aw288@osfn.org > I've shipped tons of computers with UPS, through the local UPS Store. They have me 'on file' at the place and all I have to give them is my phone number. I don't have to fill out the usual forms and paperwork. They have all been used Dell machines shipped in a standard box I decided on, nothing special. They never make an issue of it, and I always specify it's a computer in the box. I recently had a Drive Sled disappear that was 'delivered' by the FedEx driver. When I tried to look into it, they had a recorded 'electronic signature' confirming it was delivered that was my first initial and last name, all in block letters. -Scott From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 19 00:33:33 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: Data General 4/X haul from Bakersfield In-Reply-To: <004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20050117235605.V2429@localhost> <004501c4fd6f$3c2d1080$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <20050118223032.N635@localhost> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, John Allain wrote: > Interested to know how you set the 100% point. > If we used the RCS/RI as a guide, it could be said > to be at 94% floor capacity, based on observations > back in 2001, where if it reached 100% you'd have to > walk across the tops of the cabinets, IE the 6% is the > footpaths. If you used that measure, then 120% would > be saying that all the cabinets were squashed in to 9/10 > their dimensions. Huh?!!$% :-) A very specific sense of fullness. Sans crap stacked on the floor. I now have much stacked on floor. I ruthlessly purge to maintain 99% capacity. The NOVA4 is temporary in the sense that it'll get decrufted, deextraneized, organized, manualstackedized, after deduplication, excision of two racks, and likely something previously existing will no longer. From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 19 00:56:09 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <41EDDC50.7030904@oldskool.org> References: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com> <003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <41EDDC50.7030904@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20050118225033.S635@localhost> Gee, I have no problems with USPS, UPS or Fedex. They each do some things well, and some things poorly. I've been in the mail order biz, and can't really say that USPS actually lost things. I know customers used it as an excuse though. They perform the amazing feat of taking a 1 oz. letter hand addressed and deliver it anywher in the US for 37 freaking cents! I have not had a letter lost, in either direction, in my memory. I've got a couple mangled by auto equipment, delivered in a plastic envelope. Shit Happens. UPS service depends a lot on the interface people, as is obvious with the jerk that started this thread. At Xmas time, once, they lost a set of car leaf springs. There was an ordinary delay, I went to pick up... lost. A few hours later they were found pushed under the warehouse shelf, as they were "too heavy" to lift onto the shelf. Idiots. I've found that the 2nd-tier carriers -- DHL and the like -- to be utterly HORRIBLE. They're fine at the normal case -- but if anything goes wrong they collapse. Took three days to get a package deliverd to the UCI campus -- most recently -- they "couldn't find" UC Irvine, even though it has a half dozen ZIP codes, dozens of streets, etc. From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 19 00:57:02 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050118225645.K635@localhost> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, chris wrote: > UPS's response... "Oh, well, if we can't find them in the system, then we > can't track them. Are you sure you shipped them?" Upside... at least they > never tried to charge me for the missing packs. So why did you walk off without tracking numbers?! From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 19 01:46:27 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos Message-ID: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> http://wps.com/NOVA4/ Not very good. Will take more when I get back to town. Not annotated yet. From bkr at WildHareComputers.com Wed Jan 19 02:05:58 2005 From: bkr at WildHareComputers.com (Bruce Ray) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos References: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> Message-ID: <053f01c4fdfd$befafed0$89eafea9@newhare> Thanks, I'll look at the stuff later today. I'm having a "client moment" so will get back to the Nova 4/X stuff after I fix stuff for a customer... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Jennings" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 12:46 AM Subject: DG haul, photos > http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > > Not very good. Will take more when I get back to town. Not annotated yet. > From bkr at WildHareComputers.com Wed Jan 19 02:14:54 2005 From: bkr at WildHareComputers.com (Bruce Ray) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos References: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> <053f01c4fdfd$befafed0$89eafea9@newhare> Message-ID: <057701c4fdff$019d2460$89eafea9@newhare> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bruce Ray" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 1:05 AM Subject: Re: DG haul, photos > Thanks, I'll look at the stuff later today. I'm having a "client moment" so > will get back to the Nova 4/X stuff after I fix stuff for a customer... > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Tom Jennings" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 12:46 AM > Subject: DG haul, photos > > > > http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > > > > Not very good. Will take more when I get back to town. Not annotated yet. > > > > From bert at brothom.nl Wed Jan 19 02:16:27 2005 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! References: Message-ID: <41EE175B.E0A3A834@brothom.nl> William Donzelli wrote: > > > I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. > > Does anyone actually like UPS? I only receive packages from them, for example from Farnell. The only problem I once had was that Farnell shipped something between xmas and new year and they wouldn't deliver it until after new year or something like that. Other then that I like them. It might be that US customers demand higher quality services from their suppliers and that therefore UPS is 'good' compared to other companies operating here in the netherlands. In particular, I don't consider the drivers who deliver the stuff to be idiots. I once expected a larger delivery from Dell. The driver explained that it often happened that some stuff from Dell was delivered a day later. Indeed the expected extra packages where delivered a day later. When we moved a few years ago, the driver recognised us from the old place and delivered the goods addressed to our old place to our new place. All in all, I'm a happy customer. Bert From tosteve at yahoo.com Wed Jan 19 03:18:46 2005 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> Message-ID: <20050119091846.38324.qmail@web40907.mail.yahoo.com> Holy cow, what is it?!? (The 'helper', not the computer...) --- Tom Jennings wrote: > http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > > Not very good. Will take more when I get back to > town. Not annotated yet. > > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do? http://my.yahoo.com From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 04:12:55 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: net connectivity 10+ years ago (Re: How the Mac was born... supposedly...) In-Reply-To: <20050112212604.6F6654DCA@spies.com> References: <20050112212604.6F6654DCA@spies.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:26:04 -0800 (PST), Al Kossow wrote: > ihnp4 was an impressive machine, indeed. much of the uucp traffic > in the midwest went through it. For many years, I got all of my traffic via ihnp4, then via Columbus Bell Labs (cbosgd (Columbus Bell-Labs Operating System Group?), later cbatt), then either through Ohio State (osu-eddie, later giza) or via a local UUCP club that was a mix of 7300s and 386s running Interactive UNIX. I didn't have a UNIX machine in those days (couldn't afford enough ancient disk to use on my PDP-11s), so I hooked in with my Amiga 1000 - 2x ST-225 on a Western Digital WX-1 and a special converter... that machine is detectable on the UUCP maps as "kumiss". That radio club forked off a "mom and pop ISP" in 1993 or 1994, infinet.com... they are still around, a couple of sales later, but the original owners (friends of mine) got out years and years ago. As an aside, I saw the remains of osu-eddie, an 11/780, first at the university surplus, then later, as an empty cabinet, behind a local DEC reseller... they had apparently bought it to sell off its parts. I used osu-eddie in high school, so I know it was handling wads of mail for folks in 1983 and prior. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 04:12:55 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: net connectivity 10+ years ago (Re: How the Mac was born... supposedly...) In-Reply-To: <20050112212604.6F6654DCA@spies.com> References: <20050112212604.6F6654DCA@spies.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:26:04 -0800 (PST), Al Kossow wrote: > ihnp4 was an impressive machine, indeed. much of the uucp traffic > in the midwest went through it. For many years, I got all of my traffic via ihnp4, then via Columbus Bell Labs (cbosgd (Columbus Bell-Labs Operating System Group?), later cbatt), then either through Ohio State (osu-eddie, later giza) or via a local UUCP club that was a mix of 7300s and 386s running Interactive UNIX. I didn't have a UNIX machine in those days (couldn't afford enough ancient disk to use on my PDP-11s), so I hooked in with my Amiga 1000 - 2x ST-225 on a Western Digital WX-1 and a special converter... that machine is detectable on the UUCP maps as "kumiss". That radio club forked off a "mom and pop ISP" in 1993 or 1994, infinet.com... they are still around, a couple of sales later, but the original owners (friends of mine) got out years and years ago. As an aside, I saw the remains of osu-eddie, an 11/780, first at the university surplus, then later, as an empty cabinet, behind a local DEC reseller... they had apparently bought it to sell off its parts. I used osu-eddie in high school, so I know it was handling wads of mail for folks in 1983 and prior. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 04:19:25 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <200501132257.OAA13636@floodgap.com> References: <41E6D626.2080307@oldskool.org> <200501132257.OAA13636@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:57:57 -0800 (PST), Cameron Kaiser wrote: > Now that's a real shame, because one of my dreams is to have Secret Weapons > of Commodore running on a Secret Weapon: the Commodore 900, which ran > Coherent on a Z8001. Was there any kind of networking support at all? Dunno, but even if you could whip up SL/IP or PPP on it, that'd be something. It would probably have UUCP on it, but that's not helpful for HTTP and/or NFS. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 04:23:34 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 17:40:38 -0500, chris wrote: > That would be the flood of AOL floppies, and the run of $300 PCs after > rebate because you signed up for AOL for 3 years at $20/mn. My part of _that_ saga was working for the group at AOL/CompuServe that implemented the back-end of the rebate scheme... our code monitored databases of rebate customers to ensure they stuck around on the service for the entire 3 years, and billed them if they tried to leave prematurely. Eventually, as people started to get near the end of their commitments, our group was responsible for implementing marketing schemes to entice rebate customers to stay on voluntarily... I don't recall any specifics, but my memory is that many of these enticements worked, but I suspect it was more related to customer inertia than perceived value. Some of my friends still work there, but much of that group has been winnowed away after waves and waves of layoffs. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 04:51:58 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <20050112170104.J998@localhost> References: <20050112170104.J998@localhost> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:12:04 -0800 (PST), Tom Jennings wrote: > It didn't take much hardware to run a real unix in 1994, even: > > http://wps.com/archives/wps.com.11Apr1994/wps-hardware.html > > 40MHz 386 and 16M RAM. And I ran a business on it. Multiple (2, 3) > users. My first Linux install was on a home-built 40MHz 386 w/4M of RAM... I have the check for the motherboard somewhere - $250 for the board and CPU, April 1992, IIRC. I loaded Slackware from *stacks* of floppies because the DOS-partion (UMS?) trick didn't exist yet. That long ago, one could expect to get away with 4MB (there were tricks for 2MB, but given the cost of RAM at the time ($20-$25/meg), one might as well had 4MB before starting. That same 386 also ran DOS on a different hard disk (not dual-boot... I physically swapped the drives out). That was the box I beta-tested "Return To Zork" on in its DOS phase. Got a lot of life out of it. -ethan From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Jan 19 05:17:02 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:07 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <20050118225033.S635@localhost> References: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com> <41EDDC50.7030904@oldskool.org> <20050118225033.S635@localhost> Message-ID: <2b12ab2f4d.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <20050118225033.S635@localhost> Tom Jennings wrote: > I've been in the mail order biz, and can't really say that USPS > actually lost things. I know customers used it as an excuse > though. They perform the amazing feat of taking a 1 oz. letter > hand addressed and deliver it anywher in the US for 37 freaking > cents! I have not had a letter lost, in either direction, in my > memory. I've got a couple mangled by auto equipment, delivered in > a plastic envelope. Shit Happens. Heh. Try the British answer to USPS - Royal Mail. I've had them mangle, misdeliver, lose and downright destroy stuff before. Case in point: a PC I/O card. ESD-safe bag, four layers of that pink bubble-wrap on all sides, and a Jiffy bag. They mangled the Jiffy bag, and managed to do major damage to the bubble wrap. The address label was still just about readable (thankfully the first line of the address and the postcode survived), but there was a huge hole right through the Jiffy bag and into the PCB. Needless to say, the board didn't survive. Second case in point: an Acorn A4 laptop. Six layers of bubble-wrap, plus newspaper as filler. They managed to rip one side of the box open (bear in mind I reinforced it with two layers of packing tape beforehand), there was a load of newspaper missing, and the LCD had been mangled. I tried to get a claim form off them (the machine was sent Special Delivery, so it was insured for ?250) and spoke to a rather rude call-centre droid who told me in no uncertain terms to go take a running jump. I asked to speak to said droid's supervisor and she hung up on me. In the end, it turned out the recipient was fairly experienced with SMD soldering, so he rebuilt the LCD (a few FPCs had detached from the PCB) and saved me faffing around with RM. I'd also like to know how they managed to destroy a 6GB Toshiba laptop hard drive that was sent in a hard drive shipping box (2-inch foam on all sides)... Don't even get me started on ParcelForce... They're even worse than Royal Mail. Same applies to ANC too - they delivered a large parcel to the wrong address (not just a few doors away, half a mile away). Had the guy who signed for it not been as honest as he was, I would likely have been out ?90 and had nothing to show for it. I called ANC and was told to "f**k off and die, it's not [their] problem". > I've found that the 2nd-tier carriers -- DHL and the like -- to be > utterly HORRIBLE. They're fine at the normal case -- but if > anything goes wrong they collapse. Took three days to get a > package deliverd to the UCI campus -- most recently -- they > "couldn't find" UC Irvine, even though it has a half dozen ZIP > codes, dozens of streets, etc. LOL! The word "incompetence" just doesn't cover it, does it? :) IME, UPS have been pretty good so far, as have FedEx (they subcontract out to Business Post in the UK) Later. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... A little nookie never hurt anyone! From korpela at gmail.com Tue Jan 18 18:04:03 2005 From: korpela at gmail.com (Eric J Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:58:01 -0800, Mark Davidson wrote: > At one point, there was a web site (in Europe, I believe) that had a > complete archive of the Coherent distribution. Unfortunately, Coherent > has very few drivers and those that exist don't play well with modern > hardware. For example, Coherent's disk utility for setting up file > systems absolutely has problems with drives of any reasonable size > today (I had problems getting it to work with an 8 GB IDE drive, for > example). The question is, does anyone have a copy of the original (8086) version of Coherent. The closest I've seen is the 286 version. Did the 8086 version really exist, or was it just vaporware? Eric From gtn at rbii.com Tue Jan 18 21:13:35 2005 From: gtn at rbii.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <007901c4fdd1$f7129980$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <41EDC568.2040601@execpc.com> <007901c4fdd1$f7129980$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <1B3531A0-69C8-11D9-AD3B-000D93520A84@rbii.com> On Jan 18, 2005, at 9:52 PM, John Allain wrote: > What Tom said. Here's another. > Got a box full of Byte magazines sent to me using UPS once. > It had been ripped right in half and then taped together again > with many magazines missing. Left on doorstep without > explanations or apologies. I should add however, that the sender, > using my pictures, was able to get a refund. I had a UPS guy deliver a box so wet the bottom half of the box had basically disintegrated. Still, that's *nothing* compared to USPS... From bv at norbionics.com Wed Jan 19 03:28:17 2005 From: bv at norbionics.com (=?utf-8?Q?Bj=C3=B8rn_Vermo?=) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:35:01 -0800 (PST), Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > Hi > DOS has an irritating feature when asked to format > a disk. If track 0 is partially readable it will > fail to format, even if you use the /u option. > I've been moving data from one machine to another > and the source machine has a flaky drive. It sometimes > trashes track 0. ... Any OS / file system has problems if track 0 is really bad, especially if sector 0 is bad. I have been able to "fix" old IBM 10MB drives by adjusting the physical end stop by a fraction of a trackwidth. On these drives, there is a small bumper on the outside that the external part of the actuator bumps against when you send the drive a command to recalibrate or locate to cylinder zero. Adding a very thin sliver of metal will move the calibration point by a fraction of a track. If you try this, you may be able to find a spot where you can successfully format the first cylinder. -- Bj?rn From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Jan 19 03:29:49 2005 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp@gjcp.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk In-Reply-To: <200501190015.QAA08774@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501190015.QAA08774@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <57662.195.212.29.83.1106126989.squirrel@195.212.29.83> > Hi Gordon > There are a number of possibles but the track 0 sensor > doesn't effect the incremental stepping mechanism used > in these drives. There is no way that it can be off without > being completely off and head over the wrong track. If the head isn't sliding all the way back to the home position it can be far enough back to close the track 0 sensor *but* still be about half a track too far in. This is how I have repaired about a dozen 720k drives in old samplers. Gordon. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 19 07:06:35 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <20050118225033.S635@localhost> References: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com> <003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <41EDDC50.7030904@oldskool.org> <20050118225033.S635@localhost> Message-ID: <1106139995.12093.2.camel@weka.localdomain> On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 22:56 -0800, Tom Jennings wrote: > UPS service depends a lot on the interface people, as is obvious > with the jerk that started this thread. I read that so completely wrong at first. Woah. ;-) From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 07:27:08 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: <20050114174825.62478.qmail@web13426.mail.yahoo.com> References: <200501132135.j0DLZ6YL037228@huey.classiccmp.org> <20050114174825.62478.qmail@web13426.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 09:48:25 -0800 (PST), Al Hartman wrote: > I also miss all the Star Trek like games, like Time > Trek, Super Star Trek and Star Trek 3.5. > > It's amazing that NOBODY has written a Star Trek Game > for current computers that let's you just explore the > Galaxy, fight Klingons if you like, but just have > fun... Someone has ported one of the Classic BASIC Trek programs to Inform, so it runs on anything that has a Z-Machine (PalmOS, Frotz, etc...) bin at http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/ztrek.z5 source at http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/source/inform/ztrek.inf And I remember running across a rendered 3Dish implementation of a Trek game for Windoze boxes, but I don't remember what it was called. -ethan From pdp11_70 at retrobbs.org Wed Jan 19 07:20:45 2005 From: pdp11_70 at retrobbs.org (Mark Firestone) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000b01c4fe29$b034efb0$4601a8c0@retrobbs.org> Is this a challenge? Cause I thought about writing a multiuser super star trek game. But I didn't do it, because I didn't think there would be enough interest. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: 19 January 2005 13:27 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Re: Any one remember...? On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 09:48:25 -0800 (PST), Al Hartman wrote: > I also miss all the Star Trek like games, like Time > Trek, Super Star Trek and Star Trek 3.5. > > It's amazing that NOBODY has written a Star Trek Game > for current computers that let's you just explore the > Galaxy, fight Klingons if you like, but just have > fun... Someone has ported one of the Classic BASIC Trek programs to Inform, so it runs on anything that has a Z-Machine (PalmOS, Frotz, etc...) bin at http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/ztrek.z5 source at http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/source/inform/ztrek.inf And I remember running across a rendered 3Dish implementation of a Trek game for Windoze boxes, but I don't remember what it was called. -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 19 07:43:22 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from Jay West at "Jan 18, 5 09:58:32 pm" Message-ID: <200501191343.FAA14582@floodgap.com> > > And Priority Mail, especially if everything fits in that envelope, is > > cheap. > > Agreed. But I'm not sure that I've *EVER* shipping anything classic computer > related that fit into an envelope ;) True, though I use it for software and (verrrrrry) securely wrapped cards. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- FORTUNE: You have a magnetic personality. Avoid iron-based alloys. --------- From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Jan 19 07:58:27 2005 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <200501191343.FAA14582@floodgap.com> References: <200501191343.FAA14582@floodgap.com> Message-ID: I used to work for a company that maintained, refurbished and resold HP3000 systems and peripherals. When we started getting complaints about terminals shipped by UPS arriving broken, my boss met with a UPS representative at the warehouse. When the UPS rep told him that it was because the terminals were improperly packed, my boss walked over to a random four high stack of "ET" terminals packed in our standard shipping boxes, reached up and shoved the top box off the stack. After it hit the floor he unpacked it, and it was undamaged. Obviously UPS was dropping them from a height of greater than 7 feet, or so. Mike Loewen mloewen@cpumagic.scol.pa.us The Dixie Lion Jazz Band http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/dixie.html The B9 Robot Builders Club B9-0014 http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/B9/ Old Technology Collection http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From RCini at congressfinancial.com Wed Jan 19 08:06:41 2005 From: RCini at congressfinancial.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? Message-ID: <69DBC74E5784D6119BEA0090271EB8E501EAF078@mail10.congressfinancial.com> Actually, a Star Trek game for Windows does exist: http://andy3ware.com/startrek/download.htm I haven't played it in a while, but I remember it was pretty good. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 8:27 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Re: Any one remember...? On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 09:48:25 -0800 (PST), Al Hartman wrote: > I also miss all the Star Trek like games, like Time > Trek, Super Star Trek and Star Trek 3.5. > > It's amazing that NOBODY has written a Star Trek Game > for current computers that let's you just explore the > Galaxy, fight Klingons if you like, but just have > fun... Someone has ported one of the Classic BASIC Trek programs to Inform, so it runs on anything that has a Z-Machine (PalmOS, Frotz, etc...) bin at http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/ztrek.z5 source at http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/source/inform/ztrek.inf And I remember running across a rendered 3Dish implementation of a Trek game for Windoze boxes, but I don't remember what it was called. -ethan From cb at mythtech.net Wed Jan 19 08:43:44 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? Message-ID: > It's amazing that NOBODY has written a Star Trek Game > for current computers that let's you just explore the > Galaxy, fight Klingons if you like, but just have > fun... I guess you mean EXCEPT for the whole run of *actual* Star Trek games available for Windows? Or are those too "shoot-em up" for what you are thinking of? -chris From cb at mythtech.net Wed Jan 19 08:50:17 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! Message-ID: >> UPS's response... "Oh, well, if we can't find them in the system, then we >> can't track them. Are you sure you shipped them?" Upside... at least they >> never tried to charge me for the missing packs. > >So why did you walk off without tracking numbers?! I had tracking numbers. These were all packages created with the UPS shipping software in my office (software UPS provides to you free if you ask for it). I then walked the packs a few doors down and dropped them off at the UPS Drop Box in front of the local printing place. Something I had done many times in the past without issue. I gave them tracking numbers for the packages, and they said they had no record of those numbers in the system at all. An online tracking yielded the same results (so at least the rep wasn't lying to me). -chris From SUPRDAVE at aol.com Wed Jan 19 08:55:38 2005 From: SUPRDAVE at aol.com (SUPRDAVE@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! Message-ID: <1782B33F.3D8C55BD.007BF7D6@aol.com> The company I work for uses Airborne/DHL and I've had no problem with them. Minor issues, but that's to be expected. I'm happy with them and there's a station nearby. UPS sucks. They beat the shit out of packages. I've mentioned in previous threads about crushed boxes I've got from them. USPS is ok, but the post office nearby is always busy. Averages 12 people in line all the time it seems. Getting through there is slow since the employees do not know what speed of service is. I'm happy to have discovered Fedex ground. Heck of a lot cheaper sending large/heavy goods than USPS. I use it when sending out ebay goods. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 19 09:14:54 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! References: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com><003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP><41EDDC50.7030904@oldskool.org> <20050118225033.S635@localhost> <1106139995.12093.2.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <007601c4fe39$a16f1860$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> >> UPS service depends a lot on the interface people, as is obvious >> with the jerk that started this thread. *blink* From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 19 09:18:32 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos References: <20050119091846.38324.qmail@web40907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <008501c4fe3a$234d8e20$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Very nice haul :) I'm extremely jealous of the DG "LA120" equivalent, I'm looking for one of those (as well as a blue Dasher terminal). Did you say you were getting rid of a couple of the racks? I don't need any DG racks, but I could definitely use a few of the DG filler panels from them. I might be able to use a couple side panels from the racks if they are going out to pasture. Jay From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 19 09:30:35 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <007601c4fe39$a16f1860$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com> <003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP><41EDDC50.7030904@oldskool.org> <20050118225033.S635@localhost> <1106139995.12093.2.camel@weka.localdomain> <007601c4fe39$a16f1860$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1106148635.12093.26.camel@weka.localdomain> On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 09:14 -0600, Jay West wrote: > >> UPS service depends a lot on the interface people, as is obvious > >> with the jerk that started this thread. > > *blink* ha ha - somehow I don't think he meant it like that ;) From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Wed Jan 19 09:35:30 2005 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Creating an NTFS Boot disk (was Re: DOS feature on formatting disk) Message-ID: Microsoft does provide instructions on how to create a boot floppy for an NTFS system ("How to Create a Bootable Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition," http://support.microsoft.com/kb/119467), but it is an involved process. You're probably better off with one of the 3rd party utilities that has been mentioned by others. BTW, I located this KB article after someone I know thought he would be good and clean up his root folder by moving "unnecessary" files -- including ntldr -- to other folders. Next time he rebooted: surprise! no boot. Bob From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 19 09:38:26 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! References: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com><003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP><41EDDC50.7030904@oldskool.org><20050118225033.S635@localhost><1106139995.12093.2.camel@weka.localdomain><007601c4fe39$a16f1860$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <1106148635.12093.26.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <009e01c4fe3c$eb012470$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> > ha ha - somehow I don't think he meant it like that ;) I know I know... but I did have to read it a few times ;) Of course, it is true either way you take it :> From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 19 10:03:23 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Any one remember...? In-Reply-To: from chris at "Jan 19, 5 09:43:44 am" Message-ID: <200501191603.IAA13310@floodgap.com> > > It's amazing that NOBODY has written a Star Trek Game > > for current computers that let's you just explore the > > Galaxy, fight Klingons if you like, but just have > > fun... > > I guess you mean EXCEPT for the whole run of *actual* Star Trek games > available for Windows? Or are those too "shoot-em up" for what you are > thinking of? Personally, I loved the Interplay 25th Anniversary Star Trek (though that was DOS). The episodic format, the use of the original cast as the voices, and the puzzles were all superb. I loved every minute of it. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "The Man With the Golden Gun" ---------------------- From dundas at caltech.edu Wed Jan 19 10:08:46 2005 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: la120 consumables In-Reply-To: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005301c4fc49$6c8febc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: At 10:02 PM -0600 1/16/05, Jay West wrote: >Anyone know a good (cheap) source for LA120 ribbons? I just used A Matter of FAX less than two weeks ago for this very purpose. See: for the NuKote equivalent replacement ($5.50/ea). I bought only 1 as that's what I needed. Arrived overnight, though I didn't pay for that. I've never used them before this and don't know much about them but I was pleased with the transaction and will use them again. BTW the ribbon works fine in the LA120; just need to clean and grease the ribbon tractor mechanism. John From pkoning at equallogic.com Wed Jan 19 10:22:31 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk References: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> <20050118131641.V77441@shell.lmi.net> <6.2.0.14.2.20050118154935.05ba1788@mail> Message-ID: <16878.35143.0.513381@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "John" == John Foust writes: John> At 03:20 PM 1/18/2005, Fred Cisin wrote: >> In their more recent operating systems, they are also completely >> unclear on the concept of "floppy boot". If one of the system >> files ON THE HARD DISK is bad, it CAN NOT be booted. What else >> can I boot an NT machine with that can read and write an NTFS >> partition? John> Any one of the Linux-based boot CDs that handle NTFS? Or the John> Sysinternals tools that handle NTFS? Or a second machine that John> can still read the hard disk, if you transplant it? Linux NTFS has an "experimental" read/write capability for NTFS, but that only works with NTFS V4 -- with WinNT. It doesn't handle the Win2k or later flavors of NTFS. Or at least, it didn't last I looked (which I think was Fedora 1). paul From pkoning at equallogic.com Wed Jan 19 10:39:41 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk References: <200501181735.JAA08632@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <16878.36173.848000.881281@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "Bj??rn" == Bj??rn Vermo writes: Bj??rn> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:35:01 -0800 (PST), Dwight K. Elvey Bj??rn> wrote: >> Hi DOS has an irritating feature when asked to format a disk. If >> track 0 is partially readable it will fail to format, even if you >> use the /u option. I've been moving data from one machine to >> another and the source machine has a flaky drive. It sometimes >> trashes track 0. Bj??rn> ... Bj??rn> Any OS / file system has problems if track 0 is really bad, Bj??rn> especially if sector 0 is bad. That's definitely not true. For example, PDP11s use sector 0 for the boot sector, bot not for anything else. A disk that doesn't need to be booted will work perfectly well with an unreadable sector 0. Depending on the OS, there may be some other critical sector (sector 1 on RSTS, for example). More sophisticated file structures have a search rule, where the "superblock" can be found in one of several places that are checked in order. paul From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Jan 19 10:53:33 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: no more UPS! Message-ID: <200501191653.IAA09191@clulw009.amd.com> Hi The other thing is that a 20 year old box will not hold together all that well. Even in a good environment, the bonding breaks down. I have one large box that is the original and I wouldn't consider it safe to ship in that box( 1978 ). Dwight >From: "Chad Fernandez" > >One of the reasons that I stopped using UPS is because the lady at the >counter always made it sound like she was doing me a favor for allowing >me to ship a computer in something other than it's original box. I >explained to her that the box had been thrown away in the early 80's. > >Chad Fernandez >Michigan, USA > From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 19 10:54:57 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > > Not very good. Will take more when I get back to town. Not annotated yet. In case you were wondering, the SLC-1 is a realtime clock. I love your dog. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Jan 19 10:57:48 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? Message-ID: <200501191657.IAA09195@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Fred Cisin" > >On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: >> Yep. DOS had only one quirk, though: If you wanted to format a 720K disk in a >> 1440K drive, you had to specifically tell DOS to format as 720K. Otherwise, it >> assumes you're going for 1.4, attempts it, and fails. You can choose /f:720 >> with later versions of DOS; use "/t:80 /n:9" for 3.x. > >/F:2 would also work for some versions. > >With XP, /T:80/N:9 seems to be the only way that still works! > Hi Fred Are you using a fresh disk or one that has already been formatted once before? I've seen it do this as well but never explored it much to see if a blank disk would still work. Dwight From rickb at bensene.com Wed Jan 19 11:12:58 2005 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: <20050119091846.38324.qmail@web40907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050119171117.6AA7F2C002@pail.bensene.com> A Chinese Crested (Hairless variety)? > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of steven > Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 1:19 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: DG haul, photos > > Holy cow, what is it?!? > (The 'helper', not the computer...) > > > --- Tom Jennings wrote: > > > http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > > > > Not very good. Will take more when I get back to town. Not > annotated > > yet. > > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do? > http://my.yahoo.com > From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Jan 19 11:15:38 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DOS feature on formatting disk Message-ID: <200501191715.JAA09200@clulw009.amd.com> >From: gordonjcp@gjcp.net > >> Hi Gordon >> There are a number of possibles but the track 0 sensor >> doesn't effect the incremental stepping mechanism used >> in these drives. There is no way that it can be off without >> being completely off and head over the wrong track. > >If the head isn't sliding all the way back to the home position it can be >far enough back to close the track 0 sensor *but* still be about half a >track too far in. This is how I have repaired about a dozen 720k drives >in old samplers. > >Gordon. Hi Gordon and Bj??rn I understand what you are saying but this is not the issue here. The bad drive is occasionally messing up ALL tracks, not just track0. When I take the disk to another drive to reformat, because the track0 is partially readable, it refuses to format. It will not format at all until the track0 is erased. If it were just track0 that was the issue, I'd have looked at problems of getting the track0 stop and sensing switch adjusted. Dwight From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jan 19 11:19:44 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: How the Mac was born... supposedly... In-Reply-To: References: <20050113191055.63F3E4F65@spies.com> <6DD57ABE-659D-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> Message-ID: <41EE96B0.1080007@oldskool.org> Eric J Korpela wrote: > > The question is, does anyone have a copy of the original (8086) > version of Coherent. The closest I've seen is the 286 version. Did > the 8086 version really exist, or was it just vaporware? It definitely wasn't vaporware because I saw it on the shelf when I was working there (long after it had been discontinued). I am still kicking myself to this day for not grabbing a copy. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Jan 19 11:35:03 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos Message-ID: <200501191735.JAA09246@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Tom You'll bring it to the next vcf here in California I hope. I wish I had space for such a machine. It is in beautiful shape. Dwight >From: "Tom Jennings" > >http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > >Not very good. Will take more when I get back to town. Not annotated yet. > > From wacarder at usit.net Wed Jan 19 11:45:58 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: RK05J vs RK05F Message-ID: <001e01c4fe4e$bcb41840$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Is there any difference in the cartridges for an RK05F drive vs. an RK05J (or plain RK05)? I just acquired an RK05F and am getting ready to hook it up to my system along with my RK05J drives so I can test it out. I know the pack holds twice as much data as the RK05/RK05J, but is there any physical difference in the packs? I suppose I'll have to reconfigure my existing RK05J drives so that the RK05F is either drives 0/1 or 2/3 (or 4/5). Thanks, Ashley From uban at ubanproductions.com Wed Jan 19 11:56:10 2005 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: RK05J vs RK05F In-Reply-To: <001e01c4fe4e$bcb41840$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20050119115332.02372b80@mail.ubanproductions.com> Ashley, The removable pack is the same for both drives. The additional data capacity comes from the fact that the pack is not removed and as such the alignment is not lost. If I recall correctly, this allow the drive to double the track density. --tom At 12:45 PM 1/19/2005 -0500, Ashley Carder wrote: >Is there any difference in the cartridges for >an RK05F drive vs. an RK05J (or plain RK05)? >I just acquired an RK05F and am getting ready >to hook it up to my system along with my RK05J >drives so I can test it out. I know the pack >holds twice as much data as the RK05/RK05J, but >is there any physical difference in the packs? > >I suppose I'll have to reconfigure my existing >RK05J drives so that the RK05F is either drives >0/1 or 2/3 (or 4/5). > >Thanks, >Ashley From classiccmp at crash.com Wed Jan 19 12:10:05 2005 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DEC pdp-11/53 and uVAX II on eBay (Illinois, USA) Message-ID: <200501191810.j0JIA6Fe006226@ill.crash.com> Just noticed an eBay auction for a DEC pdp-11/53 and uVAX II, neatly packaged inside a CNC measuring machine that includes A/C units. It's big, it's heavy, and it needs to be picked up at their premises and taken away. That's in Rockford, Illinois in the USA. I have no connection to this, other than regretting that I can't nab that pdp-11/53 for myself... eBay Auction #5157158461 http://tinyurl.com/6vye5 Good luck, --Steve. From wacarder at usit.net Wed Jan 19 13:21:07 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: RK05J vs RK05F References: <5.2.0.9.0.20050119115332.02372b80@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <001901c4fe5c$07204c20$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Tom, Thanks for the info. I'll take the cover off, do a little inspection of the pack, heads, foam, etc. and if all looks well I'll try to fire it up this weekend. Ashley > Ashley, > > The removable pack is the same for both drives. > The additional data capacity comes from the fact > that the pack is not removed and as such the > alignment is not lost. If I recall correctly, > this allow the drive to double the track density. > > --tom > > At 12:45 PM 1/19/2005 -0500, Ashley Carder wrote: > > >Is there any difference in the cartridges for > >an RK05F drive vs. an RK05J (or plain RK05)? > >I just acquired an RK05F and am getting ready > >to hook it up to my system along with my RK05J > >drives so I can test it out. I know the pack > >holds twice as much data as the RK05/RK05J, but > >is there any physical difference in the packs? > > > >I suppose I'll have to reconfigure my existing > >RK05J drives so that the RK05F is either drives > >0/1 or 2/3 (or 4/5). > > > >Thanks, > >Ashley > > From mokuba at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 13:44:20 2005 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary G. Sparkes Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <46810.64.169.63.74.1106027741.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <41eeb8a1.3818962c.1a35.0126@smtp.gmail.com> I've not gotten windows to crash since 2000, except for on faulty hardware -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Eric Smith Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 12:56 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! >>> What's next, Bill Gates jokes? My favorite is a one-liner: >>> "If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed... >>> Oh wait! He does!" >> No, even Bill isn't that rich. In fact, I don't think there's that >> much money in the world. > > One nickel per crash, one crash per day, for each of hundred million > machines, for a year, is a little over 1.8 gigabux. How rich is > Billy-boy? How many Windows boxen are there? (I don't know the answer > to either.) More than 50e9, and well over 1e8. I've never used Windows for a full day with only one crash. From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 19 13:50:48 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: VAX? or PDP-11? You bet the judge. Message-ID: Geoff Roberts asked me to post this to the list. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5157158461 I assume the dweeb in the picture is not included. I doubt you'd want him anyway...he looks like trouble. So, Geoff thinks this is an 11/33. I've never even heard of an 11/33. But there you have it. I've done my part. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From allain at panix.com Wed Jan 19 13:56:42 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos References: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> Message-ID: <074801c4fe60$ffe798a0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > http://wps.com/NOVA4/ http://wps.com/NOVA4/images/boxedpack2.jpg Looks exactly like the RL02 cartridge, wonder who made it? John A. From classiccmp at crash.com Wed Jan 19 13:58:31 2005 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Classiccmp List) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41eeb8a1.3818962c.1a35.0126@smtp.gmail.com> References: <41eeb8a1.3818962c.1a35.0126@smtp.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 14:44 -0500, Gary G. Sparkes Jr. wrote: > I've not gotten windows to crash since 2000, except for on faulty hardware Well Win2k has been very stable for me, too. Can't say it's never crashed, but it's far better than it's predecessors -- and it's successor, because I understand they've fixed this reliability problem in WinXP - more crash prone. Of course this is strictly anecdotal, your mileage must vary, simulated drivers on a closed course, do not taunt Happy Fun Ball... --S. From uban at ubanproductions.com Wed Jan 19 13:59:36 2005 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: RK05J vs RK05F In-Reply-To: <001901c4fe5c$07204c20$f71b0f14@wcarder1> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20050119115332.02372b80@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20050119133139.022c83f0@mail.ubanproductions.com> Ashley, Unless you are trying to recover data from the pack which is currently in the drive, I would suggest cleaning the platter and heads, and then if the foam and molded plastic parts are not disintegrating, run the drive for an hour or so with the head load disable switch set so that the heads don't load. This will allow any dust to be purged before loading the heads... --tom At 02:21 PM 1/19/2005 -0500, you wrote: >Tom, > >Thanks for the info. I'll take the cover off, do a little >inspection of the pack, heads, foam, etc. and if all >looks well I'll try to fire it up this weekend. > >Ashley > > > Ashley, > > > > The removable pack is the same for both drives. > > The additional data capacity comes from the fact > > that the pack is not removed and as such the > > alignment is not lost. If I recall correctly, > > this allow the drive to double the track density. > > > > --tom > > > > At 12:45 PM 1/19/2005 -0500, Ashley Carder wrote: > > > > >Is there any difference in the cartridges for > > >an RK05F drive vs. an RK05J (or plain RK05)? > > >I just acquired an RK05F and am getting ready > > >to hook it up to my system along with my RK05J > > >drives so I can test it out. I know the pack > > >holds twice as much data as the RK05/RK05J, but > > >is there any physical difference in the packs? > > > > > >I suppose I'll have to reconfigure my existing > > >RK05J drives so that the RK05F is either drives > > >0/1 or 2/3 (or 4/5). > > > > > >Thanks, > > >Ashley > > > > From wacarder at usit.net Wed Jan 19 14:09:18 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: VAX? or PDP-11? You bet the judge. References: Message-ID: <000c01c4fe62$c2859140$f71b0f14@wcarder1> > Geoff Roberts asked me to post this to the list. > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5157158461 > > I assume the dweeb in the picture is not included. I doubt you'd want him > anyway...he looks like trouble. > > So, Geoff thinks this is an 11/33. I've never even heard of an 11/33. > But there you have it. I've done my part. > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival Looks like a Micro PDP-11/53 to me. Ashley From pkoning at equallogic.com Wed Jan 19 14:07:06 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: VAX? or PDP-11? You bet the judge. References: Message-ID: <16878.48618.190965.470400@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "Vintage" == Vintage Computer Festival writes: Vintage> Geoff Roberts asked me to post this to the list. Vintage> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5157158461 Vintage> I assume the dweeb in the picture is not included. I doubt Vintage> you'd want him anyway...he looks like trouble. Vintage> So, Geoff thinks this is an 11/33. I've never even heard of Vintage> an 11/33. Me neither. The boards shown in the photo don't appear to be DEC boards. DEC boards have color coded handles along the front edge of the board and no ejectors, or they have a die-cast frame with metal ejectors. But a board with plastic ejectors and nothing else along the front edge doesn't match DEC practice that I have ever seen. paul From jcwren at jcwren.com Wed Jan 19 14:16:04 2005 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: VAX? or PDP-11? You bet the judge. In-Reply-To: <000c01c4fe62$c2859140$f71b0f14@wcarder1> References: <000c01c4fe62$c2859140$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Message-ID: <41EEC004.3050107@jcwren.com> It's a pretty safe bet that it's a Micro PDP-11/53 . It's one of the pictures provided. --jc Ashley Carder wrote: >>Geoff Roberts asked me to post this to the list. >> >>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5157158461 >> >>I assume the dweeb in the picture is not included. I doubt you'd want him >>anyway...he looks like trouble. >> >>So, Geoff thinks this is an 11/33. I've never even heard of an 11/33. >>But there you have it. I've done my part. >> >>Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer >> >> >Festival > > >Looks like a Micro PDP-11/53 to me. > >Ashley > > > > > From ICS at Core.com Wed Jan 19 14:16:09 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos References: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> Message-ID: <000701c4fe63$d0108ee0$362fc4d8@icsdevelopment> I wonder if the DG 6070 Hard (10mb?? per disk) disk drive with play a (5mb per disk) disk pack from a DG 6045/50? > http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > > Not very good. Will take more when I get back to town. Not annotated yet. > > From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 19 14:29:31 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: VAX? or PDP-11? You bet the judge. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >Geoff Roberts asked me to post this to the list. > >http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5157158461 > >I assume the dweeb in the picture is not included. I doubt you'd want him >anyway...he looks like trouble. > >So, Geoff thinks this is an 11/33. I've never even heard of an 11/33. >But there you have it. I've done my part. There is a PDP-11/53 badge on one of the other pictures, as well as a MicroVAX II Badge. It looks like there is a good chance that both are in there. It would really help to have better pictures of what exactly is being offered. The one cabinet that is open on the ebay webpage looks like it probably has some custom boards for the CNC machines. Probably worth the price if you're local, and have a way of moving them. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From bkr at WildHareComputers.com Wed Jan 19 14:29:23 2005 From: bkr at WildHareComputers.com (Bruce Ray) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos References: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> <000701c4fe63$d0108ee0$362fc4d8@icsdevelopment> Message-ID: <014b01c4fe65$97189860$89eafea9@newhare> No. ----- Original Message ----- From: "George & Oksana Wiegand" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 1:16 PM Subject: Re: DG haul, photos > I wonder if the DG 6070 Hard (10mb?? per disk) disk drive with play a (5mb > per disk) disk pack from a DG 6045/50? > > > http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > > > > Not very good. Will take more when I get back to town. Not annotated yet. > > > > > From bkr at WildHareComputers.com Wed Jan 19 14:29:47 2005 From: bkr at WildHareComputers.com (Bruce Ray) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos References: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> <074801c4fe60$ffe798a0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <014f01c4fe65$a1d0e370$89eafea9@newhare> Data General internal peripherals group. ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Allain" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 12:56 PM Subject: Re: DG haul, photos > > http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > > http://wps.com/NOVA4/images/boxedpack2.jpg > > Looks exactly like the RL02 cartridge, > wonder who made it? > > John A. > From news at computercollector.com Wed Jan 19 14:59:35 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> Message-ID: <20050119205935.84228.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> Didn't we all just have this discussion a few weeks ago? Win XP is really quite stable. I find that the majority of people who like to bash it are usually the same people who last used Windows back in 1998. I'm no Microsoft fan by any means. But most of the "Windows sucks" claims are just obsolete and irrational. --- Classiccmp List wrote: > On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 14:44 -0500, Gary G. Sparkes Jr. wrote: > > I've not gotten windows to crash since 2000, except for on faulty hardware > > Well Win2k has been very stable for me, too. Can't say it's never > crashed, but it's far better than it's predecessors -- and it's > successor, because I understand they've fixed this reliability > problem in WinXP - more crash prone. Of course this is strictly > anecdotal, your mileage must vary, simulated drivers on a closed > course, do not taunt Happy Fun Ball... > > --S. > > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 658 readers and counting! From cb at mythtech.net Wed Jan 19 15:11:26 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! Message-ID: >I'm no Microsoft fan by any means. But most of the "Windows sucks" claims >are >just obsolete and irrational. Nah, they just moved the suckyness elsewhere ;-p (sorry, I just wasted the day trying to get Win2k Server and MS Office to do a freaking Mail Merge to Fax... something that Win98 does with ease, albeit with Win98's level of stability... and I still don't have it working exactly right... it will now fax merge, alas it displays a security warning for each and every fax that I have to click "YES" to allow the fax... and I can't just sit hammering the return key, as there is a 5 second delay between when it displays the warning, and when it enables the Yes button... real helpful when I'm trying to automate hundreds of faxes!!!). -chris From news at computercollector.com Wed Jan 19 15:23:19 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:08 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050119212319.10045.qmail@web52809.mail.yahoo.com> I'm only speaking for the desktop client. --- chris wrote: > >I'm no Microsoft fan by any means. But most of the "Windows sucks" claims > >are > >just obsolete and irrational. > > Nah, they just moved the suckyness elsewhere ;-p > > (sorry, I just wasted the day trying to get Win2k Server and MS Office to > do a freaking Mail Merge to Fax... something that Win98 does with ease, > albeit with Win98's level of stability... and I still don't have it > working exactly right... it will now fax merge, alas it displays a > security warning for each and every fax that I have to click "YES" to > allow the fax... and I can't just sit hammering the return key, as there > is a 5 second delay between when it displays the warning, and when it > enables the Yes button... real helpful when I'm trying to automate > hundreds of faxes!!!). > > -chris > > > From cb at mythtech.net Wed Jan 19 15:30:41 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! Message-ID: >I'm only speaking for the desktop client. :-) The same issue exists with Win2k Client and all flavors of XP. It isn't so much a "bug" as MS totally changed the way the feature works, and has made it very difficult to get running again. What used to be a great ability in Win98 has been ripped out and really made as hard to use as MS possibly could have (they act like no one does mail merge faxes!). But this is WAY off topic now, so I'll stop. -chris From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 19 15:31:46 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <200501191657.IAA09195@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501191657.IAA09195@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <20050119132703.T5496@shell.lmi.net> > >> assumes you're going for 1.4, attempts it, and fails. You can choose /f:720 > >> with later versions of DOS; use "/t:80 /n:9" for 3.x. > >/F:2 would also work for some versions. > >With XP, /T:80/N:9 seems to be the only way that still works! On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > Hi Fred > Are you using a fresh disk or one that has already been > formatted once before? I've seen it do this as well > but never explored it much to see if a blank disk would > still work. blank, new, used,... In XP, it gave an "unrecognized switch/option" type message for ALL of the possible ways to format a 720K EXCEPT "/T:80 /N:9" When formatting from the "desktop", the only choice for disk type was 1.4 From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 19 16:25:28 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <20050119205935.84228.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > Didn't we all just have this discussion a few weeks ago? Win XP is really > quite stable. I find that the majority of people who like to bash it are > usually the same people who last used Windows back in 1998. You're saying Win98 bashing was illegitimate? > I'm no Microsoft fan by any means. But most of the "Windows sucks" > claims are just obsolete and irrational. Um, not. ;) Proudly Fanning the Flames since 1997 -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From evan947 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 19 16:37:24 2005 From: evan947 at yahoo.com (evan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050119223724.68104.qmail@web52804.mail.yahoo.com> No I'm saying 98 was the last time it WAS legitimate. But as Chris noted, we're getting too OT. --- Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > > > Didn't we all just have this discussion a few weeks ago? Win XP is really > > quite stable. I find that the majority of people who like to bash it are > > usually the same people who last used Windows back in 1998. > > You're saying Win98 bashing was illegitimate? > > > I'm no Microsoft fan by any means. But most of the "Windows sucks" > > claims are just obsolete and irrational. > > Um, not. > > ;) > > Proudly Fanning the Flames since 1997 > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer > Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger > http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers > ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org > ] > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 658 readers and counting! From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 19 16:41:00 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! References: Message-ID: <009001c4fe77$f331b160$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> This thread has gotten a little far off topic methinks! From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Wed Jan 19 17:22:41 2005 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore S Bekkedal) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: <200501162159.NAA12196@floodgap.com> References: <200501162159.NAA12196@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <1106176961.3358.7.camel@fortran> On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 13:59 -0800, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and > > advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message > > could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer, > > and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make > > good computer ornaments". > > You're kidding! That isn't true? I feel that this should have been brought to my attention previously. After so much work with the PDP-7 based solely on the hope that once I got the CPU stepping through instructions, attractive women would flock to both the computer and me... You sure ruined this teenager's day. -- Tore S Bekkedal From jpl15 at panix.com Wed Jan 19 17:37:57 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: <1106176961.3358.7.camel@fortran> References: <200501162159.NAA12196@floodgap.com> <1106176961.3358.7.camel@fortran> Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > > You sure ruined this teenager's day. Hey - could be worse! The ad could have featured buck-toothed Geeks with black-taped glasses sprawled out across the console - dressed in skimpy tiger-print Speedos... aaawwuuugghhhhh!!! Some I disgust even *me*!! Cheers John From dhbarr at gmail.com Wed Jan 19 17:49:36 2005 From: dhbarr at gmail.com (David H. Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: References: <200501162159.NAA12196@floodgap.com> <1106176961.3358.7.camel@fortran> Message-ID: Thanks VERY much for that vivid image. I just had a TERRIBLE mental overlay with that Bill Gates picture that's been making the rounds.... /me buys some MindWash(TM) ?rinse? ?lather? ?repeat? On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 18:37:57 -0500 (EST), John Lawson wrote: > > > On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > > > > > You sure ruined this teenager's day. > > Hey - could be worse! The ad could have featured buck-toothed Geeks > with black-taped glasses sprawled out across the console - dressed in > skimpy tiger-print Speedos... > > aaawwuuugghhhhh!!! > > Some I disgust even *me*!! > > Cheers > > John > > From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 19 18:37:21 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: VAX? or PDP-11? You bet the judge. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33553.64.169.63.74.1106181441.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Sellam wrote: > So, Geoff thinks this is an 11/33. I've never even heard of an 11/33. > But there you have it. I've done my part. It's an 11/53. That's the low end of the J11-based Qbus PDP-11 product line. Though it's still significantly faster than an 11/23 (F11 chipset). The J11 chip has capabilities roughly comparable to a PDP-11/70, the biggest and most powerful TTL-based PDP-11 CPU that shipped as a product. The J11 has microcoded floating point, but can optionally use a separate floating point coprocessor chip; I'm not sure whether the 11/53 can accomodate that chip. Qbus J11 systems included the 11/53, 11/73, 11/83, and 11/93. The main differences are the cache size (or absence), the clock frequency, support for the floating-point coprocessor chip, and the amount of main memory present on the CPU board (none for the 11/73 and 11/83). The J11 was also used in the 11/84 and 11/94 Unibus systems, which are the Unibs equivalents of the 11/83 and 11/93. The J11 was used in the Pro 380 personal computer, and was used as an embedded processor in many DEC devices, including the HSC60, HSC90, and HSC95 storage controllers. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 19 18:41:09 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: VAX? or PDP-11? You bet the judge. In-Reply-To: <16878.48618.190965.470400@gargle.gargle.HOWL> References: <16878.48618.190965.470400@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Message-ID: <33566.64.169.63.74.1106181669.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Paul wrote: > The boards shown in the photo don't appear to be DEC boards. None of them are. But one of the photos shows the front of a DEC BA23 case, with a label indicating that it is an 11/53. From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 19 18:44:15 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: <074801c4fe60$ffe798a0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> <074801c4fe60$ffe798a0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <33645.64.169.63.74.1106181855.squirrel@64.169.63.74> John wrote: > Looks exactly like the RL02 cartridge, > wonder who made it? IIRC, the RL02 cartridge and many other similar looking ones are based on the CDC 5440 cartridge design, but are not necessarily interchangeable with it or with each other. Just as many of the 2.5 and 5 MB cartridges are based on the IBM 2315 design, but are not necessarily interchangeable with it. From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 19 18:46:22 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <20050119205935.84228.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> References: <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> <20050119205935.84228.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <33658.64.169.63.74.1106181982.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Someone wrote: > Win XP is really > quite stable. I find that the majority of people who like to bash it are > usually the same people who last used Windows back in 1998. Some of us bash it because we're forced to use it, and find that although it doesn't suck quite as much as it did back in 1998, it still sucks a lot. Eric From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 19 17:52:44 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C75@mail.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 18, 5 09:19:28 pm Message-ID: ['scope] > I'll see if anyone in the local radio club has any I could borrow for a few > evenings. I know how to use one, it's just been a few years. I have an old > Heathkit scope behind me, but there's another thing waiting for my > attention. The trace is about as wide as my pinky and as noisy as heck. Not > real helpful I'm afraid. Ah yes... Some Heathkits are prone to that. It's either a changed resistor in the EHT divider chain, an internal leak in the CRT, or a leak in the mains transformer (I've come across all 3 faults...) You pray it's the first one, of course. [...] > What is the general opinion on adding an HD to this machine (if it will even > work)? I've got plenty of ST-406/ST-512 interface drives and controllers for > 8 bit machines. Of course I only want this for show and tell, so it is not a > requirement. IBM never supported a hard drive in this machine, but that doesn't mean it won't work. As it's a stock XT motherboard with the standard BIOS, electronically (and with the firmware) there's no problem. The only problem is getting it all to fit. IO bought my 5155 (second-hand, of course) with a half-height 5.25" Winchester in one of the drive bays, cableed to a half-length controller card in one of the slots. It worked fine, but as I wanted to make the machine as near original as possible, I removed it, and fitted a real 'IBM' Qume floppy drive. That hard drive has now been recycled (don't panic, I mean it's gone into some other machine, probably not even a PC, that neede an ST506 drive). Another option that certainly works is to use the IBM 5161 expansion cabinet. You have to put the extended board in slot 2 of the 5155, since that's the only one it will physcially fit in. You then put a hard disk controller in the expansio unit, and hae 2 full-height bays for the drives. The only problem is finding a complete 5161 with the extender card and the cable. I suppose (although I have never tried it) that a hardcard would go in slot 2 also. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 19 17:42:12 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <20050118120415.T1093@localhost> from "Tom Jennings" at Jan 18, 5 05:17:20 pm Message-ID: > > Yo uhad a 555? I managed (then) without a 'scope at all. Now my 555 is > > alongside me with a good selection of plug-ins. I don't use it all that > > much -- I find a logic analyser to be a more useful instrument, but anyway. > > Oh! No, I did it at work! It wasn't a 555, it was a 564, the > storage job. Sorry for the confusion doubled. I do own a 564 now, > since they are umm let's say heavily discounted today. I also have a 564 somewhere. Problem is, the only plug-ins I have for it are the sampler and its associated timebase. And I don't hae any of the sampling heads for it. Still, it was free, and it's a Tekky ;-) > > Yuck! I'd not want a computer I couldn't easily pull apart, and I'd not > > want one without proper expansion (not Useless Serial Botch). Heck, I've > > even played about with the processor bus in HP handheld calculators... > > My laptop is purely a software machine. In fact, it's purely a > *text* machine; I run freeBSD, everything stored as ASCII, perl It can't be as purely text as this machine (it has an MDA card for the display so it _can't_ display graphics...) > scripts to drive anything complex. Portable from machine to > machine. I have things that are purely hardware too. > > > The stuff I want is rarely built in, because no sane person would want it... > > Sane people? Who needs them? From them we get malls, fast food > insurance forms, and warfare. Oh, I certainly agree with you there :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 19 17:43:38 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at Jan 18, 5 05:59:20 pm Message-ID: > You should have demanded to speak with his supervisor. The man is > obviously an idiot. And what makes you think his supervisor would not also be an idiot? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 19 18:42:14 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: RK05J vs RK05F In-Reply-To: <001e01c4fe4e$bcb41840$f71b0f14@wcarder1> from "Ashley Carder" at Jan 19, 5 12:45:58 pm Message-ID: > > Is there any difference in the cartridges for > an RK05F drive vs. an RK05J (or plain RK05)? > I just acquired an RK05F and am getting ready > to hook it up to my system along with my RK05J > drives so I can test it out. I know the pack > holds twice as much data as the RK05/RK05J, but > is there any physical difference in the packs? Not that I know of. However, if you remove the pack from a -F, you should do a (low-level) format when you put it back in. The heads are different of course. Following the normal DEC convention that blue means 'high desnity', the RK05F heads have blue sockets on the end of their cables. -tony From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jan 19 19:50:56 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: 4 floppy disk drives on a PC? In-Reply-To: <20050119132703.T5496@shell.lmi.net> References: <200501191657.IAA09195@clulw009.amd.com> <20050119132703.T5496@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <41EF0E80.1090001@oldskool.org> Fred Cisin wrote: > blank, new, used,... > In XP, it gave an "unrecognized switch/option" type message for > ALL of the possible ways to format a 720K EXCEPT "/T:80 /N:9" > When formatting from the "desktop", the only choice for disk type was 1.4 I concur. Although XP claims to support /f:720, it does not actually work! You have to use /t:80 /n:9 to format DSDD 3.5" disks in XP. Lovely. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 19 19:20:48 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050119202048.00988d70@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 11:43 PM 1/19/05 +0000, you wrote: >> You should have demanded to speak with his supervisor. The man is >> obviously an idiot. > >And what makes you think his supervisor would not also be an idiot? > >-tony I HAVE spoken to the supervisors and to the national customer service office and believe me they ARE idiots! I've met or talked to over a dozen people from UPS and there's only ONE that I've ever dealt with that wasn't an idiot! Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 19 19:32:55 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <20050119205935.84228.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> References: <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 12:59 PM 1/19/05 -0800, you wrote: >Didn't we all just have this discussion a few weeks ago? Win XP is really >quite stable. I find that the majority of people who like to bash it are >usually the same people who last used Windows back in 1998. > >I'm no Microsoft fan by any means. But most of the "Windows sucks" claims are >just obsolete and irrational. Only someone that has never used Windows would make such a STUPID statement! Windows is the biggest piece of TRASH that has ever been fosted on the PC world! Name one program that has as many bugs and crashes or has as many security problems as Windows! Your claim that Windows XP is now stable may or may not be accurate but the fact remains that Windows has been around for right at TWENTY years and there is simply no excuse for the number of bugs, blue screens, security holes, incompatiblities and other problems that it has. FYI I use Windows EVERYDAY and I just wasted 1/2 day yesterday trying to get MS Backup to work. Backup hasn't worked since BEFORE Windows was released. AFIK it has NEVER worked in Windows. That's just ONE example of continuing problems with MS products! Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 19 19:37:20 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <009001c4fe77$f331b160$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050119203720.00988960@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 04:41 PM 1/19/05 -0600, Jay wrote: >This thread has gotten a little far off topic methinks! Why? Windows has sucked for OVER ten years! :-) Joe > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 19 19:55:52 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <41EDDBE9.6000402@compsys.to> References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050119205552.00906210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 11:02 PM 1/18/05 -0500, you wrote: > >John Lawson wrote: > >> >On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: >> >>> I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. >> >> And just what part of "FedEx" didn't you understand earlier?? >> >> Honestly, I avoid UPS whenever possible - our company had a UPS >> account because the salesman did a song-and-dance for the accountant >> (who doesn't have anything to do with shipping...) and we dumped the >> arrogant schmucks after 90 days of frustration, wrong billing, >> stupidity, lost/damaged [expensive: $150K] items - coupled with the >> most interesting take on 'customer service' since PayPal. > >Jerome Fine replies: > >While I agree that FedEx is far better than UPS, I >personally know of a big mess because the driver >stated that the receiver had signed a waiver allowing >the driver to leave the shipment without a signature. > >When FedEx admitted that they did NOT have such a >waiver on file, the mess started to clear. However, >that should NOT have happened in the first place. >I suggest that with anything important or valuable, >be sure and insist that the driver obtain a valid >signature from the receiver and that the package >NOT be left without a signature from the specified >receiver. I've got news for you. They're still delivering items without a signature even when the shipper insists that only the designated reciever sign for it. My son is in the USMC and stationed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. He just ordered a $3000 laptop computer. The manufacturer/seller shipped it via FedEx and insisted that only he could sign for it. But the FedEx driver had a John Doe sign for it and just left it in the day room of his barracks. He was very lucky to have found it (8+ hours later!) before it walked off. That was less than a week ago. Joe From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jan 19 21:19:27 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Desktops then and now (book review) In-Reply-To: <1106176961.3358.7.camel@fortran> Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 13:59 -0800, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and > > > advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message > > > could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer, > > > and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make > > > good computer ornaments". > > > > You're kidding! That isn't true? > > I feel that this should have been brought to my attention previously. > > After so much work with the PDP-7 based solely on the hope that once I > got the CPU stepping through instructions, attractive women would flock > to both the computer and me... > > You sure ruined this teenager's day. Hey, as long as you got an 8" floppy disk then all options are open. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 19 23:04:12 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: OT: Re: Creating an NTFS Boot disk (was Re: DOS feature on formatting disk) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050119205122.V17062@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Robert Feldman wrote: > Microsoft does provide instructions on how to create a boot floppy for an > NTFS system ("How to Create a Bootable Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition," > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/119467), but it is an involved process. Not very hard to do, but it will NOT boot if certain files on the hard disk are corrupted (NTVDM.EXE) As I said before, MICROS~1 is completely unclear on the concept of floppy boot, since their boot floppies will NOT work unless certain files are intact or missing. > You're probably better off with one of the 3rd party utilities that has been > mentioned by others. NOBODY has mentioned ANY third party utilities that will WRITE an NTFS partition. NTFSDOS PRO will, but it is very expensive (the free one is read-only) Booting an alternate OS (Knoppix?) looks like the most promising. Or removing the drive and installing it as second drive in a functional machine. > BTW, I located this KB article after someone I know thought he would be good > and clean up his root folder by moving "unnecessary" files -- including > ntldr -- to other folders. Next time he rebooted: surprise! no boot. Their "boot disk" seems to work if files are MISSING, but not if they are present (damaged) I think that if I could ERASE the bad file, then I could boot and fix it. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 20 03:12:07 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050119203720.00988960@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050119203720.00988960@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <1106212327.13434.12.camel@weka.localdomain> On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 20:37 -0500, Joe R. wrote: > At 04:41 PM 1/19/05 -0600, Jay wrote: > >This thread has gotten a little far off topic methinks! > > Why? Windows has sucked for OVER ten years! Classic suckyness. Heh. I ran Win 2k for a bit and that was sort-of-OK stability-wise, but it ate a *lot* of memory. Plus it still suffered from the gradual destruction which I hate about all Windows flavours; as the system was used it seemed to gradually slow down and eat up more disk space of its own accord (presumably registry bloat, disk caches etc.) My old laptop's on Win '95 which is doing well so far, although I don't use it for much more than Word, telnet, and occasional web access. I'll stick some free unix-a-like OS on it when Windows finally destroys itself on there. I do have access to a Win ME machine, and that thing's the biggest pile of junk I've ever seen; it can't run for more than an hour without something crashing it seems, and forget about trying to do any serious access to shared SMB directories anywhere. XP - only ever used it for 5 minutes and thought the UI was just way too warm and fuzzy and cutesey, urgh. I still miss my previous Win 3.11 laptop to be honest, but the limit in screen resolution on that became the factor in forcing an upgrade. It felt a lot more responsive than any other Windows machine I've used, despite the 486 CPU. cheers Jules From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 04:16:11 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com> References: <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> <5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com> <20050108200154.GA5644@loomcom.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 09:51:20AM -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > > > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac.html > > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac_sw.html Nice pix, especially http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/imlac11.jpg It bears a striking resemblance to the core stack in an PDP-8/L or PDP-8/i (those, of course, are either 4096x12 or 4096x13, depending on parity. Even the fingers look like DEC spacing. I am unfamiliar with the Imlac line... why would there be such similarities? Dataram already have something handy? -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 05:07:46 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <21404976.1105121583873.JavaMail.root@rizzo.psp.pas.earthlink.net> References: <21404976.1105121583873.JavaMail.root@rizzo.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Michael Holley > Sent: Jan 7, 2005 1:04 PM > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: RTL Logic > > My goal on the Tic Tac Toe machine was to build an exact replica of the Don Lancaster 1971 design. I have 2 of the MC789 inverters so I could build one unit. Where would one find the write-up of that? I might have a few of those chips in my junk bin (from a hand-wired TI-980 peripheral), and it'd be fun to build one. -ethan From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 06:44:31 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: OT: Re: Creating an NTFS Boot disk (was Re: DOS feature on formatting disk) In-Reply-To: <20050119205122.V17062@shell.lmi.net> References: <20050119205122.V17062@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <26c11a64050120044413276e97@mail.gmail.com> > NOBODY has mentioned ANY third party utilities that will WRITE an NTFS > partition. NTFSDOS PRO will, but it is very expensive (the free one is > read-only) > > Booting an alternate OS (Knoppix?) looks like the most promising. > > Or removing the drive and installing it as second drive in a functional > machine. > > > BTW, I located this KB article after someone I know thought he would be good > > and clean up his root folder by moving "unnecessary" files -- including > > ntldr -- to other folders. Next time he rebooted: surprise! no boot. > > Their "boot disk" seems to work if files are MISSING, but not if they are > present (damaged) > > I think that if I could ERASE the bad file, then I could boot and fix it. > Another option would be the bart pe http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ If you have a windows xp cd, this will give you xp that runs from a cd. Also good to have in your toolbox. Dan From zmerch at 30below.com Thu Jan 20 08:31:19 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: OT: Re: Creating an NTFS Boot disk (was Re: DOS feature on formatting disk) In-Reply-To: <26c11a64050120044413276e97@mail.gmail.com> References: <20050119205122.V17062@shell.lmi.net> <20050119205122.V17062@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120092640.0522e5a0@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Dan Williams may have mentioned these words: >Some Other Dude Said: > > I think that if I could ERASE the bad file, then I could boot and fix it. > > >Another option would be the bart pe > >http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ > >If you have a windows xp cd, this will give you xp that runs from a >cd. Also good to have in your toolbox. Yes, I just stumbled across an article on Toms Hardware which gives a lot of info about this -- http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20050112/index.html HTH, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers zmerch@30below.com What do you do when Life gives you lemons, and you don't *like* lemonade????????????? From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Thu Jan 20 09:15:57 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Urgent rescue of c't mags from 1988 - 1995 Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFDE9@exchange.olf.com> Hi, I know someone who has a fairly complete collection of c't magazines in Austria. Please respond if you want them. I am only interested in two articles on transputers (which he is planning on scanning for me). Let me know otherwise he is going to throw them away... Cheers, Ram (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From emu at ecubics.com Thu Jan 20 09:59:15 2005 From: emu at ecubics.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Urgent rescue of c't mags from 1988 - 1995 In-Reply-To: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFDE9@exchange.olf.com> References: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFDE9@exchange.olf.com> Message-ID: <41EFD553.1020902@ecubics.com> Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: > Hi, > > I know someone who has a fairly complete collection of c't magazines in > Austria. Please respond if you want them. I am only interested in two > articles on transputers (which he is planning on scanning for me). Let me > know otherwise he is going to throw them away... Just in case you didn't know, the c't is also available on DVD or CD ... From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Thu Jan 20 10:17:35 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Urgent rescue of c't mags from 1988 - 1995 Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFDEE@exchange.olf.com> I didn't know that. Does anyone have the DVD/CD? I would very much like those transputer articles (and the software) associated with them... Thanks, Ram -----Original Message----- From: emanuel stiebler [mailto:emu@ecubics.com] Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 10:59 AM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Urgent rescue of c't mags from 1988 - 1995 Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: > Hi, > > I know someone who has a fairly complete collection of c't magazines > in Austria. Please respond if you want them. I am only interested in > two articles on transputers (which he is planning on scanning for me). > Let me know otherwise he is going to throw them away... Just in case you didn't know, the c't is also available on DVD or CD ... (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 20 10:33:57 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: no more UPS! Message-ID: <200501201633.IAA09834@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Joe R." > >At 11:43 PM 1/19/05 +0000, you wrote: >>> You should have demanded to speak with his supervisor. The man is >>> obviously an idiot. >> >>And what makes you think his supervisor would not also be an idiot? >> >>-tony > > I HAVE spoken to the supervisors and to the national customer service >office and believe me they ARE idiots! I've met or talked to over a dozen >people from UPS and there's only ONE that I've ever dealt with that wasn't >an idiot! > > Joe > > Hi Joe Unlike USPS, they do not have to take any kind of intelligence test. I remember when I went down to pick up my EC-1 ( Heathkit tube analog computer ). The fellow brought the unit out and just dropped it on the counter from about three feet. I considered talking the the manager when I realized that his badge said he was the manager. Dwight From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 20 10:38:06 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: IBM 5140 convertible "startup disk" Message-ID: Can anyone help Luciano? See below. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:25:29 -0200 From: Luciano Camara To: info@vintagetech.com Subject: ibm 5140 convertible Hello. I have an ibm 5140 convertible, but i coudn?t find the starter disk... the ibm link is not working. Could you help me to find this software? Your web page is very nice! Thank you in advance Luciano-Brazil -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From uban at ubanproductions.com Thu Jan 20 11:03:43 2005 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com> <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> <5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com> <20050108200154.GA5644@loomcom.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20050120105853.079b28c0@mail.ubanproductions.com> At 05:16 AM 1/20/2005 -0500, you wrote: >On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 09:51:20AM -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > > > > > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac.html > > > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac_sw.html > >Nice pix, especially http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/imlac11.jpg > >It bears a striking resemblance to the core stack in an PDP-8/L or >PDP-8/i (those, of course, are either 4096x12 or 4096x13, depending on >parity. Even the fingers look like DEC spacing. > >I am unfamiliar with the Imlac line... why would there be such >similarities? Dataram already have something handy? I'd guess because they could get the core module more cheaply if they used something at least semi-standard. Also, Imlacs were designed and built in Waltham MA, probably be ex-Dec people... --tom From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 20 11:12:30 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: (no subject) Message-ID: <200501201712.JAA09840@clulw009.amd.com> Hi Sellam There is an item on ebay that you might want to watch. It is a card punch reader. #5157204731 Later Dwight From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 20 11:23:09 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: (no subject) Message-ID: <200501201723.JAA09845@clulw009.amd.com> Oops! Dwight >From: "Dwight K. Elvey" > >Hi Sellam > There is an item on ebay that you might want to watch. >It is a card punch reader. #5157204731 >Later >Dwight > > > From zmerch at 30below.com Thu Jan 20 11:43:16 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Good news, bad news... Amiga News! Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120113523.00b05680@mail.30below.com> The manager of a local radio station here _years_ ago was going to sell me 2 Amiga 1200s he was no longer using, as he had an Amiga 4000T as his (and his wife's) main computer. At that time, he'd mentioned that he'd never give up the 4000T. For over 6 months after the initial meeting, I'd tried to contact him to no avail, so eventually I gave up... The other day, I was asked if I could repair a Win2K setup on a laptop without requiring to reformat for him and was asked how much it would cost: I said "One of your Amigas." He'd said "sure." I was rather expecting one of the 1200's, but the bad news seems to be that they are probably no longer around (but I don't know for sure) and it turns out the Amiga he agreed to give me is the 4000T, but he needs to get some personal info off of it first, and doesn't have (or cannot find) a keyboard or mouse for it. I have a mouse for my Atari ST that's switchable to Amiga, but I cannot locate it right now... ePay doesn't seem to have too much, most of which is in the UK, so shipping might get 1) expensive and 2) rather slow. I found some adapters that would allow PS/2 mice to be used on them, would this be a good idea? So, anyone have any idears where I could pick up a working, reasonably priced keyboard/mouse set -- or is it 'nature of the beast' that the peripherals are expensive? -- would an Amiga 2000 or 3000T keyboard work on the 4000T? Or: Can standard PS/2 keyboards be 'rewired' for use on them, or is it a totally different protocol? I have *many* of these at my disposal, and trashing a few for testing would be no big deal to me... ;-) Thanks one and all, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... zmerch@30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" From sethm at loomcom.com Thu Jan 20 12:04:06 2005 From: sethm at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20050120105853.079b28c0@mail.ubanproductions.com> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com> <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net> <003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop> <5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com> <20050108200154.GA5644@loomcom.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com> <5.2.0.9.0.20050120105853.079b28c0@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <20050120180406.GA10826@loomcom.com> On Thu, Jan 20, 2005 at 11:03:43AM -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > At 05:16 AM 1/20/2005 -0500, you wrote: > > I'd guess because they could get the core module more cheaply if they > used something at least semi-standard. Also, Imlacs were designed and > built in Waltham MA, probably be ex-Dec people... I didn't know they were in Waltham! Neat, I lived there for a year. (It's probably only "neat" to me because I'm a west coast boy) I've made startlingly little progress on my stab at a PDS-1 simulator, but at least I have a working environment stubbed out. Thanks to Bob Supnik's fantastic SIMH framework, it was amazingly easy to throw together a new, empty simulator and start implementing it. I haven't used C in a number of years, so I'm a little rusty, but it's all pouring back. Like riding a bike. > --tom -Seth -- "It looks just like a Telefunken U47! Seth Morabito You'll love it." - Frank Zappa sethm@loomcom.com From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jan 20 12:09:05 2005 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Good news, bad news... Amiga News! References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120113523.00b05680@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <008001c4ff1b$2310a5f0$0500fea9@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Merchberger" To: Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 12:43 PM Subject: Good news, bad news... Amiga News! > The manager of a local radio station here _years_ ago was going to sell me > 2 Amiga 1200s he was no longer using, as he had an Amiga 4000T as his (and > his wife's) main computer. At that time, he'd mentioned that he'd never > give up the 4000T. For over 6 months after the initial meeting, I'd tried > to contact him to no avail, so eventually I gave up... > > The other day, I was asked if I could repair a Win2K setup on a laptop > without requiring to reformat for him and was asked how much it would cost: > I said "One of your Amigas." He'd said "sure." I was rather expecting one > of the 1200's, but the bad news seems to be that they are probably no > longer around (but I don't know for sure) and it turns out the Amiga he > agreed to give me is the 4000T, but he needs to get some personal info off > of it first, and doesn't have (or cannot find) a keyboard or mouse for it. > > I have a mouse for my Atari ST that's switchable to Amiga, but I cannot > locate it right now... > > ePay doesn't seem to have too much, most of which is in the UK, so shipping > might get 1) expensive and 2) rather slow. I found some adapters that would > allow PS/2 mice to be used on them, would this be a good idea? > > So, anyone have any idears where I could pick up a working, reasonably > priced keyboard/mouse set -- or is it 'nature of the beast' that the > peripherals are expensive? -- would an Amiga 2000 or 3000T keyboard work on > the 4000T? > > Or: Can standard PS/2 keyboards be 'rewired' for use on them, or is it a > totally different protocol? I have *many* of these at my disposal, and > trashing a few for testing would be no big deal to me... ;-) > > Thanks one and all, > Roger "Merch" Merchberger > > -- > Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan > SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... > zmerch@30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" > http://www.amiga-hardware.com/ This site has the specs for just about anything Amiga related (hardware). The 4000T uses a 5 pin DIN plug for a keyboard (same as the Amiga 2000) and can be found on eBay used for $20 + shipping. The 4000 Desktop uses a PS/2 type plug but is not PS/2 compatible. If you want a decent keyboard for the 4000T I suggest a Northgate Omnikey Ultra (I use this on my 2000), it has switches for using it on a multiple machines including the Amiga. Of course it will cost quite a bit more then $20 on eBay. From zmerch at 30below.com Thu Jan 20 12:42:06 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Good news, bad news... Amiga News! In-Reply-To: <008001c4ff1b$2310a5f0$0500fea9@game> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120113523.00b05680@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120133629.03a372e0@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Teo Zenios may have mentioned these words: [snippety] >http://www.amiga-hardware.com/ > >This site has the specs for just about anything Amiga related (hardware). Thanks! >The 4000T uses a 5 pin DIN plug for a keyboard (same as the Amiga 2000) and >can be found on eBay used for $20 + shipping. >The 4000 Desktop uses a PS/2 type plug but is not PS/2 compatible. Ah, all the auctions I saw listed them as Amiga 2000 only - I thought they were different from the 4000T keyboards. That'll make things a bit less expensive... ;-) >If you want a decent keyboard for the 4000T I suggest a Northgate Omnikey >Ultra (I use this on my 2000), it has switches for using it on a multiple >machines including the Amiga. Of course it will cost quite a bit more then >$20 on eBay. If I get serious about the Amiga, I'll prolly invest in one of those in the future; I *love* my IBM Model 'M' keyboards, it seems the Northgate use similar keyswitches. Until then, I found an auction with A2000 keyboards for under $20 shipped; I didn't know these were operationally similar. Thanks! Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch@30below.com | From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 20 12:40:35 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20050120105853.079b28c0@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Tom Uban wrote: > At 05:16 AM 1/20/2005 -0500, you wrote: > > >On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 09:51:20AM -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > > > > > > > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac.html > > > > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac_sw.html > > > >Nice pix, especially http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/imlac11.jpg > > > >It bears a striking resemblance to the core stack in an PDP-8/L or > >PDP-8/i (those, of course, are either 4096x12 or 4096x13, depending on > >parity. Even the fingers look like DEC spacing. > > > >I am unfamiliar with the Imlac line... why would there be such > >similarities? Dataram already have something handy? > > I'd guess because they could get the core module more cheaply if they > used something at least semi-standard. Also, Imlacs were designed and > built in Waltham MA, probably be ex-Dec people... I've been told the Imlac processor is based on the PDP-8, or that it has the same instructions as the PDP-8. I wouldn't know because I've never programmed either. Some info to this effect here: http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/ -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From allain at panix.com Thu Jan 20 12:47:43 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? References: <5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com><20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net><003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop><5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com><20050108200154.GA5644@loomcom.com><5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com><5.2.0.9.0.20050120105853.079b28c0@mail.ubanproductions.com> <20050120180406.GA10826@loomcom.com> Message-ID: <03a401c4ff20$8798f040$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Interesting all the talk Imlac gets on the list and nothing for either Adage or Evans & Sutherland. Guess it didn't hurt the programmer's console was such a prominent part of the Imlac. John A. From marvin at rain.org Thu Jan 20 13:13:43 2005 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Apple Disk II Analog Board Message-ID: <41F002E7.27B0AD1C@rain.org> The Apple Disk II analog board has a couple of toroid cores on the board; does anyone know what the permeability is, or better, what would be the equivilent Amidon number would be? Also, if anyone needs some of the boards, let me know. $5.00 including USPS priority mail (they supply the box!) for up to 1 pound of boards in the US :). These are untested pulls. From gordon at gjcp.net Thu Jan 20 14:05:24 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41F00F04.8020204@gjcp.net> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > I've been told the Imlac processor is based on the PDP-8, or that it has > the same instructions as the PDP-8. I wouldn't know because I've never > programmed either. > > Some info to this effect here: > > http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/ > I don't know much about Imlacs, and I'm probably younger than most PDP-8s ever built (1973?) - but from the photos of the programmer's console of an Imlac it looks like it's 16 bit. So, (probably) not very closely based on a PDP-8 then. Gordon. From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 20 14:23:24 2005 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: VAX? or PDP-11? You bet the judge. In-Reply-To: <33553.64.169.63.74.1106181441.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <200501202046.j0KKkEYE020505@huey.classiccmp.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Eric Smith > Sent: 20 January 2005 00:37 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: VAX? or PDP-11? You bet the judge. > > The J11 was used in the Pro 380 personal computer, and was > used as an embedded processor in many DEC devices, including > the HSC60, HSC90, and HSC95 storage controllers. The J11 was also used in most UK traffic light control systems, so I've been told.... Oh, apparently the Thames Barrage (massive flood control device on the River Thames in London) is controlled by a VAX 3100 - the company I work for used to maintain it :) cheers w From classiccmp at crash.com Thu Jan 20 14:23:58 2005 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steve Jones) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? Message-ID: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? Ignoring the question of media, do these things have standard connections for the interface? --S. eBay item #5158689326 http://tinyurl.com/4abck From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 20 15:14:34 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:09 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <03a401c4ff20$8798f040$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, John Allain wrote: > Interesting all the talk Imlac gets on the list and > nothing for either Adage or Evans & Sutherland. > Guess it didn't hurt the programmer's console > was such a prominent part of the Imlac. I think mainly because machines from either manufacture are difficult to find. Same with the Imlac, but it just so happens a few people here (Bob Shannon, Tom Uban, and myself, plus one other Bob/Robert that used to be on the list) are fortunate to have come into possession of the very few still existing. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 20 15:17:40 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Steve Jones wrote: > There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on > ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? > Ignoring the question of media, do these things have standard > connections for the interface? The Zenith MiniSport. We were discussing this a couple weeks back. http://incolor.inebraska.com/bill_r/zenith_minisport_laptop_computer.htm -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From zmerch at 30below.com Thu Jan 20 16:04:25 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120164758.04ec3610@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Vintage Computer Festival may have mentioned these words: >On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Steve Jones wrote: > > > There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on > > ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? > > Ignoring the question of media, do these things have standard > > connections for the interface? > >The Zenith MiniSport. We were discussing this a couple weeks back. The MiniSport has a 2.0" floppy drive -- not 2.5. Altho the interface itself is non-standard, the floppy *signals* are all one would need is a bridgeboard to remap the pinouts - electrically it's a DSDD 80 cylinder 720K drive, from what I understand. I know of a Tandy word processor (OEM'd by whom, I have no clue) that used 2.8" floppies - I think they held 120K or so, but don't quote me. I just remember our local Radio Shack franchisee (who isn't a franchisee any longer) that *still* had a 2-pack of 'em on the shelf as of 3 or 4 years ago. If the drive is indeed 2.5", then it is not the drive in the MiniSport. It's hard to tell from the auction if it really is the drive or not, as it's been too long since I've looked at my bare drive to remember for sure. -- One thing to ask the guy - *how's he know* it's in good working condition? Did he test it and/or does he have a cable or computer that fits it? HTH, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers _??_ zmerch@30below.com (?||?) If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead _)(_ disarmament should *not* be your first career choice. From dmabry at mich.com Thu Jan 20 16:10:20 2005 From: dmabry at mich.com (Dave Mabry) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41F02C4C.5070708@mich.com> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Steve Jones wrote: > > >>There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on >>ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? >>Ignoring the question of media, do these things have standard >>connections for the interface? > > > The Zenith MiniSport. We were discussing this a couple weeks back. > > http://incolor.inebraska.com/bill_r/zenith_minisport_laptop_computer.htm > The MinisPort used a 2" floppy. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 16:15:20 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: <010720051804.8736.41DECF410002DD2D0000222022058891160603970A04040108@comcast.net> References: <010720051804.8736.41DECF410002DD2D0000222022058891160603970A04040108@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 18:04:49 +0000, Michael Holley wrote: > My goal on the Tic Tac Toe machine was to build an exact replica of the Don Lancaster 1971 design. Nice... I'm intrigued enought to consider it myself. It'll probably take a bunch of parts scrounging, though. Were you planning on laser-printer transfer film for the PCB? -ethan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 20 16:24:24 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks Message-ID: <1106259864.13417.38.camel@weka.localdomain> Does anyone happen to know if UTek V's filesystem was compatible with anybody else's (hint: one that I might have a chance of reading with Linux, which probably limits me to sysv to be honest) Also does anyone happen to know the partition table / boot block layout? I'm not quite sure when UTek V sprang into being, but maybe it uses the same filesystem and boot block as earlier versions of UTek (which some of you are likely to have running on various Tek equipment) I'm going to try powering up my Tek XD88 tomorrow (it's currently warming up having been stored in the loft) and I'll take another disk image from the hard drive then - it'd be quite nice if I could mount the image from within Linux to have a proper look around the disk though (I recall Tek's shell being a little on the strange side) cheers Jules From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 20 16:36:21 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: RTL Logic Message-ID: <200501202236.OAA09952@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Ethan Dicks" > >On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 18:04:49 +0000, Michael Holley > wrote: >> My goal on the Tic Tac Toe machine was to build an exact replica of the Don Lancaster 1971 design. > >Nice... I'm intrigued enought to consider it myself. It'll probably >take a bunch of parts scrounging, though. Were you planning on >laser-printer transfer film for the PCB? > >-ethan > Hi My first home brew digital project was to make a digital dice using RTL jk-flops. I ran the thing from a 9 volt battery and a regulator to get to 3.6v. It drained the 9v battery in just a few minutes of operation. It used mercury switches to control the power and the roll timing. I remember going from Homestead Florida to Fort Lauderdale to find the surplus place with the logic boards to strip the RTL from. Dwight From gordon at gjcp.net Thu Jan 20 16:42:29 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks In-Reply-To: <1106259864.13417.38.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106259864.13417.38.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <41F033D5.3000101@gjcp.net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Does anyone happen to know if UTek V's filesystem was compatible with > anybody else's (hint: one that I might have a chance of reading with > Linux, which probably limits me to sysv to be honest) Linux can handle about a dozen different partition maps, and quite a few file systems. You might be best to use dd to take an image off the hard disk and then try and mount the image. Make a safety copy of it, too. Gordon. From chenmel at earthlink.net Thu Jan 20 17:14:37 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> Message-ID: <20050120181437.0772b2f3.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 13:17:40 -0800 (PST) Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Steve Jones wrote: > > > There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on > > ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? > > Ignoring the question of media, do these things have standard > > connections for the interface? > > The Zenith MiniSport. We were discussing this a couple weeks back. > > http://incolor.inebraska.com/bill_r/zenith_minisport_laptop_computer.htm > I have a Zenith Minisport that I got at auction a few months ago. They always sell the laptops first at the IUPUI auction and I guess I have a reputation as a botton-feeder when it comes to old computer stuff. The auctioneer held it out, the last laptop of the day, and tried to get a few bids. Nothing at all. He said 'One Dollar' and handed it to me. I am glad that I've gotten them trained at that particular auction house... Mine has no power supply, and the 2-1/2" disk is jammed in it, and won't eject. I have another Minisport already with no diskette that also has no power supply. Is it normal for the disk to just retract when you push the button? That doesn't pop the disk out on my machine. I have a number of other 8088 Zenith machines from that era as well, that I've scarfed up for similar prices at earlier auctions. Some with internal hard drives, and the external power supplies. And a PC Convertable I got for a dollar with all 640K of RAM (which is rare with PC Convertables). I love those auctions, filled with clamoring fools who'll go home and try to install Windows XP on the Pentium II they paid too much for, while ignoring the good stuff. -Scott From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 20 17:18:26 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <1106212327.13434.12.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <3.0.6.32.20050119203720.00988960@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <1106212327.13434.12.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050120151620.M36051@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > I still miss my previous Win 3.11 laptop to be honest, but the limit in > screen resolution on that became the factor in forcing an upgrade. It > felt a lot more responsive than any other Windows machine I've used, > despite the 486 CPU. You CAN run Windoze 3.1 as a task on 95! (although running it on 6.2x is faster) From coredump at gifford.co.uk Thu Jan 20 17:30:42 2005 From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Good news, bad news... Amiga News! In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120113523.00b05680@mail.30below.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120113523.00b05680@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <41F03F22.20609@gifford.co.uk> Roger Merchberger wrote: > I have a mouse for my Atari ST that's switchable to Amiga, but I cannot > locate it right now... I've had a look at the data sheets for HP/Agilent optical mouse chips. The chips have a mode whereby they emulate a traditional opto-mechanical mouse by generating X and Y quadrature signals at TTL levels. I have a couple of cheap (?6) optical mice here that I bought with the intention of re-wiring them to work on either Atari ST or Amiga. I think PS/2 interfaces are considered "legacy" nowadays, so the PS/2 mice were cheaper than the USB ones. Oh, that's the other mode for the chip: direct PS/2 interface. -- John Honniball coredump@gifford.co.uk From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 20 17:28:02 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks In-Reply-To: <41F033D5.3000101@gjcp.net> References: <1106259864.13417.38.camel@weka.localdomain> <41F033D5.3000101@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <1106263682.13434.54.camel@weka.localdomain> On Thu, 2005-01-20 at 22:42 +0000, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: > > Does anyone happen to know if UTek V's filesystem was compatible with > > anybody else's (hint: one that I might have a chance of reading with > > Linux, which probably limits me to sysv to be honest) > > Linux can handle about a dozen different partition maps, and quite a few > file systems. You might be best to use dd to take an image off the hard > disk and then try and mount the image. Worth a try I suppose; I have a feeling that Linux doesn't support that many different partition formats though - dos/linux, sun/bsd, sgi, and that's about it I think. It *might* use the sun/bsd format I suppose, but seems more likely that it's something oddball. This Tek machine will have at least two partitions (root and swap) so I'll need to know the partition table format (or get details from the running machine if I can find a suitable command to do so). Given that, I can use dd under Linux to pull out the useful raw partitions into their own files in order to mount via the loopback device and appropriate fs driver. In theory, anyway :) > Make a safety copy of it, too. Absolutely. Technically I have one from when I last fired up this machine a few years ago - but it's stored on CDR and I've really gone off using CDs for anything critical these days, so I figured I'd make a fresh copy. cheers Jules From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 20 18:23:25 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <20050120151620.M36051@shell.lmi.net> from Fred Cisin at "Jan 20, 5 03:18:26 pm" Message-ID: <200501210023.QAA15824@floodgap.com> > > I still miss my previous Win 3.11 laptop to be honest, but the limit in > > screen resolution on that became the factor in forcing an upgrade. It > > felt a lot more responsive than any other Windows machine I've used, > > despite the 486 CPU. > > You CAN run Windoze 3.1 as a task on 95! (although running it on 6.2x is > faster) Does that mean just PROGMAN.EXE, or the whole noodle, kernel (such as it is) and all, as a virtual instance? -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Make welfare as hard to get as building permits. --------------------------- From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 20 18:25:09 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Apple Disk II Analog Board In-Reply-To: <41F002E7.27B0AD1C@rain.org> from "Marvin Johnston" at Jan 20, 5 11:13:43 am Message-ID: > > > The Apple Disk II analog board has a couple of toroid cores on the > board; does anyone know what the permeability is, or better, what would > be the equivilent Amidon number would be? The official schematic shows 5 inductors : L1, L2 30uH L3, L4 470uH L5 68uH I guess you could count the turns of the existing windings, remmeber that L is proptional to n^2, and thus get the specific inductance (probably more use than the permiability) that way. -tony From stephane.tsacas at gmail.com Thu Jan 20 19:46:59 2005 From: stephane.tsacas at gmail.com (Stephane Tsacas) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Fluke 9110FT + 9132 Message-ID: Hi, I found a Fluke 9110FT "digital troubleshooter" with a 9132 "memory interface pod" "configured for FT-68030". Does the 9100 documentation (available on bitsavers for exemple) applies to this model too ? Is it an enhanced version of the 9100 and 9105 ? What would be a decent price for the lot described above ? Thanks! -- Stephane Paris, France. From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 20 19:52:47 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <1106212327.13434.12.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <3.0.6.32.20050119203720.00988960@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <1106212327.13434.12.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <41F0606F.1070507@oldskool.org> Jules Richardson wrote: > I ran Win 2k for a bit and that was sort-of-OK stability-wise, but it > ate a *lot* of memory. Plus it still suffered from the gradual > destruction which I hate about all Windows flavours; as the system was > used it seemed to gradually slow down and eat up more disk space of its > own accord (presumably registry bloat, disk caches etc.) Yes, this is affectionally known as Microsoft Cancer. I once contracted Microsoft Cancer on a Win98 box that manifested itself in GDI somewhere. The end result was that I could no longer drag icons. I could delete them, right-click on them, double-click, etc. -- just not drag. In fact, I couldn't drag anything at all. Being a personal computer user since early 1980s, I just adapted and used keys for everything. But you want to know the worst part? The part that really got me steamed? A week later it was working again and I hadn't done a goddamn thing!!! THAT pissed me off so much that I reloaded the entire machine. Did I learn my lesson? No; I reloaded with XP. Unfortunately, Windows is the only platform you can seriously tinker with video without spending an arm and a leg for professional solutions; Linux support still isn't there, and Mac is too expensive (and nobody but windows has avisynth and virtualdub). So I stay on Windows, for now. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 20 19:55:16 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <200501210023.QAA15824@floodgap.com> References: <200501210023.QAA15824@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <41F06104.6040705@oldskool.org> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>>I still miss my previous Win 3.11 laptop to be honest, but the limit in >>>screen resolution on that became the factor in forcing an upgrade. It >>>felt a lot more responsive than any other Windows machine I've used, >>>despite the 486 CPU. >> >>You CAN run Windoze 3.1 as a task on 95! (although running it on 6.2x is >>faster) > > Does that mean just PROGMAN.EXE, or the whole noodle, kernel (such as it is) > and all, as a virtual instance? You can run 3.0 in real mode, because that's essentially just another DOS app. 3.1 only has standard and enhanced mode, and enhanced mode does not work IIRC, and standard mode can't access more than 16MB of RAM (286 code only). It's more of a "gee whiz" trick than anything useful. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 20 20:00:31 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Good news, bad news... Amiga News! In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120133629.03a372e0@mail.30below.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120113523.00b05680@mail.30below.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20050120133629.03a372e0@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <41F0623F.4060302@oldskool.org> Roger Merchberger wrote: > If I get serious about the Amiga, I'll prolly invest in one of those in > the future; I *love* my IBM Model 'M' keyboards, it seems the Northgate I love my model Ms as well. :) I have an A4000 set up right now, right next to me, and looking at the keyboard there are definitely some changes: Function keys are grouped F1-F5, F6-F10. No F11 or F12. There is a DEL and HELP button where the normal 6-button cluster above the inverted T arrow keys would be. Numeric keypad has NOT numlock, /, *, - but rather "( ) / *". So I don't know if a regular keyboard will work but you can always give it a try. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 20 20:06:01 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41F0606F.1070507@oldskool.org> from Jim Leonard at "Jan 20, 5 07:52:47 pm" Message-ID: <200501210206.SAA18708@floodgap.com> > still isn't there, and Mac is too expensive *cough*macmini*cough* -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. -- 1 Corinthians 8:1 --------------- From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 20 20:23:49 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <1106212327.13434.12.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <3.0.6.32.20050119203720.00988960@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <1106212327.13434.12.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050120201523.05ade4f8@mail> At 03:12 AM 1/20/2005, Jules Richardson wrote: >I ran Win 2k for a bit and that was sort-of-OK stability-wise, but it >ate a *lot* of memory. Plus it still suffered from the gradual >destruction which I hate about all Windows flavours; as the system was >used it seemed to gradually slow down and eat up more disk space of its >own accord (presumably registry bloat, disk caches etc.) And it's only getting worse. Windows creates zillions of temp files for its Internet cache, then loses track of the folders and wastes hundreds of megs on typical systems. Those thousands of files harbor spyware and other dreck. They take minutes to delete but meanwhile the virus and spyware scanners spend endless time scanning files that IE will never again touch. Software is far more sloppy than it ever was; leaving any number of temp files of any size, leaving behind setup folders of dozens of megs that will never run again isn't uncommon. Hundreds of megs of junk but where are the user's vital files? Personal email stored in a proprietary format, in folders eight layers deep under a hidden folder. - John From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jan 20 20:55:32 2005 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Good news, bad news... Amiga News! References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120113523.00b05680@mail.30below.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20050120133629.03a372e0@mail.30below.com> <41F0623F.4060302@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <001801c4ff64$bb6d6e20$0500fea9@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Leonard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 9:00 PM Subject: Re: Good news, bad news... Amiga News! > Roger Merchberger wrote: > > If I get serious about the Amiga, I'll prolly invest in one of those in > > the future; I *love* my IBM Model 'M' keyboards, it seems the Northgate > > I love my model Ms as well. :) I have an A4000 set up right now, right next > to me, and looking at the keyboard there are definitely some changes: Function > keys are grouped F1-F5, F6-F10. No F11 or F12. There is a DEL and HELP button > where the normal 6-button cluster above the inverted T arrow keys would be. > Numeric keypad has NOT numlock, /, *, - but rather "( ) / *". So I don't know > if a regular keyboard will work but you can always give it a try. > -- > Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ > Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ > Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ The Omnikey Ultra had some extra keycaps that were use to represent the new keyboard mapping used on the Amiga. I have never seen or know anybody who has seen the Amiga keys that were shown in the manual (special purchase) that would complete the conversion. BTW Jim, if you run the www.oldschool.org site I have to say thanks for putting that together, the Tandy 1000 Shrine that links off that page is the reason I own an expanded Tandy 1000HX now. From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 20 21:06:47 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <200501210206.SAA18708@floodgap.com> References: <200501210206.SAA18708@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <41F071C7.8010804@oldskool.org> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>still isn't there, and Mac is too expensive > > *cough*macmini*cough* Sorry, the mac mini doesn't serve my needs (I work with video and audio production, the stock mac mini isn't powerful or expandable enough). -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 20 21:27:02 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41F071C7.8010804@oldskool.org> from Jim Leonard at "Jan 20, 5 09:06:47 pm" Message-ID: <200501210327.TAA11930@floodgap.com> > > > still isn't there, and Mac is too expensive > > > > *cough*macmini*cough* > > Sorry, the mac mini doesn't serve my needs (I work with video and audio > production, the stock mac mini isn't powerful or expandable enough). Well, that's fair (hence the fact I own a Power Mac, but to each their own). -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Wherever I go, there's I AM. ----------------------------------------------- From cb at mythtech.net Thu Jan 20 22:26:50 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! Message-ID: >Sorry, the mac mini doesn't serve my needs (I work with video and audio >production, the stock mac mini isn't powerful or expandable enough). Odd that you would say it isn't powerful enough... it is more powerful then all but one model of the G4 that was released. It is equal to the single processor Mirror Drive Door G4 Tower, and the Dual processor version of that machine is the only G4 released that is more powerful. And you can get a bumped up version that is faster then the single processor MDD PowerMac G4 (but would still likely be beated by the dual proc if you use an app that can use both procs) Granted, if you are doing video work, I can see that even the fastest of the G4's may just not be fast enough. But if that is the case, I assume you are either after a dual processor G5 Tower, or you just aren't serious about your video work (considering there is no match to it in the Windows world.) :-) Now... expandability... no doubt there, the mac mini is a Steve Jobs wet dream in that respect. (I'm not being a troll, really, I don't care what machine you use or your reasons to or not to use it... I'm just poking fun at your claim that it isn't powerful enough) -chris From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 20 22:25:11 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050120222414.05c89e20@mail> At 07:32 PM 1/19/2005, Joe R. wrote: > FYI I use Windows EVERYDAY and I just wasted 1/2 day yesterday trying to >get MS Backup to work. Backup hasn't worked since BEFORE Windows was >released. AFIK it has NEVER worked in Windows. That's just ONE example of >continuing problems with MS products! And in what way wasn't it working? They've all had their bugs, but most of the explications and some of the work-arounds are out there... - John From zmerch at 30below.com Thu Jan 20 22:41:13 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: RTL Logic In-Reply-To: References: <010720051804.8736.41DECF410002DD2D0000222022058891160603970A04040108@comcast.net> <010720051804.8736.41DECF410002DD2D0000222022058891160603970A04040108@comcast.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120233036.00ae8da8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Ethan Dicks may have mentioned these words: >On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 18:04:49 +0000, Michael Holley > wrote: > > My goal on the Tic Tac Toe machine was to build an exact replica of the > Don Lancaster 1971 design. > >Nice... I'm intrigued enought to consider it myself. It'll probably >take a bunch of parts scrounging, though. Were you planning on >laser-printer transfer film for the PCB? Gawd, I hope not... :-O I tried that dren *many* a time, and it just doesn't work. You'll spend more time retracing the traces that didn't trace by hand than if you'd have done it with those wacko little RadioShack templates and a burnisher! Oh, did I mention that it's rather expensive for what you don't get? Last time I checked, it was around $15 for 5 sheets - when it takes 3 sheets to almost maybe make something work...[1] If you're time is worth more than $0.50USD per hour, it's cheaper (and much easier) to invest in a decent hobbyist 'photo-developer' kit. www.circuitspecialists.com has good prices on decent 'lower-end' equipment; well, a lot higher-end than that laser-crap. As usual, the lawyer shiznit: I have no affiliation with them other than a one-time satisfied customer due to a google search. Well, that's my take anyway... Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] OK, maybe I'm being harsh -- maybe I was using the wrong equipment. I *heard* (but I'm no laser printer specialist or anything) that any printer that uses 'microfine' toner needs more heat to do it's job. The two printers I tried were an HP laserjet 5L and my QMS MagiColor 2+ [2] -- Maybe the printers damaged it in some way, but when they say "any laser printer" dammit, it should mean any... [2] Out of the 2 sheets I ran thru the QMS, one didn't feed, the other wouldn't transer at all -- maybe from the Fuser Oil that's necessary on those color lasers??? A little warning in the instructions: "Fuser Oil No Touchie" would've been nice... ;-) -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... zmerch@30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 20 22:55:30 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: from chris at "Jan 20, 5 11:26:50 pm" Message-ID: <200501210455.UAA19216@floodgap.com> > Odd that you would say it isn't powerful enough... it is more powerful > then all but one model of the G4 that was released. It is equal to the > single processor Mirror Drive Door G4 Tower, and the Dual processor > version of that machine is the only G4 released that is more powerful. > And you can get a bumped up version that is faster then the single > processor MDD PowerMac G4 (but would still likely be beated by the dual > proc if you use an app that can use both procs) The amusing part is that this message comes to you from the console of a dual 1.25GHz MDD G4. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- "The Internet is, once again, your friend" (I wrote this *before* PacBell!) From zmerch at 30below.com Thu Jan 20 23:38:25 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050121002134.05099540@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that chris may have mentioned these words: [[ My one and only comment in this thread, then I'll go back to arguing about 2" floppy drives... ;-) ]] >Granted, if you are doing video work, I can see that even the fastest of >the G4's may just not be fast enough. But if that is the case, I assume >you are either after a dual processor G5 Tower, or you just aren't >serious about your video work (considering there is no match to it in the >Windows world.) :-) My 3-year-old Athlon MP box would beg to differ -- it took a couple of years for Macs to catch up to *it*. Admittedly, it cost as much (if not more) than a Mac -- albeit much less than a dual G5 -- but there's still not many PCs that could hold their own against it nowadays. 3 years ain't bad at all, especially when it's still near the top of the heap; and it's been by far the most stable machine I've owned since my CoCo days. Oh, and a buddy of mine ditched his dual G5 Mac after a *ton* of problems -- so many that he finally got high enough into Apple to get a *full refund*. He says his dual Opteron box kicks it's butt in speed and stability (well, in Linux anyway... but 64-bit Winders ain't really there yet.) >(I'm not being a troll, really, I don't care what machine you use or your >reasons to or not to use it... I'm just poking fun at your claim that it >isn't powerful enough) [1] I thought the definition of a troll was someone who pokes fun at a person or people to get a 'rise' out of them, especially whilst making advocacy claims that clearly aren't true... -- That said, I like Macs. Really, I do. OSX is getting much better now (improving much more quickly than Winders, obviously) and Apple's made some darned good hardware for a darned long time. My friend still likes his iMac (his wife's machine) and if I had to buy a machine for my wife tomorrow, it would hands down be the Mac Mini. (I don't -- her 1.4Ghz Athlon Shuttle running Linux does more than she'll ever need.) But Apple or their products are *not* perfect; let alone perfect for everyone. And no -- the Mac Mini isn't serious enough for video work, and there are some darned good PC platforms that are. 'Nuff said. Regards, Roger Merchberger [1] That reminds me of the 2 hour pissing match my father-in-law and I had right after he said "I'm not saying this because you don't want to be an auctioneer..." From gordon at gjcp.net Thu Jan 20 23:45:14 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> Message-ID: <41F096EA.6080301@gjcp.net> Steve Jones wrote: > There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on > ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? Didn't Akai S6 samplers (really old ones, with two sliders for setting the loop points) have 2.5" floppies? Gordon. From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Jan 21 00:47:59 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? Message-ID: <200501210147.59109.pat@computer-refuge.org> So, now that I've got a pair of HP 21MX machines sitting here (thanks Jay!), I could use something to toggle into them to test out the memory, or do "nifty things" with the frontpanel lights. I guess I could try spend some time learning HP assembly and coming up with things myself, but it'd be nice to have some examples to look at first. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From marvin at rain.org Fri Jan 21 01:26:48 2005 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Apple Disk II Analog Board Message-ID: <41F0AEB8.286D25EB@rain.org> Thanks Tony! The toroids are L1 and L2, and knowing they are 30 uH helps out a LOT! Since they are colored yellow, I am guessing they are iron powder. The application I have in mind is harmonic surpression on 80 M transmitters; hate to see good parts go to waste :). > > The Apple Disk II analog board has a couple of toroid cores on the > > board; does anyone know what the permeability is, or better, what would > > be the equivilent Amidon number would be? > > The official schematic shows 5 inductors : > > L1, L2 30uH > L3, L4 470uH > L5 68uH > > I guess you could count the turns of the existing windings, remmeber that > L is proptional to n^2, and thus get the specific inductance (probably > more use than the permiability) that way. > > -tony From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jan 21 01:34:18 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <200501210327.TAA11930@floodgap.com> References: <200501210327.TAA11930@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <41F0B07A.3090907@oldskool.org> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>Sorry, the mac mini doesn't serve my needs (I work with video and audio >>production, the stock mac mini isn't powerful or expandable enough). > > Well, that's fair (hence the fact I own a Power Mac, but to each their own). Well, I also work with custom video post-processing ala avisynth, virtualdub, and temporal noise reduction, and the tools I need either aren't available for Mac or cost more than the hardware. But as we all know here, you use the right tool for the right job, yes? For example, I can't think of a better platform for graphic design or art magazine publishing than Mac. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jan 21 01:45:47 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41F0B32B.60304@oldskool.org> chris wrote: >>Sorry, the mac mini doesn't serve my needs (I work with video and audio >>production, the stock mac mini isn't powerful or expandable enough). > > Granted, if you are doing video work, I can see that even the fastest of > the G4's may just not be fast enough. But if that is the case, I assume > you are either after a dual processor G5 Tower, or you just aren't > serious about your video work (considering there is no match to it in the > Windows world.) :-) I won't refute your argument, because it's like trying to argue against artifacts such as the Shroud of Turin: No matter what the facts, it is a religious artifact and is therefore impossible to disprove. I will say this: The tools I work with are not only Windows exclusive, but are also free (avisynth, virtualdub) and the hardware I use has had a total cost of $1800 (the only additions were 1GB RAM, half terabyte RAID, raw 8-/10-bit 4:2:2 YUV capture/edit). I am not working with DV; I am working with uncompressed SD video. My project has tiny margins, so if I am to see any profit at all, I can't go mac because the equivalent would be over double the cost. And I wouldn't have access to my power tweaking toys anyway. > (I'm not being a troll, really, I don't care what machine you use or your > reasons to or not to use it... I'm just poking fun at your claim that it > isn't powerful enough) Well, to be blunt, can it encode 10-bit video to MPEG-2 MP@ML 1.5x realtime? Or is there a *free* tool I can use on Mac that lets me perform temporal noise reduction with adjustable edge masking? Or a scripting language that lets me perturb video with a series of chained filters and transformations (also free)? If so, please let me know. I am open to new ideas. If I could go back 20 years, I'd buy an Amiga ;-) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jan 21 01:50:12 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Good news, bad news... Amiga News! In-Reply-To: <001801c4ff64$bb6d6e20$0500fea9@game> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050120113523.00b05680@mail.30below.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20050120133629.03a372e0@mail.30below.com> <41F0623F.4060302@oldskool.org> <001801c4ff64$bb6d6e20$0500fea9@game> Message-ID: <41F0B434.1090304@oldskool.org> Teo Zenios wrote: > BTW Jim, if you run the www.oldschool.org site I have to say thanks for > putting that together, the Tandy 1000 Shrine that links off that page is the > reason I own an expanded Tandy 1000HX now. Glad I could help! And to bring things back on-topic in a roundabout way, I finally found an 8-bit ISA IDE controller that claims to support regular/traditional IDE drives up to the typical BIOS/DOS limit of 540MB. Assuming it works, I will be happy to perform benchmarks against it and the WD1002/ST-225 combo currently installed and report them back to the group. (Still on a quest for "fastest I/O on an IBM PC/XT") -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From cvisors at gmail.com Fri Jan 21 02:31:02 2005 From: cvisors at gmail.com (Benjamin Gardiner) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: <41F096EA.6080301@gjcp.net> References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> <41F096EA.6080301@gjcp.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 05:45:14 +0000, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Steve Jones wrote: > > There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on > > ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? > > Didn't Akai S6 samplers (really old ones, with two sliders > for setting the loop points) have 2.5" floppies? > > Gordon. > I had a old akai sampler called an x7000 which used some real odd floppys, unfortunatley the drive was dead, and I had no source of floppy disks. I belive that these were 2.5" disks. Benjamin -- kisses on the dancefloor in my past i need some comfort just like you beating like a bass drum time goes by i want the last dance just like you Covenant - Bullet From cheri-post at web.de Fri Jan 21 05:04:33 2005 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: help needed with configuration KDF11-A, DLV11-J (PDP 11/23) Message-ID: <650464372@web.de> Hi everybody, Currently, I'm trying to set up a 11/23 in a BA23 box with a H9278 backplane. Unfortunately, no information can be found on the jumper configuration for the KDF11-A (M8186). The most important question: Does this CPU-Board provide bus termination like the KDJ11 boards ? I plugged in some resistor packs on the dedicated sockets of the H9278 to provide termination, but nothing can be seen on the terminal (9600, 8N1). I'm aware of the QQ/CD configuration for the first 3 slots. The SLU-Card is a SIGMA DLV11-J clone (SDC-DLV11J). Not knowing, which of the 4 SLUs provides the console interface lead me to check out the 4 ports on my terminal, unfortunaltey without any success. The jumper settings on the KDF11-A look like this: top ----------------------------- | | | | | | | These two upper ones are closed | | | __ | | | | | | __1 | | | This is a jumper block of 10 jumpers. The 9th one is open. | | | The other ones are all closed. | | | | --- 10 | | |----| | ----------- ----------- backplane It's a bit strange, that the jumpers do not have any numbers like W1, W2 etc. That's the reason for this drawing. Like the KDF11-A Board, no information on the internet for the SDC-DLV11J either. Jumper W1,W2,W3,W4 are open. There are 6 dip switches. On SW1, jumper 7 is closed, the rest is open, the same for SW2,SW3. SW4: jumper 6 is closed, SW5: 4,7,8 are closed, SW6: 1,5,8 are closed, the rest is open. Can anybody give me any hints on this configuration ? Is the backplane termination required ? Thanks alot in advance ! Regards, Pierre ______________________________________________________________ Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! Jetzt bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://f.web.de/?mc=021193 From maillist at komoko.com Fri Jan 21 05:05:56 2005 From: maillist at komoko.com (maillist@komoko.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED: help needed with configuration KDF11-A, DLV11-J (PDP 11/23) In-Reply-To: <650464372@web.de> References: <650464372@web.de> Message-ID: <200501211105.j0LB5uVf000370@host.cdnsites.com> Your message could not be delivered. The User is out of space. Please try to send your message again at a later time. From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 21 07:19:48 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050121002134.05099540@mail.30below.com> from Roger Merchberger at "Jan 21, 5 00:38:25 am" Message-ID: <200501211319.FAA19194@floodgap.com> > >Granted, if you are doing video work, I can see that even the fastest of > >the G4's may just not be fast enough. But if that is the case, I assume > >you are either after a dual processor G5 Tower, or you just aren't > >serious about your video work (considering there is no match to it in the > >Windows world.) :-) > > My 3-year-old Athlon MP box would beg to differ -- it took a couple of > years for Macs to catch up to *it*. If you're talking clock speed, people in the Athlon world particularly should know clock speed is not the whole story because AMD chips are also underclocked compared to the "comparable" Intel. In fact, I would be very disappointed if list members here bought into that crap, given the fact that there are large numbers of heterogenous architectures used and supported. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind -------------- From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jan 21 09:26:39 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050120222414.05c89e20@mail> References: <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050121102639.00963210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 10:25 PM 1/20/05 -0600, you wrote: >At 07:32 PM 1/19/2005, Joe R. wrote: >> FYI I use Windows EVERYDAY and I just wasted 1/2 day yesterday trying to >>get MS Backup to work. Backup hasn't worked since BEFORE Windows was >>released. AFIK it has NEVER worked in Windows. That's just ONE example of >>continuing problems with MS products! > >And in what way wasn't it working? The DOS version of RESTORE (which is the ONLY thing that will restore data from a BACKUP) was notorious for trashing hard drives. I only tried it a couple of times and it did trash every HD that I tried it on. As I already stated, this version simply never did anything. Even after I told it to back up ONE file and left it for over an hour it was still beating on my HD and SCSI tape but never copied the file. They've all had their bugs, but >most of the explications and some of the work-arounds are out there... What's that? Buy a third party program? Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jan 21 09:28:52 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: <41F096EA.6080301@gjcp.net> References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050121102852.0092c470@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 05:45 AM 1/21/05 +0000, you wrote: >Steve Jones wrote: >> There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on >> ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? Some of the Amstrads shipped with either a 3" or 2 1/2" drive. Don't remember which, it's been a long times since I've seen one. joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jan 21 09:32:09 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050121103209.00927e20@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Nope, you're wrong. The MiniSport uses 2" disks. I have a couple of them and was just playing with them a few days ago so I am sure. Joe At 01:17 PM 1/20/05 -0800, Sellam wrote: >On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Steve Jones wrote: > >> There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on >> ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? >> Ignoring the question of media, do these things have standard >> connections for the interface? > >The Zenith MiniSport. We were discussing this a couple weeks back. > >http://incolor.inebraska.com/bill_r/zenith_minisport_laptop_computer.htm > >-- > >Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- >International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > >[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] >[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jan 21 09:37:51 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: <20050120181437.0772b2f3.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050121103751.00967320@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 06:14 PM 1/20/05 -0500, Scott wrote: >I have a Zenith Minisport that I got at auction a few months ago. They >always sell the laptops first at the IUPUI auction and I guess I have a >reputation as a botton-feeder when it comes to old computer stuff. The >auctioneer held it out, the last laptop of the day, and tried to get a >few bids. Nothing at all. He said 'One Dollar' and handed it to me. I >am glad that I've gotten them trained at that particular auction >house... > >Mine has no power supply, and the 2-1/2" disk is jammed in it, and won't >eject. I have another Minisport already with no diskette that also has >no power supply. Is it normal for the disk to just retract when you >push the button? The disk should pop out just like the disk in a regular 3.5" drive does. I have an extra PSU that I can send you IF you have the connector for it. I got two PSUs with mine but someone had cut one connector off of one of them and put a five pin DIN connector on it. I can send you a 2" boot disk if you like. NOTE: the disks are 2" NOT 2 1/2". Or maybe that's why your disk won't eject! :-) Joe That doesn't pop the disk out on my machine. > >I have a number of other 8088 Zenith machines from that era as well, >that I've scarfed up for similar prices at earlier auctions. Some with >internal hard drives, and the external power supplies. And a PC >Convertable I got for a dollar with all 640K of RAM (which is rare with >PC Convertables). > >I love those auctions, filled with clamoring fools who'll go home and >try to install Windows XP on the Pentium II they paid too much for, >while ignoring the good stuff. > >-Scott > From dtwright at uiuc.edu Fri Jan 21 09:49:44 2005 From: dtwright at uiuc.edu (Dan Wright) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks In-Reply-To: <1106263682.13434.54.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106259864.13417.38.camel@weka.localdomain> <41F033D5.3000101@gjcp.net> <1106263682.13434.54.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <200501210949.44774.dtwright@uiuc.edu> On Thursday 20 January 2005 05:28 pm, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Linux can handle about a dozen different partition maps, and quite a few > > file systems. You might be best to use dd to take an image off the hard > > disk and then try and mount the image. > > Worth a try I suppose; I have a feeling that Linux doesn't support that > many different partition formats though - dos/linux, sun/bsd, sgi, and > that's about it I think. It *might* use the sun/bsd format I suppose, > but seems more likely that it's something oddball. You might want to check -- the available partition types list from the kernel on my laptop (linux 2.6.8.1) is: ? ? [*] Advanced partition selection ? ? ? ? [ ] Acorn partition support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] Alpha OSF partition support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] Amiga partition table support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] Atari partition table support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] Macintosh partition map support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] PC BIOS (MSDOS partition tables) support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] Windows Logical Disk Manager (Dynamic Disk) support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] SGI partition support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] Ultrix partition table support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] Sun partition tables support (NEW) ? ? ? ? [ ] EFI GUID Partition support (NEW) (from the screen in "make menuconfig") I wouldn't be suprised if there are patches out there for more partition types, too. -- Dan Wright (dtwright@uiuc.edu) (http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright) "we are content if we can describe a multitude of other things in terms of... fundamental incomprehensibilities. science is an activity that takes place on the shore of an infinite sea of mystery." chet raymo, "doctor seuss and doctor einstein" From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Jan 21 09:53:28 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050121102639.00963210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050121102639.00963210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050121095232.059fc750@mail> At 09:26 AM 1/21/2005, Joe R. wrote: > As I already stated, this version simply never did anything. Even after >I told it to back up ONE file and left it for over an hour it was still >beating on my HD and SCSI tape but never copied the file. An hour? That's not very long, depending on the number of files on the tape, CPU or tape drive. I've seen Windows Backup take hours just to catalog the tape before it tries to restore. I didn't say it was fast. - John From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 21 10:14:53 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks In-Reply-To: <200501210949.44774.dtwright@uiuc.edu> References: <1106259864.13417.38.camel@weka.localdomain> <41F033D5.3000101@gjcp.net> <1106263682.13434.54.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501210949.44774.dtwright@uiuc.edu> Message-ID: <1106324093.15335.8.camel@weka.localdomain> On Fri, 2005-01-21 at 09:49 -0600, Dan Wright wrote: > On Thursday 20 January 2005 05:28 pm, Jules Richardson wrote: > > > Linux can handle about a dozen different partition maps, and quite a few > > > file systems. You might be best to use dd to take an image off the hard > > > disk and then try and mount the image. > > > > Worth a try I suppose; I have a feeling that Linux doesn't support that > > many different partition formats though - dos/linux, sun/bsd, sgi, and > > that's about it I think. It *might* use the sun/bsd format I suppose, > > but seems more likely that it's something oddball. > > You might want to check -- the available partition types list from the kernel > on my laptop (linux 2.6.8.1) is: thanks for those - possible it might use the same as ultrix I suppose. I've just got the system booting, albeit with a more modern SCSI drive that I'd copied the raw disk image from the original drive to years ago. Somewhat suprisingly it all still seems to work - only problem was that the termination jumper had fallen off the bottom of the SCSI drive (so there was an initial eek! where I thought the SCSI hardware might be dead) Funnily enough the original drive decided to behave and let me copy an entire image from it under Linux too; in the past it's always given a lot of read errors which is why I replaced it with a more modern one. So, happy bunny at the moment - I've got a working machine, and a disk image to play with. There's three filesystems on the drive; root, data, and swap - hopefully I can find something on the Tek to list the partition table itself... cheers Jules From zmerch at 30below.com Fri Jan 21 10:33:43 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <200501211319.FAA19194@floodgap.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050121002134.05099540@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050121095303.03b70508@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Cameron Kaiser may have mentioned these words: >... and I wrote before... > > > > My 3-year-old Athlon MP box would beg to differ -- it took a couple of > > years for Macs to catch up to *it*. > >If you're talking clock speed, people in the Athlon world particularly should >know clock speed is not the whole story because AMD chips are also >underclocked compared to the "comparable" Intel. Correct -- and yet, seem to do more work. ;-) Admittedly, CPU speed (not just clock speed, but overall *speed*) is normally not a big factor in most things computing anymore -- until you get into MPEG transcoding & the like. It takes a *lot* of CPU horsepower; and faster memory is also crucial; everything else is secondary. The HyperTransport busses on the Athlon MPs give a huge advantage over Xeons (and Macs, especially 3 years ago) in this respect, for a lot less coin. I keep trying to justify a dual Opteron system, but I haven't seen the benchmarks yet; that and Iwill has yet to come out with their dual Opteron Small Form Factor PC yet they promised back in June, supposedly coming in September... vaporware bastages. :-/ I'm in the "Jim Leonard camp" on this one -- even if there is a Mac that's as capable as my system (and 3 years ago, there wasn't) the *software* required to achieve similar results will break the bank; my software cost was around $45 for TMPGEnc -- everything else is available free. > In fact, I would be very >disappointed if list members here bought into that crap, given the fact that >there are large numbers of heterogenous architectures used and supported. You mean like the fact (to bring this back ontopic) that my .89MHz 6809 processor in my CoCo2 is actually faster than the 2.4MHz 80C85 in my Tandy 100 & 200? ;^> That fact certainly isn't lost on me. Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers zmerch@30below.com Hi! I am a .signature virus. Copy me into your .signature to join in! From mail.list at analog-and-digital-solutions.com Fri Jan 21 09:57:34 2005 From: mail.list at analog-and-digital-solutions.com (Mail List) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: Qty. 20 to 30 ... 486 DX2-66 VLB Motherboards needed in the Netherlands Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.2.20050121102542.089e2ec0@mail.analog-and-digital-solutions.com> Hello, Does anyone in Europe, preferably Netherlands, want to get together 20 to 30 motherboards 486DX2-66, Intel ( or possibly AMD ) with at least 2 VLB slots for Amplicon Benelux in the Netherlands. They preferred they all be the same mfg and model and new or NOS to boot. I think they will have to settle for used and mixed variety. I see plenty in Germany, but it seems almost no one in Germany uses PayPal, and it seems like it just couldn't be cost effective to have them shipped to the US and then back to Europe again. I think they should be ones that use a replaceable lithium coin cell in a holder because any NiCads from that era probably wouldn't hold a charge very well any more, and Dallas type devices would be at the end of their service life, and if soldered on, too much trouble and significantly expensive to change out. I'm pretty sure they would want them tested and with some kind of guarantee, though that may have to be accomplished by buying some extras beyond the quantity they are asking for. I don't know what their budget is for this, but I did think that they needed to make it enough to motivate anyone to get involved with it, else it looked like a "do it yourself" type project. If anyone in the Netherlands or Germany, that can accept Paypal, can do this, let me know. Respond to ... as I won't be able to locate any response on the classiccmp.org mail list. Bennett From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 21 11:16:37 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:10 2005 Subject: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? References: <200501210147.59109.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <007501c4ffdc$f72ce8a0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Patrick wrote... > So, now that I've got a pair of HP 21MX machines sitting here (thanks > Jay!), I could use something to toggle into them to test out the memory, > or do "nifty things" with the frontpanel lights. Memory has already been thoroughly tested in those machines with HP diags :) There's a few toggle-in programs in the CE handbook. I believe it's in the "common data" section just before the diagnostics. Let me know if you can't find them (on bitsavers). > I guess I could try spend some time learning HP assembly and coming up > with things myself, but it'd be nice to have some examples to look at > first. :) Another budding HP'er :) Jay From bob at jfcl.com Fri Jan 21 11:46:28 2005 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Looking for KA825 (VAX-8250/8350) CPU Card T1001-YA Message-ID: <000001c4ffe1$258a1f70$f402010a@gizmo> The good news is that I recently acquired a VAX 8350 in good condition along with a back plane full of cards. The bad news is that, despite all the cards in there, the previous owner had removed the CPU cards (both of 'em, this being a dual processor machine!). Does anybody have a KA825, T1001-YA cpu card that they'd be willing to give away, sell, or trade for other VAXBI cards? One CPU's enough (I'll settle for an 8250!). And does anybody have a boot diskette (BOOT58) for an 8250/8350 that I could copy? Thanks much Bob Armstrong From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Fri Jan 21 12:22:40 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: "Joe R." "Re: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear?" (Jan 21, 10:28) References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> <3.0.6.32.20050121102852.0092c470@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <10501211822.ZM10960@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 21 2005, 10:28, Joe R. wrote: > At 05:45 AM 1/21/05 +0000, you wrote: > >Steve Jones wrote: > >> There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on > >> ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? > > Some of the Amstrads shipped with either a 3" or 2 1/2" drive. Don't > remember which, it's been a long times since I've seen one. Amstrads use 3" disks, except for soe that use ordinary 3.5" disks. I'm fairly sure my ex-boss's Canon Ion camera used 2.5" disks. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From stanb at dial.pipex.com Fri Jan 21 12:38:01 2005 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:28:52 EST." <3.0.6.32.20050121102852.0092c470@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <200501211838.SAA15540@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Joe R. said: > At 05:45 AM 1/21/05 +0000, you wrote: > >Steve Jones wrote: > >> There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on > >> ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? > > Some of the Amstrads shipped with either a 3" or 2 1/2" drive. Don't > remember which, it's been a long times since I've seen one. > 3-inch, also used by the Tatung Einstein. I have a few of the disks here with, I think, CP/M and ZCPR3 on. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb@dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From dave04a at dunfield.com Fri Jan 21 12:58:12 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Homebuilt TRS-80 on S-100 pictures are up! Message-ID: <20050121185812.QXXY20721.berlinr.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Hi Guys, Sorry for the delay - I finally got my site update posted, and the photos of the Homebuilt TRS-80s on S-100 cards are now available. Please visit: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html The Homebuilt TRS-80s are part way down in the first section "pre-PC/non-PC systems". Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From gordon at gjcp.net Fri Jan 21 13:22:33 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050121102639.00963210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050121102639.00963210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <41F15679.3000106@gjcp.net> Joe R. wrote: > > They've all had their bugs, but > >>most of the explications and some of the work-arounds are out there... > What's that? Buy a third party program? > I have always found that the best of the lot is GNU tar. You get it free when you blow away Windows and install a real OS. Gordon. From rickb at bensene.com Fri Jan 21 14:00:35 2005 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks (with some OT Tek rambliings) In-Reply-To: <1106324093.15335.8.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050121195826.B014E2C002@pail.bensene.com> I'm not as sure about UTekV, but the earlier Utek versions did use a pure 4.2BSD filesystem structure. I recall the big fuss over converting Utek away from a BSD base to a SystemV base, and thus, I'm wondering if the XD88 and other machines that ran UtekV may actually have a more standardized SystemV layout. As for the boot block and partition tables -- you've got me there -- I'm pretty sure that they are totally unique to Tektronix, not matching anything by BSD, Sun, DEC, SGI or other. I seem to recall that the first logical cylinder of the drive is allocated to the partition table and boot blocks, but that is a *very* old memory, and subject to wetware bitrot. Of couse, that also is only for the older BSD-based Utek. Once I get through this house building stuff, I've got to dig out the old Tek 6130, 4132 and 4319 and fire them up, at least to grab disk images. Hope they'll still run. I had a lot of fun in the old days at Tektronix. I built a 6130 from parts ordered through Tek's Engineering Stockroom, at cost+10%, allowing me to put together a nice little Unix system at a time when everyone else was running CP/M and Apple & Atari floppy-based Disk Operating Systems. The 6130 was a desktop form-factor Utek workstation with 32016 CPU, ST-506 disk interface (usually with a Micropolis 20 or 40MB hard disk), 5 1/4" floppy drive, 1MB of RAM standard with expansion boards that could push it up to a whopping 5MB, two serial ports, a GPIB port, an AUI Ethernet port, and add-on boards that offered Dual RS232, Dual Parallel (Centronics), add-on RAM, SCSI, and GPIB. Later, I got a 4132, which was essentially a redesign of the 6130 that eliminated the ST-506 interface, replacing it with a built-in SCSI interface, and replacing the floppy drive with a QIC-24 cartridge tape drive. Then, even later, I got a 4319, which was the "2nd generation" Unix workstation machine from Tek. They abandoned the National 32xxx architecture and went with a Motorola 68K (68020, I believe), ported Utek (and made some enhancements, mostly in the network stack, which really was bad un the 320xx-based Utek), and added a built-in framebuffer and X11. The XD88 was the end of the line for Tek in the computer workstation biz. Used the Motorola 88K, and really had some great innovations, especially in the graphics engine, which (for the time) was quite amazing. A great machine for doing CAD, visualization, and the like. Never did manage to get my hands on one of those machines. Tektronix was really fickle when it came to computers. I can tell the story of the Tektronix "Magnolia", which was an amazing machine that long predated the 320xx-based 620x and 613x machines. Magnolia was never made into a product, but it was could have been if Tek would have understood the market. The machine was based on the Motorola 68000. It was a standalone machine, with the hard disk drive (an 8" Micropolis fixed drive, 40MB, I believe, with a parallel, semi-SCSI-like interface), in the base of a pedestal, CPU and raster graphics engine in the pedestal, with an integrated keyboard and a simplistic three button mouse, with the monochrome monitor sitting on top. It was a noisy machine as there were a lot of fans to cool everything, and the disk drive was really noisy. The biggest problem they had with them was that people sitting at the machine tended to move their feet, kicking the pedestal...right where the hard disk drive was, which tended to cause disk crashes. I recall that the machine ran a V7 UNIX kernel, with a windowed GUI, which I seem to recall being somewhat derivative of the early Xerox PARC window environments. I recall that some folks in the development team had come from PARC. The primary development language on the machines was SmallTalk. The machines were truly way ahead of their time. This was all in the late '70's timeframe, before Sun even existed, and predating Xerox PARC's producized machines (though PARC did have numerous different machines running in their labs). If Tek had seized this opportunity, and implemented the marketing, sales & support well, they could have gotten a great start in what became the boom of the computer workstation market. Needless to say, the Magnolia never made it to market. I wonder what happened to all of the pre-production machines that I used to see in use all the time in Building 50 at the Tek main campus. This is a very historical machine, even though it didn't make it to market, and hopefully, someone out there has one or more squirrelled away somewhere, and someday it'll come to light. Sorry for the rambling...the days I was at Tektronix were really memorable, and when people start talking about old Tek stuff, I can't help it! Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Web Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 21 14:02:26 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: HP2000 fans... alert! Message-ID: <002c01c4fff4$21a45f20$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I have come across a stash of 12920/12921/12922 mux card sets. These are the cards that are required to run pretty much any version of HP's Time Shared BASIC. I know some of you are working on getting up the dual CPU versions of HP2000/TSB, but a lot of people here have just one CPU. These people could get HP2000/E up and running - that version works on just one cpu, and no special microcode is needed. I know that the 12920/21/22 mux sets are pretty difficult to find, and as I said, they are required. If you ever want to get TSB up and running you should get in on this deal. Most everything else needed to put together a TSB system is still fairly available, except these mux sets which are quite rare. The guy who has them will want real money for them. I suspect he will want somewhere in the ballpark of $100+ bucks per set (it's a 3 card set). I'm going to buy a set to use for a 2nd TSB machine, plus another set for a spare. These cards probably wont be easily found again as they've all but disappeared (to my knowledge). I don't believe his mux sets includes the distribution panels, but the pinouts to build your own cables are well known. If anyone is interested, please let me know off-list immediately as I'm getting an order ready to snag them. Jay West From zmerch at 30below.com Fri Jan 21 14:08:46 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41F15679.3000106@gjcp.net> References: <3.0.6.32.20050121102639.00963210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> <3.0.6.32.20050119203255.00988190@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.32.20050121102639.00963210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050121150442.03d8e060@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Gordon JC Pearce may have mentioned these words: >Joe R. wrote: > >> They've all had their bugs, but >> >>>most of the explications and some of the work-arounds are out there... >> What's that? Buy a third party program? > >I have always found that the best of the lot is GNU tar. You get it free >when you blow away Windows and install a real OS. Scary to say, but I think this has been around over 10 years, so it might even be ontopic... The program 'taper' makes a decent front-end to tar -- I've used it before & it does allright. Text based, but uses ncurses. Rather a bit like a 'midnight commander' for backups. ;-) Offtopically, if you want to back up a machine to bootable DVD for restoring, mondo works well. Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me zmerch@30below.com. | SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Fri Jan 21 14:16:29 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: help needed with configuration KDF11-A, DLV11-J (PDP 11/23) In-Reply-To: "Pierre Gebhardt" "help needed with configuration KDF11-A, DLV11-J (PDP 11/23)" (Jan 21, 12:04) References: <650464372@web.de> Message-ID: <10501212016.ZM11155@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 21 2005, 12:04, Pierre Gebhardt wrote: > Currently, I'm trying to set up a 11/23 in a BA23 box with a H9278 backplane. > Unfortunately, no information can be found on the jumper configuration for the KDF11-A (M8186). > The most important question: Does this CPU-Board provide bus termination like the KDJ11 boards ? Yes, it does. There are 4 16-pin DIL terminator packs, usually blue, usually labeled 1311003-. > I plugged in some resistor packs on the dedicated sockets of the H9278 to provide termination, but nothing can be seen on the terminal (9600, 8N1). The correct packs? > I'm aware of the QQ/CD configuration for the first 3 slots. > The SLU-Card is a SIGMA DLV11-J clone (SDC-DLV11J). Not knowing, which of the 4 SLUs provides the console interface lead me to check out the 4 ports on my terminal, unfortunaltey without any success. Can't tell you anything about that card, sorry. > The jumper settings on the KDF11-A look like this: > > > > top > ----------------------------- > | | > | | > | | | These two upper ones are closed > | | > | __ | > | | > | > | > | __1 > | | | This is a jumper block of 10 jumpers. The 9th one is open. > | | | The other ones are all closed. > | | | > | --- 10 > | > | |----| | > ----------- ----------- > backplane > > > It's a bit strange, that the jumpers do not have any numbers like W1, W2 etc. > That's the reason for this drawing. Firstly, I can tell you that you have a Revision C board. That's good, as it supports 22-bit addressing in ODT (Rev.A does 18-bit. Both will support 22-bit bus addressing under program control if the MMU is fitted -- it's a 40-pin chip type 21-15542 in the socket nearest the left of the board as you've drawn it). Secondly, you've miscounted the jumpers; there are 11 in that block, not 10. They're jumpers W5 (nearest the card edge fingers) to W15. Just to the right of W7 is W4. W3 and W2 are resistors nearest the right-hand edge of the board; W2 is nearer the fingers and is a real resistor (usually) and W3 is usually a zero-ohm resistor. The one you've shown "upright" near the top is W18, and the other one you've shown, near the right-hand side is W1. The last two are W16 and W17, just above the fingers at the left. W1, W2, W3 are things like the clock and must not be removed. W4 is the BEVENT line; when fitted, it disables BEVENT. It's normally not fitted, unless you have a programmable clock board. W5 and W6 select the power-up mode (0,1,2,3). W7 is the HALT/TRAP option; when fitted, HALT traps to location 000010; when not fitted, HALT enters ODT. Normally not fitted. W8 selects bootstrap address for mode 2; when fitted, the processor jumps to 173000 on power-up; when not fitted, it jumps to an address selected by W9-W15. W9-W15 select bootstrap address for power-up mode 2. W16-17 are reserved and must be fitted. W18 is the wake-up control and is almost always fitted unless you have some external circuitry. Power-up modes: 0: W5 out, W6 out: loads PC from 000024 and status from 00026 1: W5 in, W6 out: enters console ODT 2: W5 out, W6 in: starts bootstrap at 173000 or address from W9-W15 3: W5 in, W6 in: runs extended microcode (custom microcode ROM option) If BHALT is asserted when the processor is booted and W5/W6 are set to mode 2, the processor enters console ODT instead of booting. W9-W15 correspond to bits 9-15 (the upper byte) of the bootstrap address for mode 2 if W8 is not fitted. Jumper inserted makes the corresponding bit a '1'; removed makes a '0'. The lowest byte is always 000. You've got W18 fitted, W1 fitted (so the processor should run!) and we don't know about the rest. However, I'd guess from your description it's W6 that's fitted in that block, and no others. Looks like your CPU is several jumpers short of a full set; it would seem to be set to bootstrap from address 000000. I'd suggest you use wire-wrap wire and a wrapping tool to jumper some of the missing ones, or at least move the jumper off W6 and onto W5 (so it boots into console ODT), and check that W16/W17 are fitted. Factory default settings are W1, W2/W3, W6, W8-W18 fitted; W4, W5, W7 not fitted. That enables all the clocks and things, and sets the processor to try to boot from 173000, and to enter ODT on HALT. > Is the backplane termination required ? Yes! But you could put a BDV11 or another terminator board in the last slot, instead. You might get away without it if you only have a couple of cards in the machine because there are terminators on the CPU. I've not taken the SIP resistor packs out of any of my H9278s to measure them, becasue they're a b****r to get at. However, I have some spare DIL packs from other devices, and I can tell you that each signal has 180 ohms to +5V and 390 ohms to GND, giving standard 120 ohm termination. I expect those SIPs have 5V on one end and GND on the other. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 21 12:38:42 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Apple Disk II Analog Board In-Reply-To: <41F0AEB8.286D25EB@rain.org> from "Marvin Johnston" at Jan 20, 5 11:26:48 pm Message-ID: > > > Thanks Tony! The toroids are L1 and L2, and knowing they are 30 uH helps > out a LOT! Since they are colored yellow, I am guessing they are iron Just to confirm (just in case the schematic doesn't match the board): One side of L1 goes to the +12V input (pins 13,15,17,19 of the interface connector), the other t opin 18 of the 3470 chip (It's the 12V filter, of course). One side of L2 goes to the +5V input (pins 11,12 of the interface connector), the other to the 5V pins on, say, the 74LS125. Also, please remember I'm taking this from the manual, I've not put these coils on a bridge myself. It's always possible there were changes. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 21 14:21:30 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050121102852.0092c470@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> from "Joe R." at Jan 21, 5 10:28:52 am Message-ID: > Some of the Amstrads shipped with either a 3" or 2 1/2" drive. Don't > remember which, it's been a long times since I've seen one. Most Z80-based Amstrads (CPC664. CPC6128, PCW8256, Spectrum +3) along with the Tatung Einstein and Oric used a 3" drive. I've seen this drive sold as an add-on for things like the BBC micro -tony From thilo.schmidt at gmx.de Thu Jan 20 10:09:17 2005 From: thilo.schmidt at gmx.de (Thilo Schmidt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Urgent rescue of c't mags from 1988 - 1995 In-Reply-To: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFDE9@exchange.olf.com> References: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFDE9@exchange.olf.com> Message-ID: <1106237358.7360.17.camel@matterhorn.rs.uni-siegen.de> Hi Ram, > I know someone who has a fairly complete collection of c't magazines in > Austria. Please respond if you want them. I am only interested in two > articles on transputers (which he is planning on scanning for me). Let me > know otherwise he is going to throw them away... You can buy all c't magazines from 1983-1989 on one DVD for 19 EUR at http://www.emedia.de The first c't is downloadable for free: http://www.heise.de/ct/83/12/ct8312.shtml bye Thilo From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Jan 20 10:14:10 2005 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp@gjcp.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <33658.64.169.63.74.1106181982.squirrel@64.169.63.74> References: <1106164712.21701.60.camel@abort.crash.com> <20050119205935.84228.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> <33658.64.169.63.74.1106181982.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <59485.195.212.29.75.1106237650.squirrel@195.212.29.75> > Someone wrote: > Win XP is really > quite stable. I find that the majority of people who like to bash it > are > usually the same people who last used Windows back in 1998. Stability is not the concern here. Windows 2000 is, in my experience (I'm stuck using it at work) very stable indeed. It's still slow, ugly and inflexible. It doesn't support simple, essential things like multiple desktops (which X has had for years), has a really clumsy user interface (what an utter abortion copy and paste is!), woefully inconsistent behaviour and what's worse is there's nothing you can do about it! It doesn't even come with a .zip file extractor! Gordon. From bob at jfcl.com Thu Jan 20 18:52:31 2005 From: bob at jfcl.com (Bob Armstrong) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Looking for KA825 (VAX-8250/8350) CPU Card T1001-YA Message-ID: <05012016523156@jfcl.com> The good news is that I recently acquired a VAX 8350 in good condition along with a back plane full of cards. The bad news is that, despite all the cards in there, the previous owner had removed the CPU cards (both of 'em, this being a dual processor machine!). Does anybody have a KA825, T1001-YA cpu card that they'd be willing to give away, sell, or trade for other VAXBI cards? One CPU's enough (I'll settle for an 8250!). THanks, Bob Armstrong From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Jan 21 01:36:12 2005 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp@gjcp.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41F0B07A.3090907@oldskool.org> References: <200501210327.TAA11930@floodgap.com> <41F0B07A.3090907@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20432.195.212.29.75.1106292972.squirrel@195.212.29.75> > Cameron Kaiser wrote: > Well, I also work with custom video post-processing ala avisynth, > virtualdub, > and temporal noise reduction, and the tools I need either aren't available > for > Mac or cost more than the hardware. Which is pretty much what I use mplayer and avidemux for on Linux. Windows is too unbearably clunky to even bother with. Gordon. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Jan 21 06:34:33 2005 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp@gjcp.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: 2.5' floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> <41F096EA.6080301@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <60654.195.212.29.91.1106310873.squirrel@195.212.29.91> > I had a old akai sampler called an x7000 which used some real odd > floppys, unfortunatley the drive was dead, and I had no source of > floppy disks. I belive that these were 2.5" disks. > > Benjamin Looks like it was a keyboard version of the S612. Looking at a PDF of the manual, it seems you could load and save samples using a Commodore cassette recorder if you didn't have the optional 2.8" disk drive! Gordon. From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 21 15:09:54 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <20432.195.212.29.75.1106292972.squirrel@195.212.29.75> from "gordonjcp@gjcp.net" at "Jan 21, 5 07:36:12 am" Message-ID: <200501212109.NAA15392@floodgap.com> > > Cameron Kaiser wrote: Not me, baby. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- A service of the Department of the Redundancy Department. ------------------ From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 21 15:21:47 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: <20050119091846.38324.qmail@web40907.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050119091846.38324.qmail@web40907.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050119090307.S626@localhost> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, steven wrote: > Holy cow, what is it?!? > (The 'helper', not the computer...) That's Molly. Somehow Dart isn't in the picture. Molly is an alpha female, so she has to be in charge all the time. Very stressful. But she's great on roadtrips, pops her head up when she hears the turn signals, etc and was appropriately awed by the view coming down the hill (I5 N) to Grapevine, into the big valley. She occasionally goes with me to surplus, is very skilled at staying out of trouble. We don't think of it, but old stuff has incredible and exotic smell history, a whole dog world invisible to us. She will go through every box, manual, cabinet and PC board of the NOVA4 with me. She insists, everything must be sniffed, knowingly and carefully (and quite seriously). Oh 'what'. Peruvian Hairless Dog. She a rescued dog. Invisible Dart is a Xoloitzquintli, but .25 P.H.D. From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 21 15:22:45 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <1106139995.12093.2.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <200501190354.TAA16664@floodgap.com> <003401c4fddb$24c964e0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <41EDDC50.7030904@oldskool.org> <20050118225033.S635@localhost> <1106139995.12093.2.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050119093732.C626@localhost> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 22:56 -0800, Tom Jennings wrote: >> UPS service depends a lot on the interface people, as is obvious >> with the jerk that started this thread. > > I read that so completely wrong at first. Woah. ;-) EGAD! HOW TERRIBLE! I'm so sorry, wars have probably been started over such remarks. I meant of course the jerk at the UPS counter giving you a hard time. So sorry! tomj PS: I'm on the road, sporadic email til Sunday. From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 21 15:36:40 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Looking for KA825 (VAX-8250/8350) CPU Card T1001-YA Message-ID: <0501212136.AA09751@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Robert Armstrong wrote: > Does anybody have a KA825, T1001-YA cpu card that they'd be willing to > give away, sell, or trade for other VAXBI cards? Can't help you there, but... > And does anybody have a boot diskette (BOOT58) for an 8250/8350 that I > could copy? Look on my FTP site: ifctfvax.Harhan.ORG:/pub/UNIX/support/mdec/ MS From cblackburn36 at softhome.net Fri Jan 21 15:55:36 2005 From: cblackburn36 at softhome.net (Chris Blackburn) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050121095303.03b70508@mail.30below.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050121002134.05099540@mail.30below.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20050121095303.03b70508@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <41F17A58.1000100@softhome.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Roger Merchberger wrote: | my | software cost was around $45 for TMPGEnc -- everything else is available | free. I have done some video editing under linux and although it was nowhere near as user friendly as it was under windows it was just as fast if not faster. And once you get to know the command line syntax and you have done it a few times it just becomes second nature. Plus Transcode, mencoder, mplayer Perl::DVDRip etc etc are all GPL apps so they all work without any problems on the Mac as OSX is POSIX compatible and hence all software recompiles without a hitch. (well maybe one or two hitches but nothing a seasoned linux user can't deal with). Regards - -- Chris Blackburn E-Mail: cblackburn36NOSPAM@softhome.net E-Mail: cblackburn36@NOSPAMgmail.com PGP Public Key: http://makeashorterlink.com/?C2AF31929 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFB8XowxsNEmi5WofsRAmUuAKD+uscwaG/+lwA9pEDBeHUbbubVvACdHtC6 CbqYFVZFEacW1ZCdtR20jyE= =WlSU -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From gmanuel at gmconsulting.net Fri Jan 21 16:15:37 2005 From: gmanuel at gmconsulting.net (GManuel (GMC)) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Misc available for free In-Reply-To: <41EAEC35.102@internet1.net> Message-ID: To the owner of this equiptment. I know that you sent me a reply to this on the 17th but my wife was on my computer and I heard a whoops. LOL... She accidentally deleted your reply to me. Could you please resend it. Thank you very much, she had already cleared everything permanently by the time I got to her. LOL Thank you for your time and sorry for the inconvience, Greg Manuel -----Original Message----- From: GManuel (GMC) [mailto:gmanuel@gmconsulting.net] Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 5:56 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: RE: Misc available for free I would be interested in the Commodore 128 group and/or the Zip Drive group. Can you please tell me what shipping would be to the 19074 zipcode. You can email me direct at gmanuel at gmconsulting dot net. Thank you in advance for your time. Greg Manuel -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Chad Fernandez Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 5:36 PM To: rescue@sunhelp.org; cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Misc available for free Hey all, Free, plus shipping. I have everything split into 5 groups. I don't want to split the groups up, as I don't want to be sending out 100 boxs in 100 different directions. -Commodore 128, good shape cosmetically, all cords, power supply etc, original box, but doesn't work. It would freeze up on me, and I lost interest. -Zip100 for PC's (parallel port), new---I opened it, but I can't get it to work on either of my machines. It may very well be fine, since I can't get a Micro Solutions to work on my machines either. -a box full of PC leftovers, a pair of earlier Pentium class chips, slot covers, bay covers, centronics scsi cables, internal 50 pin scsi cables, floppy cables, several fans, a small scsi drive, a small ide drive, Hayes Accura 336 modem, drive rails, blah blah blah..... -IBM AT motherboard, serial card, 8/16 bit VGA card, Adaptec 1542B scsi card, 8-bit ISA MFM ST11R HD controller, Unisys Personal Workstation 2 Multiple Port Board with splitter cable drivers and instructions. -USR Courier V Everything (older one), doesn't seem to work, but has instructions, power supply, and good shape cosmetically..... maybe you need a PS to fix one, or make it look better? Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA >>> FREE spam killer: http://eliminatespam.com * FREE PopUp Buster+: http://popupbuster.net From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 21 17:37:30 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks (with some OT Tek rambliings) In-Reply-To: <20050121195826.B014E2C002@pail.bensene.com> References: <20050121195826.B014E2C002@pail.bensene.com> Message-ID: <1106350650.15519.40.camel@weka.localdomain> On Fri, 2005-01-21 at 12:00 -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: > I'm not as sure about UTekV, but the earlier Utek versions did use a pure > 4.2BSD filesystem structure. I recall the big fuss over converting Utek away from > a BSD base to a SystemV base, and thus, I'm wondering if the XD88 and other machines > that ran UtekV may actually have a more standardized SystemV layout. Actually I just booted the machine and took the easy route of looking in fstab - both filesystems that the machine mounts are down as being ffs. Don't suppose you recall the name of any utility for displaying disk partition info on your Tek machines do you? Maybe it remained the same for the XD88 too. I've found a /usr/lbin/disklabel but there's no man page for it and I'm reluctant to just run it! There's also the 'sysadm' command which gives menu-based admin functions, but it only lets you create partitions with no way of displaying what you already have... > I seem to recall that the first logical cylinder of the drive is allocated > to the partition table and boot blocks, but that is a *very* old memory, and > subject to wetware bitrot. Of couse, that also is only for the older BSD-based Utek. Well I'll go poking around the raw image over the weekend. I can use 'df -t' on the Tek itself to give me the size in blocks of each filesystem and then go hunting at the start of the disk for meaningful data. Although I don't know if df gives size in blocks of an *empty* filesystem (i.e. less any space for superblock etc.) or whether it's the size of the partition *including* any space taken up by the filesystem (I really need the latter!) > The 6130 was a desktop form-factor Utek workstation with 32016 CPU, ST-506 > disk interface > (usually with a Micropolis 20 or 40MB hard disk), 5 1/4" floppy drive, > 1MB of RAM standard with expansion boards that could push it up to a > whopping 5MB, > two serial ports, a GPIB port, an AUI Ethernet port, and add-on > boards that offered Dual RS232, Dual Parallel (Centronics), add-on RAM, > SCSI, and GPIB. Nice. I have a thing for systems based around the 32016 CPU having spent years chasing after the elusive 32016 copro for the BBC micro. Funnily enough I've found a Tek keyboard just like the XD88's at Bletchley, plus an enormous Tek monitor, but I've never seen the machine that goes with it. We do have some Tek stuff there; I'll see if I can see exactly what tomorrow as I'll be rummaging around through the stores anyway. > They abandoned the National 32xxx architecture and went > with a Motorola 68K (68020, I believe), probably a sensible move :-) 32k chips weren't the best around... > The XD88 was the end of the line for Tek in the computer workstation biz. I heard somewhere that the cost of them new was absolutely enormous - $25k or so when these things were current (late 80's) and that was why they weren't ever a success. > Used the Motorola 88K, > and really had some great innovations, especially in the graphics engine, > which (for the time) was quite amazing. It certainly flies on this machine - speed-wise it feels about ten years ahead of anything the PC had. Unforunately I've got the lowly -10 machine with only an 8 bit display, not the -30 with the 24 bit framebuffer. Love to find one of those (and some manuals, and OS tapes... :) > A great machine for doing CAD, visualization, and the > like. Never did manage to get my hands on one of those machines. I've only ever know of two others. One was connected to the 'net in the US until about 1995 or so, the other was owned by a chap in the Netherlands. The system unit for mine (and original hard drive) was owned by IXI - like my NCR Tower it was another dev box for their X Windows software. The monitor (a Sony, not a Tek) I got from my old uni, the keyboard came from Cambridge uni (which implies they perhaps had an XD88 once too), the current hard disk came from my old work, and the mouse was kindly donated by our very own Joe Ridgon around ten years ago. Took me quite a while to scrape together all the bits to make a working machine! > Tektronix was really fickle when it came to computers. Which is a shame; they built some really nice stuff. I get the impression they were always a little edgy about seriously moving into the computer market (despite making some incredible quality machines) and so never quite committed themselves (at least in all the operations that went around building the hardware) > Sorry for the rambling...the days I was at Tektronix were really memorable, > and when > people start talking about old Tek stuff, I can't help it! No worries there - it's good to hear! I can find precious few people who even own Tek computer stuff now, let alone have ever had any involvement with them. Besides, at some point I want to have this XD88 up and running on display at Bletchley, so any info about the machine itself or background is always welcome! cheers, Jules From cb at mythtech.net Fri Jan 21 19:03:58 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! Message-ID: >>(I'm not being a troll, really, I don't care what machine you use or your >>reasons to or not to use it... I'm just poking fun at your claim that it >>isn't powerful enough) > >[1] I thought the definition of a troll was someone who pokes fun at a >person or people to get a 'rise' out of them, especially whilst making >advocacy claims that clearly aren't true... Ahh, but I wouldn't fit that definition, because I wasn't trying to get a rise out of you. I didn't expect a response. And how dare you say my claims aren't true. They have to be true... I mean the fact that I have no support AT ALL to back up my statement that there is no match to the Dual Proc G5 in the Windows world... well, you think I need PROOF?!? Selam didn't need proof to claim Linux caused the popular rise of the internet... proof be damned... I'm right because I say I'm right! :-) (note the smiley... the internet way to point out sarcasm, less you honestly think I'm being serious above) >And no -- the Mac Mini isn't serious enough for video work, and there are >some darned good PC platforms that are. 'Nuff said. Well, yeah, I can't actually argue there. Although I am planning to buy a Mac Mini for myself specifically to do A/V work... but that's because I'm poor, and a Mac Mini is a cheap upgrade from my G3 iMac that will let me bump up a notch in tools. Hey, wait, if I'm planning to use it, are you saying I'm not doing serious video work?!? I'll have you know, not ALL my videos are comedies... there are a few dramatic scenes of a serious nature in there... how dare you insult my work without seeing it (normally insults wait until AFTER they see it and can justify the comment in any number of ways... I ain't gonna win no inde fest) :-) (note the smiley again... although I am really hoping to get a Mac Mini to do better video work then I can with my current iMac) -chris From cb at mythtech.net Fri Jan 21 19:11:41 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! Message-ID: >I won't refute your argument, because it's like trying to argue against >artifacts such as the Shroud of Turin: No matter what the facts, it is a >religious artifact and is therefore impossible to disprove. See my reply to Roger. Me thinks one too many people has posted on this list taking their stance too seriously... now everyone just assumes that any strange far fetched claims like I made are done for religious zealot reasons and not for pure silliness. (come on, you don't REALLY think that I believe that there is no machine that can run windows that can do better then a Dual Proc G5?!? That would be an absurd claim... even IF it was true right now, of which not only do I have no idea, but I seriously doubt that it is... by the time this thread dies, some company like AlienWare will have released something that makes it false) Sometimes, when something seems absurd, it is just that, absurd, and needs to be taken a little less seriously (I mean come on... I DID put a smiley face after it! Jeepers, do I really have to put around my comments too?) :-) (once again, please note the smiley and just accept the fact that I'm really not trying to bait you, I'm just having some fun... lets all have a laugh, share some beers, and move on) -chris From CCTalk at catcorner.org Fri Jan 21 20:28:28 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C82@mail.catcorner.org> More on the saga of getting the DS/DD drive working in this machine... I borrowed a tape demagnetizer (Radio Shack doesn't carry them anymore) and picked up some anhydrous isopropyl alcohol ($3.55 US for a pint). Demagnetizing and cleaning the heads has done the trick. I now have two genuine IBM (Qumetrak 142) disk drives running nicely. On the plus side, I now also have a 30MHz scope. A fellow ham has given me one that he was not using, with the understanding that if he needs it back he can have it. The big question is what am I going to do with a full pint of alcohol? I have some 8" drives to finish refurbing, but then I'll still have 99.5% of a pint left. Thanks for all the help. Kelly From ohh at drizzle.com Fri Jan 21 21:41:32 2005 From: ohh at drizzle.com (O. Sharp) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Anyone TTY-Smart In Maryland? (Or Seattle?) Message-ID: I may have a favor to ask. :) I may have found an ASR-33 Teletype in Maryland that I can actually afford. Problem is, I'm in Seattle and it's a "come pick it up" situation. (It's in or near Laurel, Maryland.) If I end up buy it, is there someone in that area who'd be willing - for, say, $100 plus the expenses of packing and shipping - to pick this up, make it safe for shipping, pack it up and ship it off to Seattle? (Conversely, is there someone in Seattle who wants to sell me a nice ASR-33 for about $275? It'd certainly be easier for me to pick up. ) -O.- From lists at popcorn.cx Fri Jan 21 21:57:25 2005 From: lists at popcorn.cx (Stephen Edmonds) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Two free 19" monitors (DIGITAL and SUN), Melbourne Australia Message-ID: <41F1CF25.4040603@popcorn.cx> Greetings, I have two 19" monitors that I don't need anymore and would like to free up some space. I believe that they work but I can't verify that as I have never even tried to used them on anything. They are: DIGITAL VRT19-H4 (GDM-1961) Manufactured by Sony Sync on green 3x BNC connectors (with what looks like passthrough connectors) http://popcorn.cx/photos/gdm1961_01.jpg http://popcorn.cx/photos/gdm1961_02.jpg SUN GDM-1962 Manufactured by Sony Composite sync 13W3 connector http://popcorn.cx/photos/gdm1962_01.jpg http://popcorn.cx/photos/gdm1962_02.jpg Pickup ONLY from Glen Waverley, Melbourne, Australia. Stephen -- _ _ _ Stephen Edmonds _/ \_ / \_/ \ Melbourne, Australia <_ " _> / \ / O \ / " \ stephen@popcorn.cx / ___ \ | O | http://popcorn.cx/ \_____/ \___/ From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 21 21:59:13 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs Message-ID: <004501c50036$bc368210$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I need some, time to make them. Want to be historically accurate, so... would anyone know exactly what AMP connector was used, or where there are pictures of lots of AMP connectors so I can identify the right one and order it? I'm hoping the connector is still made...no part number on it other than AMP Jay West From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jan 21 22:42:31 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41F17A58.1000100@softhome.net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050121002134.05099540@mail.30below.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20050121095303.03b70508@mail.30below.com> <41F17A58.1000100@softhome.net> Message-ID: <41F1D9B7.2000102@oldskool.org> Chris Blackburn wrote: > I have done some video editing under linux and although it was nowhere > near as user friendly as it was under windows it was just as fast if not > faster. And once you get to know the command line syntax and you have > done it a few times it just becomes second nature. I use Windows for my video work not because it is faster, but because it is almost as fast, much cheaper, and has more decent (and free) tools. Video editing under Linux is best described as clunky and uncomfortable. I would use a Mac for video but I'm not made of money, sorry. It's okay to have a favorite platform; I just hope your blinders are attached with velcro and not nails ;-) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jan 21 22:47:17 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <20432.195.212.29.75.1106292972.squirrel@195.212.29.75> References: <200501210327.TAA11930@floodgap.com> <41F0B07A.3090907@oldskool.org> <20432.195.212.29.75.1106292972.squirrel@195.212.29.75> Message-ID: <41F1DAD5.5070605@oldskool.org> gordonjcp@gjcp.net wrote: >>Well, I also work with custom video post-processing ala avisynth, >>virtualdub, >>and temporal noise reduction, and the tools I need either aren't available > > Which is pretty much what I use mplayer and avidemux for on Linux. No offense, but I'm not ripping DVDs to DivX or something similarly mickey-mouse; I'm working with uncompressed YUV 4:2:2 SD video. This is turning into a wholly non-old-computer-related flamewar so I'd like to request that any further rebuttals be handled off-list. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jan 21 22:56:52 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41F1DD14.4060202@oldskool.org> chris wrote: > (note the smiley again... although I am really hoping to get a Mac Mini > to do better video work then I can with my current iMac) As a show of good faith :-) I'd like to make some recommendations if you're going to get a Mac Mini for video work: - Upgrade the memory to at least 512 and preferably 1GB if possible. MPEG-2 encoding, multi-layer compositing, rendered previews, caching, etc. all chew up RAM. I don't recall if you can upgrade the CPU in a MacMini (or add a second one) but it is much more important to max out RAM first and foremost. - Stick with DV only. DV has a nice low data rate of around 3MB/s which is enough for any hard drive to handle. In fact you can composite 3-4 streams on any cheap modern hard drive and play them realtime. - Assuming sticking with DV only, make sure your workspace (desk, etc.) has room for a small cheap TV and your DV camcorder. Previewing on a monitor, however nice, still doesn't compare to an actual video monitor (or properly calibrated cheap tv if you don't have the cash) for checking saturation, field order, overscan/safe title area, etc. Even if it's a cheap $130 15" color TV, it's still better to preview via firewire->DVcam->TV. (Assuming your DVcam does this kind of passthrough, of course!) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Jan 21 23:44:39 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs In-Reply-To: <004501c50036$bc368210$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <004501c50036$bc368210$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200501220044.39438.pat@computer-refuge.org> Jay West declared on Friday 21 January 2005 10:59 pm: > I need some, time to make them. > > Want to be historically accurate, so... would anyone know exactly what > AMP connector was used, or where there are pictures of lots of AMP > connectors so I can identify the right one and order it? > > I'm hoping the connector is still made...no part number on it other > than AMP Though it's less "historically accurate", shoving a resistor directly into the connector seems to work fairly well for the machine I was playing with last night. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From tponsford at theriver.com Thu Jan 20 22:28:55 2005 From: tponsford at theriver.com (Tom Ponsford) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: The DFWCUG DEc collection up for sale In-Reply-To: <20040924233455.54E333C2B@spies.com> References: <20040924233455.54E333C2B@spies.com> Message-ID: <41F08507.9020306@theriver.com> The DFWCUG collection is now truely "on the block" and up for sale as a whole collection. Does anyone know what the asking price is? I really doubt someone could put up the money for the whole collection, as unique as it is. My guess it will probably end up on with a variety of collectors (and I hope I'm one) The contact information is on the page as well as a lot of photos! You may now go to the photos and commence salivating! http://www.montagar.com/~patj/hcsale/index.html I don't think we will ever see a DEC collection again like this! Cheers Tom Al Kossow wrote: > Pat has lost interest in DEC collecting. I spoke to him when > I was down there a few months ago. Here is an exerpt from a > mail msg from him. > > Since however, one of us, The famous John R. Wisniewski, from > DEC, has passed away, and due to the economics in the present > time following 911, when everyone lost so much money and the > purse strings have become very tight, we are not able to continue > to seek grants or raise funds for a permanent place to store and > show these, so at some time in the future, the entire collection > will probably be liquidated. > > -- > > I will forward his current email adr through private email to > Emanuel. > > -- --- Please do not read this sig. If you have read this far, please unread back to the beginning. From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jan 22 03:13:08 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41F1D9B7.2000102@oldskool.org> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050121002134.05099540@mail.30below.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20050121095303.03b70508@mail.30below.com> <41F17A58.1000100@softhome.net> <41F1D9B7.2000102@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <41F21924.4040602@gjcp.net> Jim Leonard wrote: > Chris Blackburn wrote: > >> I have done some video editing under linux and although it was nowhere >> near as user friendly as it was under windows it was just as fast if not >> faster. And once you get to know the command line syntax and you have >> done it a few times it just becomes second nature. > > > I use Windows for my video work not because it is faster, but because it > is almost as fast, much cheaper, and has more decent (and free) tools. > Video editing under Linux is best described as clunky and uncomfortable. I use Cinelerra in Linux. It's actually pretty good, but there are some really annoying things it does and doesn't do. Fortunately, I can just go in and change them. Then I make a diff of it, and can mail that off to the "real" developers. I don't mind clunky and uncomfortable if I can fix it myself. Gordon. From tothwolf at concentric.net Sat Jan 22 03:54:15 2005 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: <200501181641.17859.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <005b01c4fdbd$fa670bc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200501181641.17859.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Lyle Bickley wrote: > On Tuesday 18 January 2005 16:29, Jay West wrote: > > > I'm boycotting UPS. I walked out of there about foaming at the mouth. > > > > I went there to ship a vintage cpu, and the gentleman behind the > > counter took one look at my box and said "that box is in bad > > condition", followed by "At UPS, we don't want to deliver any packages > > that don't look good", and finally "we can't have the box falling > > apart and it's contents coming out". > > Use FedEx. My company often finds they are cheaper than UPS. FedEx does tend to be less expensive, though I've had a number of items permanently lost when they were shipped via FedEx. One was an old 1970s model Code-a-phone 700 answering machine device. I still don't see how they could lose a 25lb metal box. -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Sat Jan 22 04:04:24 2005 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: no more UPS! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, William Donzelli wrote: > > As far as I'm concerned, UPS wears brown for a reason. > > > > They are second only to the USPS in annoyance level. > > I am very pleased with USPS - they never bust up anything (although they > do loose them from time to time). Things are so much nicer with me and > USPS now that the Dragon Lady behind the counter of the Carmel PO has > retired. I don't use USPS if I have any other options. I had them lose over 100 cds that I bought from someone. Of course, the seller was supposed to insure the package (I paid extra for it), but they didn't. When I got the box, only 3 of 100 something cds were actually inside, and those were scuffed up. USPS was "kind" enough to include a note saying the package had been damaged, yet the only damage I saw was the bottom of the box had been opened by someone. It was right before christmas of 2003/2004 and I figure someone pinched those cds. Supposedly they never did turn up at the bulk mail recovery center, and they even had a list that I faxed them. -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Sat Jan 22 04:46:22 2005 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Qty. 20 to 30 ... 486 DX2-66 VLB Motherboards needed in the Netherlands In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.2.20050121102542.089e2ec0@mail.analog-and-digital-solutions.com> References: <5.1.1.6.2.20050121102542.089e2ec0@mail.analog-and-digital-solutions.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Mail List wrote: > Hello, > > Does anyone in Europe, preferably Netherlands, want to get together 20 > to 30 motherboards 486DX2-66, Intel ( or possibly AMD ) with at least 2 > VLB slots for Amplicon Benelux in the Netherlands. They preferred they > all be the same mfg and model and new or NOS to boot. I think they will > have to settle for used and mixed variety. I see plenty in Germany, but > it seems almost no one in Germany uses PayPal, and it seems like it just > couldn't be cost effective to have them shipped to the US and then back > to Europe again. I think they should be ones that use a replaceable > lithium coin cell in a holder because any NiCads from that era probably > wouldn't hold a charge very well any more, and Dallas type devices would > be at the end of their service life, and if soldered on, too much > trouble and significantly expensive to change out. I'm pretty sure they > would want them tested and with some kind of guarantee, though that may > have to be accomplished by buying some extras beyond the quantity they > are asking for. I don't know what their budget is for this, but I did > think that they needed to make it enough to motivate anyone to get > involved with it, else it looked like a "do it yourself" type project. > If anyone in the Netherlands or Germany, that can accept Paypal, can do > this, let me know. Respond to ... Hah...You are kidding, right? If not...good luck finding NOS boards of that vintage in qty that take lithium cells. Very few 486 designs even used lithium cells. (Actually, I recall a PCChips board that had 4 PCI, 1 ISA, and 2 VLB ISA slots that used a lithium coin cell, but I've not seen one of those boards in ages. PCChips also shipped tons of these boards that supposedly supported the AMD 5x86-133, but they didn't install the right BIOS chip...) I've replaced tons of NiCads on these sort of boards to get them running again and I've yet to see a board of this vintage that has a good NiCad on it... Heck, one of my pet projects is a cluster made up of a dozen 386DX40 boards that had those awful NiCads installed on them (which I need to get back to building a rack for). -Toth From bshannon at tiac.net Sat Jan 22 07:46:17 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? References: <20050107223029.18815b92.chenmel@earthlink.net><003101c4f53d$c145e510$c13cd7d1@randylaptop><5.2.0.9.0.20050108093638.023a2b90@mail.ubanproductions.com><20050108200154.GA5644@loomcom.com><5.2.0.9.0.20050108181036.02408e58@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <000f01c50088$c16cea60$0100a8c0@screamer> Imlac PDS-1's used third-party memory modules. There are at least two vendors. The Imlac Sellam has uses what Imlac called MEM-1, and it has a large cannon connector on the memory backplane. My Imlac used MEM-2, where all the connections to the processors are made with wire-wrap. MEM-2 core modules don't have parity bits. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ethan Dicks" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 5:16 AM Subject: Re: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? > On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 09:51:20AM -0600, Tom Uban wrote: >> >> > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac.html >> > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/imlac_sw.html > > Nice pix, especially http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/imlac11.jpg > > It bears a striking resemblance to the core stack in an PDP-8/L or > PDP-8/i (those, of course, are either 4096x12 or 4096x13, depending on > parity. Even the fingers look like DEC spacing. > > I am unfamiliar with the Imlac line... why would there be such > similarities? Dataram already have something handy? > > -ethan From bshannon at tiac.net Sat Jan 22 08:00:34 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? References: Message-ID: <001e01c5008a$c07d2140$0100a8c0@screamer> There is a fourth Imlac around!? Does anyone know the state and condition of this other Imlac? FYI, the Imlac CPU is quite different from the PDP-8, but it does have many similarities such as the auto-index register locations in memory, etc. But being a 16-bit CPU the page size is different (2K words), and the Imlac has some slightly unusual 11-bit literal instructions (load with n, and load with complement of n). I don't think those are found on the -8. There are some similarities between the Imlac's main CPU and the HP1000 processors, but this is deceiving, many instruction codes are the same or similar, but the auctual operations have some differences. (Dymec studied the -8 when they developed the 2116, but the HP has additional registers and many more instructions than the -8, or PDS-1). Moving from HP assembler to Imlac assembler is tricky, its similar but very different. Becuase of the simplicity of the Imlac CPU it probably is more -8 like than the HP, despite the direct link between the HP and -8. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vintage Computer Festival" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 4:14 PM Subject: Re: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? > On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, John Allain wrote: > >> Interesting all the talk Imlac gets on the list and >> nothing for either Adage or Evans & Sutherland. >> Guess it didn't hurt the programmer's console >> was such a prominent part of the Imlac. > > I think mainly because machines from either manufacture are difficult to > find. Same with the Imlac, but it just so happens a few people here (Bob > Shannon, Tom Uban, and myself, plus one other Bob/Robert that used to be > on the list) are fortunate to have come into possession of the very few > still existing. > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer > Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger > http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage > mputers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at > http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > From bshannon at tiac.net Sat Jan 22 08:04:26 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs References: <004501c50036$bc368210$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <002801c5008b$49945840$0100a8c0@screamer> These can be made from CPU to power-controller cables. The same connector is used for both applications. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 10:59 PM Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs >I need some, time to make them. > > Want to be historically accurate, so... would anyone know exactly what AMP > connector was used, or where there are pictures of lots of AMP connectors > so I can identify the right one and order it? > > I'm hoping the connector is still made...no part number on it other than > AMP > > Jay West > From cb at mythtech.net Sat Jan 22 08:27:56 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! Message-ID: >As a show of good faith :-) I'd like to make some recommendations if you're >going to get a Mac Mini for video work: Yeah Yeah Yeah, I ain't no panty waist amature here... this is what I went to school for (how I ended up working in computers is still a mystery to me!) :-) Believe me, I'd love better equipment, I just can't afford it. (actually, I'd really love a nice set of SVHS editing decks, and a Video Toaster to go with it) >- Upgrade the memory to at least 512 and preferably 1GB if possible. MPEG-2 >encoding, multi-layer compositing, rendered previews, caching, etc. all >chew up >RAM. I don't recall if you can upgrade the CPU in a MacMini (or add a >second >one) but it is much more important to max out RAM first and foremost. Are you kidding... OS X... video or not, you better upgrade to at least 512 MB of ram... I'm still amazed Apple sells machines with anything less. OS X makes Windows look like a memory conservationist! >- Stick with DV only. DV has a nice low data rate of around 3MB/s which is >enough for any hard drive to handle. In fact you can composite 3-4 >streams on >any cheap modern hard drive and play them realtime. DV is the only thing I can afford to work with. Cheap computer, cheap camcorder... I didn't say I was making epics here, I just grab a camera and shoot things because its what I wanted to do for a living, I spent all that time in college on the topics, and now don't work in the field... so its just kind of a hobby. I accept things looking like crap (hey, it looks better then the work I did on a PowerMac 6500 using Apple's TV In-Out card and Avid Video... that was some grainy chopping junk... which was even better then when I used to do analog editing... without editing equipment, just had to be fast on the fingers and hope for the best... ahh those were the days!) >- Assuming sticking with DV only, make sure your workspace (desk, etc.) has >room for a small cheap TV and your DV camcorder. Previewing on a monitor, >however nice, still doesn't compare to an actual video monitor (or properly >calibrated cheap tv if you don't have the cash) for checking saturation, >field >order, overscan/safe title area, etc. Even if it's a cheap $130 15" color >TV, >it's still better to preview via firewire->DVcam->TV. (Assuming your DVcam >does this kind of passthrough, of course!) Yeah, I got that covered. I have meself a nice JVC TV monitor (not a TV, that implies a tuner is in it... this is recovered from an old editing suite that someone else beat me to taking out of the trash, I just got one of the monitors before they got back for it) -chris From allain at panix.com Sat Jan 22 10:00:00 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: The DFWCUG DEc collection up for sale References: <20040924233455.54E333C2B@spies.com> <41F08507.9020306@theriver.com> Message-ID: <003201c5009b$6e5dd060$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> http://www.montagar.com/~patj/hcsale/index.html : "The entire collection is offered as a single lot." Doesn't seem a particularly bright decision, mixing $5 stuff with $5000 piece(s). There are clearly two types of items, very old, and very recent and they have really different types of buyers. John A. From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Jan 22 10:57:15 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: The DFWCUG DEc collection up for sale In-Reply-To: <003201c5009b$6e5dd060$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20040924233455.54E333C2B@spies.com> <41F08507.9020306@theriver.com> <003201c5009b$6e5dd060$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <41F285EB.nailBCF1TDJQD@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > > http://www.montagar.com/~patj/hcsale/index.html : > > "The entire collection is offered as a single lot." > Doesn't seem a particularly bright decision, mixin > $5 stuff with $5000 piece(s). Getting best price isn't always the goal. Preserving the collection intact can be a perfectly valid goal to the current caretaker, even if you (or I) don't see the thread tying it all together. Actually I do see the thread tying it all together, John Wisniewski gathered it all. And the $5 vs $5000 thing is a red herring, while on E-bay there is a high correlation between "collectability" and price at any given moment, the items that end up being historically interesting may well be the $5 ones! Tim. From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jan 22 11:04:35 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:11 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41F1DAD5.5070605@oldskool.org> References: <200501210327.TAA11930@floodgap.com> <41F0B07A.3090907@oldskool.org> <20432.195.212.29.75.1106292972.squirrel@195.212.29.75> <41F1DAD5.5070605@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <41F287A3.3060904@gjcp.net> Jim Leonard wrote: > gordonjcp@gjcp.net wrote: >> Which is pretty much what I use mplayer and avidemux for on Linux. > > > No offense, but I'm not ripping DVDs to DivX or something similarly > mickey-mouse; I'm working with uncompressed YUV 4:2:2 SD video. Neither am I. I am taking 2k images from a render farm and building them into .mov sequences. Why on *earth* are you using uncompressed video? Shouldn't you run it through a lossless codec like huffyuv at least? Gordon. From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jan 22 13:10:47 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <001e01c5008a$c07d2140$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <001e01c5008a$c07d2140$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <33006.64.169.63.74.1106421047.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Bob wrote: > the Imlac has some slightly unusual 11-bit literal instructions (load > with n, and load with complement of n). I don't think those are found > on the -8. No, but they are found on a PDP-1. Maybe the IMLAC designers were picking features they liked from multiple DEC machines. From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 22 14:01:23 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41F287A3.3060904@gjcp.net> References: <200501210327.TAA11930@floodgap.com> <41F0B07A.3090907@oldskool.org> <20432.195.212.29.75.1106292972.squirrel@195.212.29.75> <41F1DAD5.5070605@oldskool.org> <41F287A3.3060904@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <41F2B113.7000708@oldskool.org> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Why on *earth* are you using uncompressed video? Shouldn't you run it > through a lossless codec like huffyuv at least? Speed! That, and the assurance that any RGB 0-255 I feed it is properly stored as YUV 16-235 as properly handled by the codec. I went through colorspace conversion hell on my last project and it almost drove me insane, so I'm keeping it consistent this time. For archival, I just RAR the files since they get smaller than huffyuv. In fact, huffyuv is really only useful as a capture codec only; it's not very efficient. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 22 14:10:25 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks (with some OT Tek rambliings) In-Reply-To: <20050121195826.B014E2C002@pail.bensene.com> References: <20050121195826.B014E2C002@pail.bensene.com> Message-ID: <1106424625.16932.12.camel@weka.localdomain> On Fri, 2005-01-21 at 12:00 -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: > Once I get through this house building stuff, I've got to dig out the old > Tek 6130, 4132 and 4319 and fire them up had a look around to see what Tek stuff I could find at the museum earlier... Terminals etc.: 4010-1 4015-1 4111 4052 (faceplate at least smashed, if not whole tube) 4097 (GPIB disk drive) 4631 (hardcopy unit) Instrumentation / test gear: 545A 545B 555 575 585 ... there's probably some more Tek scopes and stuff lying around, I doubt I've found them all yet. There's also an identical keyboard to my XD88, but so far it seems to be an orphan - despite much searching I haven't found an XD88 to go with it!) I expect there are probably various modules for the 'scopes around too; we've got a lot of smaller boxed stuff that I've never even had the chance to look inside! cheers Jules From allain at panix.com Sat Jan 22 14:22:37 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: The DFWCUG DEc collection up for sale References: <20040924233455.54E333C2B@spies.com><41F08507.9020306@theriver.com><003201c5009b$6e5dd060$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> <41F285EB.nailBCF1TDJQD@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <003a01c500c0$1e176e20$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> > the $5 vs $5000 thing is a red herring Similar thoughts crossed my mind when I wrote this. The collectors $5000 is the resellers $5 And Vice Versa. Either way, they should divide the lot IMHO. > John Wisniewski gathered it all. I think we need to hear more about him. > Preserving the collection intact can be a perfectly > valid goal... Then I wish they wouldn't pile the keyboards three feet high. :} John A. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jan 21 23:48:01 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs In-Reply-To: <004501c50036$bc368210$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050122004801.009234d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Jay, Your timing is perfect! I just picked up the two plugs from a HP cable that was made to fit those connectors. It seems the scrap idiots cut the plugs off to get the "valuable" copper cable and then threw the plugs away. I found them in a load of scrap and recognized them immediately and I knew they'd be useful sooner or later. Send me your address and I'll drop them in the mnail to you. Joe At 09:59 PM 1/21/05 -0600, you wrote: >I need some, time to make them. > >Want to be historically accurate, so... would anyone know exactly what AMP >connector was used, or where there are pictures of lots of AMP connectors so >I can identify the right one and order it? > >I'm hoping the connector is still made...no part number on it other than AMP > >Jay West > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 22 16:36:01 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <41F1DAD5.5070605@oldskool.org> from "Jim Leonard" at Jan 21, 5 10:47:17 pm Message-ID: > This is turning into a wholly non-old-computer-related flamewar so I'd like to > request that any further rebuttals be handled off-list. Agreed. Can we please talk about video processiong on classic hardware, like the PPL hard disks (FM analogue recording, one field per track, 3 separate tracks for R,G,B) or the I2S Image processors (the oldest one I have contains over 3000 4Kbit DRAMs, and about the same number of logic chips on top...). These weren't of course, used for real-time video processiong, but I am pretty sure they were used for frame-by-frame animations, etc. And they're gettign on for 25 years old now, so they're on-topic... -tony > -- > Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ > Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ > Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ > From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 22 17:09:53 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs References: <004501c50036$bc368210$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <002801c5008b$49945840$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <005e01c500d7$7b7ac820$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Bob wrote.... > These can be made from CPU to power-controller cables. The same connector > is used for both applications. Yes, I know. And I do have a few of the power controller cables. However, I refuse to cut them up to make battery plugs, as the few cables of them I have are mint and I may want to use them some day. Surely those connectors are still made and can be bought today? Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 22 17:12:20 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! References: Message-ID: <006a01c500d7$d3581160$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> >And they're gettign on for 25 years old now, so they're > on-topic... This is not the vintage audio/video list, it's the vintage computer list. So just because something is vintage, doesn't make it on-topic :) Jay West From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 22 01:00:01 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: <008501c4fe3a$234d8e20$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <20050119091846.38324.qmail@web40907.mail.yahoo.com> <008501c4fe3a$234d8e20$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <20050121225831.W1100@localhost> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > Did you say you were getting rid of a couple of the racks? I don't need any > DG racks, but I could definitely use a few of the DG filler panels from them. > I might be able to use a couple side panels from the racks if they are going > out to pasture. I will reevaluate this thing in the next few weeks. I'm goig to try to get it to two racks (one is unrealistic, possibly doable if I use only one tape drive). If I free up panels I'll let you know. From stuart at zen.co.uk Sat Jan 22 17:27:33 2005 From: stuart at zen.co.uk (Stuart Birchall) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: wtd: apple profile drive References: <001e01c5008a$c07d2140$0100a8c0@screamer> <33006.64.169.63.74.1106421047.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <014601c500d9$f37d1010$c800000a@office.zen.co.uk> Hi, Does anyone in the UK have an apple profile external drive unit, working, 5MB or 10MB - needed to complete a Lisa restoration project. Cheers, Stu From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 22 17:28:22 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs References: <3.0.6.32.20050122004801.009234d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <007101c500da$11942840$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> You wrote.... > Your timing is perfect! I just picked up the two plugs from a HP cable > that was made to fit those connectors. It seems the scrap idiots cut the > plugs off to get the "valuable" copper cable and then threw the plugs > away. > I found them in a load of scrap and recognized them immediately and I knew > they'd be useful sooner or later. Send me your address and I'll drop them > in the mnail to you. You sure they are the right gender? There are some power control cables with female connectors, and some with male connectors (I believe for the I/O extenders). Which are yours? I'm looking for the ones that are male, hopefully with the pins intact. Let me know! Thanks! From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 22 17:32:07 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: <200501191735.JAA09246@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501191735.JAA09246@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <20050122153131.X1166@localhost> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: > You'll bring it to the next vcf here in California > I hope. I wish I had space for such a machine. It > is in beautiful shape. Yow, it's big! We'll see if I get it running. From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 22 17:34:57 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: <074801c4fe60$ffe798a0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <20050118234555.C635@localhost> <074801c4fe60$ffe798a0$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <20050122153328.R1166@localhost> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, John Allain wrote: >> http://wps.com/NOVA4/ > http://wps.com/NOVA4/images/boxedpack2.jpg > > Looks exactly like the RL02 cartridge, > wonder who made it? I'll tell ya when I get back and a chance to look at. I've been on the road, and forgot to get sendmail configured for roaming before I left, so didn't get my email yesterday. Hacked sendmail in the airport (argh, geek or what) and there's free net here (ABQ) so mail is flowing. From dmhills at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 18:14:41 2005 From: dmhills at gmail.com (Don Hills) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: IBM 5140 convertible "startup disk" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2cbc8a1a05012216141809f620@mail.gmail.com> Luciano mailed me directly, and I pointed him at: ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/refdisks/5140star.exe IBM have removed visibility, but the file is still there. On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 08:38:06 -0800 (PST), Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > Can anyone help Luciano? > > See below. > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:25:29 -0200 > From: Luciano Camara > To: info@vintagetech.com > Subject: ibm 5140 convertible > > Hello. > I have an ibm 5140 convertible, but i coudn?t find the starter disk... > the ibm link is not working. > Could you help me to find this software? > Your web page is very nice! > > Thank you in advance > > Luciano-Brazil > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > > From dholland at woh.rr.com Sat Jan 22 18:59:16 2005 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <006a01c500d7$d3581160$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <006a01c500d7$d3581160$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1106441956.12767.9.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> How about audio/video options for SGI Crimsons? I believe its technically on topic.. >snicker< :-> Speaking of which, if anyone has any spare boards they're just dying to get rid of, I'll take them off your hands. I'd really like to find a Reality Engine, or a nice set of complete Red/Grey skins. Mine's a PowerSeries upgrade, so its got old Brown/Blue ones. ciao.. David On Sat, 2005-01-22 at 17:12 -0600, Jay West wrote: > >And they're gettign on for 25 years old now, so they're > > on-topic... > > This is not the vintage audio/video list, it's the vintage computer list. So > just because something is vintage, doesn't make it on-topic :) > > Jay West > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 22 19:26:11 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: <006a01c500d7$d3581160$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Jan 22, 5 05:12:20 pm Message-ID: > [PPL disks and I2S Image processors] > >And they're gettign on for 25 years old now, so they're > > on-topic... > > This is not the vintage audio/video list, it's the vintage computer list. So > just because something is vintage, doesn't make it on-topic :) Considering they have a minicomputer to control them (often a PDP11, but I think VAXen, HPs, etc were also possible, certainly the I2S Model 70 schemaitcs book has several host interfaces in it), I think they _are_ on-topic here. Or does 'classic computer' mean CPU only? -tony From Saquinn624 at aol.com Sat Jan 22 21:04:09 2005 From: Saquinn624 at aol.com (Saquinn624@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: VAX questions (3100/76) Message-ID: <1d5.3470975e.2f246e29@aol.com> Thanks for everyone's help in the past- adamg helped me get my Apollo running and Dwight Elvey gave me more info on the Polymorphic Card (don't have a kbd yet- nor any firmware so that project is on hold for a while). The S-100 manpage is great-the only manuals I couldn't find were the IDS modem and the Digital Systems 8" floppy. Now I'm trying to get my first VAX up, and it's having SCSI issues. (VS3100/76, 32MB, no GFX option, no kbd/mouse, no drives,10bT tranceiver With the cable plugged in (no devices), bus A fails with FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FFFFFF03 FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF. If you take off the cable from the KA43, it passes the test. Presence or absence of the terminator on the bus makes no difference. If it were not for the fact that it works without the cable, I would assume that the system board was dead, and probably toss it (it doesn't look easy to replace the 5380s) but I don't want a VAX to die unnecessarily, and I'm not sure where to go from here as far as troubleshooting. When I got it, the SCSI cable was unplugged so it might have been yanked on before someone realized there were clips, but it doesn't appear obviously damaged. Does anybody know how Digital marketing explained the 68-pin SCSI and MMJ as improvements, or did they even try? -Scott Quinn From vax9000 at gmail.com Sat Jan 22 21:12:57 2005 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: VAX questions (3100/76) In-Reply-To: <1d5.3470975e.2f246e29@aol.com> References: <1d5.3470975e.2f246e29@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 22:04:09 EST, Saquinn624@aol.com wrote: > Thanks for everyone's help in the past- adamg helped me get my Apollo running > and Dwight Elvey gave me more info on the Polymorphic Card (don't have a kbd > yet- nor any firmware so that project is on hold for a while). The S-100 > manpage is great-the only manuals I couldn't find were the IDS modem and the > Digital Systems 8" floppy. > > Now I'm trying to get my first VAX up, and it's having SCSI issues. > (VS3100/76, 32MB, no GFX option, no kbd/mouse, no drives,10bT tranceiver > > With the cable plugged in (no devices), bus A fails with FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF > FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF FFFFFF03 FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF. > If you take off the cable from the KA43, it passes the test. Presence or > absence of the terminator on the bus makes no difference. What cable are you using? I once owned a VAXSTATION 3100/76 and later I sold it to the US army through ebay. The SCSI cable on the back has a different pin out. If you use a standard 68 pin SCSI cable, you surely will get errors. vax, 9000 > If it were not for the fact that it works without the cable, I would assume > that the system board was dead, and probably toss it (it doesn't look easy to > replace the 5380s) but I don't want a VAX to die unnecessarily, and I'm not > sure where to go from here as far as troubleshooting. > When I got it, the SCSI cable was unplugged so it might have been yanked on > before someone realized there were clips, but it doesn't appear obviously > damaged. > > Does anybody know how Digital marketing explained the 68-pin SCSI and MMJ as > improvements, or did they even try? > > -Scott Quinn > From gordon at gjcp.net Sun Jan 23 03:41:27 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Troubleshooting an IBM 5155 - (portable personal computer) In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C82@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C82@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <41F37147.5000003@gjcp.net> Kelly Leavitt wrote: > The big question is what am I going to do with a full pint of alcohol? I > have some 8" drives to finish refurbing, but then I'll still have 99.5% of a > pint left. Keep the lid on tightly. It leaks, and it evaporates. It's always handy for cleaning tape heads, getting goo off cases, and stuff like that. Give your video recorder and camcorder heads a thorough going-over with IPA - you'll (probably) be amazed at the difference when you do it properly! Gordon. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 23 07:03:07 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: X11R3 and XListPixmapFormats equivalent? Message-ID: <1106485387.17804.13.camel@weka.localdomain> Any X11 R3 fanatics on the list? :-) I'm trying to get xearth to compile on this 'ere Tek XD88, which only has X11 release 3 - xearth uses a few odds and ends which only showed up in R4. Question - is there an equivalent of XListPixmapFormats in release 3 or is it something I'm going to have to bodge myself? The other two functions for which I haven't found an R3 equivalent are XSetWMNormalHints and XAllocSizeHints - either there isn't one or they're lurking under different names... I *think* there might be a R4 upgrade for the XD88 floating around on the 'net, at least I've seen reference to one. How involved (or complete) it is I don't know though. cheers Jules From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sun Jan 23 07:43:30 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: X11R3 and XListPixmapFormats equivalent? In-Reply-To: <1106485387.17804.13.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106485387.17804.13.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <41F3AA02.nail22O1R8M0L@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > I'm trying to get xearth to compile on this 'ere Tek XD88, which only > has X11 release 3 - xearth uses a few odds and ends which only showed up > in R4. I believe that they are fundamental to xearth. Before X11R4 it was impossible to do xearth (that is, a circular window on the underlying background). Did you ever settle the partitioning scheme used on your XD88? While others were offering suggestions for reading various styles of partition maps, I was of the opinion that the partition map was part of the kernel... Tim. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 23 08:40:47 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: X11R3 and XListPixmapFormats equivalent? In-Reply-To: <41F3AA02.nail22O1R8M0L@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <1106485387.17804.13.camel@weka.localdomain> <41F3AA02.nail22O1R8M0L@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <1106491247.17804.30.camel@weka.localdomain> On Sun, 2005-01-23 at 08:43 -0500, shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com wrote: > > I'm trying to get xearth to compile on this 'ere Tek XD88, which only > > has X11 release 3 - xearth uses a few odds and ends which only showed up > > in R4. > > I believe that they are fundamental to xearth. Before X11R4 it was > impossible to do xearth (that is, a circular window on the underlying > background). Believe it or not, I just got it running, at least in the root window :-) Hacked it to only ever work at 8bpp, and I had to ditch the XAllocSizeHints / XSetWMNormalHints code - plus a few minor other changes (strftime is ascftime on this machine etc.) Next stop, XPlanet... (yeah, right ;) XFractint might be a possibility though... > Did you ever settle the partitioning scheme used on your XD88? While > others were offering suggestions for reading various styles of > partition maps, I was of the opinion that the partition map was part > of the kernel... Nope, I haven't found anything yet, other than getting df's idea of ffs partition sizes (and working out the number of blocks allocated for swap). I haven't had a chance to see if those numbers match up with anything in the first sector of the raw disk image yet. The boot process is a little strange; in manual mode the system always asks for a boot device (disk / tape / network) - selecting disk produces some disk activity and then the system drops to dinex, which seems to be some sort of monitor / system loader. 'boot' from here actually boots the kernel (with option to boot other than the default one). Dinex is present on the filesystem under /boot when running though, so it appears that it's loaded from the disk itself rather than being something in ROM. The option to boot various kernels implies that dinex knows all about ffs filesystems and what partitions are present though, prior to the desired kernel even being loaded. cheers Jules From mokuba at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 12:29:43 2005 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary G. Sparkes Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop In-Reply-To: <001a01c4fae2$d332ef20$4d4d2c0a@atx> Message-ID: <41f3ed21.44153c5c.1d98.000f@smtp.gmail.com> If anyone's interested, I've got a copy of Framework II sitting here in it's box with binder full of manual and disks. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Andy Holt Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 4:16 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: Data recovery on Toshiba T3100 laptop > Has anyone heard of an Ashton-Tate program called FrameWorks? If and > when I get the data off, I will need to convert this to a newer format - > what is it? Text processing? Database? This will be Framework - probably Framework II or III (there was a Framework IV, but that style of program was essentially obsoleted by the improving Windows applications). FW was A-Ts "all-in-one" database/WP/spreadsheet and a very nice program to use. It's a pity that none of the Windows office applications had such an visible "frames that contain either data or other frames" metaphor. There are downloadable import filters for FW files for MS office that should still be hiding somewhere on Microsoft's site. If truly desperate you can take advantage of the fact that the .FW2/.FW3 files are mostly text and use a good text editor to recover things. Andy -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.296 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/05 From Saquinn624 at aol.com Sun Jan 23 12:41:40 2005 From: Saquinn624 at aol.com (Saquinn624@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: VAXStation 3100/76 SCSI Message-ID: I'm just trying to get the internal bus working at this point, using the (DEC supplied?) cable that came with the machine (I don't have another cable with the Honda connector to fit the KA43. I figure I'll try to install (NetBSD) with the cover off & drives hanging all over the place, and then stub on a standard connector to the outside if I need it. Unfortunately, VAXen don't seem to have been very popular in Washington State, and my work (school library) doesn't plug me in to classic/alternative computing people, so I'm not sure where to go from here (toss it or try -?- ) -Scott Quinn From d-gordon at sbcglobal.net Sun Jan 23 13:12:05 2005 From: d-gordon at sbcglobal.net (d-gordon@sbcglobal.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Apple monitor fit to PC? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002b01c5017f$6d720330$0402a8c0@D1> I have an Apple question. Can the newer Apple 17" monitors, with the three legs and gray and white.clear case work on a PC as well. My problem is that I bought one and need to test it, and I don't own and Apple tower. I know some of the old PC monitors needed an adapter to work on a PC, so maybe Apple monitors need an adapter too conversely work on a PC. The monitor I have, has 15 pins and looks like the same shape as on the PC monitors. I am afraid to plu it in and blow up something without consulting someone who knows. I appologize if this is a bit off topic, but maybe its ok since its an older mac. I don't know what your cutoff year is. Thanks, -Dave From jpl15 at panix.com Sun Jan 23 13:23:56 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Old Pertec drive on eBay Message-ID: Here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=5158846219&rd=1 I've purchased several items from Skeeter - a very nice and very conciencious dealer. Located in New Mexico.... Cheers John From Saquinn624 at aol.com Sun Jan 23 14:02:39 2005 From: Saquinn624 at aol.com (Saquinn624@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: RE VAXstation 3100/76 SCSI Message-ID: <155.48a7e25f.2f255cdf@aol.com> It looks like the KA43 is bad-the internal SCSI cable worked when I connected it to another SCSI card (via one of the drive connectors), it recognized and mounted a disk under Linux. If anyone has another KA-43 or similar, I might be in the market. -Scott Quinn From williams.dan at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 14:28:40 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: RE VAXstation 3100/76 SCSI In-Reply-To: <155.48a7e25f.2f255cdf@aol.com> References: <155.48a7e25f.2f255cdf@aol.com> Message-ID: <26c11a6405012312289dc6d8f@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 15:02:39 EST, Saquinn624@aol.com wrote: > It looks like the KA43 is bad-the internal SCSI cable worked when I connected > it to another SCSI card (via one of the drive connectors), it recognized and > mounted a disk under Linux. If anyone has another KA-43 or similar, I might be > in the market. > > -Scott Quinn > I would of thought it would be cheaper and easier to get another 3100 then try and get parts for it. I'm not sure about over there but in the UK they go for ?10-?20 on ebay. Dan From cblackburn36 at softhome.net Sun Jan 23 15:09:45 2005 From: cblackburn36 at softhome.net (Chris Blackburn) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Apple monitor fit to PC? In-Reply-To: <002b01c5017f$6d720330$0402a8c0@D1> References: <002b01c5017f$6d720330$0402a8c0@D1> Message-ID: <41F41299.7080004@softhome.net> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 d-gordon@sbcglobal.net wrote: | I have an Apple question. Can the newer Apple 17" monitors, with the | three legs and gray and white.clear case work on a PC as well. My problem Hi, Those monitors use the ADC connector. This is a connector that carries the DVI dignal and power and USB all in one cable. In theory you could wire up a cable that would break out the power DVI and USB into separate ~ streams and then it would work on any DVI graphics card but I do not know of anywhere you can get one of these off the shelf Hope this helps - -- Chris Blackburn E-Mail: cblackburn36NOSPAM@softhome.net E-Mail: cblackburn36@NOSPAMgmail.com PGP Public Key: http://makeashorterlink.com/?C2AF31929 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFB9BKZxsNEmi5WofsRAsjGAJwLJojS7EtXabfrpu3Tmfwd4Jy/PQCfVCTl Awu9u1poUtiVR4iJDh0Km4U= =4WN1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From charlesb at otcgaming.net Sun Jan 23 15:38:51 2005 From: charlesb at otcgaming.net (Charles Blackburn) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Apple monitor fit to PC? In-Reply-To: <002b01c5017f$6d720330$0402a8c0@D1> Message-ID: <024b01c50193$eeb58160$36631552@gamemachine> I dnot know about those monitors, but I have an old 17 inch monitor from apple that I use on another machine here (came with a 7200) I just use a standard vga male-male cable and it seems to work fine. I've even driven it to 1280x1024@60hz and it's as stable as the 17 inch I use on my other machine. -----Original Message----- From: d-gordon@sbcglobal.net [mailto:d-gordon@sbcglobal.net] Sent: 23 January 2005 19:12 To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: Apple monitor fit to PC? I have an Apple question. Can the newer Apple 17" monitors, with the three legs and gray and white.clear case work on a PC as well. My problem is that I bought one and need to test it, and I don't own and Apple tower. I know some of the old PC monitors needed an adapter to work on a PC, so maybe Apple monitors need an adapter too conversely work on a PC. The monitor I have, has 15 pins and looks like the same shape as on the PC monitors. I am afraid to plu it in and blow up something without consulting someone who knows. I appologize if this is a bit off topic, but maybe its ok since its an older mac. I don't know what your cutoff year is. Thanks, -Dave --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.839 / Virus Database: 571 - Release Date: 19/01/2005 From Saquinn624 at aol.com Sun Jan 23 16:24:55 2005 From: Saquinn624 at aol.com (Saquinn624@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: manuals? Message-ID: <198.36f4cacc.2f257e37@aol.com> Doing some clean-up, I have SCO XENIX System V and Netware v2.2 (286) manual sets & S/W I am probably going to put them up for trade (or free) but before I do that does anyone want some of them scanned? I also have an ALTOS III terminal user's guide -Scott Quinn From jrkeys at concentric.net Sun Jan 23 16:31:33 2005 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Outbid by bknittel Message-ID: <007a01c5019b$4c640870$1c406b43@66067007> Is bknittel on this list? From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Jan 23 18:30:26 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? In-Reply-To: <007501c4ffdc$f72ce8a0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <200501210147.59109.pat@computer-refuge.org> <007501c4ffdc$f72ce8a0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200501231930.27190.pat@computer-refuge.org> Jay West declared on Friday 21 January 2005 12:16 pm: > Patrick wrote... > > > So, now that I've got a pair of HP 21MX machines sitting here > > (thanks Jay!), I could use something to toggle into them to test out > > the memory, or do "nifty things" with the frontpanel lights. > > Memory has already been thoroughly tested in those machines with HP > diags :) > > There's a few toggle-in programs in the CE handbook. I believe it's in > the "common data" section just before the diagnostics. Let me know if > you can't find them (on bitsavers). The next question: is there some sort of 'user guide' that shows how to operate the frontpanel to deposit/examine values in memory, etc? I've figured out how to get the program counter, and step through instructions (and the run/halt switch), but don't really know what the other registers/stuff is. Thanks. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jan 23 22:00:50 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Looking for KA825 (VAX-8250/8350) CPU Card T1001-YA In-Reply-To: <000001c4ffe1$258a1f70$f402010a@gizmo> References: <000001c4ffe1$258a1f70$f402010a@gizmo> Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:46:28 -0800, Robert Armstrong wrote: > The good news is that I recently acquired a VAX 8350 in good condition > along with a back plane full of cards. The bad news is that, despite all > the cards in there, the previous owner had removed the CPU cards (both of > 'em, this being a dual processor machine!). Ow! Sorry I can't help you... I have an 8200/8300 (slower CPU cards). It was purchased as an 8200 for $13000 (used) by a former employer. I got to take it home eventually, picked up a cheap (for the early 1990s) KA-820 ($50? $100?), squared up the microcode, and made it into an 8300. I have an RA81 and a 3rd-party ESDI/SDI box on it. I'm trying to get an ethernet card of some variety (DEBNA? DEBNT? Can't remember which one I have) working in it. Got a KDB50 in it, a COMBOARD-BI (68010-based dual-serial protocol engine for which I wrote the firmware and VMS driver myself), and a *wad* of smallish memory cards. While I wouldn't mine a pair of KA-825s, either, I'm also on the lookout for any largish memory cards... I have a number of 2MB modules, and my bus is full. I'm also trying to debug a couple of DWBUAs. I have docs, cables, etc. I _might_ be having problems with the UET board (Unibus Exerciser/Terminator)... but in any case, the DWBUA module doesn't pass self-test. All I can offer, Bob, is to answer questions about it, should you have any... I don't have spares, except for a stack of COMBOARDs... unless you for some reason wanted to talk HASP or 3780 from your VAX (and under nothing newer than VMS 5.5 unless I were to update the driver), it wouldn't do much good. _I_ have such a need (simple networking with other boxes at my place), but most people do not. -ethan From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 23 22:11:25 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? References: <200501210147.59109.pat@computer-refuge.org><007501c4ffdc$f72ce8a0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200501231930.27190.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <003f01c501ca$c620d830$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> > The next question: is there some sort of 'user guide' that shows how to > operate the frontpanel to deposit/examine values in memory, etc? I've > figured out how to get the program counter, and step through > instructions (and the run/halt switch), but don't really know what the > other registers/stuff is. I can't believe the 21MX M or E user guide isn't online, but I don't see it anywhere. You'll definitely need that book! A = General purpose register A (also hardwired to location 0) B = General purpose register B (also hardwired to location 1) P = Program Counter M = Memory register (points to whatever memory location is currently being accessed) T = Target register (contains the contents of whatever location is pointed to by M) S = S register (display register) the front panel lights :) Accessible as a device as well So to put a halt into location 100... select M register, enter 100, hit store, select T register, enter 102077, hit store. One handy tidbit... if you have the T register selected and hit store, the M register is automatically incremented by one for you. To execute the halt instruction, select P register, enter 100, hit store, preset, and run. You should get a 102077 halt. Now on the 2100 front panel, you don't have to hit store at all. There's no store button :) Jay From pthfndr at wanadoo.fr Sat Jan 22 16:24:30 2005 From: pthfndr at wanadoo.fr (pthfndr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question Message-ID: <41F2D29E.4C0CB7DF@wanadoo.fr> Hello, I see an e-mail where you said you have a manual for the 980. Did you have a scanned manual ? Can you, if not, send me the sp?cifications of this device (first page probably of the manual) ? Cordialy. From kernsy at netzero.net Sat Jan 22 16:36:51 2005 From: kernsy at netzero.net (kernsy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Cyber 808 Message-ID: <20050122.143729.18937.54817@webmail23.nyc.untd.com> Does anyone have any info on the Cyber 808 Disk drive Any specs or general info ? I think it was really made by Bryant It was about 3 feet wide , 7 feet high, and 8 feet long. It was hydraulic driven, and you used alcohol on a wand to clean the platters . It was a Control Data Cyber 808 disk drive. I worked on them in 1975 when they were still used at large computer centers. In fact I made a table/lamp out of one of platters which I am trying to sell. One of a kind art. Thanks kernsy@netzero.net From atrivo at nm.ru Sat Jan 22 21:31:05 2005 From: atrivo at nm.ru (P Thompson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: VAX questions (3100/76) Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 Saquinn624@aol.com wrote: > Does anybody know how Digital marketing explained the 68-pin SCSI and MMJ as > improvements, or did they even try? > Some proprietary changes seemed to have a purpose: early SCSI vs DSSI, others just seem in hindsight arbitrary and annoying: MMJ and goofy SCSI connectors. As others have mentioned, the 68 pin connector was pinned out funny. However, the machine has two scsi busses, how about a 50 pin internal cable attached to SCSI A and to your drive...does this cause errors, too? Paul From jasper235 at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 24 02:31:22 2005 From: jasper235 at ntlworld.com (Jim Perry) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: HP97 +HP48GX Message-ID: <20050124083122.SMXZ1438.aamta06-winn.mailhost.ntl.com@mesh> -----Original Message----- From: Jim Perry [mailto:jasper235@ntlworld.com] Sent: 23 January 2005 10:36 To: cctech@classiccmp.org Subject: HP97 Hi Tony, I got your name from my son Julian Perry who (like me)is a bit of an HP freak. I looked on the web to try and find an email address for you. This message is a try out to see if the partial address I got will reach you. If it does would you please confirm. I would like to talk to you about my beloved HP97. Jim Perry From dtwright at uiuc.edu Mon Jan 24 08:29:48 2005 From: dtwright at uiuc.edu (Dan Wright) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Apple monitor fit to PC? In-Reply-To: <002b01c5017f$6d720330$0402a8c0@D1> References: <002b01c5017f$6d720330$0402a8c0@D1> Message-ID: <200501240829.48838.dtwright@uiuc.edu> Apple made some 17-19" CRT monitors that are just standard SVGA-type things. If it's new-ish and has the same HD15 connector as a PC monitor, you should be able to just plug it in and go. On Sunday 23 January 2005 1:12 pm, d-gordon@sbcglobal.net wrote: > I have an Apple question. Can the newer Apple 17" monitors, with the > three legs and gray and white.clear case work on a PC as well. My problem > is that I bought one and need to test it, and I don't own and Apple tower. > I know some of the old PC monitors needed an adapter to work on a PC, so > maybe Apple monitors need an adapter too conversely work on a PC. The > monitor I have, has 15 pins and looks like the same shape as on the PC > monitors. I am afraid to plu it in and blow up something without consulting > someone who knows. I appologize if this is a bit off topic, but maybe its > ok since its an older mac. I don't know what your cutoff year is. > > Thanks, > > -Dave -- Dan Wright (dtwright@uiuc.edu) (http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright) "we are content if we can describe a multitude of other things in terms of... fundamental incomprehensibilities. science is an activity that takes place on the shore of an infinite sea of mystery." chet raymo, "doctor seuss and doctor einstein" From d-gordon at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 24 08:40:13 2005 From: d-gordon at sbcglobal.net (d-gordon@sbcglobal.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Apple monitor fit to PC? In-Reply-To: <200501240829.48838.dtwright@uiuc.edu> Message-ID: <00bf01c50222$9d288830$0402a8c0@D1> > Apple made some 17-19" CRT monitors that are just standard > SVGA-type things. > If it's new-ish and has the same HD15 connector as a PC > monitor, you should > be able to just plug it in and go. Thanks, and here is the result. I did plug it in and it doesn't work. Drats. Its makes a clicking noise, like when you are degausing a monitor. Not a comforting sound. I guess I am going to have to find an Apple to test it to be sure if the monitor is bad or good. At least my computer is still ok. The screen I get is black, w/ no message at all. There is no "No Siognal" message" that some monitors give, but the light is green on the monitors button, like it is trying to work. Do you have any ideas? Thanks -Dave From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jan 24 11:11:44 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs In-Reply-To: <007101c500da$11942840$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <3.0.6.32.20050122004801.009234d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050124121144.00973100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Jay, I'm pretty sure they're the right sex but they're in the warehouse. I'll be down there tomorrow and I'll double check them. Joe At 05:28 PM 1/22/05 -0600, you wrote: >You wrote.... >> Your timing is perfect! I just picked up the two plugs from a HP cable >> that was made to fit those connectors. It seems the scrap idiots cut the >> plugs off to get the "valuable" copper cable and then threw the plugs >> away. >> I found them in a load of scrap and recognized them immediately and I knew >> they'd be useful sooner or later. Send me your address and I'll drop them >> in the mnail to you. > >You sure they are the right gender? There are some power control cables with >female connectors, and some with male connectors (I believe for the I/O >extenders). Which are yours? I'm looking for the ones that are male, >hopefully with the pins intact. Let me know! > >Thanks! > > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jan 24 11:12:41 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question In-Reply-To: <41F2D29E.4C0CB7DF@wanadoo.fr> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050124121241.00976350@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I'm pretty sure that Al has this manual posted on his site. Joe At 11:24 PM 1/22/05 +0100, you wrote: >Hello, > >I see an e-mail where you said you have a manual for the 980. >Did you have a scanned manual ? >Can you, if not, send me the sp?cifications of this device (first page >probably of the manual) ? > >Cordialy. > > From jgessling at etrade.com Mon Jan 24 12:11:35 2005 From: jgessling at etrade.com (Gessling, James) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: DEC collection becoming available Message-ID: <168C8458C7CE684DBADA3FF379CF151C015CDB23@atl1ex5.corp.etradegrp.com> As a longtime lurker and past member, I just couldn't not get this info out. The Dallas - Fort Worth (mostly DEC) Historical preservation society is offering up it's collection. Not sure of the terms, but they have a lot of good stuff. See: http://www.montagar.com/~patj/hcsale/index.html Regards, Jim From aek at spies.com Mon Jan 24 12:33:48 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: DEC collection becoming available Message-ID: <7C98261D-6E36-11D9-9586-000A95C91EF0@spies.com> I saw the collection a few months ago. It is mainly VAXen. At the time, there were a few pdp11's and an 8/e but most of that corner was too tightly packed to look at easlily. I don't know how much he was able to sell since then. One thing he didn't mention was he had a pretty serious water break which left several inches of water on the side of the building with the shelving. All of the boxes with paper on that side of the building are water damaged. From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 24 12:39:51 2005 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: VAX questions (3100/76) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001201c50244$17f856f0$5b01a8c0@flexpc> > As others have mentioned, the 68 pin connector was pinned out funny. > > However, the machine has two scsi busses, how about a 50 pin internal > cable attached to SCSI A and to your drive...does this cause > errors, too? As I have a VS3100-76 running on the desk here, I thought I'd chip in. The external connector is an ordinary external connector, although it may be of the opposite gender to that which you were expecting. The internal cable carries *two* SCSI buses and so is not just an ordinary SCSI cable. The internal terminator only terminates the internal SCSI (SCSI-A, IIRC). You need a separate external terminator for the external bus. Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini@iee.org From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 24 13:02:30 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs Message-ID: <200501241902.LAA12053@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Jay West" > >I need some, time to make them. > >Want to be historically accurate, so... would anyone know exactly what AMP >connector was used, or where there are pictures of lots of AMP connectors so >I can identify the right one and order it? > >I'm hoping the connector is still made...no part number on it other than AMP > >Jay West > Hi Jay I found a connector with the correct sex and pin spacing at HSC ( in Sunnyvale ). It doesn't have the correct external latching so it needs slight modification with an exacto. It seems to be staying on with just the friction of the pin connections but one could always add some tape or something to make sure it stayed on. Dwight From charlesb at otcgaming.net Mon Jan 24 14:09:43 2005 From: charlesb at otcgaming.net (Charles Blackburn) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:12 2005 Subject: Apple monitor fit to PC? In-Reply-To: <00bf01c50222$9d288830$0402a8c0@D1> Message-ID: <002101c50250$be4b6ae0$0500a8c0@gamemachine> Well that normally means that the refresh rate is too high for the monitor and the monitor is trying to sync to it, the clicking is the sync relays flicking throu. One thing you can do is to use a normal pc monitor and set it to 640x480 @ 60 hz and see if that works. If it does, slowly lift it up, keeping the refresh rate @ 60 hz until you find ont that don?t work. Regards charles -----Original Message----- From: d-gordon@sbcglobal.net [mailto:d-gordon@sbcglobal.net] Sent: 24 January 2005 14:40 To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Apple monitor fit to PC? > Apple made some 17-19" CRT monitors that are just standard > SVGA-type things. > If it's new-ish and has the same HD15 connector as a PC > monitor, you should > be able to just plug it in and go. Thanks, and here is the result. I did plug it in and it doesn't work. Drats. Its makes a clicking noise, like when you are degausing a monitor. Not a comforting sound. I guess I am going to have to find an Apple to test it to be sure if the monitor is bad or good. At least my computer is still ok. The screen I get is black, w/ no message at all. There is no "No Siognal" message" that some monitors give, but the light is green on the monitors button, like it is trying to work. Do you have any ideas? --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.841 / Virus Database: 572 - Release Date: 21/01/2005 From tomj at wps.com Mon Jan 24 14:44:55 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: My NOVA4 shrunk! Message-ID: <20050124123306.S1240@localhost> I cut it down to one rack. Only one tape drive, but I don't think this thing will be doing any large sorts in it's future. The Dasher LP2 powers up, but gets angry when it fails to detect the carriage has in fact reached the left-most position; FAULT. Probably the optical sensor isn't, anymore. Pressing TEST makes BEEP and carriage motion right, same angry beeping and FAULT. Got all the manuals inventoried, they're listed on the website. http://wps.com/NOVA4/ I'm going to power it up relatively soon. Piecemeal and carefully of course, but without a lot of fanfare. Bruce Ray will have right-of-first-refusal on anything, but I will shortly have a bunch of things available for free or trade: * two racks, one with sides * big analog I/O system with docs and software * DG expansion chassis * 6023 tape drive with complete docs From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 24 16:40:13 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? Message-ID: <200501242240.OAA12137@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Jay West" > ---snip--- > >I can't believe the 21MX M or E user guide isn't online, but I don't see it >anywhere. You'll definitely need that book! > ---snip--- Hi Jay It seems like there is some manual on Al's site that describes the 2100 instructions. As I recall, there was nothing specifically for the 21MX, though. I entered a few instruction on my machine and they seemed to work. I also looked at some of the boot ROM's and the instructions match. I'd load the boot ROMs and then just inspect the code. I can't recall which manual it was without checking at home. Dwight From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 24 17:57:45 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Data I/O 29B help Message-ID: <191f01c50270$82e6be80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I've got a Data I/O 29b with Unipak2 that is on the fritz. I thought it was working, but it's not. It frequently reads chips right, then 60 seconds later reads different values with different checksums. It's sporadic. It never gives any failure messages (other than bad verify ram to device). It just doesn't get the right values sometimes. I'm not up on the internals/repair of this unit, nor do I have time at the moment and I need a working one ASAP. Would anyone on the list know a shop that does repair of these units? Or maybe be able to ship me a 29B and/or Unipak 2 so I can at least determine which major component is ba and get over this hump? Thanks for any thoughts/advice :| Jay West From ICS at Core.com Mon Jan 24 18:42:01 2005 From: ICS at Core.com (George & Oksana Wiegand) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Data I/O 29B help References: <191f01c50270$82e6be80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <002101c50276$af7d2d20$2728c4d8@icsdevelopment> It is probably a Power supply problem, not supplying constant filtered voltage or a heat sensitive part not in the power supply. Do you have the schematics / documents for it? ,George ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 6:57 PM Subject: Data I/O 29B help > I've got a Data I/O 29b with Unipak2 that is on the fritz. I thought it was > working, but it's not. > > It frequently reads chips right, then 60 seconds later reads different > values with different checksums. It's sporadic. It never gives any failure > messages (other than bad verify ram to device). It just doesn't get the > right values sometimes. > > I'm not up on the internals/repair of this unit, nor do I have time at the > moment and I need a working one ASAP. > > Would anyone on the list know a shop that does repair of these units? Or > maybe be able to ship me a 29B and/or Unipak 2 so I can at least determine > which major component is ba and get over this hump? > > Thanks for any thoughts/advice :| > > Jay West > > > > From Saquinn624 at aol.com Mon Jan 24 19:10:53 2005 From: Saquinn624 at aol.com (Saquinn624@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Apple monitor Message-ID: <199.3744cb1d.2f26f69d@aol.com> If your apple monitor is the same as used on the B&W G3 series (CRT monitor), there are several at my school and they are plugged into the Macs using what looks like a VGA-Mac (DB15 multisync) adaptor, but the graphics output is definitely standard Mac DB-15 Fishing through the mental archives I think I recall hearing the "dark clicks" from a monitor before and it had to do with the resolution/sync being something the monitor couldn't lock into. Try standard VGA 640x480, as Mac resolutions classically were slightly different at higher levels (832x634 instead of 800x600 etc.) -Scott Quinn From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Mon Jan 24 20:25:50 2005 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Data I/O 29B help In-Reply-To: <191f01c50270$82e6be80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <191f01c50270$82e6be80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200501241825500308.4C43D205@192.168.42.129> Hi, Jay, *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 24-Jan-05 at 17:57 Jay West wrote: >I've got a Data I/O 29b with Unipak2 that is on the fritz. I thought it >was >working, but it's not. > >It frequently reads chips right, then 60 seconds later reads different >values with different checksums. It's sporadic. It never gives any failure >messages (other than bad verify ram to device). It just doesn't get the >right values sometimes. The most common problems with these units are, like many older computers, dirty or oxidizing contacts. I would recommend disassembly, cleaning, and anti-corrosion treatment (Caig's 'GoldGuard,' 'DeOxIt,' etc.) of the edge card paddles and, if need be, the edge connectors. This should be done for the UniPak as well as the base unit. You should also check the power supply voltages for ripple and stability. Happy digging. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jan 24 22:49:20 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? In-Reply-To: <200501242240.OAA12137@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501242240.OAA12137@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <200501242349.20914.pat@computer-refuge.org> Dwight K. Elvey declared on Monday 24 January 2005 05:40 pm: > >From: "Jay West" > > ---snip--- > > >I can't believe the 21MX M or E user guide isn't online, but I don't > > see it anywhere. You'll definitely need that book! > > ---snip--- > > Hi Jay > It seems like there is some manual on Al's site that describes > the 2100 instructions. As I recall, there was nothing specifically > for the 21MX, though. Yes, I found that, and now have a printed copy. I was more interested in finding instructions on how to *enter* the instructions into the computer via the frontpanel. :) Now that Jay has helped me with that, it's time to try to make a test program and run it. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jan 25 00:57:59 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? In-Reply-To: <200501242349.20914.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200501242240.OAA12137@clulw009.amd.com> <200501242349.20914.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200501250157.59250.pat@computer-refuge.org> Patrick Finnegan declared on Monday 24 January 2005 11:49 pm: > Dwight K. Elvey declared on Monday 24 January 2005 05:40 pm: > > >From: "Jay West" > > > > ---snip--- > > > > >I can't believe the 21MX M or E user guide isn't online, but I > > > don't see it anywhere. You'll definitely need that book! > > > > ---snip--- > > > > Hi Jay > > It seems like there is some manual on Al's site that describes > > the 2100 instructions. As I recall, there was nothing specifically > > for the 21MX, though. > > Yes, I found that, and now have a printed copy. I was more interested > in finding instructions on how to *enter* the instructions into the > computer via the frontpanel. :) > > Now that Jay has helped me with that, it's time to try to make a test > program and run it. For the sake of anyone on the list who's interested, I've made up two simple programs to test my ability to comprehend the manuals. :) I'm sure they're probably not the most efficient way to do it, but they were the best I could do in a couple hours, starting from zero HP assembly language knowledge. :) Also, I'm sure I'll add to it as I spend more time playing with the machine. The programs' sources are at: http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/hp/2100/hp2100-progs Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From david at cantrell.org.uk Mon Jan 24 05:09:25 2005 From: david at cantrell.org.uk (David Cantrell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050121102852.0092c470@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> <3.0.6.32.20050121102852.0092c470@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20050124110924.GA7840@bytemark.barnyard.co.uk> On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 10:28:52AM -0500, Joe R. wrote: > At 05:45 AM 1/21/05 +0000, you wrote: > >Steve Jones wrote: > >> There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on > >> ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? > Some of the Amstrads shipped with either a 3" or 2 1/2" drive. Don't > remember which, it's been a long times since I've seen one. 3", and if anyone wants any disks I *think* I should still have some lurking in a cupboard. I believe that they were also used by some species of navigational equipment popular with North Sea fishing boats. -- David Cantrell | Benevolent Dictator Of The World All praise the Sun God For He is a Fun God Ra Ra Ra! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 25 07:21:08 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: update: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks In-Reply-To: <1106324093.15335.8.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106259864.13417.38.camel@weka.localdomain> <41F033D5.3000101@gjcp.net> <1106263682.13434.54.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501210949.44774.dtwright@uiuc.edu> <1106324093.15335.8.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <1106659268.20657.24.camel@weka.localdomain> This Tek's almost out of disk space, so I got to working out how to add a second drive to it... I found an 'hdsetup' program on the disk, and also a definition file for the partition table of a 300MB drive (whether that's the same drive as the failing one that came with the machine, I don't know). Seems like a drive *always* has 9 partitions, although some may be left empty in the raw table on the drive and padded with zeros. Partition entry 0 is a root partition, entry 1 is swap, entries 2-5 are 'user' partitions, 6 corresponds to 'whole disk', and 7-8 I'm guessing are something to do with bootstrap (3MB and 2.5MB, possibly a data partition containing a mini kernel and filesystem drivers to boot the main kernel, and a swap partition??) hdsetup won't let me create a root partition, or types 7 & 8 (fair enough given that it's a post-install program) Looking at the raw disk image I've saved, I've worked out where the partition table is within the image (it's at offset 0x280). Most of the stuff preceding it is zeros, except for a few flags and one place that seems to be total size of the disk in blocks *including partition table data*. I'm now wondering if I can clone the OS onto a bigger drive without install media :-) If I copy partition table area and the 'boot' partitions (7 & 8 - which happen to be at the start of the disk) then it might work. I'll have to manually edit the table (and disk size field) on the new drive, leaving the boot partitions as they are. Then boot the Tek with the new disk as an auxiliary, format the root partition on the new disk, and copy everything across via dump/restore to the new drive. *if* partitions 7 & 8 really are to do with bootstrap, and they contain filesystem drivers to find and boot the main kernel, and I leave them in the same place on the new drive as the old, then in theory it could work... (sorry, I'm getting quite into hacking here ;) I've hosed two 1.2GB drives already using Tek's hdsetup prog though :-( I have a feeling it doesn't cope with drives having more than 1024 cylinders for some reason - when it formats the drive (which it says it needs to do before it'll let me partition it) it all works fine on the Tek until the next boot, at which point the drive vanishes. Putting it into a PC at that point shows it to be broken too, it doesn't even respond to inquiry at initialise time. Grrr! The Tek must have trashed the drive firmware somehow. At least with the previous OS cloning theory I don't need to use hdsetup at all. On the 'mounting under Linux' front, I've had no luck so far. Seems that ufs is the fstype I want under Linux, which in turn covers about 8 different ffs types. Unfortunately none of them seem to be compatible with Tek's idea of ffs... (it's possible I'm pulling the wrong blocks out of the raw image though - maybe the partition table's relative to cylinder 1 rather than 0 say, to compensate for boot area... I'll have to try that) Phew. I'm having fun anyway - I miss this kind of messing around with old hardware :-) cheers Jules From wmaddox at pacbell.net Tue Jan 25 07:20:50 2005 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? Message-ID: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> RCA-labelled microcomputer labelled "COSMAC" Screen and keyboard: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=5158915090&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW Dual floppy drives: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=5158914991&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW --Bill From dogas at bellsouth.net Tue Jan 25 08:17:04 2005 From: dogas at bellsouth.net (Mike) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? References: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <001a01c502e8$8c123980$4c63d6d1@r2p0s6> Oh yes. a CDP18S008V1 RCA Cosmac Development System 4. and the drive system too in the other auction.. Originally about $10K worth of RCA cosmac gear. I wonder what cards are in it. Here's my system: http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/dogas/cosmac/dev4.htm ;) - Mike From: William Maddox Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? > RCA-labelled microcomputer labelled "COSMAC" > > Screen and keyboard: > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=5158915090& rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW > > Dual floppy drives: > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=5158914991& rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW > > --Bill > From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Tue Jan 25 08:48:58 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? In-Reply-To: <200501250157.59250.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200501242240.OAA12137@clulw009.amd.com> <200501242349.20914.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200501250157.59250.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <3E81BEA3-6EE0-11D9-B7F5-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Cool, Anyone have a 2100 emulator with a front panel? My googleing only turn up one without... On Jan 24, 2005, at 10:57 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/hp/2100/hp2100-progs From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Tue Jan 25 08:56:21 2005 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: HP board no. 5061-6805? Message-ID: <561.1106664981@www44.gmx.net> Hello everybody, once more I turn to the list in my quest for enlightenment... At the university's computer collection where I work, an HP board with the number in the subject turned up. It is a printed circuit board, about 7" wide x 5" deep with a 2x50 trace edge connector. The only visible parts are what looks like a few SMD capacitors; there are three black covers on the board, two of them like 1"x2" in plastic (neat the connector edge), the last one about 6"x3" and made from sheet metal (to the front edge). One of the smaller ones has a Static Discharge warning label stuck on it. There are two flat-but-heavy heat sinks bolted to the opposite side of the board, beneath the two smaller covers. One of the two black ejector handles on the front edge of the board says "512k RAM". I haven't found any useful information by googleing, only a few resellers. We would like to know what machine this part is for; I suppose this will make finding further information much easier. Thanks in advance, yours sincerely -- Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de GMX im TV ... Die Gedanken sind frei ... Schon gesehen? Jetzt Spot online ansehen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/tv-spot From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 09:42:33 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Tony Duell wrote: > > Some of the Amstrads shipped with either a 3" or 2 1/2" drive. Don't > > remember which, it's been a long times since I've seen one. > > Most Z80-based Amstrads (CPC664. CPC6128, PCW8256, Spectrum +3) along > with the Tatung Einstein and Oric used a 3" drive. I've seen this drive > sold as an add-on for things like the BBC micro I saw an ad in an Apple ][ magazine that advertised one for the Apple ][. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 09:45:37 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: <20050119090307.S626@localhost> Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > She will go through every box, manual, cabinet and PC board of the > NOVA4 with me. She insists, everything must be sniffed, knowingly > and carefully (and quite seriously). My old cat used to do that as well. Anytime I used to bring a bunch of stuff back from the swamp meet and unload it, she'd have to sniff at every box. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 09:51:29 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks (with some OT Tek rambliings) In-Reply-To: <1106350650.15519.40.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > On Fri, 2005-01-21 at 12:00 -0800, Rick Bensene wrote: > > Tektronix was really fickle when it came to computers. > > Which is a shame; they built some really nice stuff. I get the > impression they were always a little edgy about seriously moving into > the computer market (despite making some incredible quality machines) > and so never quite committed themselves (at least in all the operations > that went around building the hardware) The Tektronix 4051 was more advanced than any other microcomputer on the market circa 1976 by a longshot. It had excellent graphics generating capability, built-in screen, a fast, high capacity tape drive, and a very advanced built-in BASIC interpreter. Compare this against what was contemporary for the time: The Altair/IMSAI, Apple-1, etc. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 09:53:50 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Windows crashing, was Re: Bill Gates: Teen Heart-throb! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, chris wrote: > think I need PROOF?!? Selam didn't need proof to claim Linux caused the > popular rise of the internet... proof be damned... I'm right because I > say I'm right! Hey now, that was a legitimate hypothesis put forth by myself, which was then ruthlessly scrutinized, assailed, and debunked. It wasn't a troll and I resent it being considered such. > :-) >:( > (note the smiley... the internet way to point out sarcasm, less you > honestly think I'm being serious above) ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From cvendel at att.net Tue Jan 25 09:57:01 2005 From: cvendel at att.net (cvendel@att.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: MOS 6507 Tech Spec's Message-ID: <012520051557.15487.41F66C4C000B762700003C7F2161243646040A0B020A900C@att.net> Anyone have any old technical white papers on the MOS 6507, I know its just a slight variant of the 6502, but I would like to look over the original technical specifications for the chip, pinouts, opcodes, instruction set, etc... Thanks, Curt From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 10:00:42 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: The DFWCUG DEc collection up for sale In-Reply-To: <41F08507.9020306@theriver.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Tom Ponsford wrote: > You may now go to the photos and commence salivating! > > http://www.montagar.com/~patj/hcsale/index.html > > I don't think we will ever see a DEC collection again like this! Sure you will: http://www.computerhistory.org DEC donated their museum to the CHM years ago, which includes the prototype PDP-1 etc. THE DFWCUG collection is nice, but it's not unprecedented. I wish their web pages gave more information about the collection. I doubt they'll be able to sell it all in one shot. If so, whoever buys it will surely part it out. If I had the money and time, that's what I'd do. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 25 10:03:47 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? References: <200501242240.OAA12137@clulw009.amd.com><200501242349.20914.pat@computer-refuge.org><200501250157.59250.pat@computer-refuge.org> <3E81BEA3-6EE0-11D9-B7F5-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <001401c502f7$75709fa0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Yes! :) It's not quite ready for prime time yet, other work and hobby stuff keeps getting in the way of me finishing it off :) Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Hudson" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 8:48 AM Subject: Re: HP 21MX toggle-in programs? > Cool, > > Anyone have a 2100 emulator with a front panel? > > My googleing only turn up one without... > > > On Jan 24, 2005, at 10:57 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >> http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/hp/2100/hp2100-progs > > > From fmc at reanimators.org Tue Jan 25 10:17:25 2005 From: fmc at reanimators.org (Frank McConnell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: HP board no. 5061-6805? In-Reply-To: <561.1106664981@www44.gmx.net> (Arno Kletzander's message of "Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:56:21 +0100 (MET)") References: <561.1106664981@www44.gmx.net> Message-ID: <200501251617.j0PGHQii013008@lots.reanimators.org> Arno Kletzander wrote: > We would like to know what machine this part is for; I suppose this will > make finding further information much easier. HP 9000 series 500 machines (520, 530, 540, 550). It goes in the processor card cage. -Frank McConnell From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Tue Jan 25 10:40:33 2005 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: How to sabotage a 5 1/5 floppy drive... Message-ID: without really trying: Part amusing story, part warning. I have my OSI C4P all buttoned up with the switcher supply tucked inside and I decide to fix another thing that has been bothering me for some time. OSI used MPI B51 floppy drives with most (all?) of their 5 1/4 inch systems. The B51 has an ejector spring that operates via a two step latch (mechanical latch, that is). The first step locks the spring when a diskette is inserted (so you can close the drive door), the second step releases the spring once the drive door is closed so that the diskette will be ejected when the door is opened. The latch alignment is finicky and this drive had the spring locked and stuck. So I open up the drive, straighten out the latch and then, since I have it apart anyway, decide to clean the head. I get a Q-Tip and some alcohol, lift the pressure pad arm and clean the head. (Anybody spot the problem yet?) I put everything back together and fire it up. Now the drive is flaky as heck. Read fails about 50% of the time. What did I break? I check to see if the track zero sensor moved. Nope, original paint spots are in place and uncracked. Did I, in fact, gunk up the head when I was cleaning it? I look with a strong light and magnifying glass. The head is smooth and clean. Did I pull some wire loose? Not that I can find. After fooling with it for a while, I notice that the click of the head load does not sound the same as before I took it apart. I look at the solenoid, everything seems OK. I troubleshoot this for several evenings. Finally, I go back to the head load investigation. I defeat the head unload rail with a wedge of paper (so that the head will be loaded whenever the drive door is closed). No help. Then, finally, I use a dental mirror to look at the head and pressure pad with a disk inserted. The pad is not in contact with the diskette surface! What the!?!?!? It turns out that the pressure pad arm is "hinged" not with a proper hinge but with a thin, somewhat springy, metal strip. There is also a proper coiled spring on top of the arm to provide more pressure but, when I lifted the pad arm, I flexed the "hinge" enough that the coil spring couldn't push the pad into contact with diskette surface. If you just look at it with the door open, everything looks fine. The pad arm seems to be firmly resting on the unload rail, ready to drop down onto the diskette when loaded. So, I disassembled the arm, gently flexed the "hinge" back to straight, reassembled and back in business. One of the oddest things I think I've ever had to work out. Maybe this is getting me ready to tackle my ASR33. Bill From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 10:39:41 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Imlac PDS-1 simulators? In-Reply-To: <001e01c5008a$c07d2140$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Jan 2005, Bob Shannon wrote: > There is a fourth Imlac around!? > > Does anyone know the state and condition of this other Imlac? I promised Tom Uban I'd try to remember the name of the person who has it, but yes. He used to be a list dweller. I got all my documentation from him. He sent over a box of manuals and I made photocopies before sending it back. Ok, just went through saved messages and it was John Tinker. I still have his contact info. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Tue Jan 25 11:11:12 2005 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: MOS 6507 Tech Spec's In-Reply-To: <012520051557.15487.41F66C4C000B762700003C7F2161243646040A0B020A900C@att.net> Message-ID: <41F68BC0.8528.381BFD36@localhost> Am 25 Jan 2005 15:57 meinte cvendel@att.net: > Anyone have any old technical white papers on the MOS 6507, > I know its just a slight variant of the 6502, but I would > like to look over the original technical specifications for > the chip, pinouts, opcodes, instruction set, etc... Just from memory: 100% code compatible, 13 Bit address (8K) no NMI no IRQ no SO 28 Pin Dip 5..17 A0-A13 18..25 D7..D0 Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jan 25 10:54:00 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? In-Reply-To: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> References: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <32902.64.169.63.74.1106672040.squirrel@64.169.63.74> > RCA-labelled microcomputer labelled "COSMAC" > Screen and keyboard: > Dual floppy drives: That's the terminal and floppy drives, but neiher of those is the actual development system. I passed up a chance to buy a complete COSMAC development system (well, not including the terminal) at Weird Stuff fifteen years ago. At the time I thought the $200 price was unreasonable. Oh well. By the way, those floppy drives must be incredibly valuable, since 8 1/4" drives are *very* rare. From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jan 25 11:11:23 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: MOS 6507 Tech Spec's In-Reply-To: <012520051557.15487.41F66C4C000B762700003C7F2161243646040A0B020A900C@a tt.net> References: <012520051557.15487.41F66C4C000B762700003C7F2161243646040A0B020A900C@att.net> Message-ID: <32988.64.169.63.74.1106673083.squirrel@64.169.63.74> > Anyone have any old technical white papers on the MOS 6507, I know its > just a slight variant of the 6502, but I would like to look over the > original technical specifications for the chip, pinouts, opcodes, > instruction set, etc... There are no specific documents on it. It's in the MCS650x data sheet. It's just a 6502 die in a smaller 28-pin DIP package with not all of the pins bonded out. Specifically, A12 through A15, RDY, /NMI, SYNC, SO, three NC pins, and one Vss pin are not available. The pinout is: /RES 1 28 Ph2 out Vss 2 27 Ph0 in Ph1 out 3 26 R/W /IRQ 4 25 D0 Vcc 5 24 D1 A0 6 23 D2 A1 7 22 D3 A2 8 21 D4 A3 9 20 D5 A4 10 19 D6 A5 11 18 D7 A6 12 17 A11 A7 13 16 A10 A8 14 15 A9 I'm looking for the Synertek 6516 data sheet, and Synertek technical notes 34 and 40. The 6516 was to be a 16-bit extension of the 6500 family, years before the 65802/65816. Synertek published a data sheet in mid 1978, but the part was never put into production. From zmerch at 30below.com Tue Jan 25 12:11:48 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050125125911.04ffe460@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Vintage Computer Festival may have mentioned these words: >On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > Some of the Amstrads shipped with either a 3" or 2 1/2" drive. Don't > > > remember which, it's been a long times since I've seen one. > > > > Most Z80-based Amstrads (CPC664. CPC6128, PCW8256, Spectrum +3) along > > with the Tatung Einstein and Oric used a 3" drive. I've seen this drive > > sold as an add-on for things like the BBC micro > >I saw an ad in an Apple ][ magazine that advertised one for the Apple ][. There were regular ads in Hot CoCo and Rainbow magazines for these as well -- a little expensive, but they were advertised as 'flippy' disks straight off, so the amount of storage was rather good for the time... Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch@30below.com | From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Tue Jan 25 12:45:57 2005 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: MOS 6507 Tech Spec's In-Reply-To: <32988.64.169.63.74.1106673083.squirrel@64.169.63.74> References: <012520051557.15487.41F66C4C000B762700003C7F2161243646040A0B020A900C@a tt.net> Message-ID: <41F6A1F5.28481.3872BA1B@localhost> Am 25 Jan 2005 9:11 meinte Eric Smith: > > Anyone have any old technical white papers on the MOS 6507, I know its > > just a slight variant of the 6502, but I would like to look over the > > original technical specifications for the chip, pinouts, opcodes, > > instruction set, etc... > I'm looking for the Synertek 6516 data sheet, and Synertek technical > notes 34 and 40. The 6516 was to be a 16-bit extension of the 6500 > family, years before the 65802/65816. Synertek published a data sheet > in mid 1978, but the part was never put into production. Are you shure? To my understanding, the 6516 was Magazin Vapour Ware. A red hering just brought up from time to time in various publications. I seam to remember an Micromag and an Kilobaud article, both mentioning that there is no evidence of such a CPU, and all is just whishful thinking. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Tue Jan 25 12:41:37 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: How to sabotage a 5 1/5 floppy drive... In-Reply-To: "Bill Sudbrink" "How to sabotage a 5 1/5 floppy drive..." (Jan 25, 11:40) References: Message-ID: <10501251841.ZM2859@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 25 2005, 11:40, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > without really trying: > > Part amusing story, part warning. [ ... ] > So I open up the drive, straighten out the latch and then, since I have it > apart anyway, decide to clean the head. I get a Q-Tip and some alcohol, > lift the pressure pad arm and clean the head. (Anybody spot the problem > yet?) Yes, because I did it once on a similar drive. I had to dismantle it to straighten the spring steel strip, and then re-align the upper head, IIRC (it was a double-sided drive). Quite a few drives are like that. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From tomj at wps.com Tue Jan 25 13:02:10 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? In-Reply-To: <32902.64.169.63.74.1106672040.squirrel@64.169.63.74> References: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> <32902.64.169.63.74.1106672040.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <20050125110015.M749@localhost> On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Eric Smith wrote: > By the way, those floppy drives must be incredibly valuable, since > 8 1/4" drives are *very* rare. Actually, they will become very common; since the universe is expanding, they'll become 8 1/4", 8 1/2", etc. Don't forget all floppies were 5.25" once, and some on this list talk about smaller drives, but we know they are all crazy. Unfortunately bit density decreases with time due to bogon density increasing. From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Tue Jan 25 13:02:06 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: MOS 6507 Tech Spec's In-Reply-To: "Eric Smith" "Re: MOS 6507 Tech Spec's" (Jan 25, 9:11) References: <012520051557.15487.41F66C4C000B762700003C7F2161243646040A0B020A900C@att.net> <32988.64.169.63.74.1106673083.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <10501251902.ZM2890@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 25 2005, 9:11, Eric Smith wrote: > There are no specific documents on it. It's in the MCS650x data sheet. > It's just a 6502 die in a smaller 28-pin DIP package with not all of the > pins bonded out. Specifically, A12 through A15, RDY, /NMI, SYNC, SO, > three NC pins, and one Vss pin are not available. > > The pinout is: > > /RES 1 28 Ph2 out > Vss 2 27 Ph0 in > Ph1 out 3 26 R/W > /IRQ 4 25 D0 > Vcc 5 24 D1 > A0 6 23 D2 > A1 7 22 D3 > A2 8 21 D4 > A3 9 20 D5 > A4 10 19 D6 > A5 11 18 D7 > A6 12 17 A11 > A7 13 16 A10 > A8 14 15 A9 That's a 6506 (above). 6507 is: /RES 1 28 Ph2 out Vss 2 27 Ph0 in RDY 3 26 R/W Vcc 4 25 D0 A0 5 24 D1 A1 6 23 D2 A2 7 22 D3 A3 8 21 D4 A4 9 20 D5 A5 10 19 D6 A6 11 18 D7 A7 12 17 A12 A8 13 16 A11 A9 14 15 A10 Note Vcc is one pin lower (in number). 6507 has one more address line, no IRQ, and no Phi1, but it does have /RDY. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From dwight.elvey at amd.com Tue Jan 25 13:13:01 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? Message-ID: <200501251913.LAA12780@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Tom Jennings" > >On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Eric Smith wrote: > >> By the way, those floppy drives must be incredibly valuable, since >> 8 1/4" drives are *very* rare. > >Actually, they will become very common; since the universe is >expanding, they'll become 8 1/4", 8 1/2", etc. Don't forget all >floppies were 5.25" once, and some on this list talk about smaller >drives, but we know they are all crazy. Unfortunately bit density >decreases with time due to bogon density increasing. > Hi It is a good thing that everything is also expanding along with it. Keeping the drive aligned would be a real pain. Dwight From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 13:32:39 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? In-Reply-To: <32902.64.169.63.74.1106672040.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Eric Smith wrote: > I passed up a chance to buy a complete COSMAC development system > (well, not including the terminal) at Weird Stuff fifteen years > ago. At the time I thought the $200 price was unreasonable. > Oh well. At that time, it was. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 25 13:44:38 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? In-Reply-To: <20050125110015.M749@localhost> References: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> <32902.64.169.63.74.1106672040.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <20050125110015.M749@localhost> Message-ID: <1106682278.20955.2.camel@weka.localdomain> On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 11:02 -0800, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Eric Smith wrote: > > > By the way, those floppy drives must be incredibly valuable, since > > 8 1/4" drives are *very* rare. > > Actually, they will become very common; since the universe is > expanding, they'll become 8 1/4", 8 1/2", etc. Don't forget all > floppies were 5.25" once, and some on this list talk about smaller > drives, but we know they are all crazy. Unfortunately bit density > decreases with time due to bogon density increasing. I've definitely got issues with the bogon density of my brain lately :-) From dvcorbin at optonline.net Tue Jan 25 15:13:37 2005 From: dvcorbin at optonline.net (David V. Corbin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: The DFWCUG DEc collection up for sale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>> Sellam Ismail Wrote: >>> >>> >>> THE DFWCUG collection is nice, but it's not unprecedented. >>> I wish their web pages gave more information about the >>> collection. I doubt they'll be able to sell it all in one >>> shot. If so, whoever buys it will surely part it out. If >>> I had the money and time, that's what I'd do. >>> >>> -- Evil pure and simple! (parting out a collection if it is not unavoidable). From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jan 25 15:48:04 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: MOS 6507 Tech Spec's In-Reply-To: <41F6A1F5.28481.3872BA1B@localhost> References: <012520051557.15487.41F66C4C000B762700003C7F2161243646040A0B020A900C@a tt.net> <41F6A1F5.28481.3872BA1B@localhost> Message-ID: <38989.64.139.41.130.1106689684.squirrel@64.139.41.130> I wrote: > I'm looking for the Synertek 6516 data sheet, and Synertek technical > notes 34 and 40. The 6516 was to be a 16-bit extension of the 6500 > family, years before the 65802/65816. Synertek published a data sheet > in mid 1978, but the part was never put into production. Hans wrote: > Are you shure? Not entirely. > To my understanding, the 6516 was Magazin Vapour Ware. > A red hering just brought up from time to time in various publications. > I seam to remember an Micromag and an Kilobaud article, both mentioning > that there is no evidence of such a CPU, and all is just whishful > thinking. That's not inconsistent with the idea that Synertek may have published the data sheet and even a few tech notes. Many data sheets have appeared for chips that haven't. I never saw a data sheet or tech notes myself, but have heard claims from other people that the data sheet did exist. Eric From tponsford at theriver.com Mon Jan 24 07:05:19 2005 From: tponsford at theriver.com (Tom Ponsford) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: More auction goodies Message-ID: <41F4F28F.8090603@theriver.com> Hi Folks, Well, today's auction haul includes: A Dec MV 3800 w/qbus scsi card (he-he) An Alpha 1000 And!! A functioning Tektronix 4051 Graphics system w/Data Communication Interface. (circa 1976) it also came with the RS232 Printer interface and the following documentation: 4051 Graphic Systems Operation Manual Plot 50 Introduction to Programming in Basic 4051 Graphic System Reference Reference Guide to 4051 Basic 4050 Series Basic Reference Guide amd 4051 Option 10 RS232 Printer Interface guide More information on this system can be found here: http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=282 What is really wierd is that I wrote some programs in Basic for this machine in 1977 using some of the built-in vector graphics routines, when I worked at the Defense Mapping Agency, now called the National GeoSpatial Intelligence Agency. I still have the tape cartridge (200K !!) when I loaded the tape... presto... instant retro memories. I even wrote some notes to myself!! ( Note to Homeland Security and to anyone else reading this email..It was NOT classified!!) Cheers Tom -- --- Please do not read this sig. If you have read this far, please unread back to the beginning. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jan 25 16:17:46 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: <20050124110924.GA7840@bytemark.barnyard.co.uk> References: <3.0.6.32.20050121102852.0092c470@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> <1106252638.21701.129.camel@abort.crash.com> <3.0.6.32.20050121102852.0092c470@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050125171746.00980770@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 11:09 AM 1/24/05 +0000, you wrote: >On Fri, Jan 21, 2005 at 10:28:52AM -0500, Joe R. wrote: >> At 05:45 AM 1/21/05 +0000, you wrote: >> >Steve Jones wrote: >> >> There's a 2.5" Panasonic floppy drive that's popped up on >> >> ePay today. What commercial gear shipped with 2.5" floppies? >> Some of the Amstrads shipped with either a 3" or 2 1/2" drive. Don't >> remember which, it's been a long times since I've seen one. > >3", and if anyone wants any disks I *think* I should still have some >lurking in a cupboard. > >I believe that they were also used by some species of navigational >equipment popular with North Sea fishing boats. I've found 3" drives in MilStd-1553 bus analyzers made by Loral. Joe From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 16:55:50 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: The DFWCUG DEc collection up for sale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, David V. Corbin wrote: > >>> Sellam Ismail Wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>> THE DFWCUG collection is nice, but it's not unprecedented. > >>> I wish their web pages gave more information about the > >>> collection. I doubt they'll be able to sell it all in one > >>> shot. If so, whoever buys it will surely part it out. If > >>> I had the money and time, that's what I'd do. > >>> > >>> -- > > Evil pure and simple! (parting out a collection if it is not unavoidable). I really don't see any way around it. This wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about something, but it doesn't seem to me that this collection is very refined. There's a lot of hardware there, and as has been already pointed out, there is a lot of crap interspersed with a lot of gems. To find someone who's going to clean out every last module in one shot does not seem very likely to happen in this case. So either the terms of the sale need to change, or someone with a big wad of cash and lots of time needs to buy it all up, sort out the crap from the good stuff, keep what they want, and then dump the rest, either selling it off or hauling it off to the scrapper. Reality bytes. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 25 17:27:54 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050125125911.04ffe460@mail.30below.com> from "Roger Merchberger" at Jan 25, 5 01:11:48 pm Message-ID: > > > Most Z80-based Amstrads (CPC664. CPC6128, PCW8256, Spectrum +3) along > > > with the Tatung Einstein and Oric used a 3" drive. I've seen this drive > > > sold as an add-on for things like the BBC micro > > > >I saw an ad in an Apple ][ magazine that advertised one for the Apple ][. > > There were regular ads in Hot CoCo and Rainbow magazines for these as well > -- a little expensive, but they were advertised as 'flippy' disks straight > off, so the amount of storage was rather good for the time... Hitachi made single and double head 40 cylinder drives that had a stnadard SA400-like interface connector. The single-head was a flippy, the double-head one wasn't (and since the spindle motor didn't reverse when you selected the second head, it couldn't read the 'flip side' of a disk from the single-head drive). When it was clear that the 3" disk was not going to catch on (a pity, since it's mechanically superior to the 3,5" one), the drives were sold off in the UK fairly cheaply. I added one to my CoCo system... Amstrad machines used a drive with a 26 pin (IIRC) connector, much the same signals as the normal SA400 interface, but a different connector/pinout. They used either a single-head 40 cylinder drive or a double-head 80 cylinder one. At one point in the UK, disks were labelled for 'single head' or 'double head' drives, when what they actually meant was 40 or 80 cylinder. Since the single-head drive was a flippy, _all_ the disks were tested (and good) on both surfaces. Amusing-ish story. I needed a blank disk for the drive in my CoCo, and I went to a local shop to buy one (or more). The salesdroidess said 'We don't have any 3" disks. We've got 3.5", can you cut them down?'. She then offered me 3" disks at the 3.5" price (which was considerably less)... Go figure... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 25 17:19:22 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks (with some OT Tek In-Reply-To: from "Vintage Computer Festival" at Jan 25, 5 07:51:29 am Message-ID: > The Tektronix 4051 was more advanced than any other microcomputer on the > market circa 1976 by a longshot. It had excellent graphics generating > capability, built-in screen, a fast, high capacity tape drive, and a very > advanced built-in BASIC interpreter. Compare this against what was > contemporary for the time: The Altair/IMSAI, Apple-1, etc. Not to belittle Tektronix, but HP were making some good stuff at that time too. I am not sure if you'd call the 9830 (1973 vintage) a microcomputer -- IMHO it wasn't, since the CPU is not a single chip -- but it was a desktop machine that ran a very nice BASIC. Although it didn't have graphics as stnadrd (the display was a 1-line alphanumeric thing), you could add an external 'graphics translator' via an HPIB interface. About the stame time as the Tke 4051 was the HP9825. That was certainly a micro. Again, graphics was external, using the same units as for the 9830... Of course both HP and Tektronix were not trying to sell to hobbyists, and their machines were far to expensive for most homes... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 25 17:21:19 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: DG haul, photos In-Reply-To: from "Vintage Computer Festival" at Jan 25, 5 07:45:37 am Message-ID: > > On Fri, 21 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > > She will go through every box, manual, cabinet and PC board of the > > NOVA4 with me. She insists, everything must be sniffed, knowingly > > and carefully (and quite seriously). > > My old cat used to do that as well. Anytime I used to bring a bunch of > stuff back from the swamp meet and unload it, she'd have to sniff at every > box. Of the 2 cats who choose to visit me (and spend much of their time with me :-)), the older one hasa preference for HP stuff, and likes to curl up on an HP manual. The younger one doesn't seem to care, and enjoys walking on my keyboard when I am trying to debug a program or whatever.... -tony From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Tue Jan 25 17:53:12 2005 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? In-Reply-To: <001a01c502e8$8c123980$4c63d6d1@r2p0s6> References: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> <001a01c502e8$8c123980$4c63d6d1@r2p0s6> Message-ID: In message <001a01c502e8$8c123980$4c63d6d1@r2p0s6>\ "Mike" wrote: > http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/dogas/cosmac/dev4.htm Nice. I built a COSMAC ELF a while back - there's a photo of it in the CosmacElf.com photo gallery. The URL is if anyone's interested. Hmm.. You've got a copy of the MPM-201C manual? I've been after a copy of that for ages. That and the appnotes that Rockwell and Synertek (and MOS too?) released for the AIM-65, SYM and the 6502 in general. IIRC some of them covered video controllers and such... Later. -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, philpem@philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... In nuclear warfare all men are cremated equal. From dvcorbin at optonline.net Tue Jan 25 19:38:31 2005 From: dvcorbin at optonline.net (David V. Corbin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: The DFWCUG DEc collection up for sale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >>> > >>> Sellam Ismail Wrote: >>> > >>> >>> > >>> >>> > >>> THE DFWCUG collection is nice, but it's not unprecedented. >>> > >>> I wish their web pages gave more information about >>> the collection. >>> > >>> I doubt they'll be able to sell it all in one shot. If so, >>> > >>> whoever buys it will surely part it out. If I had >>> the money and >>> > >>> time, that's what I'd do. >>> > >>> >>> > >>> -- >>> > >>> > Evil pure and simple! (parting out a collection if it is >>> not unavoidable). >>> >>> I really don't see any way around it. This wouldn't be the >>> first time I was wrong about something, but it doesn't seem >>> to me that this collection is very refined. There's a lot >>> of hardware there, and as has been already pointed out, >>> there is a lot of crap interspersed with a lot of gems. To >>> find someone who's going to clean out every last module in >>> one shot does not seem very likely to happen in this case. >>> So either the terms of the sale need to change, or someone >>> with a big wad of cash and lots of time needs to buy it all >>> up, sort out the crap from the good stuff, keep what they >>> want, and then dump the rest, either selling it off or >>> hauling it off to the scrapper. >>> >>> Reality bytes. >>> >>> -- >>> Sellam, I know, my original response [included above] was rather "hardline". There does appear to be "junk" [remember ones man's junk is anothers treausre] from viewing the photos, and that could easily be split off. The worst of all possible scenarios I can envision is someone managing to get the "good stuff" at a low price and then splitting up systems or even selling off working core plane as art. David. From wmaddox at pacbell.net Tue Jan 25 21:05:38 2005 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:13 2005 Subject: The DFWCUG DEc collection up for sale In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050126030538.18693.qmail@web81301.mail.yahoo.com> --- "David V. Corbin" wrote: > Sellam, > > I know, my original response [included above] was > rather "hardline". There > does appear to be "junk" [remember ones man's junk > is anothers treausre] > from viewing the photos, and that could easily be > split off. The worst of > all possible scenarios I can envision is someone > managing to get the "good > stuff" at a low price and then splitting up systems > or even selling off > working core plane as art. I agree that the lot needs to be split up. Ideally it can be bought by someone in the collecting or museum community who can do this in an appropriate manner. I suspect there would be no problem finding takers for the 8/I's, for example, sold individually. I know of at least one individual who would be interested in one, right here in this very room. ;) Realistically, museums are always tight on space, and even if their charter allows them to buy artifacts in the first place (rather than accepting donations only), there is way too much duplication in this lot. David: Yes, there is a special place in hell for folks who turn working core planes into "art"... --Bill From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 25 22:38:35 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? In-Reply-To: <001a01c502e8$8c123980$4c63d6d1@r2p0s6> References: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> <001a01c502e8$8c123980$4c63d6d1@r2p0s6> Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 09:17:04 -0500, Mike wrote: > > Oh yes. a CDP18S008V1 RCA Cosmac Development System 4. and the drive > system too in the other auction.. Originally about $10K worth of RCA cosmac > gear. I wonder what cards are in it. Here's my system: > > http://bellsouthpwp.net/d/o/dogas/cosmac/dev4.htm Veeery nice. I remember drooling over that stuff when I was a kid, trying to put together my first Elf. I didn't even have a floppy drive for my PET, let alone being able to afford what RCA wanted. -ethan From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 25 22:54:57 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: DEC Alpha available Message-ID: <008101c50363$2f3debc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> The local surplus place has an Alpha available. I know nothing of these machines. It is in a black 4U rackmount case. Front panel door opens to reveal a 3.5 floppy, removable hard drive (which has been removed and disappeared), and a CD drive. Inside the machine are two scsi cards, and a few others I didn't look closely at. There's 256M of ram (all big 32m modules). If anyone is interested, let me know, and let me know what you want me to look for, and I'll go back and look at it closer. If you want it, I'll put you in touch with the guy at the store. They typically let this kind of thing go cheap. Jay From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 22:54:34 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: More auction goodies In-Reply-To: <41F4F28F.8090603@theriver.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 24 Jan 2005, Tom Ponsford wrote: > A functioning Tektronix 4051 Graphics system w/Data Communication Interface. > (circa 1976) What a coincidence (re: me referring to it earlier today). > it also came with the RS232 Printer interface > > and the following documentation: > 4051 Graphic Systems Operation Manual > Plot 50 Introduction to Programming in Basic > 4051 Graphic System Reference > Reference Guide to 4051 Basic > 4050 Series Basic Reference Guide > amd 4051 Option 10 RS232 Printer Interface guide Very nice! > What is really wierd is that I wrote some programs in Basic for this machine > in 1977 using some of the built-in vector graphics routines, when I worked at > the Defense Mapping Agency, now called the National GeoSpatial Intelligence > Agency. I still have the tape cartridge (200K !!) when I loaded the tape... > presto... instant retro memories. I even wrote some notes to myself!! ( Note > to Homeland Security and to anyone else reading this email..It was NOT > classified!!) If you're wanting/needing a "Plot 50" tape I have an extra. Let me know (private reply, please). -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jan 25 23:01:44 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks (with some OT Tek In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Tony Duell wrote: > > The Tektronix 4051 was more advanced than any other microcomputer on the > > market circa 1976 by a longshot. It had excellent graphics generating > > capability, built-in screen, a fast, high capacity tape drive, and a very > > advanced built-in BASIC interpreter. Compare this against what was > > contemporary for the time: The Altair/IMSAI, Apple-1, etc. > > Not to belittle Tektronix, but HP were making some good stuff at that > time too. I am not sure if you'd call the 9830 (1973 vintage) a > microcomputer -- IMHO it wasn't, since the CPU is not a single chip -- > but it was a desktop machine that ran a very nice BASIC. Although it > didn't have graphics as stnadrd (the display was a 1-line alphanumeric > thing), you could add an external 'graphics translator' via an HPIB > interface. The HP9830 is certainly a nice machine. I've got one, and considering it has almost all the same features as the Tek 4051 (substitute a 40-character, 1-line LED display for the CRT) but came out 3 years earlier it's definitely comparable overall. I've never had a chance to play with my 9830B but I wonder how the BASIC compares to that in the 4051. > About the stame time as the Tke 4051 was the HP9825. That was certainly a > micro. Again, graphics was external, using the same units as for the 9830... True, true. The keyboard leaves a lot to be desired on some models of the 9825 though. > Of course both HP and Tektronix were not trying to sell to hobbyists, and > their machines were far to expensive for most homes... Indeed. But my point was that people marvel over the early micros like the Altair, etc., touting features such as "first with graphics display", "first with mass storage", "first with integrated CRT", etc., and fail to realize that there were much more powerful systems available that were years ahead of the hobbyist micros. Sure, they were thousands of dollars more, but there they were. It offers a much different perspective on the hobbyist machines of that era. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From james at jdfogg.com Wed Jan 26 05:31:50 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (james) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: DEC Alpha available In-Reply-To: <008101c50363$2f3debc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <008101c50363$2f3debc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1106739110.1439.0.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 23:54, Jay West wrote: > The local surplus place has an Alpha available. Where is local? I'm trying to figure out if I can avoid shipping costs. From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 26 07:48:40 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: update: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks In-Reply-To: Message from Jules Richardson of "Tue, 25 Jan 2005 13:21:08 GMT." <1106659268.20657.24.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <200501261348.j0QDmfSi001233@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > >Looking at the raw disk image I've saved, I've worked out where the >partition table is within the image (it's at offset 0x280). Most of the >stuff preceding it is zeros, except for a few flags and one place that >seems to be total size of the disk in blocks *including partition table >data*. If you have a saved image you should be able to try and mount it using a 'loopback' file system on linux. No doubt that's what you tried. did you try any of the bsd parition programs, liked parted? who knows. All I remember is that sometimes we had to boot from a floppy and humm... that ran some sort of fsck? it's been a while. We never replaced a hard disk or tried to fool with one. I'd guess I'd be suprised if the file system was anything other than system 5 ufs. As I recall those systems were pretty vanilla unix wise. I don't think they had any bsd-isms in them (but I may be wrong). it might be interesting to hack up a copy of an old sys v fsck and open the image in read-only mode. that way you could fool around with various offsets and try to find the super block. once you know where the partition starts, and assuming you did a block copy under unix (so the blocks are in the right order), you might be able to grab an old copy of "sash" or something like that and get it to read the file system. at least then you could "ls". just some random notions. In the end, I think I'd write a program to transform the image into a new image which had a modern partition map pointing to the super block and then get linux to mount it. easy for me to say :-) -brad From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 26 08:36:48 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: DEC Alpha available References: <008101c50363$2f3debc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <1106739110.1439.0.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <003701c503b4$782b08d0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> St. Louis, MO 63146 ----- Original Message ----- From: "james" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 5:31 AM Subject: Re: DEC Alpha available > On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 23:54, Jay West wrote: >> The local surplus place has an Alpha available. > > Where is local? I'm trying to figure out if I can avoid shipping costs. > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 26 08:44:04 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: Data I/O progress... another question Message-ID: <003b01c503b5$7b90ac90$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> My Data I/O 29B seems much more happy. All tin contacts cleaned with deoxit and all gold contacts cleaned with progold. Reseated all the chips (some were loose) and it appears to work fine for reading anyway. I'll check the power supply and calibration then try to program a chip. My current issue du jour is with Promlink. I can use version 3.4 just fine. I want to use version 6.10 though, MUCH easier on the eyes. However, any time I try 6.10 (with the high speed cpu patch), it chokes on "error sending Device Identification enable/disable command, is this a 29B unipak?" I thought my unipak was a model 2. It's not, it's just a straight unipak. I believe the device id feature is present on unipak 2 and 2b, and not present in just a unipak. From what I can tell, promlink v6.10 insists that the device identification feature be turned on. There is a setting to disable device ID checking in promlink, but either that setting doesn't work at all, or, it tries to send a disable device id command to the 29B, which won't understand it with a unipak, hence the error. Any known way around this? My 29B is firmware v 06 if that helps. Thanks! Jay West From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 26 09:05:34 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: PC Adaptec SCSI BIOS format option? Message-ID: <1106751934.22372.7.camel@weka.localdomain> Stupid question, but does anyone know if the SCSI BIOS format utility on Adaptec 29160 or 2940 cards does bad block checking and reassignment? I've got a 1GB Fujitsu SCSI drive here that has one dodgy block right in the middle of the disk (according to the Linux badblocks util, which still has a couple of passes to run). Unfortunately I want the disk for my Tektronix, and I think bad block mapping under Linux is only done at the filesystem level, rather than Linux being able to low-level format the drive and map blocks out that way. I'm a bit wary of the Adaptec BIOS utility - hopefully it won't trash the drive... cheers Jules From dogas at bellsouth.net Wed Jan 26 09:41:59 2005 From: dogas at bellsouth.net (Mike) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? References: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> <32902.64.169.63.74.1106672040.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <001b01c503bd$94962fa0$c2db3fd0@r2p0s6> From: Eric Smith > > RCA-labelled microcomputer labelled "COSMAC" > > Screen and keyboard: > > Dual floppy drives: > > That's the terminal and floppy drives, but neiher of those is > the actual development system. well it *is* the/an actual development system when the complement of cards are installed. True, there is an 1802 run console in there too but so is the card cage. It boots into a monitor and and would run CDOS ( if I could ever find it.) and MOPS( i think) for ICEing another 1802 system through the micromonitor calculator pad. > I passed up a chance to buy a complete COSMAC development system > (well, not including the terminal) at Weird Stuff fifteen years > ago. At the time I thought the $200 price was unreasonable. > Oh well. Sounds like maybe the C.D.S III (the previous version #007) Development System. Was it a mostly rackmounted card cage? - Mike From list at saracom.com Wed Jan 26 09:47:31 2005 From: list at saracom.com (list@saracom.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: VT320 Terminal RS232 Receiver Message-ID: Hello, I managed to feed -48VDC into the data receive pin of my VT320 at work. So of course the magic smoke came out. Which chip is the receiver chip? Thanks Max From vax9000 at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 10:30:07 2005 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: PC Adaptec SCSI BIOS format option? In-Reply-To: <1106751934.22372.7.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106751934.22372.7.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: The SCSI adapter only issues format command to the HD, and the HD formats itself. So whatever SCSI adapter you use, the HD will do bad block forwarding. vax, 9000 On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:05:34 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Stupid question, but does anyone know if the SCSI BIOS format utility on > Adaptec 29160 or 2940 cards does bad block checking and reassignment? > > I've got a 1GB Fujitsu SCSI drive here that has one dodgy block right in > the middle of the disk (according to the Linux badblocks util, which > still has a couple of passes to run). > > Unfortunately I want the disk for my Tektronix, and I think bad block > mapping under Linux is only done at the filesystem level, rather than > Linux being able to low-level format the drive and map blocks out that > way. > > I'm a bit wary of the Adaptec BIOS utility - hopefully it won't trash > the drive... > > cheers > > Jules > > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 26 10:50:18 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: PC Adaptec SCSI BIOS format option? In-Reply-To: References: <1106751934.22372.7.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <1106758218.22617.6.camel@weka.localdomain> On Wed, 2005-01-26 at 10:30 -0600, P Thompson wrote: > > On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > > > > > Stupid question, but does anyone know if the SCSI BIOS format utility on > > Adaptec 29160 or 2940 cards does bad block checking and reassignment? > > > > My experience with the 29160 is that it does. Thanks to those who replied - both on the list and privately. I gave it a go and it seems to have worked; 'badblocks' under Linux just found the one bad block, so I tried the 'verify media' option in the end under the Adaptec BIOS (I'd forgotten about that option, only remembering 'format'). It too just found the one bad block and says that it remapped it for me, so all seems to be well (assuming the problem block was a random event on a ten year old drive, rather than it being the first sign of rapid self destruction) I'm glad it seems to have sorted itself out; I'm running low on spare single-ended SCSI drives of around the 1GB capacity with 50 pin connectors these days... cheers! Jules From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Jan 26 11:07:50 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: PC Adaptec SCSI BIOS format option? In-Reply-To: <1106751934.22372.7.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106751934.22372.7.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050126180750.31eb3a3f.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:05:34 +0000 Jules Richardson wrote: > I've got a 1GB Fujitsu SCSI drive here that has one dodgy block right > in the middle of the disk Maybe you want to run sformat on your disk. It does extensive read/write pattern tests, optional low level format and can reassign bad blocks. Low level format and bad block reassignment can be done with the scsictl(8) of NetBSD too. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From peterbrown10 at hotmail.com Wed Jan 26 11:56:03 2005 From: peterbrown10 at hotmail.com (Peter Brown) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards Message-ID: Hi All, How many types of front panel keyboard were used with the 2113 E-series CPU? I have one in front of me that has two ribbon cables that run from the keyboard PCB to the CPU PCB (one from the top edge of the keyboard PCB one from the bottom edge) but I seem to remember having seen other 2113 CPU's where the keybaord PCB is smaller and a single cable runs from the bottom edge of the keyboard to the CPU PCB. What I'm trying to do is find a 'short' front panel to replace the 'embedded' keybaord of a 5420 Signal Analyser and turn it back into an mini E-series CPU. I had assumed that I would be able to unbolt the top of a 2113 front panel and use just the keyboard portion of the assembly but the PCB behind the keyboard that I have turns out to be too tall! Is there is shorter one available. Can anyone shed any light on this one? Cheers Peter Brown From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 26 12:36:29 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: HP loader rom chips Message-ID: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Jameco claims to have real Signetics 82S129's in (not substituted parts). These are for the HP 21MX loader roms. They are quoting me $9.95 each for qty 1-10. Anyone know of a better source, or want to go in with me on this? I will probably get about 10. Equivalent parts (that my 29B can program): Monolithic Memories 6301 Harris 7611 Texas Instruments 24S10 Applied Micro Devices 27S21 So maybe someone knows of a source for the above parts that is cheaper. Jay From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jan 26 12:49:52 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: PC Adaptec SCSI BIOS format option? In-Reply-To: <1106758218.22617.6.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106751934.22372.7.camel@weka.localdomain> <1106758218.22617.6.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <41F7E650.60202@oldskool.org> Jules Richardson wrote: > It too just found the one bad block and says that it remapped it for me, > so all seems to be well (assuming the problem block was a random event > on a ten year old drive, rather than it being the first sign of rapid > self destruction) Oh, you'll know when rapid self-destruction is coming -- the signs are usually *audible*, not visual :-) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From vax9000 at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 12:53:10 2005 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: computer junks for shipping cost (mostly PC related) Message-ID: Well, I received Chad Fernandez' box of pc leftovers. After taking out what I need and adding in what I don't, here is the stuff that is free to go. (ship from ohio) http://geocities.com/mscpscsi/PHOTOS/dscn3959.jpg --pentium 133, IBM 6x86MX PR300 --IBM PCDOS7, windows 3.1, Caldera DRDOS 7.02 --around 15 pieces of HP DVD+R bland disks (my DVDRW has trouble to write this brand, thus distroyed 10 of the 25 pack, but your drive might not) --a point and shot APS camera ($3 from yardsale) --CNet 10M/100M hub (the small fan inside became noisy, you might replace it. looks like the CPU fans of the 486 era) --all kinds of fans, 6 of them (some look like NOS) --a pile of floppy cables --11Mbps wireless lan PCMCIA card --AUI to RJ45 converter (you need this for your vax) --a xilinx student edition of fundation 1.3 --PC bay covers, slot covers, drive rails. --an EPSON MX-100 III printer (I bought it with $3 to print the tango/protel DOS version schmatics) Let me know if you are interested. I am willing to break the pile into two. One is the printer, the other is the rest. I am also willing to trash the rails, slot covers, bay covers, floppy cables, the xilinx, to drop the weight. The rest must go as a whole. Thank you. I will use UPS ground or fedex ground. If no one takes them, their destination is miserable. vax, 9000 From dvcorbin at optonline.net Wed Jan 26 12:59:44 2005 From: dvcorbin at optonline.net (dvcorbin@optonline.net) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: computer junks for shipping cost (mostly PC related) Message-ID: <4cdb7504ce0711.4ce07114cdb750@optonline.net> > --AUI to RJ45 converter (you need this for your vax) Not if my network is Thick Wire ...... From fernande at internet1.net Wed Jan 26 13:14:23 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: computer junks for shipping cost (mostly PC related) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41F7EC0F.9080201@internet1.net> Yes, a few of the fans are new. Also, there is a little board in the picture with a cable attached to it. This came out of a clone XT, the board is calleed a Fast 88 or soemthing like that. I always though someone on here would want it or know what it is, but it just be too obscure. Somewhere in the box of stuff I sent 9000 Vax, ther's a little tag that goes on the cable, to show direction of connection. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA 9000 VAX wrote: > --all kinds of fans, 6 of them (some look like NOS) From vax9000 at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 13:30:10 2005 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: computer junks for shipping cost (mostly PC related) In-Reply-To: <41F7EC0F.9080201@internet1.net> References: <41F7EC0F.9080201@internet1.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 14:14:23 -0500, Chad Fernandez wrote: > Yes, a few of the fans are new. > > Also, there is a little board in the picture with a cable attached to > it. This came out of a clone XT, the board is calleed a Fast 88 or > soemthing like that. I always though someone on here would want it or > know what it is, but it just be too obscure. Somewhere in the box of > stuff I sent 9000 Vax, ther's a little tag that goes on the cable, to > show direction of connection. I figured out what it is. It should be pluged into the 8284 socket on the motherboard, to provide several different clocks to the 8088. The 6 pin phone line kind of socket should be connected to a switch that you use to choose the speed. vax, 9000 > > Chad Fernandez > Michigan, USA > From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 26 13:33:35 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: Data General NOVA4 status Message-ID: <20050126112323.V704@localhost> Well things are moving along very nicely, I'm going to power up in the next few days. I've been picking on it each night (30 min - 2 hrs) and it's pretty much ready to begin power-up. I took another look at the DG LP2 that "faulted". With a dry paintbrush and vacuum cleaned out the dustbunnies and a few spiders, esp. attention to the photo-interruptor. Loaded paper into it, powered up. This time carriage zeroing worked, everything behaved including self-test printing out the charset onto greenbar. The "new" ribbons seem dried out and the print is yellow-gray (likely from Bakersfield heat) but I'll try another or WD40 the ink ribbon. Washed it all down, other than a couple of scuffs it looks like new. Completed all the rack wiring, made a terminal (console) cable up from the stub that got cut off for transport. Fan filter, rack panel fillers all in. Took a look at the other chassis; one now empty (DG salesmammals talked customer into too many (profitable) racks, as Bruce suspected :-) one's got the big analog mux thing (more, next message), the remaining has the second tape drive (6023) and the 4300 expansion chassis. Which I might keep -- ask me in a month -- it contains a 16 in/16 out digital interface and I think a one-channel A/D and D/A. Nice. Big though, we're talking 14" rack space but it's mostly air (lots of slots). Laid out all the docs, culled more dupes, which Bruce will get (hi Bruce :-) Bought binders on the way into work today for never-used docs. My lab, quickly outfit last fall (moved out of my nice, purpose-built lab, which we turned into a rent-generating apartment -- when I get sad, I think of the income :-) has crappy power. I'm not sure it's got enough amps to run the CPU, tape and disk. Umm, we'll see, the obvious way. From tomj at wps.com Wed Jan 26 13:43:54 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: Computer Products Inc analog data wide-range analog I/O -- free Message-ID: <20050126113347.I704@localhost> I will eventually post it to VCF website, but if anyone wants this it's FREE, you come get. I will NOT ship this item. It doesn't seem to have great value so it will eventually become landfill if no one claims it. It comes complete, in excellent condition, with manuals, schematics, programmers reference, cables, connectors, and even drivers for Data General NOVA machines (via thr 4300). It contains a 240 channel (two hundred forty!) analog input -- a big MUX. Some amplification. Nice power supply, nice card cage, lots of (probably Hg wetted) small-signal relays. Made in the mid 1980's. I find no google hits, and unfortunately the manufacturer name is too generic ("Computer Products Inc" yeah right). There's enough documentation to probably hook it up to anything. This is a rugged A/D subsystem that was wired to some smokestack in an oilfield, so it's not delicate (electrically). Not extraordinarily large or heavy, I'd estimate 50 lbs. http://wps.com/NOVA4/images/compprod1.jpg http://wps.com/NOVA4/images/compprod2.jpg From fernande at internet1.net Wed Jan 26 13:40:15 2005 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:14 2005 Subject: computer junks for shipping cost (mostly PC related) In-Reply-To: References: <41F7EC0F.9080201@internet1.net> Message-ID: <41F7F21F.9020009@internet1.net> .... and of course I never had the switch! I hate finding half of something. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA 9000 VAX wrote: > I figured out what it is. It should be pluged into the 8284 socket on > the motherboard, to provide several different clocks to the 8088. The > 6 pin phone line kind of socket should be connected to a switch that > you use to choose the speed. > > vax, 9000 From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 26 13:57:47 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? In-Reply-To: <001b01c503bd$94962fa0$c2db3fd0@r2p0s6> References: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> <32902.64.169.63.74.1106672040.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <001b01c503bd$94962fa0$c2db3fd0@r2p0s6> Message-ID: <56198.64.139.41.130.1106769467.squirrel@64.139.41.130> I wrote: > That's the terminal and floppy drives, but neiher of those is > the actual development system. Mike wrote: > well it *is* the/an actual development system when the complement of cards > are installed. Really? The one I saw years ago at Weird Stuff, and the ones that RCA tried to sell me years before that, the computer was a box separate from the terminal (keyboard/display box). > Sounds like maybe the C.D.S III (the previous version #007) Development > System. Was it a mostly rackmounted card cage? The ones I saw looked rack-mountable but were not in fact in racks at the time. Eric From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 26 14:12:13 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: update: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks In-Reply-To: <1106659268.20657.24.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106259864.13417.38.camel@weka.localdomain> <41F033D5.3000101@gjcp.net> <1106263682.13434.54.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501210949.44774.dtwright@uiuc.edu> <1106324093.15335.8.camel@weka.localdomain> <1106659268.20657.24.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <1106770333.22617.13.camel@weka.localdomain> On Tue, 2005-01-25 at 13:21 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote: > I'm now wondering if I can clone the OS onto a bigger drive without > install media :-) If I copy partition table area and the 'boot' > partitions (7 & 8 - which happen to be at the start of the disk) then it > might work. I'll have to manually edit the table (and disk size field) > on the new drive, leaving the boot partitions as they are. Then boot the > Tek with the new disk as an auxiliary, format the root partition on the > new disk, and copy everything across via dump/restore to the new drive. Well... that worked :-) I now have a 300MB root partition and a 600MB 'spare' data partition with all OS and user data still intact, and all without having to rebuild via install media (which I don't have). It *seems* to be hanging together at the moment. I had it running earlier and then the filesystem suddenly corrupted itself, but I think that was the bad block on the drive that I mentioned in a different post rather than a problem with my hacking partition tables with a hex editor :-) (the bad block was right at the start of the root filesystem area of the disk and so probably affected something critical) Time will tell if it's stable I suppose. I'm going to see if I can get gcc onto it as the cc that's on there is a little clunky at best... cheers Jules From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 16:03:08 2005 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP loader rom chips In-Reply-To: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e905012614035a1709e0@mail.gmail.com> Would a 74S287 (256x4 tri-state output) also work? Unicorn Electronics lists those at $7.49 each. The Nat Semi DM74S287 is on the supported device list of my BP Micro programmer, no idea if it is supported by the 29B. On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:36:29 -0600, Jay West wrote: > Jameco claims to have real Signetics 82S129's in (not substituted parts). > These are for the HP 21MX loader roms. > > They are quoting me $9.95 each for qty 1-10. > > Anyone know of a better source, or want to go in with me on this? I will > probably get about 10. From emu at ecubics.com Wed Jan 26 12:46:33 2005 From: emu at ecubics.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP loader rom chips In-Reply-To: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <41F7E589.5090102@ecubics.com> Jay West wrote: > Jameco claims to have real Signetics 82S129's in (not substituted > parts). These are for the HP 21MX loader roms. > > They are quoting me $9.95 each for qty 1-10. sounds pretty steep :( > Anyone know of a better source, or want to go in with me on this? I will > probably get about 10. > > Equivalent parts (that my 29B can program): > Monolithic Memories 6301 > Harris 7611 > Texas Instruments 24S10 > Applied Micro Devices 27S21 You're probably thinking of ADVANCED Micro Devices ;-) From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 26 16:25:12 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP loader rom chips References: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <1e1fc3e905012614035a1709e0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <009d01c503f6$0747c7b0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> the 74S287 can't be programmed on the 29B/Unipak, however, I just bought a unipak2B which does program the 74S287, which is definitely cheaper than the 82S129. Cool! Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Glen Slick" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 4:03 PM Subject: Re: HP loader rom chips > Would a 74S287 (256x4 tri-state output) also work? Unicorn > Electronics lists those at $7.49 each. > > The Nat Semi DM74S287 is on the supported device list of my BP Micro > programmer, no idea if it is supported by the 29B. > > > On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:36:29 -0600, Jay West wrote: >> Jameco claims to have real Signetics 82S129's in (not substituted parts). >> These are for the HP 21MX loader roms. >> >> They are quoting me $9.95 each for qty 1-10. >> >> Anyone know of a better source, or want to go in with me on this? I will >> probably get about 10. > > From devin at thecabal.org Tue Jan 25 08:58:00 2005 From: devin at thecabal.org (Devin L. Ganger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Apple, Commodore, CP/M, Sun, misc. gear needs new home Message-ID: <41F65E78.2030407@thecabal.org> I have a ton of classic and not-so-classic computers and accessories to find new homes for. Since I don't have the time or money to ship any of this, you need to be willing to pick up in the Seattle, WA area. Most of this stuff at least powered up the last time I was able to get to it, although there are likely some TLC issues on most or all of them that need to be attended to such as missing RAM or hard drives. One of the C-64s doesn't power up and a couple of the color NCD terminals don't have monitors or have monitors that are futzing, but all of the base units works. Some of this stuff I'm willing to let go for free, some of it I'd like to see at least $5 for. And there are a couple of items (the Auspex, the Sun Ultra 1 and disk pack, the Apple IIgs, the Cisco router) I would like to get a bit more than that from. Especially the Auspex and the Cisco router. Please e-mail me with what you're interested in, how much you'd be willing to pay, and what your schedule is like. I don't usually have any time during business hours to try to meet people places, unless it's at my home in Monroe on one of the days I'm working from home. Evenings and weekends are best bet if you're not willing to drive to Monroe. If I have to drive a load of equipment somewhere, I'm probably going to want to charge enough for it to make it worth my while. On with the list! CP/M x1 Northstar S-100 CP/M chassis, expansion cards, floppies Apple x1 Apple IIe system + accessories x1 Apple III system + accessories x1 Apple IIgs system + accessories x1 Mac 256 x1 PowerMac 7x00 system + accessories Commodore x1 Commodore printer x2 Commodore 64s + boxes of accessories x5 Commodore 1541 floppy drives Sun x3 Sun 3/60 pizzaboxes x2 Sun 3/80 pizzaboxes x2 Sun SPARCstation 2 pizzaboxes x1 Sun UltraSPARC 1 Creator 3D x1 Sun 6-disk external 68-pin SCSI disk pack, 6 18GB SCA drives Terminals x11 Wyse 30 dumb terminals x1 B&W 19" NCD X terminal x6 color NCD X terminals Routers, Network, Telco x1 Cisco 2516 router (48VDC telco power supply) x1 19" 1u serial/parallel print server x2 Fujitsu DSL modems x1 DirecTV DSL modem Specialty x1 Auspex NS 5500 (7' tall, 770 lbs!) This was a high-end server running a special form of SunOS 4.1 using Functional Multiprocessing (FMP). Auspex tells me it is the only one in private hands that hasn't been traded in or scrapped. True classic computing lovers only need apply. YOU MUST PICK UP THIS ITEM. I *cannot* transport it. Bring a big truck or van and suitable moving/tie-down equipment and padding. Misc. x1 ZIP SCSI external drive x1 HP parallel external CD burner Assorted A/V switchboxes Assorted TDMA cellphones + accessories -- Devin L. Ganger "Aikido is based around the central precept of letting an attack take its natural course. You, of course, don't want to impede that natural flow by being in its way." -- overheard on the PyraMOO From devin at thecabal.org Tue Jan 25 09:35:31 2005 From: devin at thecabal.org (Devin L. Ganger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Apple, Commodore, CP/M, Sun, misc. gear needs new home In-Reply-To: <41F65E78.2030407@thecabal.org> References: <41F65E78.2030407@thecabal.org> Message-ID: <41F66743.9050600@thecabal.org> on 1/25/2005 6:58 AM Devin L. Ganger wrote: > I have a ton of classic and not-so-classic computers and accessories to > find new homes for. One additional item: x1 Tadpole SPARCbook 3GX + accessories + Solaris 7 & Tadpole extensions Since this includes the media for the retail Tadpole version of Solaris 7 this is also one of the items where I'd like a larger offer. This is also the only item I'd be reasonably willing to ship (only within the United States, sorry). -- Devin L. Ganger "Aikido is based around the central precept of letting an attack take its natural course. You, of course, don't want to impede that natural flow by being in its way." -- overheard on the PyraMOO From lion at apocalypse.org Tue Jan 25 21:32:18 2005 From: lion at apocalypse.org (Michael Burg) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Free LocalTalk RJ-11 connector Message-ID: <41F70F42.7020600@apocalypse.org> I have an Apple LocalTalk RJ-11 Connector DIN-8 M1657Z/A with manual for anyone who wants it. I'm sure some Apple collectors out there could use one of these. US only please -- I don't want to pay more for international postage. Thanks, -- Michael From atrivo at nm.ru Wed Jan 26 10:30:42 2005 From: atrivo at nm.ru (P Thompson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: PC Adaptec SCSI BIOS format option? In-Reply-To: <1106751934.22372.7.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106751934.22372.7.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Stupid question, but does anyone know if the SCSI BIOS format utility on > Adaptec 29160 or 2940 cards does bad block checking and reassignment? > My experience with the 29160 is that it does. There is also a utility scu (apparently a linux compiled version of the Ultrix/Tru64 utility of the same name) which will allow bad block checking and automatic or manual relocation from linux. In the last month its download location seems to have vanished (http://www.bit-net.com/~rmiller/scu.html) But if it you can find it it will help. > I'm a bit wary of the Adaptec BIOS utility - hopefully it won't trash > the drive... > Mine worked OK, but it will choke if the relocation caching table is full. From cc at corti-net.de Wed Jan 26 11:01:12 2005 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: IBM 029 card punch Message-ID: Hi, I have here three IBM 029 card punches, two model A and one model C (with interpreter) including documentation. So far so good. I do have an additional 029 (I *think*) without covers which I would like to restore. The problem is that it is "a bit" different from the other three punches and I would like to know what model this is and if anyone has the maintenance manual for it. The mechanical part is almost the same as in the A and C models, but the keyboard has two lights, one at each side. I know that the light on the left side is an indicator for the verifier, but the one on the right side is unknown to me. It is a printing punch and has two program drums each with 12 star wheel contacts (instead of the usual 8 on the front drum). Now comes the electrical part: It is very different from the other three punches. It has more SMS cards (about 12, not including the cable cards) and many more wire relays (no reed relays and no electronic components except for some diodes, resistors and capacitors). But the most interesting feature of this unit is the "I/O" port on the rear left side. Does this ring a bell to anyone? Thanks, Christian From mskavuru at hotmail.com Wed Jan 26 09:24:56 2005 From: mskavuru at hotmail.com (Madhav S. Kavuru) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Sritek coprocessor boards Message-ID: hi, I designed many of the Sritek boards. You may contact me for some assistance. Madhav S. Kavuru, PhD (mskavuru@hotmail.com) _________________________________________________________________ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ From phirkel at engsoc.org Wed Jan 26 12:50:32 2005 From: phirkel at engsoc.org (Philippe Vachon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Motorola MVME188 Documents Message-ID: Hello! We just located an old Motorola VME "minicomputer" with an MVME188 single board computer. Being a real vintage computing enthusiast, I decided to try to get the thing working, running OpenBSD. However, before I can do that, I need to reprogram the NVRAM in it. I figure if there were some documentation on how to do this, and how to actually use the machine someone here might have it! Any information on the board, the MVME332/333/376/328 would be much appreciated. Cheers. Phil From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jan 26 17:06:05 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: computer junks for shipping cost (mostly PC related) In-Reply-To: <41F7F21F.9020009@internet1.net> References: <41F7EC0F.9080201@internet1.net> <41F7F21F.9020009@internet1.net> Message-ID: <41F8225D.3030701@oldskool.org> Chad Fernandez wrote: > .... and of course I never had the switch! I hate finding half of > something. ...until you find the other half! I had an IBM Music Feature card without the MIDI breakout box... found the box half a decade later, sold as junk on ebay by someone who didn't have the card. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From zmerch at 30below.com Wed Jan 26 17:11:14 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Apple, Commodore, CP/M, Sun, misc. gear needs new home In-Reply-To: <41F66743.9050600@thecabal.org> References: <41F65E78.2030407@thecabal.org> <41F65E78.2030407@thecabal.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050126175512.03d247a8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Devin L. Ganger may have mentioned these words: >on 1/25/2005 6:58 AM Devin L. Ganger wrote: > >>I have a ton of classic and not-so-classic computers and accessories to >>find new homes for. > >One additional item: > > x1 Tadpole SPARCbook 3GX + accessories + Solaris 7 & Tadpole extensions If you get no other takers, I'd be interested in this. I don't have the room, but for that, I'd make sure it doesn't get tossed... However, if someone else is willing to give it a good home, please feel free. Thanks! Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers _??_ zmerch@30below.com (?||?) If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead _)(_ disarmament should *not* be your first career choice. From waltje at pdp11.nl Wed Jan 26 17:10:00 2005 From: waltje at pdp11.nl (Fred N. van Kempen) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas Message-ID: Hi all, Today is a sad one, as I had to part with someone I considered a friend, a new collector, and recent addition to the CCtalk community. Bert had trouble with getting his PDP-11/34 to work (as we have all been reading here), and, a while ago, I offered him to have a look at it. We got together, and I was able to fix the system. Took a while, but hey, that's OK. I did mention to him I just acquired a new system, and needed to have it moved to my place. To return my favor, Bert offered to move my system, as he had a van available, which makes it a lot easier than using my car. Great deal! The selling party and Bert were put in contact, so they could agree on a date and such. And that's the last thing I heard about it.. until I got curious, and contacted the seller if something had gone wrong.. I _am_ out of the area and country a lot, so could have missed something. Nope, everything went as planned, the seller replied - Bert had picked up the system that saturday morning, and all was well. He did mention that Bert said that since he picked up _and_ paid for the system, he considered it his, now. (The seller had not yet replied to my question about how to pay for the system- this is a bit different in Holland, as we usually just exchange bank account numbers here, and then just transfer the amount needed. Easy. So, I was waiting for him to reply with his account number. Rather, he did not reply, and when the pickup ocurred, he wanted cash. Even this is normally handled fine.. one pays the cash, and then gets reimbursed by whoever is supposed to actually receive the system.) Anyway... when I heard that, I tried to contact Bert, and eventually got a hold of him. And when asked about this, he indeed told me the above - as far as he was concerned, it was now HIS system. To make a much longer story short- I have taken legal action against him to get my system back, and the extra (legal and other) fees and costs reimbursed for. Sadly, Bert decided to not accept his being wrong, so this will be a full case of fraud in Dutch court. Your mileage etc etc, but I'd like everyone to take extreme caution when dealing with Bert, as his definition of "mine" and "yours", and the being right or wrong, might very well be different from what you consider such. This surely was the case for me. With kindest regards, Fred -- Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist Visit the VAXlab Project at http://VAXlab.pdp11.nl/ Visit the Archives at http://www.pdp11.nl/ Email: waltje@pdp11.nl BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Mountain View, CA, USA From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 26 17:21:53 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: IBM 029 card punch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40188.64.139.41.130.1106781713.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Christian wrote: > I have here three IBM 029 card punches, two model A and one model C (with > interpreter) including documentation. So far so good. I do have an > additional 029 (I *think*) without covers which I would like to restore. > The problem is that it is "a bit" different from the other three punches > and I would like to know what model this is and if anyone has the > maintenance manual for it. > The mechanical part is almost the same as in the A and C models, but the > keyboard has two lights, one at each side. I know that the light on the > left side is an indicator for the verifier, but the one on the right side > is unknown to me. Maybe it is a Type 129, rather than 029? I haven't seen a 129 up close in many years, so I couldn't tell you the differences in detail, but it does have more SMS cards, etc. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 17:22:45 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: More auction goodies In-Reply-To: <41F4F28F.8090603@theriver.com> References: <41F4F28F.8090603@theriver.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 06:05:19 -0700, Tom Ponsford wrote: > Hi Folks, > > Well, today's auction haul includes: > > A Dec MV 3800 w/qbus scsi card (he-he) Sweet! > And!! > > A functioning Tektronix 4051 Graphics system w/Data Communication Interface. > (circa 1976) Isn't that the system they did the vector graphics for "Battlestar Galactica" on? (special effects/combat tactical screens, mostly) -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 17:51:17 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: VT320 Terminal RS232 Receiver In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 10:47:31 -0500, list@saracom.com wrote: > > Hello, > > I managed to feed -48VDC into the data receive pin of my > VT320 at work. So of course the magic smoke came out. Ow! > Which chip is the receiver chip? If the VT320 is like its predecessors (VT220...), it uses 9636 and 9637 chips, *not* 1488s and 1489s. I do not recall off the top of my head which one is Tx and which one is Rx, but if you get the pinouts for the chips, it should only take a couple of minutes to determine which is which by using a continuity tester/VOM to trace out the input pin from the interface jack. Both the 9636 and 9637 are 8 pin DIPs, so it wouldn't even take that long *without* a chip pinout. You just need to know which is the RxD input from the outside world... the chip that's attached to that would be the fried one. Also... you might be able to spot a pinhole or other mechanical damage... From medavidson at mac.com Wed Jan 26 17:51:18 2005 From: medavidson at mac.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Apple, Commodore, CP/M, Sun, misc. gear needs new home In-Reply-To: <41F65E78.2030407@thecabal.org> References: <41F65E78.2030407@thecabal.org> Message-ID: <2C29DF32-6FF5-11D9-A41D-000393D3CBB6@mac.com> Oh man... that Auspex would be nice... I remember going to a Sun User Group meeting in LA and meeting the rep from Auspex... Adobe used to use a ton of their boxes. Have you had any offers for the Tadpole? Mark medavidson@mac.com On Jan 25, 2005, at 6:58 AM, Devin L. Ganger wrote: > I have a ton of classic and not-so-classic computers and accessories > to find new homes for. Since I don't have the time or money to ship > any of this, you need to be willing to pick up in the Seattle, WA > area. Most of this stuff at least powered up the last time I was able > to get to it, although there are likely some TLC issues on most or all > of them that need to be attended to such as missing RAM or hard > drives. One of the C-64s doesn't power up and a couple of the color > NCD terminals don't have monitors or have monitors that are futzing, > but all of the base units works. > > Some of this stuff I'm willing to let go for free, some of it I'd like > to see at least $5 for. And there are a couple of items (the Auspex, > the Sun Ultra 1 and disk pack, the Apple IIgs, the Cisco router) I > would like to get a bit more than that from. Especially the Auspex and > the Cisco router. > > Please e-mail me with what you're interested in, how much you'd be > willing to pay, and what your schedule is like. I don't usually have > any time during business hours to try to meet people places, unless > it's at my home in Monroe on one of the days I'm working from home. > Evenings and weekends are best bet if you're not willing to drive to > Monroe. If I have to drive a load of equipment somewhere, I'm probably > going to want to charge enough for it to make it worth my while. > > On with the list! > > CP/M > x1 Northstar S-100 CP/M chassis, expansion cards, floppies > > Apple > x1 Apple IIe system + accessories > x1 Apple III system + accessories > x1 Apple IIgs system + accessories > x1 Mac 256 > x1 PowerMac 7x00 system + accessories > > Commodore > x1 Commodore printer > x2 Commodore 64s + boxes of accessories > x5 Commodore 1541 floppy drives > > Sun > x3 Sun 3/60 pizzaboxes > x2 Sun 3/80 pizzaboxes > x2 Sun SPARCstation 2 pizzaboxes > x1 Sun UltraSPARC 1 Creator 3D > x1 Sun 6-disk external 68-pin SCSI disk pack, 6 18GB SCA drives > > Terminals > x11 Wyse 30 dumb terminals > x1 B&W 19" NCD X terminal > x6 color NCD X terminals > > Routers, Network, Telco > x1 Cisco 2516 router (48VDC telco power supply) > x1 19" 1u serial/parallel print server > x2 Fujitsu DSL modems > x1 DirecTV DSL modem > > Specialty > x1 Auspex NS 5500 (7' tall, 770 lbs!) > This was a high-end server running a special form of SunOS 4.1 > using Functional Multiprocessing (FMP). Auspex tells me it is > the only one in private hands that hasn't been traded in or > scrapped. True classic computing lovers only need apply. > YOU MUST PICK UP THIS ITEM. I *cannot* transport it. Bring a > big truck or van and suitable moving/tie-down equipment and > padding. > > Misc. > x1 ZIP SCSI external drive > x1 HP parallel external CD burner > Assorted A/V switchboxes > Assorted TDMA cellphones + accessories > > -- > Devin L. Ganger > "Aikido is based around the central precept of letting an attack take > its natural course. You, of course, don't want to impede that natural > flow by being in its way." -- overheard on the PyraMOO From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 26 18:28:25 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: IBM Record Unit Machines Message-ID: <5BEE9270-6FFA-11D9-96F8-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> What were some interesing record unit machines from IBM Card punches: Which IBM card punch had a dial on the upper part of the keyboard? I used one, but I forget what the dial was for. Card Sorters: What is the machine that read card and could add information and print reports, usually programmed with a patch panel? Were there any machines that read cards and wrote to Mag tape? Is there a collection of Information on the Internet about these beasts? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 26 17:52:19 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks (with some OT Tek In-Reply-To: from "Vintage Computer Festival" at Jan 25, 5 09:01:44 pm Message-ID: > The HP9830 is certainly a nice machine. I've got one, and considering it > has almost all the same features as the Tek 4051 (substitute a > 40-character, 1-line LED display for the CRT) but came out 3 years earlier Acxtually it's 32 chracter (8 off 4-character modules). The driver circuitry is a little odd too, to save on transistors. Electonically, it's not a 160 cloumn by 7 roww array of LEDs (each character being 5 by 7), it's a 28 by 40 array. No you really didn't need to know that ;-) > it's definitely comparable overall. I've never had a chance to play with > my 9830B but I wonder how the BASIC compares to that in the 4051. The built-in BASIC is pretty minimal, it doesn't even have string variables. There are add-on ROMs to give string variables, extended I/O (including some binary I/O features), matrices, plotter, etc. > True, true. The keyboard leaves a lot to be desired on some models of the > 9825 though. True enough. My 9825 has the 'real' keyboard, my 9831 (electically the same machine, but with BASIC, not HPL, in ROM) has the chicklet one. > > > Of course both HP and Tektronix were not trying to sell to hobbyists, and > > their machines were far to expensive for most homes... > > Indeed. But my point was that people marvel over the early micros like > the Altair, etc., touting features such as "first with graphics display", > "first with mass storage", "first with integrated CRT", etc., and fail to > realize that there were much more powerful systems available that were > years ahead of the hobbyist micros. Sure, they were thousands of dollars > more, but there they were. It offers a much different perspective on the > hobbyist machines of that era. I feel somewhat odd saying this to you (with your love of the Apple ][, etc)... I believe the Apple ][ design was offered to HP, but they turned it down, the often-stated reason being that they couldn't see the point of small computers. I have often wondered if the real reason was that HP were already making superior machines (albeit at about 10 times the price!), and HP (at that time) were not trying to go for the mass market. Whether or not that was a good decision is another matter... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 26 18:11:50 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: VT320 Terminal RS232 Receiver In-Reply-To: from "list@saracom.com" at Jan 26, 5 10:47:31 am Message-ID: > > > Hello, > > I managed to feed -48VDC into the data receive pin of my > VT320 at work. So of course the magic smoke came out. > Which chip is the receiver chip? Off the top of my head, no idea, but how hard is it to use a continuity tester to trace the RsD pin to the input on the receiver chip? -tony From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Jan 26 19:00:26 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: computer junks for shipping cost (mostly PC related) In-Reply-To: <41F8225D.3030701@oldskool.org> References: <41F7EC0F.9080201@internet1.net> <41F7F21F.9020009@internet1.net> <41F8225D.3030701@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <41F83D2A.1030809@mdrconsult.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > Chad Fernandez wrote: > >> .... and of course I never had the switch! I hate finding half of >> something. > > > ...until you find the other half! I had an IBM Music Feature card > without the MIDI breakout box... found the box half a decade later, sold > as junk on ebay by someone who didn't have the card. Uhhh, what do those look like? The breakout box, not the card. Doc From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 19:08:41 2005 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90501261708e94fa2d@mail.gmail.com> Take a look at this doc: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/1000/1000_MEF_EngrRef/ 92851-90001_Mar81_8.pdf There are drawings of a shorter 2105/08/12 front panel PCA 5060-8343 and a taller 2019/11/13/17 front panel PCA 5061-1343. Does that help at all? On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:56:03 +0000, Peter Brown wrote: > Hi All, > > How many types of front panel keyboard were used with the 2113 E-series CPU? > > I have one in front of me that has two ribbon cables that run from the > keyboard PCB to the CPU PCB (one from the top edge of the keyboard PCB one > from the bottom edge) but I seem to remember having seen other 2113 CPU's > where the keybaord PCB is smaller and a single cable runs from the bottom > edge of the keyboard to the CPU PCB. From jrkeys at concentric.net Wed Jan 26 19:25:17 2005 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: IBM 029 card punch References: <40188.64.139.41.130.1106781713.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <014a01c5040f$13c11a50$3b406b43@66067007> Here's a picture and write-up on the 129 http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/129.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Smith" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 5:21 PM Subject: Re: IBM 029 card punch > Christian wrote: >> I have here three IBM 029 card punches, two model A and one model C (with >> interpreter) including documentation. So far so good. I do have an >> additional 029 (I *think*) without covers which I would like to restore. >> The problem is that it is "a bit" different from the other three punches >> and I would like to know what model this is and if anyone has the >> maintenance manual for it. >> The mechanical part is almost the same as in the A and C models, but the >> keyboard has two lights, one at each side. I know that the light on the >> left side is an indicator for the verifier, but the one on the right side >> is unknown to me. > > Maybe it is a Type 129, rather than 029? I haven't seen a 129 up close > in many years, so I couldn't tell you the differences in detail, but > it does have more SMS cards, etc. > > From jrkeys at concentric.net Wed Jan 26 19:35:18 2005 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: IBM Record Unit Machines References: <5BEE9270-6FFA-11D9-96F8-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <016001c50410$76efc4e0$3b406b43@66067007> Here's a starting point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IBM_products ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Hudson" To: "Classic Computers" Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 6:28 PM Subject: IBM Record Unit Machines > What were some interesing record unit machines from IBM > > > Card punches: > > Which IBM card punch had a dial on the upper part of > the keyboard? I used one, but I forget what the dial > was for. > > Card Sorters: > > What is the machine that read card and could add > information and print reports, usually programmed with > a patch panel? > > Were there any machines that read cards and wrote to > Mag tape? > > Is there a collection of Information on the Internet > about these beasts? > > From CCTalk at catcorner.org Wed Jan 26 19:37:57 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Looking for 68010 CPU's Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C97@mail.catcorner.org> I'm trying to locate 6 to 10 of these. 64 pin ceramic or plastic DIP. Anyone have a lead on these? Maybe I'm jst missing them at all the usual places. I'm located in the US (New Jersey). Thanks, Kelly From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 26 19:41:11 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: IBM Record Unit Machines In-Reply-To: <016001c50410$76efc4e0$3b406b43@66067007> References: <5BEE9270-6FFA-11D9-96F8-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> <016001c50410$76efc4e0$3b406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <8628318A-7004-11D9-96F8-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Thanks, Everything I have found so far is basically "this is what a card punch looked like", no details. On Jan 26, 2005, at 5:35 PM, Keys wrote: > Here's a starting point > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IBM_products > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Hudson" > > To: "Classic Computers" > Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 6:28 PM > Subject: IBM Record Unit Machines > > >> What were some interesing record unit machines from IBM >> Card punches: >> Which IBM card punch had a dial on the upper part of >> the keyboard? I used one, but I forget what the dial >> was for. >> Card Sorters: >> What is the machine that read card and could add >> information and print reports, usually programmed with >> a patch panel? >> Were there any machines that read cards and wrote to >> Mag tape? >> Is there a collection of Information on the Internet >> about these beasts? >> > From tponsford at theriver.com Tue Jan 25 08:54:24 2005 From: tponsford at theriver.com (Tom Ponsford) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: More auction goodies In-Reply-To: References: <41F4F28F.8090603@theriver.com> Message-ID: <41F65DA0.70003@theriver.com> Yes, that's the one. The system uses Storage Tube technolgy which allow the system to use vector graphics in overlays up build up a pretty complex drawing on 32K of memory. The storage tube retains the image with virtually no refresh and allows a succession of plots to be "overlayed" to build up an image, This was pretty advanced stuff in 1976. This unit I got yesterday even has a rs232 interface that allow to be used as a terminal and has the extra full complement of 32K of mem. I spent last nite playing with it and improving a digital mapping and plotting program I wrote on it about 28 years ago... Cheers Tom Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Mon, 24 Jan 2005 06:05:19 -0700, Tom Ponsford wrote: > >>Hi Folks, >> >>Well, today's auction haul includes: >> >>A Dec MV 3800 w/qbus scsi card (he-he) > > > Sweet! > > >>And!! >> >>A functioning Tektronix 4051 Graphics system w/Data Communication Interface. >>(circa 1976) > > > Isn't that the system they did the vector graphics for "Battlestar > Galactica" on? (special effects/combat tactical screens, mostly) > > -ethan > > -- --- Please do not read this sig. If you have read this far, please unread back to the beginning. From melt at microvax.org Wed Jan 26 19:58:25 2005 From: melt at microvax.org (Alex White) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Fred N. van Kempen wrote: > Hi all, > > Nope, everything went as planned, the seller replied - Bert had picked > up the system that saturday morning, and all was well. He did mention > that Bert said that since he picked up _and_ paid for the system, he > considered it his, now. Crikey Fred, that sucks :/ Keep us all posted, and good luck. alex/melt From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 26 20:09:49 2005 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Looking for 68010 CPU's In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C97@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C97@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <41F84D6D.2030609@jetnet.ab.ca> Kelly Leavitt wrote: >I'm trying to locate 6 to 10 of these. 64 pin ceramic or plastic DIP. Anyone >have a lead on these? Maybe I'm jst missing them at all the usual places. >I'm located in the US (New Jersey). > >Thanks, >Kelly > >. > > > try here: http://www.unicornelectronics.com/ From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 20:38:15 2005 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs In-Reply-To: <004501c50036$bc368210$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <004501c50036$bc368210$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90501261838227c5056@mail.gmail.com> I have browsed the connector parts listed here and the closest looking part I've found is 770428-1 but it doesn't have the latches and I'm not sure if the dimensions are correct. http://catalog.tycoelectronics.com/ On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:59:13 -0600, Jay West wrote: > I need some, time to make them. > > Want to be historically accurate, so... would anyone know exactly what AMP > connector was used, or where there are pictures of lots of AMP connectors so > I can identify the right one and order it? From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Jan 26 20:34:32 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Apple, Commodore, CP/M, Sun, misc. gear needs new home In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20050126175512.03d247a8@mail.30below.com> References: <41F65E78.2030407@thecabal.org> <41F65E78.2030407@thecabal.org> <5.1.0.14.2.20050126175512.03d247a8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <200501270240.VAA11552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > x1 Tadpole SPARCbook 3GX + accessories + Solaris 7 & Tadpole extensions I would love to get my hands on that. My current laptop is some Intel horror and I would very much like to get a laptop with a saner architecture. I do note > Since this includes the media for the retail Tadpole version of > Solaris 7 this is also one of the items where I'd like a larger > offer. which implies that it's the media that you feel make it worth "a larger offer". I have no real use for Solaris of any stripe (I'd be running NetBSD/sparc on it), so if you can get something for the media alone elsewhere, feel free. The major problem is I'm in Canada - and that's the reason I'm writing to the list: is there anyone who'd be willing to field the machine and reship it to me in Montreal? Of course, I'd pay for the shipping involved, and add in an amount (to be negotiated off-list) to Devin for the machine. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 26 20:50:46 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards References: Message-ID: <000b01c5041b$01abc6b0$0100a8c0@screamer> There are two ribbon cables between the CPU board and front panel, except when there is only one. This actually makes a little sense. Only one ribbon cable is needed for a standard CPU to talk to the front panel. The extra ribbon cable connection point on the full sized front panel may be ignored. So HP CPU configurations add a 'booster' microcode board to the standard CPU board. In these configurations the CPU's MPP port (a fast I/O port for microcoded data transfers) gets the second ribbon cable. There are two major types of full sized front panels, those with open leaf contacts for the buttons, and those that use the small snap disk switches. Electrically these are identical, mechanically the snap disk panel is superior. The 'short' front panel used on the smaller boxes ~might~ be either of these boards, as its much shorter than the height of a 2113. There may also be a smaller version for the really short CPU box, I'm not sure about that. Short box CPU's seem to be much less common than the full 2113 box. If you want to convert your 5320 CPU to a stock 2113, I have all the chassis parts you would need to rebuild the processor in the tall 2113 box. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Brown" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 12:56 PM Subject: RE: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards > Hi All, > > How many types of front panel keyboard were used with the 2113 E-series > CPU? > > I have one in front of me that has two ribbon cables that run from the > keyboard PCB to the CPU PCB (one from the top edge of the keyboard PCB one > from the bottom edge) but I seem to remember having seen other 2113 CPU's > where the keybaord PCB is smaller and a single cable runs from the bottom > edge of the keyboard to the CPU PCB. > > What I'm trying to do is find a 'short' front panel to replace the > 'embedded' keybaord of a 5420 Signal Analyser and turn it back into an > mini E-series CPU. > > I had assumed that I would be able to unbolt the top of a 2113 front panel > and use just the keyboard portion of the assembly but the PCB behind the > keyboard that I have turns out to be too tall! Is there is shorter one > available. > > Can anyone shed any light on this one? > > Cheers > > Peter Brown > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 26 20:23:10 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050126212310.0094f640@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 12:10 AM 1/27/05 +0100, you wrote: >Hi all, > >Today is a sad one, as I had to part with someone I considered a friend, >a new collector, and recent addition to the CCtalk community. > >Bert had trouble with getting his PDP-11/34 to work (as we have all been >reading here), and, a while ago, I offered him to have a look at it. > >We got together, and I was able to fix the system. Took a while, but >hey, that's OK. I did mention to him I just acquired a new system, >and needed to have it moved to my place. To return my favor, Bert >offered to move my system, as he had a van available, which makes it >a lot easier than using my car. Great deal! The selling party and >Bert were put in contact, so they could agree on a date and such. > >And that's the last thing I heard about it.. until I got curious, >and contacted the seller if something had gone wrong.. I _am_ out >of the area and country a lot, so could have missed something. > >Nope, everything went as planned, the seller replied - Bert had picked >up the system that saturday morning, and all was well. He did mention >that Bert said that since he picked up _and_ paid for the system, he >considered it his, now. > >(The seller had not yet replied to my question about how to pay for the >system- this is a bit different in Holland, as we usually just exchange >bank account numbers here, and then just transfer the amount needed. >Easy. So, I was waiting for him to reply with his account number. >Rather, he did not reply, and when the pickup ocurred, he wanted cash. >Even this is normally handled fine.. one pays the cash, and then gets >reimbursed by whoever is supposed to actually receive the system.) > >Anyway... when I heard that, I tried to contact Bert, and eventually >got a hold of him. And when asked about this, he indeed told me the >above - as far as he was concerned, it was now HIS system. What a snake! Where does this creep live? Keep me posted on your progress in recovering the system. Joe > >To make a much longer story short- I have taken legal action against >him to get my system back, and the extra (legal and other) fees and >costs reimbursed for. Sadly, Bert decided to not accept his being >wrong, so this will be a full case of fraud in Dutch court. > >Your mileage etc etc, but I'd like everyone to take extreme caution >when dealing with Bert, as his definition of "mine" and "yours", and >the being right or wrong, might very well be different from what you >consider such. This surely was the case for me. > >With kindest regards, > >Fred >-- >Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist >Visit the VAXlab Project at http://VAXlab.pdp11.nl/ >Visit the Archives at http://www.pdp11.nl/ >Email: waltje@pdp11.nl BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Mountain View, CA, USA > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 26 20:32:48 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20050124121144.00973100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <007101c500da$11942840$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <3.0.6.32.20050122004801.009234d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050126213248.0092a530@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Hey Jay! I picked up the two plugs todays and checked them on one of my HP 1000s and they are a perfect fit! I THOUGHT all the connectors on the back were the same but wasn't absolutely certain till I checked. The pins are the right sex (male) but some of them are in different locations in the three different connectors so you MAY have to move two of them to the proper locations. I've got a friend in a very ugly legal sitation that I'm trying to help out and I'm very busy right now but I'll get them in the mail to you as soon as I can. Joe At 12:11 PM 1/24/05 -0500, you wrote: >Jay, > > I'm pretty sure they're the right sex but they're in the warehouse. I'll >be down there tomorrow and I'll double check them. > > Joe > > >At 05:28 PM 1/22/05 -0600, you wrote: >>You wrote.... >>> Your timing is perfect! I just picked up the two plugs from a HP cable >>> that was made to fit those connectors. It seems the scrap idiots cut the >>> plugs off to get the "valuable" copper cable and then threw the plugs >>> away. >>> I found them in a load of scrap and recognized them immediately and I knew >>> they'd be useful sooner or later. Send me your address and I'll drop them >>> in the mnail to you. >> >>You sure they are the right gender? There are some power control cables with >>female connectors, and some with male connectors (I believe for the I/O >>extenders). Which are yours? I'm looking for the ones that are male, >>hopefully with the pins intact. Let me know! >> >>Thanks! >> >> >> > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 26 20:35:52 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: 2.5" floppy -- from what gear? In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20050125125911.04ffe460@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050126213552.0094ea70@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 11:27 PM 1/25/05 +0000, Tony wrote: > >Amusing-ish story. I needed a blank disk for the drive in my CoCo, and I >went to a local shop to buy one (or more). The salesdroidess said 'We >don't have any 3" disks. We've got 3.5", can you cut them down?'. She >then offered me 3" disks at the 3.5" price (which was considerably >less)... Go figure... Sales Droids! You gotta love em! :-) Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 26 20:38:44 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? In-Reply-To: References: <001a01c502e8$8c123980$4c63d6d1@r2p0s6> <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net> <001a01c502e8$8c123980$4c63d6d1@r2p0s6> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050126213844.00912370@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Is there anybody on the list that seriously wants this thing or should I go after it? It's within easy driving distance of me. Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jan 26 20:51:25 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: More auction goodies In-Reply-To: <41F4F28F.8090603@theriver.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050126215125.00916100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> VERY NICE! I used to have one of these but gave it to Mike Haas. I had ALL of the ROMs and ALL the manuals for it including a lot of prototype ROMs and their documentation. Bug Mike to get the stuff scanned and posted somewhere. Joe At 06:05 AM 1/24/05 -0700, Tom wrote: >Hi Folks, > >Well, today's auction haul includes: > > >A functioning Tektronix 4051 Graphics system w/Data Communication Interface. >(circa 1976) > >it also came with the RS232 Printer interface > >and the following documentation: > 4051 Graphic Systems Operation Manual > Plot 50 Introduction to Programming in Basic > 4051 Graphic System Reference > Reference Guide to 4051 Basic > 4050 Series Basic Reference Guide >amd 4051 Option 10 RS232 Printer Interface guide > >More information on this system can be found here: > >http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=282 > >What is really wierd is that I wrote some programs in Basic for this machine >in 1977 using some of the built-in vector graphics routines, when I worked at >the Defense Mapping Agency, now called the National GeoSpatial Intelligence >Agency. I still have the tape cartridge (200K !!) when I loaded the tape... >presto... instant retro memories. I even wrote some notes to myself!! ( Note >to Homeland Security and to anyone else reading this email..It was NOT >classified!!) > > >Cheers > >Tom > > > > >-- >--- >Please do not read this sig. If you have read this far, please unread back to >the beginning. > From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 26 20:54:27 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP loader rom chips References: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <000f01c5041b$8516f6f0$0100a8c0@screamer> Seems like a reasonable price. These parts have not been made in a long time. I really should get a few blanks, I need to burn a boot rom for my IDE disk, and a few spare paper tape reader rom's would be nice to have too. I was able to burn Signetics 82S129's using a Xeltex programmer but I'm not sure which 'compatible' rom number I selected to get good parts. Also keep in mind that you probably will get some failures during programming, a 100% yield is a bit unrealistic. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 1:36 PM Subject: HP loader rom chips > Jameco claims to have real Signetics 82S129's in (not substituted parts). > These are for the HP 21MX loader roms. > > They are quoting me $9.95 each for qty 1-10. > > Anyone know of a better source, or want to go in with me on this? I will > probably get about 10. > > Equivalent parts (that my 29B can program): > Monolithic Memories 6301 > Harris 7611 > Texas Instruments 24S10 > Applied Micro Devices 27S21 > > So maybe someone knows of a source for the above parts that is cheaper. > > Jay > > > From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jan 26 20:56:13 2005 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Apple, Commodore, CP/M, Sun, misc. gear needs new home In-Reply-To: <200501270240.VAA11552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: > I do note > > > Since this includes the media for the retail Tadpole version of > > Solaris 7 this is also one of the items where I'd like a larger > > offer. > > which implies that it's the media that you feel make it worth "a larger > offer". I have no real use for Solaris of any stripe (I'd be running > NetBSD/sparc on it), so if you can get something for the media alone > elsewhere, feel free. Tadpoles fetch a pretty good buck, without media. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 26 20:57:24 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP loader rom chips References: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <1e1fc3e905012614035a1709e0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <001701c5041b$ee7350d0$0100a8c0@screamer> Yes! Where is Unicorn Electronics?? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Glen Slick" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 5:03 PM Subject: Re: HP loader rom chips > Would a 74S287 (256x4 tri-state output) also work? Unicorn > Electronics lists those at $7.49 each. > > The Nat Semi DM74S287 is on the supported device list of my BP Micro > programmer, no idea if it is supported by the 29B. > > > On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:36:29 -0600, Jay West wrote: >> Jameco claims to have real Signetics 82S129's in (not substituted parts). >> These are for the HP 21MX loader roms. >> >> They are quoting me $9.95 each for qty 1-10. >> >> Anyone know of a better source, or want to go in with me on this? I will >> probably get about 10. From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 26 21:04:46 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Looking for 68010 CPU's References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435C97@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <002901c5041c$f5e26ee0$0100a8c0@screamer> I think I have 2 or 3.... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kelly Leavitt" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 8:37 PM Subject: Looking for 68010 CPU's > I'm trying to locate 6 to 10 of these. 64 pin ceramic or plastic DIP. > Anyone > have a lead on these? Maybe I'm jst missing them at all the usual places. > I'm located in the US (New Jersey). > > Thanks, > Kelly From dave04a at dunfield.com Wed Jan 26 21:07:44 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: Apple, Commodore, CP/M, Sun, misc. gear needs new home Message-ID: <20050127030743.JCZC8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> >>CP/M >> x1 Northstar S-100 CP/M chassis, expansion cards, floppies der Mouse then said: >The major problem is I'm in Canada - and that's the reason I'm writing >to the list: is there anyone who'd be willing to field the machine and >reship it to me in Montreal? Of course, I'd pay for the shipping >involved, and add in an amount (to be negotiated off-list) to Devin for >the machine. I would dearly love to get the NorthStar system (sentimental reasons)... I emailed the O.P. (I received the list from a friend a couple of days before it showed up on cctalk), to ask if I could talk him into shipping to Canada (I would of course pay costs), and did not receive a response - I did note that his posting to cctalk explicitaly stated that he might be willing to ship another item "within the US only" which suggests that he may have received and considered my request.... If anyone would be willing to help us poor Canucks retrieve some of this equipment, I would be interested in participating - I am located near Ottawa, which is close enough to der Mouse that I can visit him on a weekend ... If we can get the material to either of our locations, it would be greatly appreciated! ... Can anyone help? Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 26 21:26:18 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:15 2005 Subject: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards References: <1e1fc3e90501261708e94fa2d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <003401c5041f$f7745220$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Isn't the "tall" front panel board primarily different because it includes a connector to go to the MPP port on the cpu? I'm not real up on that, but I think it was only used on the F series, and used to provide high speed memory access to an external device? Something like that sticks in my head. Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Glen Slick" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 7:08 PM Subject: Re: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards > Take a look at this doc: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/1000/1000_MEF_EngrRef/ > 92851-90001_Mar81_8.pdf > > There are drawings of a shorter 2105/08/12 front panel PCA 5060-8343 > and a taller 2019/11/13/17 front panel PCA 5061-1343. > > Does that help at all? > > > On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:56:03 +0000, Peter Brown > wrote: >> Hi All, >> >> How many types of front panel keyboard were used with the 2113 E-series >> CPU? >> >> I have one in front of me that has two ribbon cables that run from the >> keyboard PCB to the CPU PCB (one from the top edge of the keyboard PCB >> one >> from the bottom edge) but I seem to remember having seen other 2113 CPU's >> where the keybaord PCB is smaller and a single cable runs from the bottom >> edge of the keyboard to the CPU PCB. > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 26 21:32:27 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: HP battery eliminator plugs References: <004501c50036$bc368210$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <1e1fc3e90501261838227c5056@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <006d01c50420$d369d480$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Yeah, that one is close. I can't believe that connector isn't still around, including the latches. I can be such a stickler for detail ;) If I find one I'll let the list know. Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Glen Slick" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 8:38 PM Subject: Re: HP battery eliminator plugs >I have browsed the connector parts listed here and the closest looking > part I've found is 770428-1 but it doesn't have the latches and I'm > not sure if the dimensions are correct. > > http://catalog.tycoelectronics.com/ > > > On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:59:13 -0600, Jay West wrote: >> I need some, time to make them. >> >> Want to be historically accurate, so... would anyone know exactly what >> AMP >> connector was used, or where there are pictures of lots of AMP connectors >> so >> I can identify the right one and order it? > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 26 21:40:20 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas References: Message-ID: <007a01c50421$ed1deb40$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Fred wrote... >> Nope, everything went as planned, the seller replied - Bert had picked >> up the system that saturday morning, and all was well. He did mention >> that Bert said that since he picked up _and_ paid for the system, he >> considered it his, now. Oh man! That just bytes. Thanks for letting us know. Bert is on the list I believe, so maybe he has a response/explanation. Jay From jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to Wed Jan 26 21:40:02 2005 From: jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41F86292.1060506@compsys.to> >Fred N. van Kempen wrote: >[Snip] >Anyway... when I heard that, I tried to contact Bert, and eventually >got a hold of him. And when asked about this, he indeed told me the >above - as far as he was concerned, it was now HIS system. >[Snip] > Jerome Fine replies: Some individuals seem to think that the words ethics and responsible do not apply to them! Not that it makes a lot of difference, but just what did the system consist of and how likely might it be that you will be able to find another one that is equal to it at about the same price? Since I can't see anyone ever making a commercial purchase of the type of system you are probably talking about (considering that Bert had a PDP-11/34), hobby systems are often few and far between. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From william.layer at comcast.net Wed Jan 26 21:49:27 2005 From: william.layer at comcast.net (William Layer) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Back on the list, with a request for help Message-ID: <20050126214927.3b9d414b.william.layer@comcast.net> Hellos, I was on this list in the later 90's, but had since lost my link. Good to see you all, and hello to the new(er) folks. I'm trying to repair an Altair 8800 that came to me in 'kit form'. I'm missing the original 256 Byte memory board, and several chips have been robbed from the chassis, including the 8080 CPU. This repair will take a while, but I have two main concerns: 1) The control & display board has some missing chips and evidence of a burn-out in the far lower left corner. I'd like to know if there is a way to test the board for function prior to installation, as the installation includes some 70 or so wires. I'd rather not install this board only to learn that there was damage to the logic, that I failed to notice & repair. Also, can anyone supply me with an original Altair 256Byte memory board? 2) I need an 8080 CPU for this machine; can someone supply me with one? Would be cool to have the original style ceramic/gold chip, but anything that will actually work is good. Is it possible to drop an 8080A into the Altair CPU board and remain compatible to the original 8080? I have an 8080A in an unused box. I have good material to trade for these items, if available; let me know what you need / want. If you have any information, please send it to the list. Thanks, Bill From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 26 21:55:19 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Data I/O manual sought Message-ID: <008601c50424$04d419b0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I don't see one in the dataIO section on bitsavers... anyone have a pdf of the logicpak manual? Thanks! Jay From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Wed Jan 26 22:06:59 2005 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: VT320 Terminal RS232 Receiver In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200501262006590534.56ED3653@192.168.42.129> MC1488 or 1489, I don't recall which one's the receiver (I think it's the 1488). Usually mounted fairly close to the RS232 port. Happy hunting. *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 26-Jan-05 at 10:47 list@saracom.com wrote: >Hello, > >I managed to feed -48VDC into the data receive pin of my >VT320 at work. So of course the magic smoke came out. > Which chip is the receiver chip? > >Thanks >Max -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 26 22:08:52 2005 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: HP loader rom chips In-Reply-To: <001701c5041b$ee7350d0$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <1e1fc3e905012614035a1709e0@mail.gmail.com> <001701c5041b$ee7350d0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <41F86954.9060300@jetnet.ab.ca> Bob Shannon wrote: > Yes! > > Where is Unicorn Electronics?? sort of like here --> > http://www.unicornelectronics.com/ The web site says and knows all ... From randy at s100-manuals.com Thu Jan 27 00:30:20 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Back on the list, with a request for help References: <20050126214927.3b9d414b.william.layer@comcast.net> Message-ID: <000a01c50439$aef6e430$e53cd7d1@randylaptop> ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Layer" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 9:49 PM Subject: Back on the list, with a request for help > Hellos, > > I was on this list in the later 90's, but had since lost my link. Good to > see you all, and hello to the new(er) folks. > > I'm trying to repair an Altair 8800 that came to me in 'kit form'. I'm > missing the original 256 Byte memory board, and several chips have been > robbed from the chassis, including the 8080 CPU. This repair will take a > while, but I have two main concerns: > > 1) The control & display board has some missing chips and evidence of a > burn-out in the far lower left corner. I'd like to know if there is a way > to test the board for function prior to installation, as the installation > includes some 70 or so wires. I'd rather not install this board only to > learn that there was damage to the logic, that I failed to notice & > repair. Also, can anyone supply me with an original Altair 256Byte memory > board? > > 2) I need an 8080 CPU for this machine; can someone supply me with one? > Would be cool to have the original style ceramic/gold chip, but anything > that will actually work is good. Is it possible to drop an 8080A into the > Altair CPU board and remain compatible to the original 8080? I have an > 8080A in an unused box. > > I have good material to trade for these items, if available; let me know > what you need / want. If you have any information, please send it to the > list. > > Thanks, > > Bill The 8080A should work just fine (better) you could also use a 9080. Rich Cini has a great altair site that includes his emulator: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ My site has plenty of manuals also (I mirror Howard Hartes manual). Randy www.s100-manuals.com From cctech at retro.co.za Thu Jan 27 01:37:44 2005 From: cctech at retro.co.za (Wouter de Waal) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: AMS EPROM programmer driver? Message-ID: <20050127073744.15003.qmail@alpha.ccii.co.za> Hi all I have an "AMS inc PROM PROGRAMMER COPYRIGHT 1983". It's an ISA card, with a whole bunch of TTL, 37 pin connector, ribbon cable to box with ZIF socket. I see that AMS is still around, and their web site mentions that they started out making EPROM programmers way back around 1983, but an email to them went unanswered. I need the software that originally went with this thing. Or if anybody has technical info (long shot). Can't be difficult to reverse-engineer, but it would take time that I'd prefer to spend elsewhere. Where I eventually want to go: I was thinking I could program this thing to apply vectors to a PAL to tell me what the equations in the PAL are (I'm intrigued by what's inside the macintosh PALs...) Wouter From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Thu Jan 27 02:13:34 2005 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Data I/O manual sought In-Reply-To: <008601c50424$04d419b0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <000b01c50448$19902280$5b01a8c0@flexpc> > I don't see one in the dataIO section on bitsavers... anyone > have a pdf of > the logicpak manual? Is it one of these: 990-0013 29B Universal Programmer 096-0185-001 2900/3900 Programming System User Manual 984-0058-015 2900 Programming System User Notes - Version 3.1 2900 Programming System Device List - Version 3.1 Keep Current Express Subscription Service User Manual 981-0004-001 Rev A GangPak Data I/O PLDS manuals If so, I can upload to somewhere suitable. Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini@iee.org From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Thu Jan 27 03:09:56 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: "Fred N. van Kempen" "[LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas" (Jan 27, 0:10) References: Message-ID: <10501270909.ZM6504@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 27 2005, 0:10, Fred N. van Kempen wrote: > Anyway... when I heard that, I tried to contact Bert, and eventually > got a hold of him. And when asked about this, he indeed told me the > above - as far as he was concerned, it was now HIS system. That really sucks. Has he no ethics? Morals? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From gordon at gjcp.net Thu Jan 27 04:02:36 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41F8BC3C.1050308@gjcp.net> Fred N. van Kempen wrote: > Hi all, > > Today is a sad one, as I had to part with someone I considered a friend, > a new collector, and recent addition to the CCtalk community. /snippage. > With kindest regards, > > Fred Presumably you have a contact address for him? Why not just go over with a van and collect it, possibly with a couple of "assistants"? I'm sure there are enough people on this list near enough to help... Gordon. From nico at farumdata.dk Thu Jan 27 04:46:41 2005 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Dealings with Bert Thomas and SunParts Was : Re: Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas References: <41F8BC3C.1050308@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <001201c5045d$7f6d0d10$2101a8c0@finans> ----- Original Message ----- > > Today is a sad one, as I had to part with someone I considered a friend, > > a new collector, and recent addition to the CCtalk community. > > Why not just go over with a van and collect it, possibly with a couple > of "assistants"? Ah, you mean those guys with hairy chests, arms reaching for the pavement, etc? While we looking at the "less then honest" subject, has anyone of you had bad experiences with SunParts on eBay ? I won an auction for a Mammoth drive, paid up, but it never arrived. They were also not very helpful (to say the least) to supply tracking information etc. I sent about 10 e-mails, but only 2 were very answered, and contained only texts like "has been sent, should arrived shortly" From gordon at gjcp.net Thu Jan 27 05:07:01 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Dealings with Bert Thomas and SunParts Was : Re: Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: <001201c5045d$7f6d0d10$2101a8c0@finans> References: <41F8BC3C.1050308@gjcp.net> <001201c5045d$7f6d0d10$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <41F8CB55.8070703@gjcp.net> Nico de Jong wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > >>>Today is a sad one, as I had to part with someone I considered a friend, >>>a new collector, and recent addition to the CCtalk community. >> >>Why not just go over with a van and collect it, possibly with a couple >>of "assistants"? > > > Ah, you mean those guys with hairy chests, arms reaching for the pavement, > etc? Well, these things are heavy, y'know? Gordon. From bert at brothom.nl Thu Jan 27 05:53:46 2005 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: My response: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas Message-ID: <41F8D64A.651B893@brothom.nl> Hi all, Here's my response: In short: Fred can simply get his stuff if he pays me the money back that I payed for him in advance (and drops his other claims). I never had any other intends. Long story: I indeed wanted to do Fred a favor back and collected the stuff for him. I try to do CS at a local university AND try to run 2 companies and try to keep customers happy and in between try to spend some time playing with my old stuff. Obviously my hobbies have the lowest priority. As I am currently very busy and can only borrow the van from time to time I decided to drop the stuff at home, which is basically halveway between the seller and Freds apartment. I admit that I should have notified Fred that I collected the stuff. Last saterday Fred called me and we had a long en kind conversation. I always enjoyed talking with Fred, as he has a lot to tell. At the end of the conversation Fred started about the stuff I collected and what his plans where for it. I said that I would like to keep some stuff of it, as Freds main reasons for buying the stuff was obtaining the Minc hardware. At least, that is what he told me. Fred reacted very excited that it was HIS stuff. I didn't expect such an excited answer and responded with "hey, I payed for it you know". If it isn't obvious, my only intend saying that was that he can have some respect for me, as I'm not his personell he can yell at. However, that got him totally aggrivated for some reason and he started threading me that he was about to say bad things about me on this list and a lot of other stuff that I had no answer to. I don't like being spoken at in that way, especially not from someone I just did a favor. So if that is what he wants to do, its his decision and he should do so. I see people on this list as very intelligent people and I assume that each of you can decide for yourself what my character is. After this weird end of the conversation on the phone, Fred send me an invoice for EUR 700,- ex VAT for repairing my PDP11 and a letter demanding the stuff. I have no problem giving Fred his stuff, but of course he simply has to pay me the money back that I payed for the stuff in advance. I do not want to pay Fred for the time spent working on my PDP11, as that was a favor for which I intended to return him this other favor. If I had known that in advance, I wouldn't have contacted Fred in the first place. When I look back on it now, I feel that Fred intentionally invited me to repair my computer, only to be able to "demand" a favor in return, as he knew I can borrow my brothers van from time to time. There is nothing wrong with that as far as I am concerned. Fred and I did more favors to each other in the past. However, I don't understand his anger and disrespect. Peace to everyone. Kind regards, Bert From dogas at bellsouth.net Thu Jan 27 07:07:23 2005 From: dogas at bellsouth.net (Mike) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: More auction goodies References: <3.0.6.32.20050126215125.00916100@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <004701c50471$2519f1c0$7ddb3fd0@r2p0s6> From: Joe R. > VERY NICE! I used to have one of these but gave it to Mike Haas. I had > ALL of the ROMs and ALL the manuals for it including a lot of prototype > ROMs and their documentation. Bug Mike to get the stuff scanned and posted > somewhere. Hell yeah. The '4051 archeleogoy dig' That was Gary Spense's (hope I got his name right (looking for notes...)) personal machine. He worked for TEK then and designed many interfaces for his 4051 though I'm not sure how many made it into production. In addition to the Rom Expander, few 4907 drives, and front-panel System Fixture, he made many interfaces (many prototypes, some not) for prom programming, video digitizing, GPIB, serial, parallel, rompack, IC analysis, etc... Plus lotsa roms and docs and prepreliminary rough drafts and annotations of documents and spare parts. - Mike From peterbrown10 at hotmail.com Thu Jan 27 07:10:52 2005 From: peterbrown10 at hotmail.com (Peter Brown) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards Message-ID: Thanks Glen, Jay and Bob, I think that I now understand what's going on. The system that the keyboard comes from is an E series machine but all of the cards have been removed - it is quite possible that it at some time had additional booster microcode boards so that would expain the extra front panel cable. What sort of microcode board would require direct access to the keyboard? Bob - thanks for the kind offer of the 2113 chassis. I currently have a couple of full size 2113's in almost working condition (thanks for your continuing help on that one) my hope was that I could get a smaller system working as well - hence the need for the short keyboard. Glen - the document that you linked shows the problem quite well. What I need is the PCA 5060-8343 what I have is PCA 5061-1343. The metal work changes to convert a long front panel to a short one look to be fairly minimal and are probably within my capability (injury estimate: 2 bruised knuckles, a gash and some sort of deep graze) I note from the circuit diagrams that the keyboards are basically the same with the larger PCA having some addtional bi-directional buffering to drive the additional keyboard outputs. I thought that I might be able to saw down the keyboard PCA and discard the extra buffering bits but they seem fairly well integrated into the rest of the PCA. Does anyone have a spare 5060-8343 that they might be convinced to part with? or failing that a whole front panel assembly for a 2105? Thanks to all Peter Brown From lazychris2000 at gmail.com Wed Jan 26 23:01:05 2005 From: lazychris2000 at gmail.com (Chris Morgan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Available:A Compaq Deskpro 386/20e Manuals/Diskette In-Reply-To= Message-ID: To whom it may regard, I know this was posted in 2003, but I was wondering if it was still possible to get some information about the manuals/diskette's for the Deskpro 386/20e. I was wondering what shipping would be to zip code 17003 and if they were still available. Thanks for your time, Chris Morgan From waltje at pdp11.nl Thu Jan 27 08:01:00 2005 From: waltje at pdp11.nl (Fred N. van Kempen) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: <007a01c50421$ed1deb40$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: All, On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > Fred wrote... >> ... > > Oh man! That just bytes. > > Thanks for letting us know. Bert is on the list I believe, so maybe he has a > response/explanation. This is not the right place for a dicussion of this topic; my message was a read-only object of class 'warning'. I will not be discussing any of it, in private or in public, as have a judicial system for that in place. In other words... thread closed, judges will decide. Thanks, Fred From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 27 08:01:53 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: computer junks for shipping cost (mostly PC related) In-Reply-To: <41F7EC0F.9080201@internet1.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Chad Fernandez wrote: > Also, there is a little board in the picture with a cable attached to > it. This came out of a clone XT, the board is calleed a Fast 88 or > soemthing like that. I always though someone on here would want it or It's probably a faster 8088 upgrade board. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From william.layer at comcast.net Thu Jan 27 08:14:11 2005 From: william.layer at comcast.net (William Layer) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Back on the list, with a request for help In-Reply-To: <000a01c50439$aef6e430$e53cd7d1@randylaptop> References: <20050126214927.3b9d414b.william.layer@comcast.net> <000a01c50439$aef6e430$e53cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050127081411.66a221a1.william.layer@comcast.net> On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 00:30:20 -0600 "Randy McLaughlin" wrote: > The 8080A should work just fine (better) you could also use a 9080. Good to know; thanks. > Rich Cini has a great altair site that includes his emulator: > > http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Heh, it's actually through an email discussion with Rich (regarding Altair32) that I found my way back to this list. Rich seems like a kind and thoughtful guy, and his emulator will probably be of some great use to me in getting this 8800 back together. I'm starting a project at http://nerp.net/~legendre/emuslack and wanted to offer up Altair32 as one of the 'free' emulation softwares. Since I am leery of offering softwares of unknown license status (everything else there is GPL), I contacted Rich for a clarification of Altair32's license. He was quite forthcoming, and Altair32 now has an LGPL/BSD-ish type license. > My site has plenty of manuals also (I mirror Howard Hartes manual). Yes, I've seen your site as well, and downloaded some documents from it. Thanks, Bill From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 27 08:19:30 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: UTek (V) filesystems and boot blocks (with some OT Tek In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Tony Duell wrote: > I feel somewhat odd saying this to you (with your love of the Apple ][, > etc)... I believe the Apple ][ design was offered to HP, but they turned > it down, the often-stated reason being that they couldn't see the point > of small computers. I have often wondered if the real reason was that HP > were already making superior machines (albeit at about 10 times the > price!), and HP (at that time) were not trying to go for the mass market. > Whether or not that was a good decision is another matter... A little but of all those reasons, I'm sure. Woz's proposal to offer the machine to HP first was done so out of his obligation to his employer. I read that it went up a couple levels in management and that there was no interest (I'm sure Owen Linzmeyer's book _Apple Confidential_ has the full scoop). Unless you really knew the hobbyist computer market of the 1970s, which HP obviously did not, there wasn't anything to differentiate Woz's hackish, minimalist design (which was probably foreign to the HP culture) with what HP was already producing. The people who made these decisions are most likely still around. It would be interesting to ask them about this if I ever bump in to them. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 27 08:50:19 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Fred N. van Kempen wrote: > All, > > On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > > > Fred wrote... > >> ... > > > > Oh man! That just bytes. > > > > Thanks for letting us know. Bert is on the list I believe, so maybe he has a > > response/explanation. > > This is not the right place for a dicussion of this topic; my > message was a read-only object of class 'warning'. I will not > be discussing any of it, in private or in public, as have a > judicial system for that in place. > > In other words... thread closed, judges will decide. Fred, It's already public. You made it so. I think the simple solution here is for you to arrive at Bert's place with a truck and money and settle it quickly and easily. Bert indicates he is ready to hand it over and is on record saying so. If he doesn't then he'd really be in trouble. I did notice in Bert's reply he cc'd Erik Brens, who has a bad reputation with more than a few folks here (myself included), and that is rather suspect. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From hugh at openbsd.org Thu Jan 27 09:14:25 2005 From: hugh at openbsd.org (Hugh Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: John McCance / DEC Collection Message-ID: <20050127151425.GA22646@argus.oxide.org> Dear vax enthusiasts, Some time ago John McCance donated a delqa card to me, and I responded with a thank you letter. Sadly, last week I received an email from John's sister, to inform me that John had died of a heart attack while helping his landlady deal with a basement flooded by the remains of Hurricane Charlie. She'd found my letter while going through his things. As John was an occasional participant on these lists I felt you should be informed of his passing, but there is a second reason for this posting. His family isn't sure how to handle the disposition of his collection of older computer hardware and documentation. >From the inventory they've compiled there appear to be several each of vt320 and vt420s, a large number of keyboards, a vax 4000 300, a vaxstation 4000, a strongbox of vms licenses, and many manuals, cdroms, etc. I also understand from my correspondence with John that there is a qbus scsi card of some sort, but this isn't a treasure hunt. The family would like to put any money the collection is worth towards his final expenses, or at least save hardware that John cared about from the dump. I am in Vancouver, but if one or more of you is near Cambridge, Ohio, and can commit to taking the bulk of the collection, you may contact me to work out specifics and put you in touch with the family. /Hugh From william.layer at comcast.net Thu Jan 27 09:15:49 2005 From: william.layer at comcast.net (William Layer) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Altair8800 'kit' - can you identify this stuff? In-Reply-To: <20050127042556.KIHJ8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> References: <20050127042556.KIHJ8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <20050127091549.0f0f4a37.william.layer@comcast.net> Thanks for the info so far.. here are the ugly details on the 'kit'.. Dave wrote: > Btw - if you have an unassembled 8800 - it might be a good idea to keep it that way - I > would think unassembled ones would be more rare than assembled ones. Sorry if I was confusing on this.. I was half-joking when I said 'kit form'; the unit wasn't so much *unassembled* as *disassembled* :) The unit is quite an interesting hodgepodge at the moment.. Here is a better description of what I have: Original 8800 Chassis, with early faceplate - dang I love that old 70's computer typeface! A ding in the white topcover, but overall very nice shape. Display / Control board (rev 1) removed, and showing evidence of a burnout in the lower left, 7400 chip I think. Someone has socketed every chip on the board, with a collection of random colorful sockets. The board shows some small rework with kynar, to fix lost pads/traces on one socket pattern. Needs a couple of switches replaced. Marked "3421K" in black Sharpie. 8080 CPU card (rev 1) removed and showing signs of modification (a mystery chip has been added with glue & kynar), and CPU is missing. Marked "3423K" in black Sharpie. Motherboard replaced with a Processor Tech (?) MB-1 Mainboard - 16 slots. The pullup/pulldown resistors look like they were installed by a small child, and not a gifted one. I will rework this area. Power supply replaced with beefy 8800B power supply, obviously to accomodate all that extra hardware that the motherboard will hold. Large fan is also added, without a grille. Watch your #&!$@ fingers, kid! A card marked "MCT R30 ASSY 105510" (seems like serial or parallel I/O) A card marked "SD Systems VersaFloppy II" (must be the disk controller) A card marked "SD Systems Expandoram II" (must be the memory card, and it's fully populated. No idea what the capacity is) A card marked "SD Systems SBC-200" (has a Z-80A cpu, and what I think is the matching Z-80 buss driver chip. Has 4 ROM sockets, two of which are populated. One is clearly marked 'EDO BIOS'. Also has edge connectors marked serial & parallel I/O. Seems like a multifunction card; CPU, ROM & I/O) A card marked "Signum Systems MICE-48" with a long ribbon cable leading to an emulator probe, bearing an EPROM chip. (It's clearly an In-Circuit Emulator device, my guess is that it was emulating an 8048 or similar) A card marked "Vector 8800V", which is a complete and utter disaster of Kynar and flying components. I wouldn't let this thing near a running system. (seems like a generic breadboard card, which has been built into some form of custom hardware, has a large device marked "Analog Devices 940", and about 12 other chips, plus a pile of discete components) A large dual-floppy drive chassis, blue in color, with 8" drives. Seems like generic Intel hardware of the mid-70's. No obvious markings. A collection of 8" disks, some clearly CP/M based. I'm quite certain that in light of the Z80 card, that this machine was running CP/M until it was taken (or took itself) out of service. A small board marked "John Bell Engineering Phoneme Synthesizer" with a DIP connector, wall-wart power supply, and a few chips including a Votrax SC-01 chip. (Ok, it's clearly a speech synth. Apparently, this thing could talk at one point..) Ok - I think that's pretty much all of it. If anyone can verify / correct me on identification, or provide other info, it would be greatly appreciated. Some of this stuff (like the ICE hardware) might be up for trade. Thanks for all of your time, Bill From vax9000 at gmail.com Thu Jan 27 09:55:37 2005 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: computer junks for shipping cost (mostly PC related) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It is gone. Thanks. On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 13:53:10 -0500, 9000 VAX wrote: > Well, I received Chad Fernandez' box of pc leftovers. After taking out > what I need and adding in what I don't, here is the stuff that is free > to go. (ship from ohio) > From pdp11_70 at retrobbs.org Thu Jan 27 10:21:52 2005 From: pdp11_70 at retrobbs.org (Mark Firestone) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: IBM 8631-200 In-Reply-To: <20050127091549.0f0f4a37.william.layer@comcast.net> Message-ID: <001901c5048c$5005b110$4601a8c0@retrobbs.org> I found one of these in the bin at work, with no power supply. I think it is an xterminal. Inside it has a ppc 403 and some memory. Has monitor printer keyboard mouse and (probably) token ring ports. Anyone know what voltage / pin + - this takes... I'd like to see if it powers up... would be my excuse to try to build a token ring / e-net bridge... Or, I suppose I could trade... if anyone wants it... Mark From dogas at bellsouth.net Thu Jan 27 10:38:14 2005 From: dogas at bellsouth.net (Mike) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Is this an 1802 development system? References: <41F647B2.9050006@pacbell.net><32902.64.169.63.74.1106672040.squirrel@64.169.63.74><001b01c503bd$94962fa0$c2db3fd0@r2p0s6> <56198.64.139.41.130.1106769467.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <000d01c5048e$99831920$7162d6d1@r2p0s6> From: Eric Smith > I wrote: > > That's the terminal and floppy drives, but neiher of those is > > the actual development system. > > Mike wrote: > > well it *is* the/an actual development system when the complement of cards > > are installed. > > Really? The one I saw years ago at Weird Stuff, and the ones that RCA > tried to sell me years before that, the computer was a box separate > from the terminal (keyboard/display box). > Wait! I think you were right from the beginning.. I assumed that grey fuzzy area of the pic said 'Development System' and not 'Cosmac Data Terminal' which seems to also match something possibly mentioned in the auction text too.... Sorry. Still cool parts though, especially for a RCA CDS II, III, or monoboard system... any cosmac... ;) - Mike From wacarder at usit.net Thu Jan 27 10:59:22 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: HP7200A, HP7210A Plotter documentation needed Message-ID: <003e01c50491$8d46bec0$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Does anyone on the list have any documentation on the HP7200A or HP7210A plotter? I am getting an HP7210A plotter today, but I don't have any documentation on it. It looks exactly like the 7200A, but it appears to have a few more knobs or controls on it, based on the photographs I've seen. I'll know more when I actually get my hands on it (tonight). These plotters date from the early 1970s. We had an HP7200A at Wofford College in the 1970s. Ours was mapped to KB7: and we had numerous plotting programs written in BASIC-PLUS under RSTS/E on a PDP-11/40. I have copies of all the programs that we had for interacting with the plotter. I just don't have any info on hooking it up to the computer. I'm planning on interfacing it to my PDP-11/40 via either a 20mA or an EIA DZ11 port. Thanks in advance for any insight or info that anyone can provide. Ashley From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Jan 27 12:22:46 2005 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Harvard vs. vonNeuman References: <20060211044314.29D4273029@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <41F93176.9822927F@msm.umr.edu> technically in the OS (unix model) when you exec a program you are executing "self modifying code" because the program space and the data of most machines are in shared spaces, or are assumed to be. There must be TLB and data and instruction cache adjustments after reading any program text into memory and before trying to execute it, or you have a problem. (at least allowances are made for such at the end of reading and doing the load process) At least from an architecural standpoint, you must deal with code that gets loaded after the "program" runs in general on any system, other than special standalone ones, perhaps. Jim Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: > It was thus said that the Great ben franchuk once stated: > > > > I have yet to see a good use for self-modifying code. > > > As far as I can recall, that was the *only* time I've ever done > self-modifying code. > > -spc (And it seemed like a good reason at the time ... ) From randy at s100-manuals.com Thu Jan 27 12:31:47 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Altair8800 'kit' - can you identify this stuff? References: <20050127042556.KIHJ8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> <20050127091549.0f0f4a37.william.layer@comcast.net> Message-ID: <006a01c5049e$78998cc0$f23dd7d1@randylaptop> ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Layer" > Thanks for the info so far.. here are the ugly details on the 'kit'.. > > Dave wrote: > >> Btw - if you have an unassembled 8800 - it might be a good idea to keep >> it that way - I >> would think unassembled ones would be more rare than assembled ones. > > Sorry if I was confusing on this.. I was half-joking when I said 'kit > form'; the unit wasn't so much *unassembled* as *disassembled* :) The unit > is quite an interesting hodgepodge at the moment.. Here is a better > description of what I have: > > Original 8800 Chassis, with early faceplate - dang I love that old 70's > computer typeface! A ding in the white topcover, but overall very nice > shape. > > Display / Control board (rev 1) removed, and showing evidence of a burnout > in the lower left, 7400 chip I think. Someone has socketed every chip on > the board, with a collection of random colorful sockets. The board shows > some small rework with kynar, to fix lost pads/traces on one socket > pattern. Needs a couple of switches replaced. Marked "3421K" in black > Sharpie. > > 8080 CPU card (rev 1) removed and showing signs of modification (a mystery > chip has been added with glue & kynar), and CPU is missing. Marked "3423K" > in black Sharpie. > > Motherboard replaced with a Processor Tech (?) MB-1 Mainboard - 16 slots. > The pullup/pulldown resistors look like they were installed by a small > child, and not a gifted one. I will rework this area. > > Power supply replaced with beefy 8800B power supply, obviously to > accomodate all that extra hardware that the motherboard will hold. Large > fan is also added, without a grille. Watch your #&!$@ fingers, kid! > > A card marked "MCT R30 ASSY 105510" (seems like serial or parallel I/O) > > A card marked "SD Systems VersaFloppy II" (must be the disk controller) > > A card marked "SD Systems Expandoram II" (must be the memory card, and > it's fully populated. No idea what the capacity is) > > A card marked "SD Systems SBC-200" (has a Z-80A cpu, and what I think is > the matching Z-80 buss driver chip. Has 4 ROM sockets, two of which are > populated. One is clearly marked 'EDO BIOS'. Also has edge connectors > marked serial & parallel I/O. Seems like a multifunction card; CPU, ROM & > I/O) > > A card marked "Signum Systems MICE-48" with a long ribbon cable leading to > an emulator probe, bearing an EPROM chip. (It's clearly an In-Circuit > Emulator device, my guess is that it was emulating an 8048 or similar) > > A card marked "Vector 8800V", which is a complete and utter disaster of > Kynar and flying components. I wouldn't let this thing near a running > system. (seems like a generic breadboard card, which has been built into > some form of custom hardware, has a large device marked "Analog Devices > 940", and about 12 other chips, plus a pile of discete components) > > A large dual-floppy drive chassis, blue in color, with 8" drives. Seems > like generic Intel hardware of the mid-70's. No obvious markings. > > A collection of 8" disks, some clearly CP/M based. I'm quite certain that > in light of the Z80 card, that this machine was running CP/M until it was > taken (or took itself) out of service. > > A small board marked "John Bell Engineering Phoneme Synthesizer" with a > DIP connector, wall-wart power supply, and a few chips including a Votrax > SC-01 chip. (Ok, it's clearly a speech synth. Apparently, this thing could > talk at one point..) > > Ok - I think that's pretty much all of it. If anyone can verify / correct > me on identification, or provide other info, it would be greatly > appreciated. Some of this stuff (like the ICE hardware) might be up for > trade. > > Thanks for all of your time, > > Bill Herb Johnson has some great stuff on your disk controller you need to get: http://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/s100.html Randy From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 27 13:09:20 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Altair8800 'kit' - can you identify this stuff? Message-ID: <200501271909.LAA13972@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "William Layer" ---snip--- > >Display / Control board (rev 1) removed, and showing evidence of a burnout in the lower left, 7400 chip I think. Someone has socketed every chip on the board, with a collection of random colorful sockets. The board shows some small rework with kynar, to fix lost pads/traces on one socket pattern. Needs a couple of switches replaced. Marked "3421K" in black Sharpie. Get a schematic and start plaing with it. Like the IMSAI panel, it uses the processor to actually generate the addresses and fetching from the bus. You should check for shorts with an ohm meter before powering up. After powering up, check for anything that is hot. These old TTL parts would run slightly warm but should not be hot. Be ready to remove the power quickly in case of smoke. With power applied, even FR4 will burn if sustained with an electrical arc. There is a schematic and layout on that CD ROM that has many of the schematics and such ( I've seen but don't have it my self ). > >8080 CPU card (rev 1) removed and showing signs of modification (a mystery chip has been added with glue & kynar), and CPU is missing. Marked "3423K" in black Sharpie. The extra chip is most likely to generate the correct status signals for the refresh of the dynamic RAM. The early boards were designed around static RAM systems and it wasn't until later that the status signals were added. The earlier DRAM boards had no standard way of providing these signals so there are several different ways this was done. ---snip--- > >A card marked "MCT R30 ASSY 105510" (seems like serial or parallel I/O) List major IC's? > >A card marked "SD Systems VersaFloppy II" (must be the disk controller) Will most likely only work with the Z80 processor board. The 8080 was a little on the slow side to handle the disk transfers. Most 8080 systems used a DMA interface for disk drives. I did look at some tricky software that I believe would have worked on a 8080 but it required transfering 4 bytes at a time. It has been some time since I looked at doing that so I'm not much help now. I think the main thing was that after the controller gave the status, you had something like 13 uSec to read the data or it was lost. > >A card marked "SD Systems Expandoram II" (must be the memory card, and it's fully populated. No idea what the capacity is) It depends on which chips are there. If it has the four banks of 16K chips, you have 64K. It could also be populated with 18K or 4K chips but that is unlikely as it came out just when the 16K chips were getting available. See my note above about the refresh signals. > >A card marked "SD Systems SBC-200" (has a Z-80A cpu, and what I think is the matching Z-80 buss driver chip. Has 4 ROM sockets, two of which are populated. One is clearly marked 'EDO BIOS'. Also has edge connectors marked serial & parallel I/O. Seems like a multifunction card; CPU, ROM & I/O) This is most likely the main processor that was used with the system for CP/M. > >A card marked "Signum Systems MICE-48" with a long ribbon cable leading to an emulator probe, bearing an EPROM chip. (It's clearly an In-Circuit Emulator device, my guess is that it was emulating an 8048 or similar) Most likely correct here. > >A card marked "Vector 8800V", which is a complete and utter disaster of Kynar and flying components. I wouldn't let this thing near a running system. (seems like a generic breadboard card, which has been built into some form of custom hardware, has a large device marked "Analog Devices 940", and about 12 other chips, plus a pile of discete components) I believe the 940 is an amplifier module but I'm not sure. It could be a voltage converter as well. They made many discrete circuit instrument amplifiers that had especially low offset inputs. I would get this was an analog board of some type. ---snip--- It looks like a good project. Later Dwight From randy at s100-manuals.com Thu Jan 27 13:18:22 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Altair8800 'kit' - can you identify this stuff? References: <200501271909.LAA13972@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <00cf01c504a4$f9d83150$f23dd7d1@randylaptop> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dwight K. Elvey" > >From: "William Layer" >>A card marked "Vector 8800V", which is a complete and utter disaster of >>Kynar > and flying components. I wouldn't let this thing near a running system. > (seems > like a generic breadboard card, which has been built into some form of > custom > hardware, has a large device marked "Analog Devices 940", and about 12 > other > chips, plus a pile of discete components) > > I believe the 940 is an amplifier module but I'm not sure. It > could be a voltage converter as well. They made many discrete > circuit instrument amplifiers that had especially low offset > inputs. I would get this was an analog board of some type. > > ---snip--- > > It looks like a good project. > Later > Dwight The 8800V is a wire-wrap card and most likely was used for a custom data acquisition. It may be best to remove and ignore. Randy From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Jan 27 12:33:34 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Dealings with Bert Thomas and SunParts Was : Re: Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: <41F8CB55.8070703@gjcp.net> References: <001201c5045d$7f6d0d10$2101a8c0@finans> <41F8BC3C.1050308@gjcp.net> <001201c5045d$7f6d0d10$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050127133334.009253f0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 11:07 AM 1/27/05 +0000, you wrote: >Nico de Jong wrote: >> ----- Original Message ----- >> >>>>Today is a sad one, as I had to part with someone I considered a friend, >>>>a new collector, and recent addition to the CCtalk community. >>> >>>Why not just go over with a van and collect it, possibly with a couple >>>of "assistants"? >> >> >> Ah, you mean those guys with hairy chests, arms reaching for the pavement, >> etc? > >Well, these things are heavy, y'know? > >Gordon. Be sure they take along several heavy wooden or metal pry bars to "assist" in moving the system. I suggest baseball bats and/or tire irons! Joe > From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 27 13:31:43 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Altair8800 'kit' - can you identify this stuff? In-Reply-To: <006a01c5049e$78998cc0$f23dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > Herb Johnson has some great stuff on your disk controller you need to get: > > > http://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/s100.html Thanks for quoting all of Randy's message just to add a one line reply. ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Jan 27 13:34:10 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas Message-ID: <200501271934.LAA13978@clulw009.amd.com> Hi One thing to consider by both parties is that when communicating over the phone, a lot of one's ability to convey the meaning of what is said is lost. Much of our communications is visual. We watch reactions as we talk. Most people think that they can communicate properly over the phone. It is a big mistake. I have had several times when I'd been misunderstood. It is still interesting that both sides see the interaction from a different perspective. They both need to realize that it was the phone that caused the misunderstanding. It would be truly incorrect for either to judge the other by the responses over the phone. Of course, even more of communications is lost in the form of email. I'm not saying that either side was wrong or right, only that one should be careful when emotions get involved over the phone. They are rarely interpreted correctly, by the other party. By the time they realize that there was a problem, a lot of damage has been done between them. Just my opinions Dwight >From: "Vintage Computer Festival" > >On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Fred N. van Kempen wrote: > >> All, >> >> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: >> >> > Fred wrote... >> >> ... >> > >> > Oh man! That just bytes. >> > >> > Thanks for letting us know. Bert is on the list I believe, so maybe he has a >> > response/explanation. >> >> This is not the right place for a dicussion of this topic; my >> message was a read-only object of class 'warning'. I will not >> be discussing any of it, in private or in public, as have a >> judicial system for that in place. >> >> In other words... thread closed, judges will decide. > >Fred, > >It's already public. You made it so. I think the simple solution here is >for you to arrive at Bert's place with a truck and money and settle it >quickly and easily. Bert indicates he is ready to hand it over and is on >record saying so. If he doesn't then he'd really be in trouble. > >I did notice in Bert's reply he cc'd Erik Brens, who has a bad reputation >with more than a few folks here (myself included), and that is rather >suspect. > >-- > >Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > >[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] >[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > > From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jan 27 13:39:57 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: IBM 8631-200 In-Reply-To: <001901c5048c$5005b110$4601a8c0@retrobbs.org> References: <001901c5048c$5005b110$4601a8c0@retrobbs.org> Message-ID: <200501271439.57737.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 27 January 2005 11:21, Mark Firestone wrote: > I found one of these in the bin at work, with no power supply. I > think it is an xterminal. Inside it has a ppc 403 and some memory. > Has monitor printer keyboard mouse and (probably) token ring ports. > > Anyone know what voltage / pin + - this takes... I'd like to see if > it powers up... would be my excuse to try to build a token ring / > e-net bridge... It should work using a "normal" 20VDC thinkpad power supply. If you end up deciding you don't want to play with it, I might be able to find a use for it. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From allain at panix.com Thu Jan 27 11:19:33 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: IBM Record Unit Machines References: <5BEE9270-6FFA-11D9-96F8-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net><016001c50410$76efc4e0$3b406b43@66067007> <8628318A-7004-11D9-96F8-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <000201c504a9$03d67e60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> > Thanks, Everything I have found so far is basically > "this is what a card punch looked like", no details. If you want more respect given to your questions, try the following: use correct grammar and punctuation, do some pre-research yourself first, limit your questions at first to one or two. An example here would be to mention product numbers for the things you're trying to get information on. Show some respect To the list, and you'll get more From it. John A. From allain at panix.com Thu Jan 27 11:32:51 2005 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Tek WR 501 Word Recognizer "pods" References: <41F7EC0F.9080201@internet1.net> <41F7F21F.9020009@internet1.net> <41F8225D.3030701@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <000301c504a9$04b9d980$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> {from another thread} >> I hate finding half of something. > ...until you find the other half! I have a Tektronix WR 501 Word Recognizer/Delay unit without it's specialized cable plug-ins. Anybody having the spare cable or the description of it's pinning could help. What can be seen now is that it's 25 pins in two rows, 5/8" wide, looking like small DB25m's. TIA John A. From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 27 13:55:09 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas In-Reply-To: <200501271934.LAA13978@clulw009.amd.com> References: <200501271934.LAA13978@clulw009.amd.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050127135421.051e95b8@mail> At 01:34 PM 1/27/2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: >Much of our communications is visual. We >watch reactions as we talk. Most people think that they can communicate >properly over the phone. It is a big mistake. Tell them what you're going to tell them. Then tell them. Then remind them of what you said. Then they might understand. Maybe. - John From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 27 14:55:34 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer Message-ID: Is anyone interesting in acquiring a Stellar Computers Inc. GS-1000 graphics supercomputer circa the mid-1980s? There's not a whole lot of information online but it basically was a vector processing special purpose graphics computer used for generating intense graphics. If you want it, it's yours. Free. Local pick-up prefered. If you want me to ship it you'll have to reimburse me for my time in a reasonable manner. Be groovy, reply off-line. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From g at kurico.com Thu Jan 27 15:20:10 2005 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050127.syh.10000000@192.168.1.207> What is the size and where is it? Thanks George Vintage Computer Festival (vcf@siconic.com) wrote: > > > Is anyone interesting in acquiring a Stellar Computers Inc. GS-1000 > graphics supercomputer circa the mid-1980s? There's not a whole lot of > information online but it basically was a vector processing special > purpose graphics computer used for generating intense graphics. > > If you want it, it's yours. Free. Local pick-up prefered. If you want > me to ship it you'll have to reimburse me for my time in a reasonable > manner. > > Be groovy, reply off-line. > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > > From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 27 15:44:19 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: IBM Record Unit Machines In-Reply-To: <000201c504a9$03d67e60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> References: <5BEE9270-6FFA-11D9-96F8-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net><016001c50410$76efc4e0$3b406b43@66067007> <8628318A-7004-11D9-96F8-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> <000201c504a9$03d67e60$8a0101ac@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <99681EB4-70AC-11D9-BF44-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Thanks for your pointers Sellam. On Jan 27, 2005, at 9:19 AM, John Allain wrote: >> Thanks, Everything I have found so far is basically >> "this is what a card punch looked like", no details. > > If you want more respect given to your questions, try the following: > use correct grammar and punctuation, do some pre-research > yourself first, limit your questions at first to one or two. > > An example here would be to mention product numbers > for the things you're trying to get information on. > > Show some respect To the list, and you'll get more From it. > > John A. > From ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 27 15:49:58 2005 From: ron.hudson at sbcglobal.net (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: IBM Record Unit.... Message-ID: <63A36F94-70AD-11D9-BF44-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> I had a passing though of writing emulators for the machines found in an old record unit shop, Card Punches - would be something like an editor. Sorters, Collators?, and all the other machines, with text files as card-decks. I have the link on Wikipeadea, it also just gives a gloss overview. I am not finding the detail needed. Never mind, it wasn't important. I'll go on to other things. From dundas at caltech.edu Thu Jan 27 15:56:52 2005 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: IBM Record Unit.... In-Reply-To: <63A36F94-70AD-11D9-BF44-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> References: <63A36F94-70AD-11D9-BF44-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: At 1:49 PM -0800 1/27/05, Ron Hudson wrote: >I had a passing though of writing emulators for the >machines found in an old record unit shop, > >Card Punches - would be something like an editor. There is one for X11 (roughly) emulating an 029 punch. John From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 27 16:06:10 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:16 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer In-Reply-To: <20050127.syh.10000000@192.168.1.207> Message-ID: On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, George Currie wrote: > What is the size and where is it? 4' tall standard cabinet. Weight: Heavy. Livermore, California. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 27 16:07:19 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: IBM Record Unit Machines In-Reply-To: <99681EB4-70AC-11D9-BF44-000393C5A0B6@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: See below. John Allain wrote that message. You can see his name in the reply tag and at the bottom of the message, where he signed it, "John A.", just like all his messages. On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Ron Hudson wrote: > Thanks for your pointers Sellam. > > > On Jan 27, 2005, at 9:19 AM, John Allain wrote: > > >> Thanks, Everything I have found so far is basically > >> "this is what a card punch looked like", no details. > > > > If you want more respect given to your questions, try the following: > > use correct grammar and punctuation, do some pre-research > > yourself first, limit your questions at first to one or two. > > > > An example here would be to mention product numbers > > for the things you're trying to get information on. > > > > Show some respect To the list, and you'll get more From it. > > > > John A. > > > -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From g at kurico.com Thu Jan 27 16:11:22 2005 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20050127.nio.77000000@192.168.1.207> Sorry guys, didn't mean to send that to the list, hit that send button a bit too quickly. George Vintage Computer Festival (vcf@siconic.com) wrote: > > > Is anyone interesting in acquiring a Stellar Computers Inc. GS-1000 > graphics supercomputer circa the mid-1980s? There's not a whole lot of > information online but it basically was a vector processing special > purpose graphics computer used for generating intense graphics. > > If you want it, it's yours. Free. Local pick-up prefered. If you want > me to ship it you'll have to reimburse me for my time in a reasonable > manner. > > Be groovy, reply off-line. > > -- > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] > > From aek at spies.com Thu Jan 27 16:27:09 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: IBM Record Unit.... Message-ID: <951B1E52-70B2-11D9-B5C5-003065C7ACB0@spies.com> I have never heard of these devices being called "Record Unit" I have seen them called "Unit Record" try http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/cardProc for information on IBM card processing equipment. From jdbryan at acm.org Thu Jan 27 10:53:15 2005 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Data I/O manual sought In-Reply-To: <000b01c50448$19902280$5b01a8c0@flexpc> References: <008601c50424$04d419b0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200501271653.j0RGrGnH013881@mail.bcpl.net> On 27 Jan 2005 at 8:13, Antonio Carlini wrote: > Is it one of these: It's 981-0142-005, according to the one I have. -- Dave From jdbryan at acm.org Thu Jan 27 10:53:13 2005 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Data I/O manual sought In-Reply-To: <008601c50424$04d419b0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200501271653.j0RGrGnJ013881@mail.bcpl.net> On 26 Jan 2005 at 21:55, Jay West wrote: > I don't see one in the dataIO section on bitsavers... anyone have a > pdf of the logicpak manual? Manual, but no PDF as yet. Something specific you need, or just for general info? -- Dave From ebay_jec1659az at w3az.net Thu Jan 27 11:17:12 2005 From: ebay_jec1659az at w3az.net (James E Cosper) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Old Pertec drive on eBay Message-ID: <200501271016196.SM00102@work3> Greetings, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5158846219 Thanks to John Lawson, for pointing this item out. Is anyone else on the list interested in this? I have a Prime Computer inc. - Model 300 that has been out of service for lack of a reliable hard-disk, it looks like this drive will work nicely. I have contacted the seller about pickup/delivery issues. Thanks, James. From devin at thecabal.org Thu Jan 27 12:05:08 2005 From: devin at thecabal.org (Devin L. Ganger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Apple, Commodore, CP/M, Sun, misc. gear needs new home In-Reply-To: <20050127030743.JCZC8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> References: <20050127030743.JCZC8587.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> Message-ID: <41F92D54.4040509@thecabal.org> on 1/26/2005 7:07 PM Dave Dunfield wrote: > I emailed the O.P. (I received the list from a friend a couple of days > before it showed up on cctalk), to ask if I could talk him into shipping > to Canada (I would of course pay costs), and did not receive a response - > I did note that his posting to cctalk explicitaly stated that he might > be willing to ship another item "within the US only" which suggests that > he may have received and considered my request.... I have been positively swamped by responses and have not had a chance to work through them all yet. I'm trying to go in chronological order on items unless there is someone local interested -- the less we have to mess with shipping the better. If I haven't responded to you yet, be assured I'm working my way through the backlog and will get to you. -- Devin L. Ganger "Aikido is based around the central precept of letting an attack take its natural course. You, of course, don't want to impede that natural flow by being in its way." -- overheard on the PyraMOO From vcf at siconic.com Thu Jan 27 17:37:44 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer In-Reply-To: <20050127.nio.77000000@192.168.1.207> Message-ID: On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, George Currie wrote: > Sorry guys, didn't mean to send that to the list, hit that send button a bit > too quickly. We'll forgive you, but just this once! ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 27 20:44:10 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Data I/O manual sought References: <008601c50424$04d419b0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <00ac01c504e3$3effdc90$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Someone wrote... >Which adapter(s) do you need the manuals for? LogicPak 303A-V04, part number 950-1942-008 351B-086, part number 715-0004-001 351B-103, not sure of the part number 303A-011A CMOS/BiPolar-PLD PTA, part number 716-0045-007 303A-012 PTA, part number 716-0047-003 303A-009 PTA, not sure of the part number These are items I recently got, and have no manuals for. Also, I'm looking for a "recent" version of firmware for my 29B. Can anyone copy theirs for me? I'll gladly pay for the parts & shipping & your time! Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 27 20:55:17 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: HP loader rom chips References: <003301c503d5$f3d8db80$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <1e1fc3e905012614035a1709e0@mail.gmail.com><001701c5041b$ee7350d0$0100a8c0@screamer> <41F86954.9060300@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <00c301c504e4$ccbf2260$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Thanks to a fellow listmember, I found some fuji 7502's which my programmer will program, and are identical to the signetics 82S129, $5 bucks each. I also found some signetics 82S181's, which are the 8Kb proms for HP microcode boards for $6 each. No luck finding 82S141's though. I'm happy now :) Thanks to all who replied! Jay PS - I also found a stock of 2114 rams :) From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 27 21:16:36 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Data I/O manual sought References: <200501271653.j0RGrGnJ013881@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <014301c504e7$c6aefb40$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I don't need anything specific, just can't stand to have a piece of gear without the manual. And by the time I get around to using it, the docs may be gone :) I've got my head in the 29B, so I'm reading more of the manuals every night. No huge rush :) Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "J. David Bryan" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 10:53 AM Subject: Re: Data I/O manual sought > On 26 Jan 2005 at 21:55, Jay West wrote: > >> I don't see one in the dataIO section on bitsavers... anyone have a >> pdf of the logicpak manual? > > Manual, but no PDF as yet. Something specific you need, or just for > general info? > > -- Dave > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 27 21:24:05 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: DEC Alpha available References: <008101c50363$2f3debc0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <1106739110.1439.0.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <017401c504e8$d2422080$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I had written... >> The local surplus place has an Alpha available. I happened to be at that surplus place today to pick up some 2716 proms. I noticed that the DEC Alpha is gone. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 27 23:07:55 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: My response: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas References: <41F8D64A.651B893@brothom.nl> Message-ID: <02f201c504f7$53ac9660$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Not that anyone cares, but here's my own analysis... Bert wrote... > I said that I would like to keep some stuff of it, First mistake. You should have offered to buy it, not said "keep some of it". This would raise an eyebrow with most people. Not a huge immoral mistake... but in any trade or deal, it's better to approach with something like "would you consider letting me keep some of this gear and reimbursing you a lesser agreed upon amount?". > I didn't expect such an excited answer and > responded with "hey, I payed for it you know". Second mistake. I do understand the sentiment you are portraying, but you have to realize how that might come across. You fronted the money, expecting that you were just making the transaction for Fred. You did not "pay for it" in the sense of it being yours, based on the setup of the deal that you both expressed. By pointing out these "mistakes" (IMHO), I'm not taking sides. Merely trying to give you an idea how others may perceive it. Fred asked me if he could post his complaint to the list, and after talking back and forth to me about it, he did. I think he presented his concerns in a professional and non-antagonistic fashion. I also think Bert responded to the complaint with a non-antagonistic response, and I commend him for that. Obviously, both sides are publicly laid out for people to consider and be mindful of in their own trade deals. Now that that is done, lets take any further reparte's off-list. Regards, Jay West From Innfogra at aol.com Fri Jan 28 00:53:49 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Extra Alto Mouse & pads Message-ID: <105.5970c476.2f2b3b7d@aol.com> Last 14 hours and I just got a bid. I have an Alto Mouse up on eBay along with 2 Xerox mouse pads. _http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5159060230&ssPageName =STRK:MESE:IT_ (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5159060230&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT) Paxton Astoria, OR Innfosale From Saquinn624 at aol.com Fri Jan 28 01:14:30 2005 From: Saquinn624 at aol.com (Saquinn624@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: Regarding the collection in Monroe: I am in the Renton area, and I might be able to get up there and pick up some stuff & ship, especially if someone would be able to explain little details (esp. customs) & possibly help chip in for gas (snow in the area might help, so I could get some X-country in, but I'm not expecting that to be provided by you). I would be interested in a 3/80 and possibly one of the Apples. Thread 2: A request for Deskpro 386/20e information was posted. I have docs & disks for a Deskpro 386/25 if they would be helpful (scans & dds delivered over E-mail). Some of the docs are messed up (I think they talk about ESDI disks, when the machine has IDE). Thread 3: CremeVAX is working! a little flakiness still, but it seems to have been a slightly bent pin on the KA-43 SCSI connector that shorted out only when the plug was inserted. I'm in the process of grafting on a HD-50 external SCSI connector based on the pinouts from the DEC68-centronics50 interface cable that I found online. I'm trying to figure a hack for attaching the disks to the midplane shelf that doesn't involve drilling mounting holes now (it didn't come with the bosses that fit in the slots) I'm working on scans of the XENIX docs- does anyone have tips on how to format them? my school has an ADF ScanJet (fortunately), but I don't know where to go from there. I have some stuff that I'm cleaning out: A Wyse-150 terminal. The battery died (a lithium coin-type by the looks), but it still works (hit space to clear the error beeps on powerup, or put in a new batt.) With AT type keyboard Microsoft InPort bus mouse with 8-bit ISA controller. Novell NetWare 2.2 5-user serialized with manuals, works on 286 -> 486 machines, maybe 586. Compaq ProLiant drive tray (Ultra-Wide SCSI, for SCA 1/3 ht drives) Sun SPUD-II 1/2 ht drive sled Okidata Microline 24 pin printhead, carriage, narrow-format gear rack, RS-232 interface & tractor IBM buttons and dials IBM RS/6000 7030-3CT parts (most of it, it came with my 370) Dell Latitude mini-dock SGI Indigo2 IMPACT R4k/250 32/[drive died]/Solid IMPACT Sun SPARCstation 5/110 128/2g/TGX with either SunOS 4.1.3_U1 or Solaris 2.6 More will come out later, this is just a start. I'm in Western Washington (State, USA) Some of the stuff is give-away, some is trade or $. If anyone should happen to want to trade anything, I'm interesten in (small) 88k AViiON's, DECs, SGI (especially a CDC-rebadged Indigo) or DOMAIN/OS 10.4(.1), DG/UX 88k, olde IRIX (3.3-4.0.5), NeXTStep Intel/Sun (don't have to be original). Other "interesting" things would be considered. -Scott Quinn From David.Kane at aph.gov.au Fri Jan 28 02:06:44 2005 From: David.Kane at aph.gov.au (Kane, David (DPS)) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: My response: [LONGISH] Beware: dealings with Bert Thomas Message-ID: <55919996450608449304DEE79482EEC201879F71@email1.parl.net> > Now that that is done, lets take any further reparte's off-list. > > Regards, > > Jay West I would have to say "handled very stylishly" (clap clap clap clap clap) Davud From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Jan 28 02:52:03 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050128095203.0229154e.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 02:14:30 EST Saquinn624@aol.com wrote: > I'm working on scans of the XENIX docs- does anyone have tips on how > to format them? my school has an ADF ScanJet (fortunately), but I > don't know where to go from there. I did it this way when I scaned a VAX manual: - Scan each page to a TIFF, 300 dpi, monochrome with the Impressario Scanner tool that comes with IRIX. - Use fax G4 compression on the TIFFs and copy all individual TIFFs in to a single multipage TIFF with tiffcp(1). - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 28 03:06:23 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things References: <20050128095203.0229154e.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <000701c50518$a49ec630$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jochen Kunz" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 2:52 AM Subject: Re: Many things On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 02:14:30 EST Saquinn624@aol.com wrote: > I'm working on scans of the XENIX docs- does anyone have tips on how > to format them? my school has an ADF ScanJet (fortunately), but I > don't know where to go from there. I did it this way when I scaned a VAX manual: - Scan each page to a TIFF, 300 dpi, monochrome with the Impressario Scanner tool that comes with IRIX. - Use fax G4 compression on the TIFFs and copy all individual TIFFs in to a single multipage TIFF with tiffcp(1). - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). -- tsch??, Jochen I've done quite a few manuals but skipped the PS and used tiff2pdf, just scann to tiff convert to multipage tiff, convert to pdf. If you have any questions email me off list. The tifftools are available for many environments: DOS/windows/linux/macos/etc. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From micheladam at theedge.ca Fri Jan 28 03:06:32 2005 From: micheladam at theedge.ca (Michel Adam) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: OT: Microfiche scanner suggestions ? In-Reply-To: <105.5970c476.2f2b3b7d@aol.com> Message-ID: >From a lurker and infrequent poster: Searching in the last twelve months of messages, I noticed that a number of contributors to the list have made reference to microfiche scanners. Can anyone offer me any suggestions at all about selecting a microfiche scanner? Where I work, we are looking at replacing a Minolta 603 microfiche reader/printer, and any information/personal experience with mid-priced (i.e. less than $5000) scanner would be appreciated. Are there any models to stay away from? If it is any help, virtually ALL the current archives is of 8.5x11 (letter) documents. Thanks Michel Adam micheladam -at- theedge -dot- ca From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 28 07:34:19 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1106919259.25571.8.camel@weka.localdomain> On Thu, 2005-01-27 at 12:55 -0800, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > Is anyone interesting in acquiring a Stellar Computers Inc. GS-1000 > graphics supercomputer circa the mid-1980s? There's not a whole lot of > information online but it basically was a vector processing special > purpose graphics computer used for generating intense graphics. Grr wrong side of the pond! I have a particular interest in early* graphics systems too. *for suitable values of early :-) any chance of some photos? :) (or from whoever's lucky enough to take this thing on!) cheers Jules From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 28 08:24:59 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Possible List Downtime Message-ID: <003301c50545$263a89a0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> There is a chance (homelife schedule permitting) that I will be moving the drives from the temp classiccmp server to the new (old) classiccmp server this weekend. If I do get around to it, it would be during the day - slightly more likely sunday than saturday. Then again, I may not get to it at all this weekend. We'll see. Wanted to give a heads up in any case. When I do this, the list will be down for an hour or so if all goes well. If it doesn't go well.... could be much longer :) Bear in mind a few things: 1) There WILL be bumps. There is at least 63 separate software packages that are installed & configured on the server that provides the classiccmp services. You can bet that I (and YOU) will find snags and things will be broken for a bit (days or weeks afterwards, depending on urgency and my ability to fix). Some of the packages have been tested thoroughly, some of them I simply cant really test until they go live. You can expect some problems. 2) When I moved subscriber lists from the old server to the new server a few weeks ago, there is one setting that mailman doesn't migrate with subscriber export/import - the "no mail" flag that many of you use. So if you subscribe to both lists (silly) or have your account temporarily set to "no mail" you'll start getting mail to both until you go back and set your no mail flag. I'm not going through 1000 accounts individually by hand to preserve the nomail flag. 3) Mailman also doesn't transfer passwords it would appear. I will try to remember to force mailman to send out a password reminder after the upgrade, so hopefully you'll get your mailman password sent via email. I may forget to do this, I'm a forgetfull guy. Give me a shout if you get stuck. 4) There are a lot of classic computer related websites that I host on the classiccmp server for people at no charge. It is entirely likely that during this time period of being "half on one server, half on another"... that files & content you put on your website went to the wrong server and you'd notice it after the switch. If so, give me a shout and I'll get the content fixed for you. If the files are on one of the two servers, it's a lot faster for me to copy them than for you to reupload them. The "old" drive will be put up in a different machine on the same network, so I will be able to copy stuff easily that got stranded. Keep your shirt on. See #1 above. 5) Many chunks of the archives have been located on the drive. However, I am sure there are holes of missing posts. This really torques me off. Someone who did list maintenance before me had moved the defacto copy of the list archives into a different spot on the server and I didn't realize they were in an area I routinely mess up and later clean up. It's possible I deleted them, but in any case I can't find them. Again, many of them have been located but not all. After I finish the server drive migration, I will be regenning all the html archives from scratch - going against the original mbox files. If there's any posts in the archives that you want me to remove (from time to time someone posts their home address by mistake, etc etc.) now is the time to let me know and I'll clean the archives. After the archives are completely reassembled, you can be damn sure I will be copying them to DVD and sticking a copy in my vault off-site. 6) The newer version of mailman has a pretty much revamped logic for handling bounces and automatic subscription disables due to bounces. It will be interesting to see how that part works. Regards, Jay West From jwest at huey.classiccmp.org Fri Jan 28 09:06:55 2005 From: jwest at huey.classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Problem 1 has occured ;) Message-ID: <200501281506.j0SF6tnv094268@huey.classiccmp.org> Hummm I seem to have misplaced the riser card for the server. Scrounging now... From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 28 09:25:25 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Problem 1 has occured ;) In-Reply-To: <200501281506.j0SF6tnv094268@huey.classiccmp.org> References: <200501281506.j0SF6tnv094268@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <1106925925.25571.28.camel@weka.localdomain> On Fri, 2005-01-28 at 09:06 -0600, Jay West wrote: > Hummm I seem to have misplaced the riser card for the server. Scrounging now... No, that's problem 0.1 - problems with a value of 1 and greater are reserved for software issues. 'man problem' for more information. :-) From wacarder at usit.net Fri Jan 28 10:22:30 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: HP7200A, HP7210A Plotter documentation needed References: <003e01c50491$8d46bec0$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Message-ID: <002d01c50555$91b42af0$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Thanks to Sellam, I've found a place where I can purchase the manuals for these two plotters. Not free or cheap, but I guess I have to pay the price since I could not find them anywhere else! For others who are interested, the site is: http://www.manualsplus.com Ashley ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ashley Carder" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Cc: Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 11:59 AM Subject: HP7200A, HP7210A Plotter documentation needed Does anyone on the list have any documentation on the HP7200A or HP7210A plotter? I am getting an HP7210A plotter today, but I don't have any documentation on it. It looks exactly like the 7200A, but it appears to have a few more knobs or controls on it, based on the photographs I've seen. I'll know more when I actually get my hands on it (tonight). These plotters date from the early 1970s. We had an HP7200A at Wofford College in the 1970s. Ours was mapped to KB7: and we had numerous plotting programs written in BASIC-PLUS under RSTS/E on a PDP-11/40. I have copies of all the programs that we had for interacting with the plotter. I just don't have any info on hooking it up to the computer. I'm planning on interfacing it to my PDP-11/40 via either a 20mA or an EIA DZ11 port. Thanks in advance for any insight or info that anyone can provide. Ashley From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 28 11:02:30 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) Message-ID: <1106931750.25571.36.camel@weka.localdomain> Anyone heard of something called XP which is X Windows related? I just found a bunch of stuff lurking under an 'XP' directory on this Tektronix and it's taking up quite a bit of disk space. (I can't think of a good way of googling without getting swamped with MS stuff) Looks to be some multi-platform *something* as there are directories for the xd88, sun3, sun4 and Ultrix under there. Nothing that gives away what it actually does though. Just trying to decide whether to move it or kill it outright (I've got it backed up within the hard drive image). Kinda curious as to what it's supposed to do though. ta Jules From evan947 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 28 11:36:39 2005 From: evan947 at yahoo.com (evan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Possible List Downtime In-Reply-To: <003301c50545$263a89a0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <20050128173639.4833.qmail@web52804.mail.yahoo.com> I can think of a few messages from OTHER people that I'd like you to remove. :) --- Jay West wrote: > There is a chance (homelife schedule permitting) that I will be moving the > drives from the temp classiccmp server to the new (old) classiccmp server > this weekend. If I do get around to it, it would be during the day - > slightly more likely sunday than saturday. Then again, I may not get to it > at all this weekend. We'll see. Wanted to give a heads up in any case. > > When I do this, the list will be down for an hour or so if all goes well. If > it doesn't go well.... could be much longer :) > > Bear in mind a few things: > > 1) There WILL be bumps. There is at least 63 separate software packages that > are installed & configured on the server that provides the classiccmp > services. You can bet that I (and YOU) will find snags and things will be > broken for a bit (days or weeks afterwards, depending on urgency and my > ability to fix). Some of the packages have been tested thoroughly, some of > them I simply cant really test until they go live. You can expect some > problems. > > 2) When I moved subscriber lists from the old server to the new server a few > weeks ago, there is one setting that mailman doesn't migrate with subscriber > export/import - the "no mail" flag that many of you use. So if you subscribe > to both lists (silly) or have your account temporarily set to "no mail" > you'll start getting mail to both until you go back and set your no mail > flag. I'm not going through 1000 accounts individually by hand to preserve > the nomail flag. > > 3) Mailman also doesn't transfer passwords it would appear. I will try to > remember to force mailman to send out a password reminder after the upgrade, > so hopefully you'll get your mailman password sent via email. I may forget > to do this, I'm a forgetfull guy. Give me a shout if you get stuck. > > 4) There are a lot of classic computer related websites that I host on the > classiccmp server for people at no charge. It is entirely likely that during > this time period of being "half on one server, half on another"... that > files & content you put on your website went to the wrong server and you'd > notice it after the switch. If so, give me a shout and I'll get the content > fixed for you. If the files are on one of the two servers, it's a lot faster > for me to copy them than for you to reupload them. The "old" drive will be > put up in a different machine on the same network, so I will be able to copy > stuff easily that got stranded. Keep your shirt on. See #1 above. > > 5) Many chunks of the archives have been located on the drive. However, I am > sure there are holes of missing posts. This really torques me off. Someone > who did list maintenance before me had moved the defacto copy of the list > archives into a different spot on the server and I didn't realize they were > in an area I routinely mess up and later clean up. It's possible I deleted > them, but in any case I can't find them. Again, many of them have been > located but not all. After I finish the server drive migration, I will be > regenning all the html archives from scratch - going against the original > mbox files. If there's any posts in the archives that you want me to remove > (from time to time someone posts their home address by mistake, etc etc.) > now is the time to let me know and I'll clean the archives. After the > archives are completely reassembled, you can be damn sure I will be copying > them to DVD and sticking a copy in my vault off-site. > > 6) The newer version of mailman has a pretty much revamped logic for > handling bounces and automatic subscription disables due to bounces. It will > be interesting to see how that part works. > > Regards, > > Jay West > > > > From kapteynr at cboe.com Fri Jan 28 11:40:01 2005 From: kapteynr at cboe.com (Kapteyn, Rob) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) Message-ID: I think that you may be looking at the boot code for Tektronix X terminals. Don't delete it -- I have a nice old Tektronix XP14 terminal that powers up and self-tests, but I can't find the code to make it run X windows. That code is loaded from a server with tftp (could be a Mac or linux box) Tektronix sold their code to NCD and now NCD in closing shop. Here is some info on file names, etc: http://www.itd.bnl.gov/xterminal/tek_bfile_details.html -Rob -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Jules Richardson Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 11:03 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) Anyone heard of something called XP which is X Windows related? I just found a bunch of stuff lurking under an 'XP' directory on this Tektronix and it's taking up quite a bit of disk space. (I can't think of a good way of googling without getting swamped with MS stuff) Looks to be some multi-platform *something* as there are directories for the xd88, sun3, sun4 and Ultrix under there. Nothing that gives away what it actually does though. Just trying to decide whether to move it or kill it outright (I've got it backed up within the hard drive image). Kinda curious as to what it's supposed to do though. ta Jules From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Jan 28 12:00:56 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) In-Reply-To: <1106931750.25571.36.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106931750.25571.36.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050128190056.17d531cc.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 17:02:30 +0000 Jules Richardson wrote: > Anyone heard of something called XP which is X Windows related? I just > found a bunch of stuff lurking under an 'XP' directory on this > Tektronix Maybe software for the Tektronix TekXPress X terminals? The TekXPress I own runs some sort of striped down SysV UNIX. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 28 12:30:52 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Randy McLaughlin wrote: > - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) > - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). Could you perhaps be a little more friendly to people like me and Tony Duell who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work, including viewing classic computer documentation, and make the PostScript available as well, i.e., with the last step omitted? PostScript is infinitely more friendly to Classic Computers than PDF. A PostScript document can be easily handled by someone who has no computing technology younger than 1985, that's almost 20 y old, not just 10. No graphical operating system required (how the heck is one supposed to run Adobe Acrobat on a vintage command-line OS with a VT100 terminal??), just use your favourite Classic command-line OS, be it ancient UNIX, VMS, RSX, or whatever, to send the PostScript file (with a command line) to your |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PrintServer 40 (one of the original PS printers, same time as LaserWriter), and you are done. Can't do that with PDF. And the original PostScript prior to PDF conversion is always infinitely better than PostScript produced by turning PDF back into PS (which is what I do with all PDFs that come my way, because converting back to PS with a command line tool is the only thing I can do with a PDF file). One of the first laws I will pass after my revolution is that anyone who publishes or sends to another person a PDF file produced by conversion from PostScript but withholds the PostScript source shall be dragged into the public square and flogged till he can't stand. The recipient of the PDF file would simply need to call NKVD/KGB with the complaint. MS From marvin at rain.org Fri Jan 28 12:36:34 2005 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: ClassicCmp Archives Message-ID: <41FA8632.A1D0338A@rain.org> Hi Jay, I emailed you a while ago, and never got a response so I am just reposting it here. I've found most of the posts to ClassicCmp going back to when I joined in 1997 a couple of months (I think) after the list was started. If you need them, I can send them to you. There are some holes but not many except for when I lost my email later last year. They run somewhere around 600 MB. Marvin > 5) Many chunks of the archives have been located on the drive. However, I am > sure there are holes of missing posts. This really torques me off. Someone > who did list maintenance before me had moved the defacto copy of the list > archives into a different spot on the server and I didn't realize they were > in an area I routinely mess up and later clean up. It's possible I deleted > them, but in any case I can't find them. Again, many of them have been > located but not all. After I finish the server drive migration, I will be > regenning all the html archives from scratch - going against the original > mbox files. If there's any posts in the archives that you want me to remove > (from time to time someone posts their home address by mistake, etc etc.) > now is the time to let me know and I'll clean the archives. After the > archives are completely reassembled, you can be damn sure I will be copying > them to DVD and sticking a copy in my vault off-site. From news at computercollector.com Fri Jan 28 12:47:12 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> >>>> who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work Do you mean you use a classic computer as your ** primary ** machine, or just that you happen to use it ** once in a while ** for your current work? RE: people who use classic computers as their primary machine, not including those of you on the list who work for computer museums -- I'm very curious how many of you exist. And, do you use classic computers by 1.) choice, 2.) lack of budget, or 3.) technological need (that is, legacy connectivity)...? I love my vintage computer collection as much as anyone, or else I wouldn't be on this list and producing my newsletter, and once in a while it is fun to actually use them for modern purposes. Just ask the guy who was startled last week when I started taking meeting notes an Apple Newton. But in day-to-day 'real life', I can't fathom using anything other than a modern system running some equally modern version of Unix or Windows. (It's one thing to request the PostScript file here in the classiccmp list, but how do you handle it in the real world, where people may tell you "Sorry, our company only does business in Microsoft"...? For those on the list who like to flame -- please don't -- I am ASKING about this topic, not preaching my point of view. --- Michael Sokolov wrote: > Randy McLaughlin wrote: > > > - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) > > - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). > > Could you perhaps be a little more friendly to people like me and Tony Duell > who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work, including > viewing classic computer documentation, and make the PostScript available > as well, i.e., with the last step omitted? > > PostScript is infinitely more friendly to Classic Computers than PDF. A > PostScript document can be easily handled by someone who has no computing > technology younger than 1985, that's almost 20 y old, not just 10. No > graphical operating system required (how the heck is one supposed to run > Adobe Acrobat on a vintage command-line OS with a VT100 terminal??), just > use your favourite Classic command-line OS, be it ancient UNIX, VMS, RSX, > or whatever, to send the PostScript file (with a command line) to your > |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PrintServer 40 (one of the original PS printers, same time > as LaserWriter), and you are done. Can't do that with PDF. And the > original PostScript prior to PDF conversion is always infinitely better > than PostScript produced by turning PDF back into PS (which is what I do > with all PDFs that come my way, because converting back to PS with a command > line tool is the only thing I can do with a PDF file). > > One of the first laws I will pass after my revolution is that anyone who > publishes or sends to another person a PDF file produced by conversion from > PostScript but withholds the PostScript source shall be dragged into the > public square and flogged till he can't stand. The recipient of the PDF > file would simply need to call NKVD/KGB with the complaint. > > MS > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 662 readers and counting! From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 28 12:53:47 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things References: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <000801c5056a$b54b4b50$893cd7d1@randylaptop> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Sokolov" > Randy McLaughlin wrote: > >> - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) >> - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). > > Could you perhaps be a little more friendly to people like me and Tony > Duell > who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work, > including > viewing classic computer documentation, and make the PostScript available > as well, i.e., with the last step omitted? > > PostScript is infinitely more friendly to Classic Computers than PDF. A > PostScript document can be easily handled by someone who has no computing > technology younger than 1985, that's almost 20 y old, not just 10. No > graphical operating system required (how the heck is one supposed to run > Adobe Acrobat on a vintage command-line OS with a VT100 terminal??), just > use your favourite Classic command-line OS, be it ancient UNIX, VMS, RSX, > or whatever, to send the PostScript file (with a command line) to your > |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PrintServer 40 (one of the original PS printers, same time > as LaserWriter), and you are done. Can't do that with PDF. And the > original PostScript prior to PDF conversion is always infinitely better > than PostScript produced by turning PDF back into PS (which is what I do > with all PDFs that come my way, because converting back to PS with a > command > line tool is the only thing I can do with a PDF file). > > One of the first laws I will pass after my revolution is that anyone who > publishes or sends to another person a PDF file produced by conversion > from > PostScript but withholds the PostScript source shall be dragged into the > public square and flogged till he can't stand. The recipient of the PDF > file would simply need to call NKVD/KGB with the complaint. > > MS You snipped all of my comments but only left my name, I only recomended using tiff2pdf which saves a step and makes more efficient PDF documents. More than that you missed the biggest point, PostScript is useless in this case since the documents are stored as graphical images and cannot be used on the classic computers. I scan many documents and I can tell you that OCR'ing them and formatting them so classic computers can handle them takes a huge amount of time. I have better things to do with my time, including scanning more documents. All of us that archive these documents would love it if someone would OCR some of the documents and send the results back. It would save a huge amount of space allowing for faster downloads and the ability to search the documents. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 28 13:00:48 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things References: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001301c5056b$afb52110$893cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Computer Collector Newsletter" >>>>> who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work > > Do you mean you use a classic computer as your ** primary ** machine, or > just > that you happen to use it ** once in a while ** for your current work? > > RE: people who use classic computers as their primary machine, not > including > those of you on the list who work for computer museums -- I'm very curious > how > many of you exist. And, do you use classic computers by 1.) choice, 2.) > lack > of budget, or 3.) technological need (that is, legacy connectivity)...? > > I love my vintage computer collection as much as anyone, or else I > wouldn't be > on this list and producing my newsletter, and once in a while it is fun to > actually use them for modern purposes. Just ask the guy who was startled > last > week when I started taking meeting notes an Apple Newton. But in > day-to-day > 'real life', I can't fathom using anything other than a modern system > running > some equally modern version of Unix or Windows. (It's one thing to > request the > PostScript file here in the classiccmp list, but how do you handle it in > the > real world, where people may tell you "Sorry, our company only does > business in > Microsoft"...? > > For those on the list who like to flame -- please don't -- I am ASKING > about > this topic, not preaching my point of view. There really are people that still use classic computers on a day to day basis. I have a couple of clients that do. One lawer uses a 68K Xenix server to archive his legal papers (don't ask me why it's not about the $). Another uses some Vax servers to monitor a paper mill, they are changing over to PC's running Windoze servers. Their software people do not support Linux. For me I just play with my classic systems. Randy From wacarder at usit.net Fri Jan 28 13:05:14 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things References: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000801c5056c$4cec2b40$f71b0f14@wcarder1> > >>>> who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work > > Do you mean you use a classic computer as your ** primary ** machine, or just > that you happen to use it ** once in a while ** for your current work? > > RE: people who use classic computers as their primary machine, not including > those of you on the list who work for computer museums -- I'm very curious how > many of you exist. And, do you use classic computers by 1.) choice, 2.) lack > of budget, or 3.) technological need (that is, legacy connectivity)...? > > I love my vintage computer collection as much as anyone, or else I wouldn't be > on this list and producing my newsletter, and once in a while it is fun to > actually use them for modern purposes. Just ask the guy who was startled last > week when I started taking meeting notes an Apple Newton. But in day-to-day > 'real life', I can't fathom using anything other than a modern system running > some equally modern version of Unix or Windows. (It's one thing to request the > PostScript file here in the classiccmp list, but how do you handle it in the > real world, where people may tell you "Sorry, our company only does business in > Microsoft"...? > > For those on the list who like to flame -- please don't -- I am ASKING about > this topic, not preaching my point of view. I, too, like my vintage systems as much as the next guy, but lately I've been finding myself using the HyperTerminal app on my modern Win2K PC as the console when I'm doing things on my 1973 PDP-11/40. I can toggle over to the web browser while I'm copying RK05 disk packs, cut and paste the output of the PDP-11/40 RT11 DIR command into an email on Outlook, and use simh to test and run the RL01 disk image that I just sent from the 11/40 to my PC via the 11/40 console's serial port. I can use the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader to read a PDF version of an ancient PDP-11 manual that I downloaded from Al's Bitsavers while I have my 11/40's console sitting there in a Window on the same computer, while I listen to my MP3 files on the same computer, while I have Remote Admin running in another window so I can watch my web server, which is 40 miles away! When I have visitors and I want them to have the authentic 1970s computing experience, I unplug my PC from the 11/40 console cable and connect my VT52 DecScope as the console, to go along with the other vintage terminals connected via the DZ11 multiplexer. So..... my point of view is that I like to use my modern stuff right alongside my old stuff. Ashley From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 28 13:07:13 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501281907.AA20035@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > Do you mean you use a classic computer as your ** primary ** machine, or just > that you happen to use it ** once in a while ** for your current work? The former. I do not own any non-Classic computers and never will. I do not use any non-Classic operating systems and never will. > RE: people who use classic computers as their primary machine, not including > those of you on the list who work for computer museums -- I'm very curious how > many of you exist. I think, therefore I exist. Cogito ergo sum. > And, do you use classic computers by 1.) choice, 2.) lack > of budget, or 3.) technological need (that is, legacy connectivity)...? 1. > But in day-to-day > 'real life', I can't fathom using anything other than a modern system running > some equally modern version of Unix or Windows. The fact that you can't fathom it signifies nothing but a limitation of your imagination. It is possible and I am the living proof. I believe our Prof. Tony Duell is the same way. > but how do you handle it in the real world Define "real world". My reality is different from yours. > where people may tell you "Sorry, our company only does business in > Microsoft"...? I don't do any business with companies other than to shoot them. I'm a Marxist-Leninist Communist revolutionary. MS From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Fri Jan 28 13:09:55 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF2D@exchange.olf.com> Can you please limit the quoting! There really isnt any need to quote the WHOLE thing.. Thanks, Ram (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 28 13:11:55 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things References: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> <000801c5056c$4cec2b40$f71b0f14@wcarder1> Message-ID: <002c01c5056d$3d5bfce0$893cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Ashley Carder" > I, too, like my vintage systems as much as the next guy, but lately I've > been finding > myself using the HyperTerminal app on my modern Win2K PC as the console > when I'm doing things on my 1973 PDP-11/40. I can toggle over to the web > browser while I'm copying RK05 disk packs, cut and paste the output of the > PDP-11/40 RT11 DIR command into an email on Outlook, and use simh to > test and run the RL01 disk image that I just sent from the 11/40 to my PC > via > the 11/40 console's serial port. I can use the latest version of Adobe > Acrobat > Reader to read a PDF version of an ancient PDP-11 manual that I downloaded > from Al's Bitsavers while I have my 11/40's console sitting there in a > Window > on the same computer, while I listen to my MP3 files on the same computer, > while I have Remote Admin running in another window so I can watch my > web server, which is 40 miles away! > > When I have visitors and I want them to have the authentic 1970s computing > experience, I unplug my PC from the 11/40 console cable and connect my > VT52 DecScope as the console, to go along with the other vintage terminals > connected via the DZ11 multiplexer. > > So..... my point of view is that I like to use my modern stuff right > alongside my > old stuff. > > Ashley I too find it easier to use hyperterm (S100 systems in my case as my email address implies). I wonder what percentage of classic systems insists on real terminals vs. terminal emulation. Randy From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 28 13:14:59 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501281914.AA20060@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Randy McLaughlin wrote: > You snipped all of my comments but only left my name, My apologies, I've hit 'r' on the wrong message, I was really replying to the post you replied to. (I failed to notice it, though, because you didn't use '> ' or other indent quotation.) > More than that you missed the biggest point, PostScript is useless in this > case since the documents are stored as graphical images and cannot be used > on the classic computers. While of course a re-ASCII-fied document would be infinitely better, a PostScript page description that uses nothing but the image operator is still not totally useless to Classic computers, since it can still be printed on a Classic PostScript printer, and the act of printing can be performed from a Classic command line OS. > I scan many documents and I can tell you that OCR'ing them and formatting > them so classic computers can handle them takes a huge amount of time. I > have better things to do with my time, including scanning more documents. That is why we need a socialist government that would eliminate unemployment with a massive public works program that would hire millions of people to do the re-ASCII-fication work. MS From evan947 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 28 13:16:15 2005 From: evan947 at yahoo.com (evan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF2D@exchange.olf.com> Message-ID: <20050128191615.46019.qmail@web52804.mail.yahoo.com> Sorry. ---- cut off for your happiness ---- :) --- Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: > Can you please limit the quoting! There really isnt any need to quote the > WHOLE thing.. > > Thanks, > > Ram ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 662 readers and counting! From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Jan 28 13:18:57 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF2D@exchange.olf.com> References: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF2D@exchange.olf.com> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050128131821.053c5298@mail> At 01:09 PM 1/28/2005, Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: >Can you please limit the quoting! There really isnt any need to quote the >WHOLE thing.. Wow. Irony abounds. 17 line .sig? :-) - John From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jan 28 13:29:57 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) In-Reply-To: <1106931750.25571.36.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1106931750.25571.36.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <200501281931.OAA11707@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Anyone heard of something called XP which is X Windows related? > [...] (I can't think of a good way of googling without getting > swamped with MS stuff) I tried `XP -microsoft -windows -"extreme programming"' and got what looked like a good start on that. (But nothing in the first few that looked right for you. Maybe throwing in a few other terms like Tektronix would help.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From jim.isbell at gmail.com Fri Jan 28 13:32:46 2005 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) In-Reply-To: <20050128190056.17d531cc.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <1106931750.25571.36.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050128190056.17d531cc.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: XP is the only OS that Uncle Bill produced that is worth the money. But even it doesn't compare to Linspire (Linux based GUI) On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 19:00:56 +0100, Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 17:02:30 +0000 > Jules Richardson wrote: > > > Anyone heard of something called XP which is X Windows related? I just > > found a bunch of stuff lurking under an 'XP' directory on this > > Tektronix > Maybe software for the Tektronix TekXPress X terminals? > The TekXPress I own runs some sort of striped down SysV UNIX. > -- > > tsch??, > Jochen > > Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ > > -- Jim Isbell W5JAI UltraVan #257 CAL - 27 #221 From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Fri Jan 28 13:35:43 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF30@exchange.olf.com> Actually its our stupid firewall. It automatically adds that .sig and I cant take it out either..... Ram -----Original Message----- From: John Foust [mailto:jfoust@threedee.com] Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 2:19 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: RE: Many things At 01:09 PM 1/28/2005, Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: >Can you please limit the quoting! There really isnt any need to quote >the WHOLE thing.. Wow. Irony abounds. 17 line .sig? :-) - John (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From aek at spies.com Fri Jan 28 13:43:20 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: OT: Microfiche scanner suggestions ? Message-ID: > Can anyone offer me any suggestions at all about selecting a microfiche scanner? I will have a reconditioned Mekel available in about two months for around $15k This is a fraction of the new price for these units. From melt at microvax.org Fri Jan 28 13:50:23 2005 From: melt at microvax.org (Alex White) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) In-Reply-To: References: <1106931750.25571.36.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050128190056.17d531cc.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > XP is the only OS that Uncle Bill produced that is worth the money. > But even it doesn't compare to Linspire (Linux based GUI) Windows 2000 > XP But i'm taking this further OT, so i'll stop ;) alex/melt From jingber at ix.netcom.com Fri Jan 28 13:53:34 2005 From: jingber at ix.netcom.com (jingber@ix.netcom.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:17 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <5367301.1106942014754.JavaMail.root@grover.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Rather arrogant comming from someone with a full-page disclaimer. It's also rather arrogant when your claim exclusive copyright on the body of the message when it clearly contains quoted text from a 3rd party. How exactly did this become your "property"? Jeff -----Original Message----- From: Ram Meenakshisundaram Sent: Jan 28, 2005 11:09 AM To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: RE: Many things Can you please limit the quoting! There really isnt any need to quote the WHOLE thing.. Thanks, Ram (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From Innfogra at aol.com Fri Jan 28 14:06:00 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) Message-ID: <127.549b7a15.2f2bf528@aol.com> In a message dated 1/28/05 11:32:59 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca writes: XP -microsoft -windows -"extreme programming" I took this a bit farther and searched for: +XP -microsoft -windows -"extreme programming" +tektronix -phaser and found this page which talks about the Tek XP term configuration. _http://www.mi.infn.it/xterm/tekconfig.html_ (http://www.mi.infn.it/xterm/tekconfig.html) Paxton Astoria, OR From news at computercollector.com Fri Jan 28 14:09:18 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <5367301.1106942014754.JavaMail.root@grover.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050128200918.18179.qmail@web52802.mail.yahoo.com> In his defense... so the guy has a corporate .sig, who doesn't these days? You just ignore the lawyers and go on with life. I was wrong to do all that full-message quoting in the first place. Now, as for why he's doing classiccmp stuff from his corporate email account, that is what I want to know. Ram: get back to work. :) --- jingber@ix.netcom.com wrote: > Rather arrogant comming from someone with a full-page disclaimer. > > It's also rather arrogant when your claim exclusive copyright on the body of > the message when it clearly contains quoted text from a 3rd party. How > exactly did this become your "property"? > > Jeff > -----Original Message----- > From: Ram Meenakshisundaram > Sent: Jan 28, 2005 11:09 AM > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Subject: RE: Many things > > Can you please limit the quoting! There really isnt any need to quote the > WHOLE thing.. > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 662 readers and counting! From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jan 28 14:12:39 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281907.AA20035@ivan.Harhan.ORG> from "Michael Sokolov" at Jan 28, 2005 07:07:13 PM Message-ID: <200501282012.j0SKCdOn021662@onyx.spiritone.com> MS wrote: > Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > > > Do you mean you use a classic computer as your ** primary ** machine, or just > > that you happen to use it ** once in a while ** for your current work? > > The former. I do not own any non-Classic computers and never will. > I do not use any non-Classic operating systems and never will. Define "non-Classic", after all by this lists definition of "Classic" you'll be able to run Windows 95 in a year. If you're limiting yourself to your VAXen and the like, the time is going to come when you won't be able to get Hard Drives to replace dead ones. As for the question of using a classic computer as my *primary* machine, no I don't. My primary systems are a Dual 2Ghz G5 PowerMac and an IBM Thinkpad. OTOH, I also daily use systems at home that are almost classic, and some of the systems I support at work actually are now! > > But in day-to-day > > 'real life', I can't fathom using anything other than a modern system running > > some equally modern version of Unix or Windows. > > The fact that you can't fathom it signifies nothing but a limitation of your > imagination. It is possible and I am the living proof. I believe our Prof. > Tony Duell is the same way. Or perhaps it shows how you are limiting yourself. Many of the things that I use a computer for are either not practical, or just plain impossible on one of my Classic Computers. Granted, part of what I do could be done on one of my PDP-11's, but it's impractical because I'd then have to copy the result to my Mac and rework it. Zane From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Fri Jan 28 14:14:26 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF32@exchange.olf.com> Guys, That stupid corporate .sig is NOT my sig. It is automatically added by the mail server since I am responding via my work email address. I wish there was a way to remove it, but I can't... Ram (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 28 14:31:35 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1106944295.25571.47.camel@weka.localdomain> On Fri, 2005-01-28 at 11:40 -0600, Kapteyn, Rob wrote: > I think that you may be looking at the boot code for Tektronix X terminals. > > Don't delete it -- I have a nice old Tektronix XP14 terminal that powers up and self-tests, > but I can't find the code to make it run X windows. Aha, sounds like that it. Actually all of this is under /usr/lib/X11/XP on my xd88, but there's also an XP20 directory under /tftpboot containing various stuff. Presumably the latter is enough of a bootstrap for the X Terminals to boot and start downloading all the bits they need from the XP directory. I think the stuff under /tftpboot was around 2MB, and the XP tree was about 15MB (I'm happy to upload that somewhere, but it's too big to email and I can only host about 10MB on the webspace I have at present) > That code is loaded from a server with tftp (could be a Mac or linux box) that's interesting; it looks to be outside of the tfp server tree on this machine... > Tektronix sold their code to NCD and now NCD in closing shop. yep; I've got an 88k-based NCD xterm and it took me forever to hunt down the necessary boot files for that last time I needed them. I've made sure I have a couple of local copies now :) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 28 14:34:59 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <1106944499.25571.51.camel@weka.localdomain> On Fri, 2005-01-28 at 18:30 +0000, Michael Sokolov wrote: > Randy McLaughlin wrote: > > > - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) > > - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). > > Could you perhaps be a little more friendly to people like me and Tony Duell > who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work, including > viewing classic computer documentation, and make the PostScript available > as well, i.e., with the last step omitted? > > PostScript is infinitely more friendly to Classic Computers than PDF. Personally I prefer seperate TIFF images for seperate pages; usable on all sorts of old and new hardware, plus it's quick to just deal with whatever pages you want rather than some enormous single file. Of course that's assuming we're talking about images here, not OCR'd text... cheers Jules From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 28 14:35:36 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF2D@exchange.olf.com> References: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF2D@exchange.olf.com> Message-ID: <20050128123347.G737@localhost> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: > Can you please limit the quoting! There really isnt any need to quote the > WHOLE thing.. I agree; there's no excuse for not editing replies, it's just laziness. But you left yourself wide open for this one: > (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial > > Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is > confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not > intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or > disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if > you have received this message in error. > > Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of > any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into > which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the > recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility > is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any > way arising from its use. Umm, do you see no irony in this monstrous blight above? :-) Tom Jennings From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 28 14:50:28 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501282012.j0SKCdOn021662@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200501282012.j0SKCdOn021662@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <20050128123924.D737@localhost> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Define "non-Classic", OK, I will: Classic: "What I grew up using." Use of the word "classic" in almost any context except the ironic is a flag, I think, it desires breadth but is necessarily of narrow scope. I prefer the more honest "old". They *are* old, that term being relative enough as it is, but at least from context somewhat discernable (old pottery means 3, 4 or 5 digit ages; old food means minutes to hours). Same "classic" business applies to car nuts, or maybe they made it up in the first place; automobile fandom is compartmentalized to such an extreme as to make us look like one-world-one-computer. "Classic", like sausage, is unpleasant to contemplate too closely. Tom Jennings From waltje at pdp11.nl Fri Jan 28 14:55:03 2005 From: waltje at pdp11.nl (Fred N. van Kempen) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128123924.D737@localhost> Message-ID: On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > Classic: "What I grew up using." Tom, we do mean this to be "... and which uses electricity for operation"..... *ducks and runs away* --f From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 28 15:02:38 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: What the heck is XP? (not the Microsoft kind) In-Reply-To: <127.549b7a15.2f2bf528@aol.com> References: <127.549b7a15.2f2bf528@aol.com> Message-ID: <1106946158.25553.58.camel@weka.localdomain> On Fri, 2005-01-28 at 15:06 -0500, Innfogra@aol.com wrote: > I took this a bit farther and searched for: > > +XP -microsoft -windows -"extreme programming" +tektronix -phaser > > and found this page which talks about the Tek XP term configuration. > > (http://www.mi.infn.it/xterm/tekconfig.html) "About 70 XP-series and 10 NC-series Tektronix X-terminals are currently active at the I.N.F.N. Milano site. These have historically been booting from a single host with a hardwired configuration." I wonder if that single host was an XD88... maybe an email is in order... :-) cheers Jules From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 28 15:02:06 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <20050128125649.I737@localhost> Sorry Ram, I didn't mean to criticise you; I realize that the .sig on your email-from-work is mandatory. I merely found it amusing, is all. I agree 100% with you, there's too much bloat in list mail. It's only a couple of keystrokes(*) to remove extraneous text, and it makes intent clearer when the original one or two lines is above (or below) instead of 100. (*) such as d} in vi, my classic (sic) text editor :-) Tom Jennings PS: } isn't classic vi motion, I think it's a vim extention. From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Fri Jan 28 15:12:58 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF35@exchange.olf.com> It is kind of funny it adds that .sig. Does contradicts what I was posting ;-) No apologies needed. Sometimes I forget that it adds it there. The problem is I have to scroll down several pages to read a one or two line comment. It bites sometimes, especially when I am supposed to be doing REAL work instead of reading classiccmp :-) Cheers, Ram (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 28 15:22:14 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501282122.AA20319@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Zane H. Healy wrote: > If you're limiting yourself to your > VAXen and the like, the time is going to come when you won't be able to get > Hard Drives to replace dead ones. We'll build new ones with Classic interfaces. (We = Interplanetary Internationale.) MS From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jan 28 15:21:22 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <200501282123.QAA12863@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > PostScript is infinitely more friendly to Classic Computers than PDF. Hm, not in my experience. > A PostScript document can be easily handled by someone who has no > computing technology younger than 1985, that's almost 20 y old, not > just 10. No graphical operating system required (how the heck is one > supposed to run Adobe Acrobat on a vintage command-line OS with a > VT100 terminal??), You don't need Acrobat, no matter what a bunch of webpages may claim. GhostScript groks PDFs just fine. Indeed, ghostscript comes with a script that eats PDF and produces PS. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 28 15:29:15 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501282129.AA20340@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > In his defense... so the guy has a corporate .sig, who doesn't these days? I don't. > You just ignore the lawyers and go on with life. No, don't ignore them, shoot them. AK47 does wonders against lawyers. I have yet to meet a lawyer with any combat skills whatsoever. Lawyers are cowards hiding their sorry asses behind pigs (cops). But there are more of us than there are pigs! If every freedom-loving civilian took a gun and shot the first cop he met, we can get rid of pigs in no time, since there are so many more of us than there are of them, and take our planet back! > Now, as for why he's doing classiccmp stuff from his corporate email account, > that is what I want to know. Ram: get back to work. :) No, Ram doing ClassicCmp'ing on company time is not a sin, it's a very commendable act. Stealing corporate time and giving it to Worthy Causes For The People is noble and valiant. The problem is why is Ram using the corporate mail account?? Ram, install 4.3BSD-Quasijarus on your VAX (you have a VAX, don't you?), get a 56K leased line for it, and E-mail from that! MS From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 28 15:38:10 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501282138.AA20384@ivan.Harhan.ORG> der Mouse wrote: > You don't need Acrobat, no matter what a bunch of webpages may claim. > GhostScript groks PDFs just fine. > > Indeed, ghostscript comes with a script that eats PDF and produces PS. The problem is that PS recreated from PDF can never be as good as the original PS from which the PDF was made. I'm not saying that PDF should be banned, making a file format illegal would be just as much against Cosmic Law as making a weed illegal. What infuriates me is that people have PS and they ASSUME that I want PDF instead, and they convert their PS to PDF and send me the PDF and not PS. I want the original PS! MS From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jan 28 15:26:48 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200501282141.QAA12952@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > RE: people who use classic computers as their primary machine, not > including those of you on the list who work for computer museums -- That'd be me. Or almost. My primary house machine is a SS20. I can't recall exactly when the 20 came out. I find some SS20 books on docs.sun.com with copyright dates in 1997 and 1998, but I don't know whether those are originals or later-revised editions. I have other central house machines that are definitely classic in the classiccmp sense of ">10yr old". My house DNS server is a Sun-3/60 and my house gateway is a SPARCstation IPX, though neither is really "my primary machine". > I'm very curious how many of you exist. Only one of me. Can't say about any others. :-) > And, do you use classic computers by 1.) choice, 2.) lack of budget, > or 3.) technological need (that is, legacy connectivity)...? Mostly 1, with a bit of 2. I do have some non-"classic" machines; for example, my "fast cpu" box is an Athlon 2600, and I have another that's a K6-2/500. But the bulk of my collection (90%?) is old stuff. > (It's one thing to request the PostScript file here in the classiccmp > list, but how do you handle it in the real world, where people may > tell you "Sorry, our company only does business in Microsoft"...? I tell them "then go find someone else". (Actually, I usually don't even get close enough to such places for the question to arise.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 28 15:55:07 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things References: <0501282138.AA20384@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <000d01c50584$09e67f90$213cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Michael Sokolov" > der Mouse wrote: > >> You don't need Acrobat, no matter what a bunch of webpages may claim. >> GhostScript groks PDFs just fine. >> >> Indeed, ghostscript comes with a script that eats PDF and produces PS. > > The problem is that PS recreated from PDF can never be as good as the > original PS from which the PDF was made. I'm not saying that PDF should > be banned, making a file format illegal would be just as much against > Cosmic Law as making a weed illegal. What infuriates me is that people > have PS and they ASSUME that I want PDF instead, and they convert their > PS to PDF and send me the PDF and not PS. I want the original PS! > > MS My original point was to skip PS and go directly from TIFF to PDF. Just as going from PDF to PS is not as good as going directly to PS going from PS to PDF adds an extra unnecessary step that creates a less efficient PDF. While a very few people prefer PS the rest of the world wants PDF's. I will not post PS docs for the simple reason of $. I pay commercial servers to post my files and to post PS docs along with PDF's would cost me more money. I do not charge anyone for documents but I do pay others to provide them. Randy From RMeenaks at OLF.COM Fri Jan 28 15:56:23 2005 From: RMeenaks at OLF.COM (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <92322E4B3209D511A19100508B558478077FFF38@exchange.olf.com> >> You just ignore the lawyers and go on with life. > > No, don't ignore them, shoot them. AK47 does wonders against lawyers. I have yet to meet a lawyer with any combat skills whatsoever. Lawyers are > cowards hiding their sorry asses behind pigs (cops). But there are more of us than there are pigs! If every freedom-loving civilian took a gun and shot > the first cop he met, we can get rid of pigs in no time, since there are so many more of us than there are of them, and take our planet back! I totally agree! > No, Ram doing ClassicCmp'ing on company time is not a sin, it's a very commendable act. Stealing corporate time and giving it to Worthy Causes For The > People is noble and valiant. > > The problem is why is Ram using the corporate mail account?? Ram, install 4.3BSD-Quasijarus on your VAX (you have a VAX, don't you?), get a 56K leased > line for it, and E-mail from that! Friday's are really slow and for a pencil pusher like me, its extremely slow ;-) I reality, I usually send me personal emails (mailing lists, etc) to my corporate account as it is eaiser to deal with. Not really a sin here as they are very cool about it. And for reading classiccmp during working hours, it helps during the extremely LARGE compilation times (close to two hours) if have. Compiling our application takes a LONG time. Beats twiddling my thumbs. I don't have a VAX, but I have been meaning to finish up my standalone transputer workstation one of these days. Has access to the net, mail, X, and the like (through Helios). One of these days.. :-( Cheers, Ram PS: Forgive the .sig!!!! (c) 2005 OpenLink Financial Copyright in this message and any attachments remains with us. It is confidential and may be legally privileged. If this message is not intended for you it must not be read, copied or used by you or disclosed to anyone else. Please advise the sender immediately if you have received this message in error. Although this message and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by Open Link Financial, Inc. for any loss or damage in any way arising from its use. From news at computercollector.com Fri Jan 28 16:01:03 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501282129.AA20340@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <20050128220103.27488.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> If anyone cares, I just sent Michael an OFF-LIST reply to his comments, quoted below. I'd urge anyone else who is offended to also go OFF-LIST. For the sanity of all of us, please!!! --- Michael Sokolov wrote: >>> You just ignore the lawyers and go on with life. > > No, don't ignore them, shoot them. AK47 does wonders against lawyers. > I have yet to meet a lawyer with any combat skills whatsoever. Lawyers > are cowards hiding their sorry asses behind pigs (cops). But there are > more of us than there are pigs! If every freedom-loving civilian took a > gun and shot the first cop he met, we can get rid of pigs in no time, > since there are so many more of us than there are of them, and take our > planet back! ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 664 readers and counting! From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jan 28 16:02:07 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <000d01c50584$09e67f90$213cd7d1@randylaptop> References: <0501282138.AA20384@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <000d01c50584$09e67f90$213cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <200501282203.RAA13089@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I will not post PS docs for the simple reason of $. I pay commercial > servers to post my files and to post PS docs along with PDF's would > cost me more money. Would you be willing to make the PS, or even the TIFF files, available to people for them to post? Depending on the space involved, I'd tentatively be willing to host copies of the TIFFs on my own box. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Jan 28 16:07:22 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> References: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050128230722.50cdb54d.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:47:12 -0800 (PST) Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > Do you mean you use a classic computer as your ** primary ** machine Yes, sort of. My primary machine is a SGI Octane, not on topic, but classic for sure. Other main machines are Sun Ultra 10, SGI Indigo2 R10k IMPACT, RS/6000 43P-140, DEC PWS500au. The only PeeCees I own are an IBM PS/2-80 and some "old" embedded systems (486/33 to Pentium 200 era). But I don't use those PeeCees. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Jan 28 16:19:35 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <20050128231935.5ce03104.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Fri, 28 Jan 05 18:30:52 GMT msokolov@ivan.harhan.org (Michael Sokolov) wrote: > > - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) > > - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). > Could you perhaps be a little more friendly to people like me and Tony > Duell who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day > work, including viewing classic computer documentation, and make the > PostScript available as well, i.e., with the last step omitted? Radio Yerevan: In theory yes, in practice no. The intermediate PS file was several hundred MB in size. Converting it to PDF reduced it to 20 MB. It doesn't make sense to distribute a file that is larger as the average hard disk connected to a VAX. I could have gzip (or even bzip2) it, but as you refuse to use gzip... Maybe this was not clear to you: We are talking about PS / PDF conaining only lots of high res monochrome bitmaps. No OCRed text. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Jan 28 16:22:38 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <000701c50518$a49ec630$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> References: <20050128095203.0229154e.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <000701c50518$a49ec630$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> Message-ID: <20050128232238.52352db8.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 03:06:23 -0600 "Randy McLaughlin" wrote: > I've done quite a few manuals but skipped the PS and used tiff2pdf I have no tiff2pdf, only tiff2ps. Seems my tiff tools are a bit outdated. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Jan 28 16:30:56 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <000701c50518$a49ec630$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> References: <20050128095203.0229154e.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <000701c50518$a49ec630$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> Message-ID: <20050128233056.2cebd089.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 03:06:23 -0600 "Randy McLaughlin" wrote: > - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) > - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). > -- > > > tsch??, > Jochen > I've done quite a few manuals but skipped the PS and used tiff2pdf, \begin{BOFH} \begin{LARTsession} BTW: Can you please fsck(8) your: X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1478 to do proper quoting? (E.g. by switching to an entirely different MUA. This will make you immune to many viruses also as a nice side effect.) \end{LARTsession} \end{BOFH} -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 28 16:38:20 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things References: <0501282138.AA20384@ivan.Harhan.ORG><000d01c50584$09e67f90$213cd7d1@randylaptop> <200501282203.RAA13089@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <001301c5058a$136d19b0$5d3cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "der Mouse" >> I will not post PS docs for the simple reason of $. I pay commercial >> servers to post my files and to post PS docs along with PDF's would >> cost me more money. > > Would you be willing to make the PS, or even the TIFF files, available > to people for them to post? Depending on the space involved, I'd > tentatively be willing to host copies of the TIFFs on my own box. > > /~\ The ASCII der Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B I'd be happy to send you or anyone else copies of what I have, most of the manuals on my site were scanned by others. I quickly went to the full blown Acrobat which goes directly from scanner to PDF without saving any intermediate files. I'll check and see what I have. Randy From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Fri Jan 28 16:44:59 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <41FAC06B.nail52411RGP1@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > make the PostScript available That's what pdf2ps is for... Ghostscript is quite portable, if not particulary cycle-efficient or memory-conserving. The whole concept of storing bitmaps in PDF's or postscript files seems somewhat counterintuitive, still, to me. It's a bitmap, why not just keep it around as a bitmap? (Yes, I know the answer is "most free bitmap viewers suck".) Tim. From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Fri Jan 28 16:50:14 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128231935.5ce03104.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <20050128231935.5ce03104.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <41FAC1A6.nail53S1PF0VV@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > The intermediate PS file was several hundred MB in size. > Converting it to PDF reduced it to 20 MB. If your postscript encoder had used run-length encoding (see the man page for pnmtops and the -rle option) the difference wouldn't have been quite so large. Tim. From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 28 16:50:54 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501282250.AA20576@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: > Friday's are really slow and for a pencil pusher like me, its extremely slow As I said, I perfectly understand and applaud you using company time for the list, what I don't understand is why do you use the company mail account rather than Telnet or SSH from work to your own machine where YOU are the god/king/czar and mail from there. That's what I did when I worked for companies. And yes, I excelled at stealing their paid time and giving it to worthy causes. MS From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Jan 28 16:57:01 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> References: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20050128235701.3f95d1c2.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:47:12 -0800 (PST) Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > And, do you use classic computers by 1.) choice, 2.) lack of budget, > or 3.) technological need (that is, legacy connectivity)...? [forgot to answer this] Some of 1.) and some of 2.) I don't like PeeCees. They are cheap, unreliable crap. Yes, they are fast, but they tend to be quirky and buggy as hell. I spent too much time in the past (and currently still do at work) working around stupid PeeCee problems. So this fits to 1.) I use Unix machines. A new Alpha, UltraSPARC, Tezro / Onyx, RS/6000, HP/9000, ... would be fine. But it is out of budget. Even a G5 PowerMac. (I have enough money for a G5 Mac, but as I don't have a _real_ need for it I don't by one.) => 2.) -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jan 28 16:58:55 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: OT: Microfiche scanner suggestions ? In-Reply-To: References: <105.5970c476.2f2b3b7d@aol.com> Message-ID: <48686.64.139.41.130.1106953135.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Michel wrote: > Can anyone offer me any suggestions at all about > selecting a microfiche scanner? Where I work, we are looking > at replacing a Minolta 603 microfiche reader/printer, and any > information/personal experience with mid-priced (i.e. less than $5000) > scanner would be appreciated. AFAIK, you can't get anything reaonable for under $10K. Al Kossow just spent well over that amount for a *used* fiche scanner, which he plans to use to scan his large collection of DEC fiche. I'll probably help him with that as time permits. The fundamental problem is that you need at least 300 DPI effective, which for 42x fiche is 12600 DPI. None of the "inexpensive" fiche scanners have anywhere near that resolution. Even some of the expensive fiche scanners aren't quite that good. And if you want to scan a lot of fiche, you need a scanner that will automatically position to each page and autofocus. Again, the "inexpensive" fiche scanners don't do that. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jan 28 17:04:27 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501282138.AA20384@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501282138.AA20384@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <49153.64.139.41.130.1106953467.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Michael wrote: > The problem is that PS recreated from PDF can never be as good as the > original PS from which the PDF was made. Huh? If you have a PDF containing nothing but G4 fax compressed bilevel images, and convert it to PS, you get the same G4 images with a different wrapper. How is that any worse? From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 28 17:13:58 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things References: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com><000801c5056c$4cec2b40$f71b0f14@wcarder1> <002c01c5056d$3d5bfce0$893cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <006c01c5058f$0bb8f4a0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written.... > I too find it easier to use hyperterm (S100 systems in my case as my email > address implies). > > I wonder what percentage of classic systems insists on real terminals vs. > terminal emulation. I use vintage terminals strictly. The most modern I used was a VT220 on an HP 2000/Access. I later switched to a Televideo 950, and hope very shortly to use a 264x :) No modern terminals or systems. If I have to use a modern system related to my old systems, it's at least an opensource one. I have a PC running FreeBSD dualbooting with Caldera DOS. This system is used to control my Facit N4000 paper tape reader/punch, M4 9914 tape drive, and Data I/O 29B prom reader/writer. This system is used to store and copy images of paper tapes, mag tapes, and roms. It doesn't interface directly with my old systems. I do have a laptop with XP that I live on, and I used it almost exclusively for email and web browsing. For programming, it's vandyke's SSH to the aforementioned unix box :) Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 28 17:42:57 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things References: <20050128220103.27488.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00e901c50593$18c45aa0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I care. I had already sent MS a warning off-list. That's my job. Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Computer Collector Newsletter" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 4:01 PM Subject: RE: Many things > If anyone cares, I just sent Michael an OFF-LIST reply to his comments, > quoted > below. I'd urge anyone else who is offended to also go OFF-LIST. For the > sanity of all of us, please!!! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 28 17:45:54 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <49153.64.139.41.130.1106953467.squirrel@64.139.41.130> References: <0501282138.AA20384@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <49153.64.139.41.130.1106953467.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <1106955954.25571.63.camel@weka.localdomain> On Fri, 2005-01-28 at 15:04 -0800, Eric Smith wrote: > Michael wrote: > > The problem is that PS recreated from PDF can never be as good as the > > original PS from which the PDF was made. > > Huh? If you have a PDF containing nothing but G4 fax compressed bilevel > images, and convert it to PS, you get the same G4 images with a different > wrapper. How is that any worse? of course it's still a bilevel image rather than greyscale, so you mess up a lot of diagrams and images within the documentation, and go a long way toward ruining the chances of someone running a useful OCR scan over the data at some future point :-( I can't remember exactly what documentation's being discussed; bilevel's great for documents that are still pretty common but if it's something rare then it doesn't do much on the preservation front :-( From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Fri Jan 28 17:46:08 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: Computer Collector Newsletter "Re: Many things" (Jan 28, 10:47) References: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <10501282346.ZM8210@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 28 2005, 10:47, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > >>>> who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work > > Do you mean you use a classic computer as your ** primary ** machine, or just > that you happen to use it ** once in a while ** for your current work? Count me in. The machine I use most at home is the SGI Indy I bought ten years ago. The machine I use most at work is either one of a pair of SGI O2s on my desk, bought a few years later. The Indy has been expanded quite a lot, and now handles various services for family and friends as well as personal use; I use it because it's "nicer" than the Pentium which is sitting next to it running XP (which crashed and died horribly yesterday, for the second time in three months. Not bad for a machine that gets used a few times a week, and has little more than the OS+Word+Firefox loaded on it). It's also considerably easier for me to get/write most of the software I want on a real Unix box than on a Windows one. Also easier to do proper backups (ie ones that can actually be used to recover the system or parts thereof). Of course, the PC at home and a similar one at work get used for Word documents that some people send me, some web pages that older browsers on the SGI don't handle well, or that newer browsers on the SGI handle only slowly, so they're the second-most used machines, I suppose. The third-most used (discounting other SGIs I have) would probably be my Acorn Archimedes, vintage 1987, one careful owner from new, and still with a better GUI than Microsoft's. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jan 28 18:20:38 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <1106955954.25571.63.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <0501282138.AA20384@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <49153.64.139.41.130.1106953467.squirrel@64.139.41.130> <1106955954.25571.63.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <56577.64.139.41.130.1106958038.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Michael wrote: > The problem is that PS recreated from PDF can never be as good as the > original PS from which the PDF was made. I wrote: > Huh? If you have a PDF containing nothing but G4 fax compressed bilevel > images, and convert it to PS, you get the same G4 images with a > different wrapper. How is that any worse? Jules wrote: > of course it's still a bilevel image rather than greyscale, so you mess > up a lot of diagrams and images within the documentation, and go a long > way toward ruining the chances of someone running a useful OCR scan over > the data at some future point :-( We were comparing the merits of PDF vs. Postscript, and what happens when you convert between them. The point was that most scanned manuals are in lossless bilevel form, such as G4. That's a native image format in both Postscript and PDF, so there should be no loss of data or usefulness converting in either direction. (If there is, the conversion program is arguably broken.) Whether documents should be scanned in greyscale is an entirely separate discussion. Both PDF and Postscript support the common lossy and lossless greyscale and color encodings, so there should not be any loss of data or usefulness converting those in either direction. Where converting from PS -> PDF -> PS is a bad idea is when the original Postscript file contains a lot of complex native Postcript rendering, in which case the conversion to PDF "flattens" it, and converting back may yield suboptimal results. For archiving of scanned documents this would not occur. > I can't remember exactly what documentation's being discussed; bilevel's > great for documents that are still pretty common but if it's something > rare then it doesn't do much on the preservation front :-( Lossless bilevel encoding at a high enough resolution (generally at least 300 DPI) is suitable for text and line art, and can still be OCRed just fine. If the document has very small text or very detailed line art, higher than 300 DPI resolution may be required. I've seen few documents with text or line art that wasn't reproduced well with a 400 DPI bilevel scan. If the document has continous-tone images such as photographs, lossless bilevel encoding is usually NOT adequate. For archival purposes, such images should ideally be saved in a lossless greyscale or color encoding, though for working documents lossy compression such as JPEG is OK. If there's one thing I can't stand, it is text and line art compressed with JPEG. Text and line art have sharp edges, which is high-frequency information. If you apply JPEG compression, the high frequencies are discarded, making the text and line art blurry. People who advocate this usually say something like "but I set the 'quality' to 95%". That *still* results in blurry text, yet larger file sizes than lossless bilevel compression. Eric From jdboyd at jdboyd.net Fri Jan 28 18:07:31 2005 From: jdboyd at jdboyd.net (Joshua Boyd) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer In-Reply-To: <20050127.nio.77000000@192.168.1.207> References: <20050127.nio.77000000@192.168.1.207> Message-ID: <20050129000731.GD16025@jdboyd.zill.net> On Thu, Jan 27, 2005 at 04:11:22PM -0600, George Currie wrote: > Sorry guys, didn't mean to send that to the list, hit that send button a bit > too quickly. Although it was useful for those of us thinking of asking the same thing. Alas, I'm not going to be able to go to california anytime soon to pick up stuff. -- Joshua D. Boyd jdboyd@jdboyd.net http://www.jdboyd.net/ http://www.joshuaboyd.org/ From vp at cs.drexel.edu Fri Jan 28 18:22:25 2005 From: vp at cs.drexel.edu (Vassilis Prevelakis) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <20050129002225.F15083BAC6@queen.cs.drexel.edu> "Randy McLaughlin" wrote: > [...] PostScript is useless in this > case since the documents are stored as graphical images and cannot be used > on the classic computers. What???? What makes you think that "classic computers" are character based? I don't want to start a "my machine supported graphics earlier than yours", but as a datapoint, I used a PERQ for my undergrad project in the early 80s. Since this was running Unix V7 (or smth close), I am sure you can get a postscript viewer running on it (or a tiff viewer for that matter), while you'd have no chance in hell of getting Acrobat Reader for it. Which gives me a nice excuse to repeat my favorite line: I use open source software not because it is free, but because I get to keep the code (so I do not depend on the code author to port the software to newer/different/stranger platforms). **vp From tomj at wps.com Fri Jan 28 18:38:21 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things, meaning nothing In-Reply-To: <20050129002225.F15083BAC6@queen.cs.drexel.edu> References: <20050129002225.F15083BAC6@queen.cs.drexel.edu> Message-ID: <20050128163434.I737@localhost> > What makes you think that "classic computers" are character based? Umm, hello? * Some old computers are character-only; no graphics supported at all. * Some old computers have support for graphics. * This is old news. None of my "klassik" computers "support" graphics, just for example. No character judgement implied or intended. The word "classic" doesn't carry any real meaning, it means "older computers I like" (Fred's wisecrack about electricity notwithstanding :-) Terminology matters. This is a text-only mailing list!! Tom Jennings From jrkeys at concentric.net Fri Jan 28 18:42:44 2005 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Congress looking at Orphaned Software Message-ID: <023301c5059b$7475e3c0$69406b43@66067007> Seen on the m100 list: The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress, at the request of Senators Leahy and Hatch, are requesting comments on the problem of Orphaned (Copyrighted) Works. http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr3739.html From jrkeys at concentric.net Fri Jan 28 18:43:56 2005 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Fw: Congress looking at Orphaned Books Message-ID: <023801c5059b$9e81bea0$69406b43@66067007> Sorry that's on books ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keys" To: "cctalk@classiccmp" Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 6:42 PM Subject: Congress looking at Orphaned Software > Seen on the m100 list: > > The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress, at the request of > Senators Leahy and Hatch, are requesting comments on the problem of > Orphaned (Copyrighted) Works. > > http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr3739.html > From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 28 18:52:25 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> vp@cs.drexel.edu (Vassilis Prevelakis) wrote: > Since this was running Unix V7 (or smth close), I am > sure you can get a postscript viewer running on it (or a tiff viewer > for that matter), while you'd have no chance in hell of getting > Acrobat Reader for it. This is very close to my original point. > Which gives me a nice excuse to repeat my favorite line: I use open > source software not because it is free, but because I get to keep the > code (so I do not depend on the code author to port the software to > newer/different/stranger platforms). I'm getting a feeling that der Mouse is about to remind us again that one can use GhostScript instead of Acrobat Reader... The problem with GhostScript is that porting it to a Very Vintage platform will likely be more difficult than rewriting it from scratch. I once thought about building it under 4.3BSD-Quasijarus (so I won't have to log into a Linux machine on the other side of the planet to convert PDF to PS), but one cursory look at the code was enough for me to scrap the idea. Open source is of no help when it's unusable. I have pretty much given up on using any software not written from scratch by me. It's almost always easier to write the program I need than to port an existing one. MS From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 28 19:04:47 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things References: <20050129002225.F15083BAC6@queen.cs.drexel.edu> Message-ID: <000c01c5059e$88b74150$5c3dd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Vassilis Prevelakis" > "Randy McLaughlin" wrote: > >> [...] PostScript is useless in this >> case since the documents are stored as graphical images and cannot be >> used >> on the classic computers. > > What???? > > What makes you think that "classic computers" are character based? > I don't want to start a "my machine supported graphics earlier than > yours", but as a datapoint, I used a PERQ for my undergrad project in > the early 80s. Since this was running Unix V7 (or smth close), I am > sure you can get a postscript viewer running on it (or a tiff viewer > for that matter), while you'd have no chance in hell of getting > Acrobat Reader for it. > > Which gives me a nice excuse to repeat my favorite line: I use open > source software not because it is free, but because I get to keep the > code (so I do not depend on the code author to port the software to > newer/different/stranger platforms). > > **vp Works out great since there are open source PDF viewers ;-) Randy From randy at s100-manuals.com Fri Jan 28 19:13:48 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Congress looking at Orphaned Books References: <023801c5059b$9e81bea0$69406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <001b01c5059f$caeb3bc0$5c3dd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Keys" > Sorry that's on books > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Keys" > To: "cctalk@classiccmp" > Sent: Friday, January 28, 2005 6:42 PM > Subject: Congress looking at Orphaned Software > > >> Seen on the m100 list: >> >> The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress, at the request of >> Senators Leahy and Hatch, are requesting comments on the problem of >> Orphaned (Copyrighted) Works. >> http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr3739.html Are you sure it only applies to books? I have not finished reading it but it does seem to apply to all copyrighted material. Randy From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 28 18:40:36 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> from "Michael Sokolov" at Jan 28, 5 06:30:52 pm Message-ID: > > Randy McLaughlin wrote: > > > - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) > > - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). > > Could you perhaps be a little more friendly to people like me and Tony Duell > who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work, including Actually, I think there should be a special place in Hades for those who _only_ supply documentation in 'electronic' format. I would be happy to pay for a printed version, but far too many companies won't supply it. They tend not to get my business. Those who only supply documentation in some proprietary format (even worse than pdf!) lose my friends' business as well! > viewing classic computer documentation, and make the PostScript available > as well, i.e., with the last step omitted? > > PostScript is infinitely more friendly to Classic Computers than PDF. A > PostScript document can be easily handled by someone who has no computing > technology younger than 1985, that's almost 20 y old, not just 10. No > graphical operating system required (how the heck is one supposed to run > Adobe Acrobat on a vintage command-line OS with a VT100 terminal??), just Actually, I do have manhines with graphical displays, but AFAIK acrobat is not available for any of them. I've certainly never seen if for the PERQ, or for a PDP11 + I2S display, or whatever! The thing that _really_ annoys me is people who use the pdf format when a better idea would be to use plain text (i.e. the font and the exact formatting are not important). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 28 18:49:15 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> from "Computer Collector Newsletter" at Jan 28, 5 10:47:12 am Message-ID: > > >>>> who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day work > > Do you mean you use a classic computer as your ** primary ** machine, or just > that you happen to use it ** once in a while ** for your current work? The former. The only non-classic computing device that I own is an HP49G calculator (over 4 years old now). And before you tell me to get an HP41 or somethimg, I'll jsut say that i have a dozen of those, a good few 71s, 4 HP67s, 2 HP97s, and some even older calculators, all of which get used... > > RE: people who use classic computers as their primary machine, not including > those of you on the list who work for computer museums -- I'm very curious how > many of you exist. And, do you use classic computers by 1.) choice, 2.) lack > of budget, or 3.) technological need (that is, legacy connectivity)...? Partly (1), Partly (2), and mainly because I am not clever enough to repair a modern computer, I don't have a good enough logic analyser to diagnose fualts in a modern computer (which comes back to (2) I guess), I don't have a BGA rework station at home (yet! (2) again), and anyway spares are hell to obtain anyway. But for my 20-odd-year-old PC/AT, much hacked, but wtill with the original motherboard with extra chips and kludgewires soldered to it, I have the schematics, the chips are ones I can understand (and are pin-through-hole, so they're easy to replace), my classic Gould logic analyser is easily enough to sort it out, and so on. And classic computers seem to be so much better built and more reliable than modern ones. I cringe when I get an ATX PSU in for repair -- cheap SRBP circuit boards, marginally rated components, and so on. Comparing that to the PSUs in my PERQs, PDPs, etc, well, there is no comparison. > > I love my vintage computer collection as much as anyone, or else I wouldn't be > on this list and producing my newsletter, and once in a while it is fun to > actually use them for modern purposes. Just ask the guy who was startled last > week when I started taking meeting notes an Apple Newton. But in day-to-day That's modern! I take notes on a TRS-80 Model 100 or an HP110.... > 'real life', I can't fathom using anything other than a modern system running > some equally modern version of Unix or Windows. (It's one thing to request the > PostScript file here in the classiccmp list, but how do you handle it in the > real world, where people may tell you "Sorry, our company only does business in > Microsoft"...? Say 'Sorry, I'll find somebody who actually has a clue, you've lost my business'. Anyway, I have little desire to be part of the 'real world'. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 28 18:51:13 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <000801c5056a$b54b4b50$893cd7d1@randylaptop> from "Randy McLaughlin" at Jan 28, 5 12:53:47 pm Message-ID: > More than that you missed the biggest point, PostScript is useless in this > case since the documents are stored as graphical images and cannot be used > on the classic computers. Wrong! Just about any classic computer can copy a postscript file to an RS232 port which can be connected, say, to an Apple Laserwriter. I've yet to see a classic printer that can handle pdf files directly! -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 28 18:56:13 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:18 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281907.AA20035@ivan.Harhan.ORG> from "Michael Sokolov" at Jan 28, 5 07:07:13 pm Message-ID: > > But in day-to-day > > 'real life', I can't fathom using anything other than a modern system running > > some equally modern version of Unix or Windows. > > The fact that you can't fathom it signifies nothing but a limitation of your > imagination. It is possible and I am the living proof. I believe our Prof. > Tony Duell is the same way. Not a Prof, only a Dr :-) And yes I do only have and use classic computers. I object to using _anything_ I can't understand fully. Problems seem to start when you don't know exactly what you are doing. That means having schematics, OS source listings, pinouts, that sort of thing. Alas the user-level documentation you get these days is even worse than the user-level documetnation 10 years ago, and that was best used at the bottom of the budgie cage :-) 'Anything' doesn't just mean computer stuff, either. I have the service manuals for the TV, VCR, radios, etc, etc, etc. And I've read them all... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 28 19:00:50 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <002c01c5056d$3d5bfce0$893cd7d1@randylaptop> from "Randy McLaughlin" at Jan 28, 5 01:11:55 pm Message-ID: > I wonder what percentage of classic systems insists on real terminals vs. > terminal emulation. I've found so many bugs in certain so-called 'VT100 Emulators' (not running on any of my machines, I hasten to add!) that I feel the only thing I can actually trust to work on a PDP11 or VAX is a real DEC terminal. At least I like to have them around to determine if mis-formatted output is due to problems on the DEC side or yet another bug on the PC side... That said, I do find terminal emulators useful. I use my HP95LX Palmtop as a 'pocket terminal' when sorting out a minicomputer. It's easier to stick that on top of the CPU cards than find somewhere to balance a VT52 :-) . I like ot have some kind of terminal emulator, even just a dumb teletype one, on every machine with a keyboard, display, and RS232 port. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 28 18:34:17 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer In-Reply-To: <1106919259.25571.8.camel@weka.localdomain> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 28, 5 01:34:19 pm Message-ID: > Grr wrong side of the pond! I have a particular interest in early* > graphics systems too. > > *for suitable values of early :-) Remind me to show you the manuals for my I2S 'image processor and display' units sometime. Late 1970's vintage, loads of TTL (a few thousand ICS!) and DRAMs The resolution is not great by today's standards (512*513 pixes, 24 or 30 bit colour), but they have some interesting features, like the 'feedback ALU' (regard 2 of the byteplanes as a 16 bit 'accumulator plane', then combine (essentially any of the functions available from the 74x181 ALU chip) the contents with the contents of another byteplane, the result going back to the accumulator). And I should also show you the manual for my HP1350 'Graphics Translator'. A device that takes in simplified HPGL over an HPIB interface and outputs X/Y/Z analogue signals to a vector display. The interesting thing is that it's all done with random logic, there's no processor, or anything resembling a processor, in there. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 28 19:09:04 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501282012.j0SKCdOn021662@onyx.spiritone.com> from "Zane H. Healy" at Jan 28, 5 12:12:39 pm Message-ID: > Define "non-Classic", after all by this lists definition of "Classic" you'll > be able to run Windows 95 in a year. If you're limiting yourself to your > VAXen and the like, the time is going to come when you won't be able to get > Hard Drives to replace dead ones. Should it ever come to that -- that is that I can't get the parts to _repair_ the hard drives (note : I would certainly consider making a 'clean box' to work on the inside of the HDA if necessary), then I would grab the soldering iron, raid the junk box, and design an interface to a more modern storage device. Heck, I've seen flash memory cards with more storage than the hard drives in most of my machines.... > Or perhaps it shows how you are limiting yourself. Many of the things that > I use a computer for are either not practical, or just plain impossible on It depends on what you want to do, I guess. I have no interest -- at all -- in digital audio or video processing. I will only _consider_ buying a digital camera when the results available are better than those from my currnet film-based cameras (which, considering I have a number of large-format sheet film cameras, won't be for some time!). For the applications I use a computer for (text processing, programming, supporting my classics by doing automatic testing, EPROM dumping, assembling/disassembly binary programs, etc) a classic computer does all I need! -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 28 19:12:00 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: from "Fred N. van Kempen" at Jan 28, 5 09:55:03 pm Message-ID: > Tom, we do mean this to be "... and which uses electricity for > operation"..... *ducks and runs away* Why? I bought an Otis King [1] for fiver [2] in a charity shop, and certainly use it [1] Helical slide rule [2] \pounds 5.00 -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 28 19:27:26 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050129002225.F15083BAC6@queen.cs.drexel.edu> from "Vassilis Prevelakis" at Jan 28, 5 07:22:25 pm Message-ID: > > > "Randy McLaughlin" wrote: > > > [...] PostScript is useless in this > > case since the documents are stored as graphical images and cannot be used > > on the classic computers. > > What???? > > What makes you think that "classic computers" are character based? > I don't want to start a "my machine supported graphics earlier than > yours", but as a datapoint, I used a PERQ for my undergrad project in > the early 80s. Since this was running Unix V7 (or smth close), I am The PERQ 1 came out in 1979 IIRC.... THe Unix was almost certainly PNX (always pronounced 'Peenix', for obvious reasons if you've ever used it :-)) It's the least useful PERQ OS for me, because it doesn't really support user-written microcode (what's the point of a PERQ if you don't modify the microcode). > sure you can get a postscript viewer running on it (or a tiff viewer > for that matter), while you'd have no chance in hell of getting Maybe. You've got a maximum of 2M bytes of physical memory (and the video memory is taken from that). OK, there is the PERQ 2T4 with 4M bytes, but (a) AFAIK only 2 of those have survived (I would love to be proved wrong on that) and (b) PNX was never ported to that machine. I've never come across a PNX version that supported any form of virtual memory either. I suspect getting a postscript viewer onto that would be 'interesting' > Acrobat Reader for it. Agreed! > > Which gives me a nice excuse to repeat my favorite line: I use open > source software not because it is free, but because I get to keep the > code (so I do not depend on the code author to port the software to > newer/different/stranger platforms). Yes. For me, having the source code is more important than it being free (I don't use free software that comes as binaries-only, i do have the source listing for the (IBM copyrighted) BIOS ROM in this PC). -tony From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Fri Jan 28 20:09:46 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501290209.AA21090@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Just for the record I want to say that I agree with every single point made by Tony in this thread, without exceptions. It looks like we are the only two TRUE ClassicCmp'ers in the world. MS From chenmel at earthlink.net Fri Jan 28 20:09:55 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501281830.AA19866@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <20050128210955.0d220882.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Fri, 28 Jan 05 18:30:52 GMT msokolov@ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) wrote: > Randy McLaughlin wrote: > > > - Run the result through tiff2ps(1) > > - and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1). > > Could you perhaps be a little more friendly to people like me and Tony > Duell who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day > work, including viewing classic computer documentation, and make the > PostScript available as well, i.e., with the last step omitted? > > PostScript is infinitely more friendly to Classic Computers than PDF. > A PostScript document can be easily handled by someone who has no > computing technology younger than 1985, that's almost 20 y old, not > just 10. No graphical operating system required (how the heck is one > supposed to run Adobe Acrobat on a vintage command-line OS with a > VT100 terminal??), just use your favourite Classic command-line OS, be > it ancient UNIX, VMS, RSX, or whatever, to send the PostScript file > (with a command line) to your > |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PrintServer 40 (one of the original PS printers, same > |time > as LaserWriter), and you are done. Can't do that with PDF. And the > original PostScript prior to PDF conversion is always infinitely > better than PostScript produced by turning PDF back into PS (which is > what I do with all PDFs that come my way, because converting back to > PS with a command line tool is the only thing I can do with a PDF > file). > > One of the first laws I will pass after my revolution is that anyone > who publishes or sends to another person a PDF file produced by > conversion from PostScript but withholds the PostScript source shall > be dragged into the public square and flogged till he can't stand. > The recipient of the PDF file would simply need to call NKVD/KGB with > the complaint. > > MS Just a suggestion of a workaround that I have sometimes used. If you have a machine capable of running Linux or a NetBSD you can run the X11 program Xpdf. I'm not merely saying use Xpdf to read the document. You can also load the PDF file up in Xpdf and use Xpdf's print function to print it out as a Postscript file (use the print-to-file rather than print-to-postscript-printer option). I use NetBSD to do this, which means you can do it on quite a bit of vintage hardware, and definitely in a PeeCee-free environment. It usually works well as a way of 'recovering the source' for information that some people fear has had the Postscript-formatted version 'lost forever.' It's also a way of 'stripping out restrictions' that people lock PDF files in (print to postscript, then convert back to a new PDF,) so long as they at least allow you to print the PDF file. -Scott From chenmel at earthlink.net Fri Jan 28 20:16:04 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501282141.QAA12952@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> <200501282141.QAA12952@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20050128211604.0b40de07.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 16:26:48 -0500 (EST) der Mouse wrote: > > RE: people who use classic computers as their primary machine, not > > including those of you on the list who work for computer museums -- > > That'd be me. Or almost. > > My primary house machine is a SS20. I can't recall exactly when the > 20 came out. I find some SS20 books on docs.sun.com with copyright > dates in 1997 and 1998, but I don't know whether those are originals > or later-revised editions. > For a time I was using my SS10SX as my main system. Dual cgfourteen framebuffers and big Sun monitors running X in a xinorama mode. It's a really nice machine. It's perhaps time to find a faster CPU for it and set it up again. From list at saracom.com Fri Jan 28 20:52:12 2005 From: list at saracom.com (Max) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: VT320 Terminal RS232 Receiver In-Reply-To: <200501271802.j0RI1iYM086644@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.1.20050128215005.02401b90@mail.saracom.com> > >Message: 22 >Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:06:59 -0800 >From: "Bruce Lane" > > MC1488 or 1489, I don't recall which one's the receiver (I think > it's the 1488). Usually mounted fairly close to the RS232 port. > > Happy hunting. Thanks Bruce. Many of the DEC terminals don't use the 1488 and 1489 for the receiver and driver. This one doesn't. But thanks for the quick input. Max From list at saracom.com Fri Jan 28 21:04:50 2005 From: list at saracom.com (Max) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 17, Issue 28 In-Reply-To: <200501271457.j0REteYM085311@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.1.20050128215309.024056d0@mail.saracom.com> >From: Ethan Dicks >Subject: Re: VT320 Terminal RS232 Receiver >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Message-ID: >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > >On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 10:47:31 -0500, list@saracom.com wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > I managed to feed -48VDC into the data receive pin of my > > VT320 at work. So of course the magic smoke came out. > >Ow! Yea, did not make my day. We do telecom testings. Most everything is -48VDC battery powered. So I managed to accident get the battery power across the equipment's frame ground and it then put the voltage on the receive pins and lord knows what else. > > Which chip is the receiver chip? > >If the VT320 is like its predecessors (VT220...), it uses 9636 and >9637 chips, *not* 1488s and 1489s. I do not recall off the top of my >head which one is Tx and which one is Rx, but if you get the pinouts >for the chips, it should only take a couple of minutes to determine >which is which by using a continuity tester/VOM to trace out the input >pin from the interface jack. Both the 9636 and 9637 are 8 pin DIPs, >so it wouldn't even take that long *without* a chip pinout. You just >need to know which is the RxD input from the outside world... the chip >that's attached to that would be the fried one. > >Also... you might be able to spot a pinhole or other mechanical damage... I found the two drivers chips (9636). They had a different number but they cross-listed to the 9636s. There was another 8 pin chip between the two and the traces look like they might run to it. So its probably the receiver. However it has a number different than the 9637. I of course forgot to write it down. So is life. Anyway might be a mute point for now as I remembered I have another VT320 in the shed with a bad tube. Anyway, Digikey lists the 9637 as available so I might try fixing the board as a spare. Thanks for the help. Of I will also put sockets in. From at258 at osfn.org Fri Jan 28 21:11:51 2005 From: at258 at osfn.org (Merle K. Peirce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Latest rescue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Today, in brutal temperatures, starting at -3, we rescued a Cray T3b from Lincoln Labs in Bedford, MA. On the way back, we picked up a n IBM Series 1, a DG Avvion and some assorted bits. There will probably be some pictures up on the museum.com site in a day or two. M. K. Peirce Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc. Shady Lea, Rhode Island "Casta est quam nemo rogavit." - Ovid From frustum at pacbell.net Fri Jan 28 21:11:50 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501290209.AA21090@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501290209.AA21090@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <41FAFEF6.4070305@pacbell.net> Michael Sokolov wrote: > Just for the record I want to say that I agree with every single point > made by Tony in this thread, without exceptions. > > It looks like we are the only two TRUE ClassicCmp'ers in the world. > > MS > > Michael and Tony sitting in a tree... From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 28 21:22:36 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FAFEF6.4070305@pacbell.net> from Jim Battle at "Jan 28, 5 09:11:50 pm" Message-ID: <200501290322.TAA19686@floodgap.com> > > Just for the record I want to say that I agree with every single point > > made by Tony in this thread, without exceptions. > > It looks like we are the only two TRUE ClassicCmp'ers in the world. > Michael and Tony sitting in a tree... Please, I'm trying to eat. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- The truth is out there. The speculation, however, is really out there. ----- From melamy at earthlink.net Fri Jan 28 21:24:27 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501290322.TAA19686@floodgap.com> References: <41FAFEF6.4070305@pacbell.net> <200501290322.TAA19686@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050128222313.0359cd80@mail.earthlink.net> At 10:22 PM 01/28/2005, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > Just for the record I want to say that I agree with every single point > > > made by Tony in this thread, without exceptions. > > > It looks like we are the only two TRUE ClassicCmp'ers in the world. > > > Michael and Tony sitting in a tree... > >Please, I'm trying to eat. I had a vision of them pelting us with over 10 year old banana peals... From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 28 22:00:35 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? Message-ID: All, I was tweaking the knobs on a Panasonic "Color Video Monitor" (NTSC/"VTR input" version of a Panasonic 19" TV marketed to the AV crowd, not the home consumer), and I realized that since I don't have any genuine TV diagnostic tools, but I do have modern things like a DVD player that can play CDs, etc, wouldn't it be handy to have a VCD of color bars, etc., as a reference to adjust composite-input devices? Now I wouldn't mind a real colorbar generator, but a algorithmically-generated MPEG would be adequate for non-broadcast use, surely. Does anyone know of the existence of such a thing? Theoretically, one could perhaps generate a "proper" still image from a program like GIMP/Paint/Photoshop, etc... then use a movie tool to generate 'frames' from it, then make an MPEG to play the image as long as one would like (a VCD or SVCD is around 45 min on a CD-R blank) - presto... el-cheapo color bars. Also, if there is another technique to do this (without having to have a live, NTSC-emitting classic computer generating it real-time), I'm all ears. I don't technically mind having to fire up a C-64 to pump out colors, but, that one, in particular, may or may not have pure enough colors to do the job properly. Even an Atari 800 might not be close enough, but at least it has a larger palette. I'd rather just use a dedicated device that doesn't have to rely on a custom program in ROM or on a disk, such as this Apex 1100-W DVD player, a handy dictionary-sized box that just displays a picture when you throw in a disc. Technically speaking, though, since this device also plays JPG picture discs, I could burn a disc with one file, a JPG of color bars... that might not be too hard to find. As for the specific idea of building an MPG of color bars, thanks for any tips and pointers, -ethan From Innfogra at aol.com Fri Jan 28 22:16:52 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Keypunches in St Louis on TV Message-ID: <1da.34e80e7c.2f2c6834@aol.com> "Made in USA" ( a TV Program) on the Travel Channel promises something with pictures of keypunches in this current segment. 8:00 - 8:30 PST From Innfogra at aol.com Fri Jan 28 22:21:49 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Burroughs on TV Message-ID: <8b.1fce6edc.2f2c695d@aol.com> "Made in America" is the Program and the computer company is Burroughs. From news at computercollector.com Fri Jan 28 22:29:30 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Burroughs on TV In-Reply-To: <8b.1fce6edc.2f2c695d@aol.com> Message-ID: <20050129042930.27671.qmail@web52809.mail.yahoo.com> They show that episode often. I guess it's good that they mention the Computer Museum of America at the end, becuase that museum could use the support: http://www.snarc.net/c-cma.htm. --- Innfogra@aol.com wrote: > "Made in America" is the Program and the computer company is Burroughs. > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 665 readers and counting! From cb at mythtech.net Fri Jan 28 22:41:33 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? Message-ID: > Now I wouldn't mind a real colorbar generator, but a >algorithmically-generated MPEG would be adequate for non-broadcast >use, surely. > >Does anyone know of the existence of such a thing? Theoretically, one >could perhaps generate a "proper" still image from a program like >GIMP/Paint/Photoshop, etc... then use a movie tool to generate >'frames' from it, then make an MPEG to play the image as long as one >would like (a VCD or SVCD is around 45 min on a CD-R blank) - >presto... el-cheapo color bars. I know there are DVD test discs out there that have test patterns on them. This would actually be fairly trivial for me to whip up on my computer. I just did a quick google search and the first hit had a downloadable GIF of the standard color bar pattern. I could toss a 1 MHz tone (IIRC that is the right freq, I'll have to look it up to be sure) in the background, and loop it in Quicktime, then output to VCD. If you really want one, let me know, I can build you a VCD this weekend and mail you a copy. -chris From Innfogra at aol.com Fri Jan 28 22:52:26 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Burroughs on TV Message-ID: <154.498fdfe9.2f2c708a@aol.com> Talk about short, 3 or 4 minutes I think. The talked about the early years and ended with the B5000. You really can't summarize Burroughs in that short of time. They did recommend The Computer Museum in San Diego. I captured the segment in VHS Video but have no way of posting it. Paxton Astoria, OR From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 28 23:01:15 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128211604.0b40de07.chenmel@earthlink.net> from Scott Stevens at "Jan 28, 5 09:16:04 pm" Message-ID: <200501290501.VAA18262@floodgap.com> > For a time I was using my SS10SX as my main system. Dual cgfourteen > framebuffers and big Sun monitors running X in a xinorama mode. It's a > really nice machine. It's perhaps time to find a faster CPU for it and > set it up again. Most of my servers are old Macs, including a IIci and a Q605. The Power Mac components will be on-topic in about two years. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. -- Dion Bocicault - From jpl15 at panix.com Fri Jan 28 23:03:41 2005 From: jpl15 at panix.com (John Lawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, chris wrote: > of the standard color bar pattern. I could toss a 1 MHz tone (IIRC that > is the right freq, I'll have to look it up to be sure) in the background, > and loop it in Quicktime, then output to VCD. Dang, your ears are *much* better than mine.... hell even dogs stop at about 30Khtz or so... Cheers BatMan From cb at mythtech.net Fri Jan 28 23:10:17 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? Message-ID: > Dang, your ears are *much* better than mine.... hell even dogs stop at >about 30Khtz or so... LOL... yes, I was thinking wrong. I remembered it as being 1000 Hz tone, and for some reason I decided that was 1 MHz, not 1 KHz. My bad (and that is exactly why I said I would have to look it up to be sure) But hey, my doctor always did say I had the best range of hearing of any patient he ever had :-) -chris From cb at mythtech.net Fri Jan 28 23:16:03 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? Message-ID: BTW: I just found this http://www.synthetic-ap.com/products/tpm/index.html If you have a mac, it will generate the patterns for you (single still images) -chris From teoz at neo.rr.com Fri Jan 28 23:18:25 2005 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things References: <200501290501.VAA18262@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <001c01c505c1$f5c5dfe0$0500fea9@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cameron Kaiser" To: Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2005 12:01 AM Subject: Re: Many things > > Most of my servers are old Macs, including a IIci and a Q605. The Power > Mac components will be on-topic in about two years. > What no AWS95 or at least a 950 Mac? From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jan 28 23:28:47 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > I wonder what percentage of classic systems insists on real terminals vs. >> terminal emulation. > >I've found so many bugs in certain so-called 'VT100 Emulators' (not >running on any of my machines, I hasten to add!) that I feel the only >thing I can actually trust to work on a PDP11 or VAX is a real DEC >terminal. At least I like to have them around to determine if >mis-formatted output is due to problems on the DEC side or yet another >bug on the PC side... > >That said, I do find terminal emulators useful. I use my HP95LX Palmtop >as a 'pocket terminal' when sorting out a minicomputer. It's easier to >stick that on top of the CPU cards than find somewhere to balance a VT52 >:-) . I like ot have some kind of terminal emulator, even just a dumb >teletype one, on every machine with a keyboard, display, and RS232 port. > >-tony I've yet to find a terminal emulator for Mac OS X that does accurate VT100 emulation. I've found a couple that come fairly close, but they always seem to fail to support one feature or another that I feel that I need (usually the keypad, which I absolutely do need). The closest I've managed to come is an XTerm when I run X-Windows with a custom .Xmodmap. I have a VT420 that's plugged into my OpenVMS and Unix server's consoles, and I have another in another room that is the Console for my PDP-11's. My problem is I don't really have room on my desk for a VT420 :^( Still, thanks to having to replace my old monitor, I might find almost enough room if I were to do a little careful rearranging. I really miss having a VT420 connected to a DECserver next to my desk that I can use for normal interaction with my VMS system. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jan 28 23:49:21 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128211604.0b40de07.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <20050128184712.74035.qmail@web52806.mail.yahoo.com> <200501282141.QAA12952@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20050128211604.0b40de07.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: >For a time I was using my SS10SX as my main system. Dual cgfourteen >framebuffers and big Sun monitors running X in a xinorama mode. It's a >really nice machine. It's perhaps time to find a faster CPU for it and >set it up again. How about getting something like a Sun Ultra 60 with 2GB RAM, dual 450Mhz CPU's, and dual Creator3d framebuffers? Or perhaps a Sun Ultra 80 with Quad 450Mhz CPU's? I'm finally getting my Sun Ultra 60 up and running, though I've only got dual 300Mhz CPU's and a single Creator3d (though I could add the 2D version if I had a second monitor). I'm finding it surprisingly snappy (and I'm writing this on a dual 2Ghz G5), though I do want to replace the 300Mhz CPU's with 450Mhz CPU's (or a U80 with 4x450Mhz). I'm surprised by how well Firefox functions on the system. My only complaint is that I've been unable to run the Creator3d card in 1600x1200x60 on my Monitor (I've applied the patch so it can run in that mode), but it won't work right with my Samsung 213T. I'd also like to eventually add Gigabit Ethernet and a faster Disk controller. If I didn't have the G5, this probably would be my main system. In any case, it will probably be my main Sun for the next few years. Another *very* nice Unix Workstation that is getting quite cheap these days are the dual 300Mhz SGI Octane's. The only SGI systems I have are my two O2's. I love my R12000/270Mhz! The only downside to SGI systems are that it's a lot harder to get software for them than it is for a Sun. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jan 29 00:14:56 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > Define "non-Classic", after all by this lists definition of >"Classic" you'll >> be able to run Windows 95 in a year. If you're limiting yourself to your >> VAXen and the like, the time is going to come when you won't be able to get >> Hard Drives to replace dead ones. > >Should it ever come to that -- that is that I can't get the parts to >_repair_ the hard drives (note : I would certainly consider making a >'clean box' to work on the inside of the HDA if necessary), then I would >grab the soldering iron, raid the junk box, and design an interface to a >more modern storage device. Heck, I've seen flash memory cards with more >storage than the hard drives in most of my machines.... Unfortunately this isn't an option for a lot of us. I can pull off some board level maintenance, but designing new parts is beyond me. Thankfully my main PDP-11's and most of my VAXen have SCSI interfaces. > > Or perhaps it shows how you are limiting yourself. Many of the things that >> I use a computer for are either not practical, or just plain impossible on > >It depends on what you want to do, I guess. I have no interest -- at all >-- in digital audio or video processing. I will only _consider_ buying a >digital camera when the results available are better than those from my >currnet film-based cameras (which, considering I have a number of >large-format sheet film cameras, won't be for some time!). For the >applications I use a computer for (text processing, programming, >supporting my classics by doing automatic testing, EPROM dumping, >assembling/disassembly binary programs, etc) a classic computer does all >I need! > >-tony I just realized that I included you in that comment, sorry about that. I find your reasons for using the computers that you do to be very rational. The mention of camera's is an interesting point. I love digital camera's and find them *very* useful, but at the same time, I don't think they'll be able to replace any of my favorite cameras, as they're for 3D photography, and I don't think anyone will release a 3D digital camera anytime soon, at least not an affordable one, though I'd love to be proven wrong. The newest of my 3D camera's is still about 50 years old, and the projectors that I use are just as old. At the same time I am looking forwards to when digital camera's matching 35mm resolution become affordable. I do mess with audio and video processing (my Digital Audio Workstation is nearing the 10 year mark), but I must confess the addiction that isn't really practical for me on classic HW is "Desktop Publishing", and that's mainly due to image editing. The video is only possible on modern HW as I'm doing Anamorphic Widescreen home movie DVD's with Dolby Digital sound. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jan 29 01:03:30 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 00:16:03 -0500, chris wrote: > BTW: I just found this > > http://www.synthetic-ap.com/products/tpm/index.html > > If you have a mac, it will generate the patterns for you (single still > images) Nice. I didn't find that, but then again, the Mac is not my primary platform (I have a few Power Macs, but at the moment, they are stacked up, not set up). I may get back to that if I want to make something more versatile than a static image on a VCD. -ethan From hofmanwb at worldonline.nl Sat Jan 29 03:43:00 2005 From: hofmanwb at worldonline.nl (W.B.(Wim) Hofman) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Available in Arnhem(NL) Message-ID: <41FB5AA4.3050509@worldonline.nl> Hi All, A charity here in Arnhem wants to scrap the following stuff: 1 WHSMITH Computer Program Data Recorder 2 Toshiba Plotter Printer HX-P570 3 Philips VG-8020 homecomputer (MSX) 4 Goldstar FC-200 Personal Computer 5 Ancona KG533/00B screen with tulip plugs for CVBS In and Audio In, Scart plug 6 Ancona KG520/00B screen with tulip plugs for CVBS In and Audio In 7 Philips 7BM723 screen (with 6pole Din plug input) 8 Philips CM833 screen with tulip plugs for CVBS In and Audio in, Scart plug,8 pole Din plug 9 a number of MDA screens 10 a CGA screen Contact me if you would want some. A charity being a charity they would appreciate some donation. Wim From foxvideo at wincom.net Sat Jan 29 05:34:39 2005 From: foxvideo at wincom.net (Charles E. Fox) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.0.20050129062940.01cc4bd8@smtp.wincom.net> At 11:00 PM 1/28/2005, you wrote: >All, > >I was tweaking the knobs on a Panasonic "Color Video Monitor" >(NTSC/"VTR input" version of a Panasonic 19" TV marketed to the AV >crowd, not the home consumer), and I realized that since I don't have >any genuine TV diagnostic tools, but I do have modern things like a >DVD player that can play CDs, etc, wouldn't it be handy to have a VCD >of color bars, etc., as a reference to adjust composite-input devices? > Now I wouldn't mind a real colorbar generator, but a >algorithmically-generated MPEG would be adequate for non-broadcast >use, surely. > >Does anyone know of the existence of such a thing? Theoretically, one >could perhaps generate a "proper" still image from a program like >GIMP/Paint/Photoshop, etc... then use a movie tool to generate >'frames' from it, then make an MPEG to play the image as long as one >would like (a VCD or SVCD is around 45 min on a CD-R blank) - >presto... el-cheapo color bars. > >Also, if there is another technique to do this (without having to have >a live, NTSC-emitting classic computer generating it real-time), I'm >all ears. I don't technically mind having to fire up a C-64 to pump >out colors, but, that one, in particular, may or may not have pure >enough colors to do the job properly. Even an Atari 800 might not be >close enough, but at least it has a larger palette. I'd rather just >use a dedicated device that doesn't have to rely on a custom program >in ROM or on a disk, such as this Apex 1100-W DVD player, a handy >dictionary-sized box that just displays a picture when you throw in a >disc. Technically speaking, though, since this device also plays JPG >picture discs, I could burn a disc with one file, a JPG of color >bars... that might not be too hard to find. > >As for the specific idea of building an MPG of color bars, thanks for >any tips and pointers, > >-ethan I can send you a jpg of split field ntsc bars if this would help. If you want to spend a couple of hundred dollars I can recommend the Horita TSG50, which generates good quality video test signals, including bars. Chers Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Video Production 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor Ontario Canada N8Y 3J8 519-254-4991 foxvideo@wincom.net Check out the "Camcorder Kindergarten" at www.chasfoxvideo.com From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jan 29 05:43:07 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.0.20050129062940.01cc4bd8@smtp.wincom.net> References: <6.2.0.14.0.20050129062940.01cc4bd8@smtp.wincom.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 06:34:39 -0500, Charles E. Fox wrote: > I can send you a jpg of split field ntsc bars if this would help. Sure... just send it to me off list. > If you want to spend a couple of hundred dollars I can recommend the Horita > TSG50, which generates good quality video test signals, including bars. I'm not looking for something at that level of quality... I just want something simple I can do basic level tweaking against... if I had to start doing lots of component-level repair of NTSC displays, I might consider an actual hardware pattern generator. Thanks, -ethan From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jan 29 06:13:21 2005 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Old Eprom Burner References: <6.2.0.14.0.20050129062940.01cc4bd8@smtp.wincom.net> Message-ID: <04b701c505fb$eceb7030$0500fea9@game> Hi, Anybody have any information on a Canadian Manufactured Quantec Systems Inc. Q-920 EPROM burner? My friend (who owns it) has nothing on it and was going to try to duplicate some Amiga 2000 ROMs if he could find a manual for it. There is a datecode of 1785 (17th week of 1985 maybe?). From dave04a at dunfield.com Sat Jan 29 06:33:53 2005 From: dave04a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? Message-ID: <20050129123353.NVWG5392.orval.sprint.ca@smtp.sprint.ca> At 23:00 28/01/2005 -0500, you wrote: >All, > >I was tweaking the knobs on a Panasonic "Color Video Monitor" >(NTSC/"VTR input" version of a Panasonic 19" TV marketed to the AV >crowd, not the home consumer), and I realized that since I don't have >any genuine TV diagnostic tools, but I do have modern things like a >DVD player that can play CDs, etc, wouldn't it be handy to have a VCD >of color bars, etc., as a reference to adjust composite-input devices? > >Does anyone know of the existence of such a thing? There are a number of diagnostic DVD's intended to setup your home theater. I have an older one called "Avia" which has a fairly wide range of video and audio tests - It does color bars and numerous other video tests, and comes with colored filters that you use to look at the screen during some of the color tests. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From bshannon at tiac.net Sat Jan 29 08:27:09 2005 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards References: <1e1fc3e90501261708e94fa2d@mail.gmail.com> <003401c5041f$f7745220$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <000901c5060e$9eb49230$0100a8c0@screamer> The MPP ports are used in several applications for E series CPUs as well. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "Glen Slick" ; "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 10:26 PM Subject: Re: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards > Isn't the "tall" front panel board primarily different because it includes > a connector to go to the MPP port on the cpu? I'm not real up on that, but > I think it was only used on the F series, and used to provide high speed > memory access to an external device? Something like that sticks in my > head. > > Jay > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Glen Slick" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 7:08 PM > Subject: Re: HP 21MX E-series front panel keyboards > > >> Take a look at this doc: >> >> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/1000/1000_MEF_EngrRef/ >> 92851-90001_Mar81_8.pdf >> >> There are drawings of a shorter 2105/08/12 front panel PCA 5060-8343 >> and a taller 2019/11/13/17 front panel PCA 5061-1343. >> >> Does that help at all? >> >> >> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 17:56:03 +0000, Peter Brown >> wrote: >>> Hi All, >>> >>> How many types of front panel keyboard were used with the 2113 E-series >>> CPU? >>> >>> I have one in front of me that has two ribbon cables that run from the >>> keyboard PCB to the CPU PCB (one from the top edge of the keyboard PCB >>> one >>> from the bottom edge) but I seem to remember having seen other 2113 >>> CPU's >>> where the keybaord PCB is smaller and a single cable runs from the >>> bottom >>> edge of the keyboard to the CPU PCB. >> >> > > > From waisun.chia at hp.com Fri Jan 28 03:01:30 2005 From: waisun.chia at hp.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: M8300 repair: DEC8235 wanted In-Reply-To: <9B832BEB407A774AA0520CCFC232219704670993@CXOEXC11.AMERICAS.CPQCORP.NET> References: <9B832BEB407A774AA0520CCFC232219704670993@CXOEXC11.AMERICAS.CPQCORP.NET> Message-ID: <41F9FF6A.1020602@hp.com> I recently acquired a M8300 with an IC missing. Upon investigation of the manuals and schematics, I determined it is a DEC8235. Anybody has a/some DEC8235 to spare? Are there any modern equivalents? /wai-sun From cc at corti-net.de Fri Jan 28 03:46:18 2005 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: IBM 029 card punch In-Reply-To: <40188.64.139.41.130.1106781713.squirrel@64.139.41.130> References: <40188.64.139.41.130.1106781713.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Eric Smith wrote: > Maybe it is a Type 129, rather than 029? I haven't seen a 129 up close > in many years, so I couldn't tell you the differences in detail, but > it does have more SMS cards, etc. It's definitely *not* a type 129. The 129 card punch is fully electronic, it doesn't have the programming drums but some sort of electronic memory, and the keyboard front plate has the "dial knob". My machine must be some version of a 029. Christian From aek at robot.net Fri Jan 28 13:35:52 2005 From: aek at robot.net (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: OT: Microfiche scanner suggestions ? Message-ID: <20050128193552.D860B159297E@robot.net> > Can anyone offer me any suggestions at all about selecting a microfiche scanner? I will have a reconditioned Mekel available in about two months for around $15k This is a fraction of the new price for these units. From nbrowning at cjryouth.org Fri Jan 28 14:47:21 2005 From: nbrowning at cjryouth.org (Browning, Nathan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Question about Sharp PC4500 and IBM basic Message-ID: <28343.167.206.112.86.1106945241.k12pro@web.k12pro.com> This is in response to a message dated Sat Oct 19 12:32:00 2002 that I found online. I have a Sharp PC4500 but I don't have a boot disk for it. What can I do to make a boot disk for it? It seems to be working, it powers up but it wants a boot disk. Any help would be appreciated. Nathan Browning From qovpatlh at hotmail.com Fri Jan 28 18:59:14 2005 From: qovpatlh at hotmail.com (Mark Elliott) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer Message-ID: Joe - Re: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2004-May/029003.html Do you have a Portable III setup disk? Can you image/zip it and send it to me? I have a friend that uses one of these regularly as a MIDI device - works great, now he wants to get his spare up and running. Thanks, Mark From rygifts at cox.net Fri Jan 28 20:37:49 2005 From: rygifts at cox.net (Rebecca) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: HP terminal wanted Message-ID: <002601c505ab$8716ebe0$6b01a8c0@DOWNSTAIRS> Did you find a terminal? My father has just put on an HP-2648A Terminal on eBay. Just look up HP-2648A and it will pop up if you are still interested in one, or know someone who needs one. We also have other HP items up for bid. If there is any other older calculator or computer parts you need, my father might have it. thanks, Becky From ltroth at socal.rr.com Sat Jan 29 00:09:00 2005 From: ltroth at socal.rr.com (Larry Troth) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: CS-600HD tapes Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050128220717.00bfabd0@pop-server.socal.rr.com> Don Back in May of 2003 you indicated that you had a box of Maxell digital cassette tapes. Do you still have these? Are you interested in selling them? I could pay by PayPal or check. Please let me know. Larry Troth Chatsworth, California From rcini at optonline.net Sat Jan 29 11:17:30 2005 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard Message-ID: <001101c50626$6a7084d0$6501a8c0@bbrk0oksry5qza> All: I'm working on another side project, a Mini-ITX conversion of a non-working PCjr system. I don't have a keyboard for it, but I can choose from wired or wireless PCjr or standard keyboards. For the wireless PCjr keyboard, I don't have the thingey that would connect to the PC. Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern system? Any recommentations? Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /************************************************************/ From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jan 29 11:20:01 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard In-Reply-To: <001101c50626$6a7084d0$6501a8c0@bbrk0oksry5qza> from "Richard A. Cini" at "Jan 29, 5 12:17:30 pm" Message-ID: <200501291720.JAA08600@floodgap.com> > Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern > system? Any recommentations? I would recommend the PCjr keyboard die the death it should have died in IBM RandD. ^^ -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- Don't let 'em drive you crazy when it's within walking distance. ----------- From cb at mythtech.net Sat Jan 29 11:44:34 2005 From: cb at mythtech.net (chris) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard Message-ID: >For the wireless PCjr >keyboard, I don't have the thingey that would connect to the PC. > > Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern >system? Any recommentations? It has been a while since I've looked at my PCjr, but IIRC, the IR receiver is built into the chassis of the PCjr. Thus, there is nothing to "connect" to the PC, and thus, it would be improbable that you could use the PCjr keyboard wirelessly with a modern PC. -chris From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jan 29 12:04:35 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FBD033.4070609@gjcp.net> chris wrote: >>For the wireless PCjr >>keyboard, I don't have the thingey that would connect to the PC. >> >> Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern >>system? Any recommentations? > > > It has been a while since I've looked at my PCjr, but IIRC, the IR > receiver is built into the chassis of the PCjr. Thus, there is nothing to > "connect" to the PC, and thus, it would be improbable that you could use > the PCjr keyboard wirelessly with a modern PC. Well, you could use something like LIRC to do it. Gordon. From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 29 12:07:13 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: HP terminal wanted References: <002601c505ab$8716ebe0$6b01a8c0@DOWNSTAIRS> Message-ID: <004001c5062d$5c9e4b60$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> > Did you find a terminal? My father has just put on an HP-2648A Terminal > on eBay. Hummm As everyone knows I've wanted one for some time. The pictures of the unit are very.. well... odd. Particular care was taken not to show the whole unit. I'm wondering if the keyboard is included.... Jay From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 29 12:05:42 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Help to ID Emulex board Message-ID: What is this board? Made by Emulex. Has ASSY# SU0210401. ROM on board says "SC0210201-AXC W/ Boot Strap". Has on top two 26-pin connectors and one 60-pin. "Ditronics-I" silk-screened on board in tiny letters. Ideas? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Sat Jan 29 12:21:16 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:19 2005 Subject: Help to ID Emulex board Message-ID: <0501291821.AA22236@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Gotta be an SMD disk controller. I think SC-21 is for UNIBUS. MS From uban at ubanproductions.com Sat Jan 29 12:22:41 2005 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Help to ID Emulex board In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20050129122006.0237c310@mail.ubanproductions.com> Sellam, It sounds like an: SC02/A Q Emulex SMD disk controller. Emulates Digital RP11/RP02/RP03. Includes BDV11-compatible line-time clock. Is it a dual or quad board? --tom At 10:05 AM 1/29/2005 -0800, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >What is this board? > >Made by Emulex. Has ASSY# SU0210401. ROM on board says "SC0210201-AXC W/ >Boot Strap". > >Has on top two 26-pin connectors and one 60-pin. > >"Ditronics-I" silk-screened on board in tiny letters. > >Ideas? > >-- > >Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > >[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] >[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 29 12:23:44 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: possible classiccmp server maintenance Message-ID: <000501c5062f$aaad4980$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I'm going to head down to the datacenter in a bit to look into the hard drive migration. Of course, I have to have that riser card and it's not here. So if I get down there and it's not there I'll try to do the upgrade tomorrow. If it is there, I will try to do the upgrade in about an hour. So if the list goes down in an hour, you know I found the riser card and it'll be down for a bit :) Jay From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sat Jan 29 12:24:38 2005 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Help to ID Emulex board In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200501291024380422.644B3620@192.168.42.129> SC02: Two-drive SMD Disk controller for (I think) Qbus systems. A nice asset if you can find some SMD hard drives to interface to it (the Seagate 'Saber' series comes to mind, as does the old Fujitsu Eagles). Happy digging. *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 29-Jan-05 at 10:05 Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >What is this board? > >Made by Emulex. Has ASSY# SU0210401. ROM on board says "SC0210201-AXC W/ >Boot Strap". > >Has on top two 26-pin connectors and one 60-pin. > >"Ditronics-I" silk-screened on board in tiny letters. > >Ideas? > >-- > >Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer >Festival >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >International Man of Intrigue and Danger >http://www.vintage.org > >[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers > ] >[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From vcf at siconic.com Sat Jan 29 12:45:54 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer In-Reply-To: <1106919259.25571.8.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > On Thu, 2005-01-27 at 12:55 -0800, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > Is anyone interesting in acquiring a Stellar Computers Inc. GS-1000 > > graphics supercomputer circa the mid-1980s? There's not a whole lot of > > information online but it basically was a vector processing special > > purpose graphics computer used for generating intense graphics. > > Grr wrong side of the pond! I have a particular interest in early* > graphics systems too. > > *for suitable values of early :-) > > any chance of some photos? :) (or from whoever's lucky enough to take > this thing on!) I'll try to get some photos in a few days. Lyle Bickley may well be the taker. We took a closer look at it on Friday and it's an interested hodge podge bodge of a system. There's a Wyse PC stuck on top of the cabinet which contain's Stellars very large (2' high by 1.5' deep) custom boards. To the lower right of that is a VME bus with ESDI and SCSI controllers. Very odd. The PC has a Stellar made card that connects the PC's ISA bus to the Stellar bus. Lyle tells me the system ran some variant of Unix. The hard drive is missing so that was a serious buzzkill, but we think we may know where there's another one of these and assuming it has a hard drive we might be able to take it's image and "burn" it to a new hard drive for this one. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Sat Jan 29 14:37:38 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Help to ID Emulex board In-Reply-To: Vintage Computer Festival "Help to ID Emulex board" (Jan 29, 10:05) References: Message-ID: <10501292037.ZM10226@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 29 2005, 10:05, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > What is this board? > > Made by Emulex. Has ASSY# SU0210401. ROM on board says "SC0210201-AXC W/ > Boot Strap". > > Has on top two 26-pin connectors and one 60-pin. Emulex SC02 controller for two SMD drives. I think the "SU" means Unibus, but I can't remember. It could be an SC02/A, SC02/C, or some other version. The ROMs determine which version; the different versions make the drives appear as different types: RK06/06, RM02/03, MSCP, ... And your one has (or had) the bootstrap ROM (a small TTL PROM, IIRC). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 29 13:43:51 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> On Sat, 2005-01-29 at 00:52 +0000, Michael Sokolov wrote: > I'm getting a feeling that der Mouse is about to remind us again that one > can use GhostScript instead of Acrobat Reader... The problem with > GhostScript is that porting it to a Very Vintage platform will likely be > more difficult than rewriting it from scratch. Actually the problem with Ghostscript is that it's slow as hell compared to Acrobat under Linux, at least the versions I've seen :-( Forget about xpdf too - several seconds for each page render on a modern PC compared to instant for Acrobat. Oh how I hate PDF :-( J. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 29 13:52:32 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Stellar GS-1000 Graphics Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1107028352.27488.47.camel@weka.localdomain> On Sat, 2005-01-29 at 10:45 -0800, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > > any chance of some photos? :) (or from whoever's lucky enough to take > > this thing on!) > > I'll try to get some photos in a few days. Excellent - here's hoping! > Lyle Bickley may well be the taker. Well that's good news if it's going to someone on the list :-) > The PC has a Stellar made card that connects the PC's ISA bus to the > Stellar bus. Lyle tells me the system ran some variant of Unix. The hard > drive is missing so that was a serious buzzkill, but we think we may know > where there's another one of these and assuming it has a hard drive we > might be able to take it's image and "burn" it to a new hard drive for > this one. That's a pity about the drive :-( If it's a SCSI disk then the image trick should be pretty straightforward - with ESDI it might get tricky in a hurry... good luck! cheers Jules From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 29 17:23:10 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128210955.0d220882.chenmel@earthlink.net> from "Scott Stevens" at Jan 28, 5 09:09:55 pm Message-ID: > Just a suggestion of a workaround that I have sometimes used. > > If you have a machine capable of running Linux or a NetBSD you can run > the X11 program Xpdf. I'm not merely saying use Xpdf to read the Not necessarily. What you mean is 'If you have a machine capable of running Linux or NetBSD _and X11_, you can run Xpdf'. It is quite possible to run Linux (and I assume MetBSD) on a machine without a graphical display -- I am doing so right now. OK, I suppose you could argue you can link up an X-terminal via ethernet or something, but... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 29 17:24:50 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FAFEF6.4070305@pacbell.net> from "Jim Battle" at Jan 28, 5 09:11:50 pm Message-ID: > Michael and Tony sitting in a tree... COnsidering the next line is conventionally 'Kilo India Sierra Sierra India November Golf', I am not sure if you're calling us homosexuals or monkeys, but I guess I should take it as an insult. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 29 17:34:19 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at Jan 28, 5 10:14:56 pm Message-ID: > >Should it ever come to that -- that is that I can't get the parts to > >_repair_ the hard drives (note : I would certainly consider making a > >'clean box' to work on the inside of the HDA if necessary), then I would > >grab the soldering iron, raid the junk box, and design an interface to a > >more modern storage device. Heck, I've seen flash memory cards with more > >storage than the hard drives in most of my machines.... > > Unfortunately this isn't an option for a lot of us. I can pull off > some board level maintenance, but designing new parts is beyond me. > Thankfully my main PDP-11's and most of my VAXen have SCSI interfaces. Please don't take this as a flame, but I am always suprised by the people who run classic computers (as opposed to running emulators) and who don't want to get into the hardware. To me [1] that's one of the reasons for running an old machine. [1] And to a university computer society that I was a member of, which had a 'Hardware and Old Systems SIG' Finding good spare parts gets significantly easier as the parts get smaller :-). Finding a complete board may well be next to impossibe, finding a TTL chip is relatively easy. Even if it's a custom chip that's failed, you might well be able to find a defective board with that chip still good on it. That's how my HP45 came into being, a friend gave me the contents of his junk box, including 2 dead HP45 logic boards, several dead and part-raided keyboard PCBs, etc. There were enough displays to completely populate a keyboard PCB (even if one of them has smaller digits than the other 2), of the logic boards, one had a dead A&R chip, the other had a dead C&T. I now have a pieced-together, working, 45. The other thing is that even if you can't do the design, you may be able to copy xomebody else's (And you can be assured that anything I do related to classic computers will be shared). [Cue for the well-known story about the mathematician Littleword 'How ever little French I know, I am capable of copying a French sentence'] -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 29 17:36:53 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard In-Reply-To: <001101c50626$6a7084d0$6501a8c0@bbrk0oksry5qza> from "Richard A. Cini" at Jan 29, 5 12:17:30 pm Message-ID: > All: > > I'm working on another side project, a Mini-ITX conversion of a > non-working PCjr system. I don't have a keyboard for it, but I can choose > from wired or wireless PCjr or standard keyboards. For the wireless PCjr > keyboard, I don't have the thingey that would connect to the PC. > > Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern > system? Any recommentations? Be warned that the PCjr keyboard protocol is nothing like that of other PC keyboards. The IR receiver in the PCjr is a simple, dumb device (the schematic is in the TechRef) which feeds the signal into one of the 8255 lines and, IIRC, the NMI input of the 8088. I can find details of the encoding if you want. But I think it would certainly take a microcontroller to link it to a normal PC keyboard port. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 29 18:03:07 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at Jan 28, 5 10:14:56 pm Message-ID: > > > Or perhaps it shows how you are limiting yourself. Many of the things that > >> I use a computer for are either not practical, or just plain impossible on > > > >It depends on what you want to do, I guess. I have no interest -- at all > >-- in digital audio or video processing. I will only _consider_ buying a > >digital camera when the results available are better than those from my > >currnet film-based cameras (which, considering I have a number of > >large-format sheet film cameras, won't be for some time!). For the > >applications I use a computer for (text processing, programming, > >supporting my classics by doing automatic testing, EPROM dumping, > >assembling/disassembly binary programs, etc) a classic computer does all > >I need! > > > >-tony > > I just realized that I included you in that comment, sorry about > that. I find your reasons for using the computers that you do to be > very rational. I try to have a reason for everything I do. I am not arogant enough to claim I am always right, of course :-) FRor example, I try not to be a linux bigot. Yes, I run linux, and yes I like it. For _what I do_ I think it's the best choice. That doesn't mean it's the best choice for everyone, and I am quite prepared to accept that other OSes, yes even including those from M$, are better choices for some people. I do however know that Windows would not be the right choice _for me_. > > The mention of camera's is an interesting point. I love digital > camera's and find them *very* useful, but at the same time, I don't I am the sort of person who will almost never trade quality for ease-of-use :-) I am prepared to put in the time and effort to get things right. Again, I can see the uses of digital cameras for some applications. An obvious example is press work. The ability to transfer pictures across the worlds seconds after they are taken is obviously a good thing there. But I don't need to do that. I prefer the much-superior quality that I get from a good film camera. Incidnetally, the cost for me to get a reasonable digital SLR + lens (because none of my existing lenses would fit) + PC + colour printer would significantly exceed what I paid for a good second-hand large-format (5"*4") sheet film camera + lens + new bellows + a good enlarger with colour head + all the other darkroom bits... In fact the amount of money saved will buy a lot of film and paper... It's also worth remembering that quality can be easily removed, it can never be added. If, for some reason, I want one of my photographs in digital form, then the negative or print can be scanned (OK, I don;t have a scanner, but I can find somebody who does). And I still have the original film. If I'd taken the picture with a digital camera, no way could I have got the informatiom that was lost due to the lack of resolution of said camera. > think they'll be able to replace any of my favorite cameras, as > they're for 3D photography, and I don't think anyone will release a Can you not couple 2 diginal cameras together with the lenses a suitable distance apart. Or use one of the prism assemblies that fit on the front of the lens and fiddle the resulting image file? > 3D digital camera anytime soon, at least not an affordable one, > though I'd love to be proven wrong. The newest of my 3D camera's is > still about 50 years old, and the projectors that I use are just as > old. At the same time I am looking forwards to when digital camera's > matching 35mm resolution become affordable. I estimate that a good 35mm camera + film is the equivalent of at least 20 megapixels.... Of course the pixel count is not the whole story. As the number of pixels increases, the size of each photoreceptor site on the CCD (or whatever sensor is used) goes down. So the amount of chrage produced per site goes down too. You get more noise. Cameras with a large quoted number of pixels tend to do poorly in low light conditions (and aren't brilliant in daylight!). Film, in a sense, has the same problem, in that faster (more sensitive) films have a larger grain size. But at least with film I can pick the right one for the job. I can decide I need 800 ASA film because I am taking pictures inside a building and can't use flash. Or I can pick Kodachrome 64 because I am taking static subjects on my workbench and it doesn't matter if I have 10 second exposures. Oh well, this off-topic bit has gone on long enough ;-) Incidentally, I am not 'against' digital cameras in the sense that I don't allow them to be used near me, of course. If I take some of my toys, say, to an HPCC meeting, then members are welcome to photograph them, and they can use film, digital, video tape, whatever. The only thing I object to is flashpowder (the magnesium oxide smoke doesn't do my machines any good at all!). Electronic flash or flashbulbs are fine... > > I do mess with audio and video processing (my Digital Audio > Workstation is nearing the 10 year mark), but I must confess the > addiction that isn't really practical for me on classic HW is > "Desktop Publishing", and that's mainly due to image editing. The Hmm... All that I've 'publisehd', including my Ph.D. thesis and the HP48 I2C interfacve manual were produced on classic hardware. OK, in the former case the diagrams came from a CAD system on a mac, saved as postscript files and transfered across to this linux box. In the latter case, the diagrams were produced on a PC/XT machine with a CGA display, saved as HPGL files, then transfered to the linx box. There I used hp2xx(1) to turn them into epc files All the text, of course, was formatted with TeX / LaTeX which will run on classic computers. The dvips printer driver will quite hapilly pull in eps files and get them in the right places.... I find the separate editing/formating stages to be much easier to handle than a more normal word processor/DTP program. -tony From CCTalk at catcorner.org Sat Jan 29 18:24:36 2005 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Tandy Xenix Basic Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799435CA7@mail.catcorner.org> I know I promised a disk image of this if I was able to read it. I now have the disk image (SingleSided/DoubleDensity) dd imaged, but can't for the life of me figure out who it was. If it was anyone on the list, please reply privately. I already asked on the comp.sys.tandy newsgroup. Thanks, Kelly From randy at s100-manuals.com Sat Jan 29 18:35:31 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using 3.5" HD drives on CP/M systems Message-ID: <002b01c50663$9c72b7e0$5a3cd7d1@randylaptop> I have tried to get a quorum on comp.os.cpm but there are only a few with any opinions. We all agree that 3.5" drives are a viable way to go. Many prefer to never change from 8" drives. I am running the SuperIO (www.imsai.net), it is a new Imsai card and uses a PC controller. I have a variety of CP/M systems with a variety of storage mediums. The point is for those of us that use 3.5" HD drives should try and come to a consensus for a "standardized" format. Questions such as sector size and numbering come to mind. With more PC's dropping 3.5" drives does that mean there will be a limit to new drives all together? Are USB drives a reasonable option. I've been using Flash ROM cards (on both my SuperIO system and coming up now on my eZ80 Acclaim) and I am hoping to come up with a scheme for sharing data with PC's. I like Flash cards since digital cameras should help support continue on PC's. I'm also looking into IDE based CD/DVD drives but they are a one way road since I do not believe CP/M systems will ever write them. I am trying to build a quorum of technically minded CP/M users to try and develop a semi-standard and other ideas. Randy From william.layer at comcast.net Sat Jan 29 18:39:26 2005 From: william.layer at comcast.net (William Layer) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050129183926.7ce62478.william.layer@comcast.net> Chiming in... On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 19:43:51 +0000 Jules Richardson wrote: > Forget about xpdf too - several seconds for each page render on a modern > PC compared to instant for Acrobat. Yes, performance on Acrobat Reader is much better than xpdf.. I wait around 10 seconds to render a page of .pdf (graphics) on my day-to-day machine, which is a AMD K6-2/300 box running Slackware. That said, I would never suggest that anyone install Acrobat Reader, due to its EULA. Have you ever read that EULA? Unless this has changed dramatically, you are basically "agreeing" that all your base are belong to Adobe. They have permission to come in and audit your system for software content, presumably to prevent piracy of their works, but who the heck knows. Nothing is free, not even Willy. He was made up. ;-) Bill From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 29 15:34:55 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard In-Reply-To: <200501291720.JAA08600@floodgap.com> References: <200501291720.JAA08600@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <41FC017F.6000901@oldskool.org> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern >>system? Any recommentations? > > I would recommend the PCjr keyboard die the death it should have died in > IBM RandD. ^^ Hey now, the non-chiclet version (with actual keys) isn't so bad. It took me a while to discover WHY the original PCjr keyboard used rubber keys: It was so the complete newbie could use thin cardboard "overlays" that fit completely over the keyboard and illustrated what each key did in a particular application. King's Quest for PCjr did this, IIRC, as did a few other programs. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 29 15:30:04 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Burroughs on TV In-Reply-To: <8b.1fce6edc.2f2c695d@aol.com> References: <8b.1fce6edc.2f2c695d@aol.com> Message-ID: <20050129132929.D16904@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 Innfogra@aol.com wrote: > "Made in America" is the Program and the computer company is Burroughs. So,... what is Cliff Clavin's take on it? From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 29 15:32:09 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FC00D9.3090901@oldskool.org> chris wrote: > If you really want one, let me know, I can build you a VCD this weekend > and mail you a copy. Make sure you know what colorspace conversion (if any) is being performed by the encoder before you do this. Many encoders take 0-255 RGB and convert it to 0-255 YUV, which is incorrect (should be 16-235 YUV). -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 29 15:31:10 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FC009E.3080607@oldskool.org> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I was tweaking the knobs on a Panasonic "Color Video Monitor" > (NTSC/"VTR input" version of a Panasonic 19" TV marketed to the AV > crowd, not the home consumer), and I realized that since I don't have > any genuine TV diagnostic tools, but I do have modern things like a > DVD player that can play CDs, etc, wouldn't it be handy to have a VCD > of color bars, etc., as a reference to adjust composite-input devices? > Now I wouldn't mind a real colorbar generator, but a > algorithmically-generated MPEG would be adequate for non-broadcast > use, surely. Yes, the best source of this is either Video Essentials (out of print, check ebay) or Digital Video Essentials. Both are by Joe Kane, who most definitely knows what he's talking about. For calibrating analog devices through composite, S-Video (Y/C), or YCrCb (YUV, component), Video Essentials is, IMO, still the best disc out there. For digital devices (LCD TVs, Plasma) or digital connections (DVI, VGA), Digital Video Essentials is pretty damn good but I haven't reviewed other discs out there in the digital domain. There are other discs out there, but a few (Avia Guide to Home Theater) have severe mastering issues (field order is reversed in a few segments, how did that get past quality control?!) and as such I don't trust them. Don't try to generate your own color signals since many computers don't output signals at spec. I've captured video from tons of computers, new and old (it's my hobby, see www.mindcandydvd.com), and the only thing you can use from a computer is a grayscale ramp or color gamut to use as a reference for the *inevitable color correction you will be performing*. I have had 10+ years experience in this area, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jan 29 19:26:27 2005 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard References: <200501291720.JAA08600@floodgap.com> <41FC017F.6000901@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <013c01c5066a$b8525270$0500fea9@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Leonard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2005 4:34 PM Subject: Re: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard > > It took me a while to discover WHY the original PCjr keyboard used rubber keys: > It was so the complete newbie could use thin cardboard "overlays" that fit > completely over the keyboard and illustrated what each key did in a particular > application. King's Quest for PCjr did this, IIRC, as did a few other programs. > -- > Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Could also be because a chicklet keyboard (membrane type) is allot cheaper to make then a normal IBM keyboard with mechanical switches (of that period). From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Jan 29 20:26:13 2005 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using 3.5" HD drives on CP/M systems In-Reply-To: <002b01c50663$9c72b7e0$5a3cd7d1@randylaptop> References: <002b01c50663$9c72b7e0$5a3cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e9050129182624f4fb5d@mail.gmail.com> If someone can glue a Super-I/O chip on to an S-100 bus card someone should be able to glue a USB host controller chip on to an S-100 card. Maybe something like a Philips ISP116A1 ( http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/cgi-bin/pldb/pip/isp1161a1.html ) which has a microprocessor PIO interface instead of the more typical PCI busmaster interface of most USB host controllers. The software involved in doing data transfers to a USB floppy or flash memory device would not be trivial to implement, and might require a dedicated microprocessor instead of trying to run it on the S-100 host processor. On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 18:35:31 -0600, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > With more PC's dropping 3.5" drives does that mean there will be a limit to > new drives all together? > > Are USB drives a reasonable option. From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jan 29 20:45:11 2005 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard In-Reply-To: <41FC017F.6000901@oldskool.org> from Jim Leonard at "Jan 29, 5 03:34:55 pm" Message-ID: <200501300245.SAA18130@floodgap.com> > > >Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern > > >system? Any recommentations? > > I would recommend the PCjr keyboard die the death it should have died in > > IBM RandD. ^^ > Hey now, the non-chiclet version (with actual keys) isn't so bad. That's the one I have. I do like the keytravel more than the Chiclet one, but it's the line of sight requirement with its IR that really drives me wild. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser@floodgap.com -- To err is human -- to forgive is not company policy. ----------------------- From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 29 20:48:16 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: classiccmp server upgrade Message-ID: <008101c50676$268ba240$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It did not go well. One of the screws in the boot drive removable tray stripped out. That taught me to always check the torque setting on the screwdriver. I had to go back home to get a GraBit and dig it out. When I got back to the datacenter... I found that the new disk controller for some reason absolutely refuses to work at all in the classiccmp motherboard. No clue why - tested it in other machines and it works fine. Just not in the classiccmp server. This puts me in the fun position of having a perfectly functioning system sans drives, and weeks of work (data) on a set of drives - neither of which can be connected together. The only thing I can think of is a new M/B but I really don't want to do that. I'll call escalade/3ware on monday. Wasted day. Everything was finally put back the way it was. I'll keep ya'll posted. Jay From tomj at wps.com Sat Jan 29 20:48:42 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050129184357.S977@localhost> On Sat, 29 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > Actually the problem with Ghostscript is that it's slow as hell compared > to Acrobat under Linux, at least the versions I've seen :-( > > Forget about xpdf too - several seconds for each page render on a modern > PC compared to instant for Acrobat. Wow. My 500MHz laptop renders postscript just fine. There's a "noticable" render time (eg. it's not instantaneous) but it's hardly an impediment to reading. (I've got a Sony VX89, 512M RAM, 500/900MHz CPU (acpi) nice screen etc, I put up with it for its 6 - 9 hr battery life.) freeBSD now, SuSE linux then. Haven't tried a DOS/Win port of it in a long time though. > Oh how I hate PDF :-( It's still useful, but it's being perverted as a "read only" no-fair-use medium for DRM purposes, on Windows anyways. It's misused a lot too. Tom Jennings From news at computercollector.com Sat Jan 29 22:26:53 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Upcoming collector events... Message-ID: <20050130042653.78523.qmail@web52804.mail.yahoo.com> Hi folks, Just an FYI, I updated the list of vintage computing events at the newsletter web site. Go to http://news.computercollector.com and click 'events' in the 'about us' section. Please send me an off-list message if you're aware of other (non-gaming) events that should be included. - Evan ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 665 readers and counting! From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jan 29 22:37:46 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >Please don't take this as a flame, but I am always suprised by the people >who run classic computers (as opposed to running emulators) and who don't >want to get into the hardware. To me [1] that's one of the reasons for >running an old machine. Trust me, I don't take it as a flame, we just have different area's of interest. My area of interest is primarily in the Operating Systems that run on the various platforms, and I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm better served by emulators in most cases. I'd really like to dig in and learn the hardware on my PDP-8's, and even the -11's at a very low level, but I simply do not have the time. I think a lot of the problem is that a lot of us are software weenies, with varying degrees of competence on the hardware side of things. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From marvin at rain.org Sun Jan 30 00:15:42 2005 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Blast from the Past Message-ID: <41FC7B8E.A4F2CBC5@rain.org> In going though the archived ClassicCmp messages I'm getting ready to send to Jay, I ran across several that were quite interesting. This one by Doug Salot was a discussion about the "first" personal computer. ************* Hi, ClassicCmp. I haven't re-subscribed yet, but I hope to as soon as my life reaches a quiescent state (I'm done breaking eggs, and I'm now working on the omelette). I check Kevan's web archive once in a while, so I got a chance to catch the "first pc" thread. Of course, my idea of crowning a machine with the title "the first pc" was intended to be a catalyst for discussion, and to help dispel the popular myth that the Altair was the first pc, or that it started the hobbyist movement, or any such nonsense. However, I think Simon is the best candidate for that title. Yes, there were other simple machines built before Simon, such as Stibitz's relay calculator, the first version of which was built on his kitchen table. But I don't consider such one-offs to be viable contenders. Simon was built in 1950 by Edmund Berkeley for the express purpose of educating the masses and with the express hopes of fostering a computer hobbyist movement. So, who was this Berkeley guy? He was one of the lesser known players in the start of the computer revolution. He was a mathematician who worked on the Harvard Mark II, he worked with Eckert and Mauchly to help define the Univac, he founded the ACM, he started the first computer magazine, etc. How did Simon differ from other simple relay machines, like the first Stibitiz calculators? It was more general purpose, it was portable, and it was popularized in the press. 13 articles on Simon appeared in Radio-Electronics in 1950 and 1951. It was the subject of a cover story in Scientific American. It was covered in two of Berkeley's books. It was given television coverage and appeared in such mainstream magazines as Life. Berkeley was the first computer evangelist -- the first to articulate the idea of a personal computer, and the first to build one. Of course, there were others, such as Vanevar Bush, who described futuristic visions, but Berkeley dedicated a good part of his life to making computers accessible to mere mortals. I haven't stumbled upon a machine yet more deserving of "the first pc" title than Simon, and given the depth of Berkeley's work, I don't expect to. But Simon was just the first milestone towards the goal of accessible personal computers, and it doesn't diminish the importance of the PDP-8, the Mark-8, or even the lowly IBM PC. OK, I'll crawl back under my rock now. -- Doug -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blinkenlights Archaeological Institute Featuring... http://www.blinkenlights.com/ Nearly Forgotten Personal Computers From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jan 30 03:15:13 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: eMate 300 hardware questions Message-ID: Apologies if this is too new to be officially on-topic, but as a slightly newer expression of Newton hardware, I hope an eMate question won't be completely inappropriate... I have these two eMates here... I got them at 'parts' prices because they were listed 'as-is' with "ribbon cable problems"... both fire up, show stuff on the screen, and neither one seems to have a working digitizer ("tablet"). One also has some dropped pixel rows on the left half of the screen - looks like a bad driver or bad line on the video RAM, but there's enough of the screen legible to see what's going on... I have taken the one with the video voids apart completely, and an trying to figure out where the problem might lie. After completely removing the video ribbon cable, I tried a white eraser on the contacts (vinyl, not abrasive like a pink pearl), and hooked up the display to the screen with the boards on the table... no change in behavior. The keyboard and CPU seem to work fine, and I'm getting reasonable behavior at an OS level, but no apparent perception of the stylus on the screen. So... are there any Newt experts that might be able to shed any light? I've been grubbing up FAQs left and right, but they don't go to this level of detail... at best, I have the Apple eMate service manual which _does_ describe in sufficient detail how to dismantle the beast, but it only references a PCMCIA card with pre-loaded diagnostics on it, nothing embedded in the ROM. :-( There don't appear to be any crimps or tears in the ribbon. I can't easily inspect the connectors on the motherboard or display, but there are no obvious external mechanical problems (i.e., the latches all seem to be good, no tool marks, etc.) Thanks for any pointers -ethan From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Sun Jan 30 04:09:08 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using 3.5" HD drives on CP/M systems In-Reply-To: Glen Slick "Re: Using 3.5" HD drives on CP/M systems" (Jan 29, 18:26) References: <002b01c50663$9c72b7e0$5a3cd7d1@randylaptop> <1e1fc3e9050129182624f4fb5d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <10501301009.ZM11538@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 29 2005, 18:26, Glen Slick wrote: > The software involved in doing data transfers to a USB floppy or flash > memory device would not be trivial to implement, and might require a > dedicated microprocessor instead of trying to run it on the S-100 host > processor. Hmm, maybe; maybe not. A Beeb enthusiast named John Kortink has produced an MMC interface for a BBC Micro. It's called GoMMC and it allows you to store files using a normal BBC filing system on a MultiMedia Card. Actually the card stores disk images, but makes them available to the normal filing systems. The card can also be read/written on an IBM PC (so you can move it and back it up). Take a look at http://web.inter.nl.net/users/J.Kortink/home/hardware/gommc/index.htm if you're interested. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jan 30 06:05:00 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using 3.5" HD drives on CP/M systems In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 30 Jan 2005 10:09:08 GMT." <10501301009.ZM11538@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: <200501301205.j0UC502H008425@mwave.heeltoe.com> Pete Turnbull wrote: > >Hmm, maybe; maybe not. A Beeb enthusiast named John Kortink has >produced an MMC interface for a BBC Micro. It's called GoMMC and it >allows you to store files using a normal BBC filing system on a >MultiMedia Card. I think the MMC interface is the simplest you can find for mass storage. I wrote some code to talk to one on a PIC 18F and added enough code to write files to a preformatted fat-16 file system. it wasn't that hard. if you can do it on a pic a z80 should also be possible. USB on the other hand, especially usb disk, could easily exhaust the memory space of a z80. i'm sure it coud be done but it would take a lot of code (and time). -brad From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Sun Jan 30 06:50:56 2005 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20050130075056.00914420@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Mark, I gave away all my PIIIs several years ago. I don't know if I still have a setup disk around or not. If I do I don't know where it would be and I simply do not have time to search for it anytime in the near future. PIIIs are reasonably common and someone on this list is bound to have the setup program for them. I'm not sure but the same setup program may be used for other Compaq computers as well so I'd look for the setup program for ANT Compaq computer and try it. Joe At 04:59 PM 1/28/05 -0800, you wrote: >Joe - > >Re: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2004-May/029003.html > >Do you have a Portable III setup disk? Can you image/zip it and send it to me? I have a friend that uses one of these regularly as a MIDI device - works great, now he wants to get his spare up and running. > >Thanks, > >Mark > From james at jdfogg.com Sun Jan 30 07:53:30 2005 From: james at jdfogg.com (james) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1107093210.7199.21.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> On Fri, 2005-01-28 at 19:59, Mark Elliott wrote: > Joe - > > Re: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2004-May/029003.html > > Do you have a Portable III setup disk? Can you image/zip it and send it to me? > I have a friend that uses one of these regularly as a MIDI device - works > great, now he wants to get his spare up and running. I have the setup disk, but no suitable 5-1/4 drives. My classics are not DOS-based :-) I seem to recall there was a way to diskcopy using the HD as a buffer, if this is true I could dupe the disk on my Portable III. Otherwise I would need to get some 5-1/4 disk drives to install in another PC. BTW - my portable III is having cmos battery problems. Does anyone know (before I crack the case) what battery would serve as a replacement (and is it soldered in place?). From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 30 08:38:59 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? Message-ID: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> does anyone happen to have a schematic for a simple circuit to extract sync information from a sync-on-green video signal? I've got a screen here I'd like to hook up to the Tek (I left the normal monitor I use with the Tek at Bletchley), but it needs either seperate H and V sync lines hooked up, or composite sync - it won't do sync on green (which is all that the Tek provides). I keep on finding sync combining circuits that'll do seperate sync to sync on green everywhere, but nothing to do the reverse! cheers Jules From rcini at optonline.net Sun Jan 30 08:40:42 2005 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Vintage databooks on eBay Message-ID: <003101c506d9$ae07bde0$6501a8c0@bbrk0oksry5qza> For your consideration: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=378&item=4523753903&r d=1 Due to the size, might be a good thing for someone on the West Coast to bid on. Just posting the link...I have no connection to the auction at all. There are some nice databooks in this lot... Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /************************************************************/ From ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk Sun Jan 30 09:00:19 2005 From: ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk (Lawrence Wilkinson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <1107097219.917.3.camel@ljw.me.uk> On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 14:38, Jules Richardson wrote: > does anyone happen to have a schematic for a simple circuit to extract > sync information from a sync-on-green video signal? > Maybe this will help, it also has a few useful links: http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/faq/vga2rgb/scart.html -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk Ph +44(0)1869-811059 http://www.ljw.me.uk From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Sun Jan 30 09:02:04 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: <20050128210955.0d220882.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050130160204.48df78e4.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 23:23:10 +0000 (GMT) ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > OK, I suppose you could argue you can link up an X-terminal via > ethernet or something, but... Hmmm. A DEC VXT2000 [1] is a nice, classic X-terminal. Should be compatible even with Mr. Sokolov. ;-) [1] Or a VAXstation 3100m[34][08] GPX. AFAIK this machines can run the same software image as a VXT2000. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From wacarder at usit.net Sun Jan 30 09:08:26 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >Please don't take this as a flame, but I am always suprised by the people > >who run classic computers (as opposed to running emulators) and who don't > >want to get into the hardware. To me [1] that's one of the reasons for > >running an old machine. > > Trust me, I don't take it as a flame, we just have different area's > of interest. My area of interest is primarily in the Operating > Systems that run on the various platforms, and I'm coming to the > conclusion that I'm better served by emulators in most cases. I'd > really like to dig in and learn the hardware on my PDP-8's, and even > the -11's at a very low level, but I simply do not have the time. > > I think a lot of the problem is that a lot of us are software > weenies, with varying degrees of competence on the hardware side of > things. > > Zane Zane, I fit into the software weenie category too. Back in the late 1970s I practically lived on the PDP-11/40, but the computer was behind a locked door. I did all my stuff sitting in another room on a VT50 DecScope. I know enough about the hardware to configure a board and install it, and hook up and test terminals, drives, and other devices, but as of yet I have not taken the time to figure out how to trace circuits and debug hardware problems with individual circuitboards. I try to keep enough spare boards, drives, power supplies, etc., so that I can replace the whole board if something goes wrong. My pleasure is seeing the old blinkenlights machines running the old operating systems and programs on the old platforms. Ashley From list at saracom.com Sun Jan 30 09:15:02 2005 From: list at saracom.com (Max) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard In-Reply-To: <200501301337.j0UDZF6N004376@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.1.20050130101047.025ebec0@mail.saracom.com> At 07:37 AM 1/30/2005 -0600, you wrote: > >For the wireless PCjr > >keyboard, I don't have the thingey that would connect to the PC. > > > > Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern > >system? Any recommentations? > >It has been a while since I've looked at my PCjr, but IIRC, the IR >receiver is built into the chassis of the PCjr. Thus, there is nothing to >"connect" to the PC, and thus, it would be improbable that you could use >the PCjr keyboard wirelessly with a modern PC. > >-chris Actually I think its a small PCB with an IR receiver and a IC chip of some sort which stands off from the main board. I am not sure it would much help for him anyway. max From list at saracom.com Sun Jan 30 09:16:59 2005 From: list at saracom.com (Max) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard In-Reply-To: <200501291801.j0TI06YN013535@huey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.1.20050130101527.025eb600@mail.saracom.com> At 12:01 PM 1/29/2005 -0600, you wrote: >All: > > I'm working on another side project, a Mini-ITX conversion of a >non-working PCjr system. I don't have a keyboard for it, but I can choose >from wired or wireless PCjr or standard keyboards. For the wireless PCjr >keyboard, I don't have the thingey that would connect to the PC. > > Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern >system? Any recommentations? > > Thanks. > >Rich Rich, I would like to see pics of the final project. I have considered doing this with a dead PCjr for a while. Have you been to the mini-itx.com site? Max From rcini at optonline.net Sun Jan 30 09:25:29 2005 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.1.20050130101047.025ebec0@mail.saracom.com> Message-ID: <003601c506df$eed57f50$6501a8c0@bbrk0oksry5qza> I haven't yet opened the PCjr, but what I'm now thinking, since the keyboard protocol/setup is non-standard, is to buy an IR keyboard and put the guts of the IR receiver in the PCjr case. I need to stay off of the mini-itx.com Web site...too many cool ideas to soak up time :-) Thanks to all for the info on the JR. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Max Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 10:15 AM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard At 07:37 AM 1/30/2005 -0600, you wrote: > >For the wireless PCjr > >keyboard, I don't have the thingey that would connect to the PC. > > > > Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern > >system? Any recommentations? > >It has been a while since I've looked at my PCjr, but IIRC, the IR >receiver is built into the chassis of the PCjr. Thus, there is nothing to >"connect" to the PC, and thus, it would be improbable that you could use >the PCjr keyboard wirelessly with a modern PC. > >-chris Actually I think its a small PCB with an IR receiver and a IC chip of some sort which stands off from the main board. I am not sure it would much help for him anyway. max From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Sun Jan 30 09:28:34 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050130162834.21a3b2f0.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:38:59 +0000 Jules Richardson wrote: > does anyone happen to have a schematic for a simple circuit to extract > sync information from a sync-on-green video signal? The LM1881 IC is what you need. Google will find data sheets and application notes. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 30 11:02:49 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things References: Message-ID: <003301c506ed$87bddcf0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written.... > Trust me, I don't take it as a flame, we just have different area's of > interest. My area of interest is primarily in the Operating Systems that > run on the various platforms, ... snip ... > I think a lot of the problem is that a lot of us are software weenies, > with varying degrees of competence on the hardware side of things. I am equally interested in hardware and software. Collecting serves an additional purpose to me, over and above collecting itself. I have much more experience on the computer software side, and hardware systems from a high level. Collecting also allows me to learn electronics, with systems that are eminently more understandable and approachable than many modern systems. Jay From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 11:01:01 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501281914.AA20060@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Michael Sokolov wrote: > That is why we need a socialist government that would eliminate > unemployment with a massive public works program that would hire > millions of people to do the re-ASCII-fication work. Michael, Sorry to burst your bubble, but your experiment has been tried already. It was called the Soviet Union. It crumbled in a most mighty fashion after about 50 years. Simply stated, Communism doesn't work. Please discover a new ideology. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 11:05:55 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050128123924.D737@localhost> Message-ID: On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > Define "non-Classic", > > > OK, I will: > > Classic: "What I grew up using." > > Use of the word "classic" in almost any context except the ironic > is a flag, I think, it desires breadth but is necessarily of > narrow scope. > > I prefer the more honest "old". They *are* old, that term being > relative enough as it is, but at least from context somewhat > discernable (old pottery means 3, 4 or 5 digit ages; old food > means minutes to hours). In full knowledge that this will only prolong YAIOT10YRD (Yet Another Iteration of the 10 Year Rule Discussion) how about we say the rule is anything 10 years or older, unless it comes from Microsoft, in which case it must be 20 years or older? It already allows DOS, and excludes Windows 3.0 until about 2010, which is about when I may even start feeling nostalgic about it. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 11:11:53 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501282129.AA20340@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Michael Sokolov wrote: > Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > > > In his defense... so the guy has a corporate .sig, who doesn't these days? > > I don't. > > > You just ignore the lawyers and go on with life. > > No, don't ignore them, shoot them. AK47 does wonders against lawyers. > I have yet to meet a lawyer with any combat skills whatsoever. Lawyers > are cowards hiding their sorry asses behind pigs (cops). But there are > more of us than there are pigs! If every freedom-loving civilian took a > gun and shot the first cop he met, we can get rid of pigs in no time, > since there are so many more of us than there are of them, and take our > planet back! Michael, I hope you realize that by producing these comments you could be brought up on charges of conspiracy, intent to cause mayhem, incitement to violence, and terrorism (whether or not those are actual charges). I realize they may or may not have been spoken in jest, and in any event you certainly have a right to utter them, but in this day and age, all it takes is one person to finally get fed up with your nonsensical rants and report you to the FBI or DHS (Department of Homeland Security), in which case you would probably end up at Guantanmo Bay, and if you're lucky you'll be the guy at the top of the pyramid. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 30 11:23:26 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1107105806.28828.12.camel@weka.localdomain> On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 09:05 -0800, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > In full knowledge that this will only prolong YAIOT10YRD (Yet Another > Iteration of the 10 Year Rule Discussion) how about we say the rule is > anything 10 years or older, unless it comes from Microsoft, in which case > it must be 20 years or older? Duly noted that you started it this time :P From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 11:35:02 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC Message-ID: So I'm in the process of pulling a bunch of files off of some RX02 disks to get them onto a PC. So far (thanks to help from Howard Harte) I've got an 11/44 with an RX02 drive running RSTS that has the DD module loaded. I'm running the serial tape drive simulator on a PC (I forget what it's called or who wrote it). So I can do: COPY DY1:*.* DD0: Which then copies all the files off of the disk into an image file on my PC. Works very nicely, albeit slowly (only 9600bps transfer rate). Is there a better way to do this? I've seen various postings of people getting RX02 drives connected to Linux boxen. How so? Has anyone done this? I also found this: http://www.chd.dyndns.org/rx02/ This is very cool. It's an RX02 simluator (hardware/software) that makes your PDP11 think your PC is an RX02 drive. It would be great if I could read the files from a real RX02 and then dump them into the emulated RX02. Can a PDP11 have two sets of RX02 drives installed at once? If so, do the second set of drives become DY2: and DY3:? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From aek at spies.com Sun Jan 30 12:01:05 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:20 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC Message-ID: > Works very nicely Assuming there are no bad blocks on the floppy A Catweazel board in a PC will read DEC double density discs as well although I've not been very impressed with abilities of the data separator code on double-density data. I've had the best results recovering RX02 data using dual-wide QBus floppy controllers that have a 50 pin interface (Sigma Designs et. al.) and a Qume DT-8 drive. I run RT11 on a ZIP drive, read a bunch of images, and sneakernet the ZIP cart over to a system with E11 to dump the images. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 30 12:14:53 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at Jan 29, 5 08:37:46 pm Message-ID: > > >Please don't take this as a flame, but I am always suprised by the people > >who run classic computers (as opposed to running emulators) and who don't > >want to get into the hardware. To me [1] that's one of the reasons for > >running an old machine. > > Trust me, I don't take it as a flame, we just have different area's > of interest. My area of interest is primarily in the Operating Sure... > Systems that run on the various platforms, and I'm coming to the > conclusion that I'm better served by emulators in most cases. I'd > really like to dig in and learn the hardware on my PDP-8's, and even > the -11's at a very low level, but I simply do not have the time. Well, while I doubt I could write an OS from scratch (or a compiler, or...), I have been known to read source listings, make (small) changes, and so on. If you turn that round, while I don't think everyone needs to know how to _design_ a CPU (or whatever), it's helpful if you have some idea how they work, and how to find faults, etc... Of course there is the big difference that correctly working hardware can fail (a component can go out-of-spec), correctly working software doesn't. But anyway... -tony From marvin at rain.org Sun Jan 30 12:33:14 2005 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: MAJOR OT - Re: Many things Message-ID: <41FD286A.D9CB88FB@rain.org> I had my eyes opened last year when I stayed at a home in Hungary and had the chance to talk with the owner. Somehow the conversation turned to the Communist takeover of Hungary back in 1956. She mentioned how all the services went downhill from what they had been. BUT she also mentioned some of the pluses such as zero unemployment. I have since heard this from others, and I had never thought that Communism had ANY pluses except for the people running the government. Also more importantly to the comments below, I think you will find that Communism and Socialism are not the same. > On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Michael Sokolov wrote: > > > That is why we need a socialist government that would eliminate > > unemployment with a massive public works program that would hire > > millions of people to do the re-ASCII-fication work. > > Michael, > > On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Sellam Ismail wrote: > > Sorry to burst your bubble, but your experiment has been tried already. > It was called the Soviet Union. It crumbled in a most mighty fashion > after about 50 years. Simply stated, Communism doesn't work. > From william.layer at comcast.net Sun Jan 30 12:35:13 2005 From: william.layer at comcast.net (William Layer) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions Message-ID: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net> Hey all, Thanks for all the background and help on the Altair project. I'll be taking some pics of the pile for a 'before and after' set. Hopefully there will be an after worth mentioning ;-) Now on to Intel / Intellec MDS systems. I've got one that is alternately described as an MDS225 or and MDS800. IIRC, the dual-disk unit is marked MDS800, (blue in color) and the main chassis is marked MDS225 (white in color, has a monitor, kb, and a series of pushbuttons with LED indicators). Information on these units is pretty sparse on the web; multiple google searches have yielded little more than years of manufacture, and some price info. One question that should amuse the more veteran members of classiccmp is this: What exactly is meant by "Microcomputer Development System"? It's like that old joke about "Repairing Robots".. Are they referring to the process of repairing a robot, or to robots that perform repairs? Is the MDS a system for developing microcomputers, or is it a microcomputer that is used for other forms of hardware / software development, or a little of both? I'm getting the feeling that the latter might be the case. Secondly, what kind of operating system, applications, etc can one of the MDS units run? I'm told that it is an ISIS based system, but I really don't know much about ISIS. I assume it's a disk operating system, but beyond that I'm clueless. I'd like to think that there is some general-purpose OS I could run on it, play some wumpus, trek or life, amortize my mortgage, or maybe fire up a terminal emulator and get into the BBS scene. I'm clearly no expert in this old stuff, but I'm at least wise enough to realize what I *don't* know. Can someone fill in a few of the gaps? My MDS has an 8080A CPU card in it, some kind of memory card, and a disk controller. Also, a card that connects to a large ICE pod "Intel ICE-51", if that helps. TIA, Bill From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 12:35:48 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20050128222313.0359cd80@mail.earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > At 10:22 PM 01/28/2005, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > > Just for the record I want to say that I agree with every single point > > > > made by Tony in this thread, without exceptions. > > > > It looks like we are the only two TRUE ClassicCmp'ers in the world. > > > > > Michael and Tony sitting in a tree... > > > >Please, I'm trying to eat. > I had a vision of them pelting us with over 10 year old banana peals... Sounds like the makings of a retro Atari 2600 game. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 12:38:31 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 29 Jan 2005, chris wrote: > But hey, my doctor always did say I had the best range of hearing of any > patient he ever had :-) That's not very impressive if you live in the land of the deaf ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From chenmel at earthlink.net Sun Jan 30 12:41:55 2005 From: chenmel at earthlink.net (Scott Stevens) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050129184357.S977@localhost> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> Message-ID: <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 18:48:42 -0800 (PST) Tom Jennings wrote: > On Sat, 29 Jan 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: > > > Actually the problem with Ghostscript is that it's slow as hell > > compared to Acrobat under Linux, at least the versions I've seen :-( > > > > Forget about xpdf too - several seconds for each page render on a > > modern PC compared to instant for Acrobat. > > Wow. My 500MHz laptop renders postscript just fine. There's a > "noticable" render time (eg. it's not instantaneous) but it's > hardly an impediment to reading. > > (I've got a Sony VX89, 512M RAM, 500/900MHz CPU (acpi) nice screen > etc, I put up with it for its 6 - 9 hr battery life.) > > freeBSD now, SuSE linux then. Haven't tried a DOS/Win port of it > in a long time though. > > > Oh how I hate PDF :-( > > It's still useful, but it's being perverted as a "read only" > no-fair-use medium for DRM purposes, on Windows anyways. It's > misused a lot too. > > I paid good money (> $300) for a licensed copy of the full Acrobat for Windows a number of years back, specifically to be able to archive vintage manuals, magazines, and docs to the PDF format. Which I presumed at the time to be open, and to stay open. At least my expensive licensed copy of Acrobat is of an early enough version that it'll presumably always produce PDF files that are readable on the new readers. It's probably time to freeze the PDF format and refuse to let in DRM hooks and whizz-woo features. Isn't the file format documented enough that the format is 'freed' of Adobe's menace? > Tom Jennings > From melamy at earthlink.net Sun Jan 30 12:48:16 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions In-Reply-To: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net> References: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050130133824.034d5830@mail.earthlink.net> comments below... At 01:35 PM 01/30/2005, you wrote: >Hey all, > >Thanks for all the background and help on the Altair project. I'll be >taking some pics of the pile for a 'before and after' set. Hopefully there >will be an after worth mentioning ;-) > >Now on to Intel / Intellec MDS systems. I've got one that is alternately >described as an MDS225 or and MDS800. IIRC, the dual-disk unit is marked >MDS800, (blue in color) and the main chassis is marked MDS225 (white in >color, has a monitor, kb, and a series of pushbuttons with LED indicators). if the drive cabinet has the drives vertically then it was originally attached to a MDS800 system. The Series II machines (225, etc) had dual drive cabinets that had the drives horizontal. >Information on these units is pretty sparse on the web; multiple google >searches have yielded little more than years of manufacture, and some >price info. > >One question that should amuse the more veteran members of classiccmp is >this: What exactly is meant by "Microcomputer Development System"? It's >like that old joke about "Repairing Robots".. Are they referring to the >process of repairing a robot, or to robots that perform repairs? > >Is the MDS a system for developing microcomputers, or is it a >microcomputer that is used for other forms of hardware / software >development, or a little of both? I'm getting the feeling that the latter >might be the case. actually, it is neither of the two you suggested. The intent behind the MDS machine was to use them for the development of microcomputer systems from both a hardware and software standpoint (it was not to develop microcomputers). The term "Microcomputer" in Intel's use referred to the hardware platform that was being developed to do whatever job the hardware was supposed to do. I developed hardware based on both the 8080 and 8085. I developed the code on the MDS and used the ICE (in-circuit emulator) for both hardware and software development and debug. >Secondly, what kind of operating system, applications, etc can one of the >MDS units run? I'm told that it is an ISIS based system, but I really >don't know much about ISIS. I assume it's a disk operating system, but >beyond that I'm clueless. I'd like to think that there is some >general-purpose OS I could run on it, play some wumpus, trek or life, >amortize my mortgage, or maybe fire up a terminal emulator and get into >the BBS scene. ISIS was developed as what I call a professional operating system rather than CP/M which was a hobby OS. ISIS ran only on Intel systems (okay, except for the N* I had it running on) and was not adaptable to other platforms (uinlike CP/M). ISIS came with an 8080 assembler, linker, librarian, as well as PL/M (a high level language, but lower than C). There are copies of CP/M that run on the MDS. Kildall originally developed CP/M written in PL/M on a MDS800 computer. From wacarder at usit.net Sun Jan 30 12:49:35 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > So I'm in the process of pulling a bunch of files off of some RX02 disks > to get them onto a PC. > > So far (thanks to help from Howard Harte) I've got an 11/44 with an RX02 > drive running RSTS that has the DD module loaded. I'm running the serial > tape drive simulator on a PC (I forget what it's called or who wrote it). > So I can do: > > COPY DY1:*.* DD0: > > Which then copies all the files off of the disk into an image file on my > PC. Works very nicely, albeit slowly (only 9600bps transfer rate). > > Is there a better way to do this? I've seen various postings of people > getting RX02 drives connected to Linux boxen. How so? Has anyone done > this? Although still limited by the 9600 bps transfer rate, I use a program called VTServer to get disk images from my PDP-11 to my PC. It runs on my PC, sends an Ultrix image to the PDP-11 and boots in Ultrix. Then you can use the Ultrix COPY command to copy images from any disk or tape device on the PDP-11 to a file on the PC. You can also do the reverse, copy disk image files from the PC to a physical disk on the PDP-11. I've done both and it works fine as long as the disk on the PDP-11 doesn't have bad blocks on it. I don't know all the inner workings of VTServer, I just run it and it works for me. If I've made any mis-statements about the way it works, someone with more detailed knowledge on its innards can give a better explanation. I think basically it allows the PC to function as "Virtual Tape" drive on the PDP-11. I have recently copied 20+ RK05 disk images, 6 or 8 RL01 images, and a few RL02 images from actual disks on the PDP-11 to image files on my PC. These disk image files can be used on the simh simulator as if they were the actual disks. I've also done the reverse. I SYSGENed a RSTS/E v7.0 system on simh and copied it to RL02 packs on the PDP-11. It's faster to SYSGEN a system on simh than it is to do it on the real hardware. Other folks have told me that a better way to get files from the -11 to a PC is to install a 9-track tape drive on the -11 and another 9-track drive on your PC. This is much faster. The problem is that I don't have any 9-track tape drives right now, so that's not an option for me. Ashley From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 12:56:37 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: HP terminal wanted In-Reply-To: <004001c5062d$5c9e4b60$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: On Sat, 29 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > > Did you find a terminal? My father has just put on an HP-2648A Terminal > > on eBay. > > Hummm > > As everyone knows I've wanted one for some time. The pictures of the unit > are very.. well... odd. Particular care was taken not to show the whole > unit. I'm wondering if the keyboard is included.... The thing looks like it's caked in dust and/or mud. "Unfortunately i have tried to add some pictures of the keyboard as well and cannot". Duh. Sounds like bullshit. Keep waiting until something else comes along. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 12:57:09 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Help to ID Emulex board In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20050129122006.0237c310@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 29 Jan 2005, Tom Uban wrote: > Sellam, > > It sounds like an: > > SC02/A Q Emulex SMD disk controller. Emulates Digital > RP11/RP02/RP03. Includes BDV11-compatible > line-time clock. Thanks all! > Is it a dual or quad board? Dual. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jan 30 12:58:09 2005 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FD2E41.4090803@jetnet.ab.ca> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: > > >In full knowledge that this will only prolong YAIOT10YRD (Yet Another >Iteration of the 10 Year Rule Discussion) how about we say the rule is >anything 10 years or older, unless it comes from Microsoft, in which case >it must be 20 years or older? > >It already allows DOS, and excludes Windows 3.0 until about 2010, which is >about when I may even start feeling nostalgic about it. > > > Why not just forget the 10 year rule altogether and just address the problem of Microsoft/Mac/Linux modern products. You need two lists soon -- classic computers ( blinking lights) and classic 8 bit cpu's ( ie - cp/M) and modern classic computers ... 386's +. Ben. PS. or just two lists ... stuff with binking lights and junk with out. :) stuff: junk we keep. junk: stuff we toss out. From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 30 13:04:08 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic References: Message-ID: <003b01c506fe$79f18b60$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written... >> Classic: "What I grew up using." ... snip ... > how about we say the rule is > anything 10 years or older, unless it comes from Microsoft, in which case > it must be 20 years or older? There's way too many problems with defining something as classic based on it's age. Some things (songs, cars, etc.) become virtually classic the day they are invented. I would put forth the following dictionary definition of the word: 'Classic: forming a tradition or linked to one, often in opposition to more recent schools or theories'. Since (like it or not), modern operating systems and processors/hardware are "recent schools or theories", they are by definition not classic. The older software and hardware are generally "in opposition to" these more recent schools of thought. There's many examples - one would be how we used to spend hours looking to save an instruction cycle or two bytes of code as contrasted to the "memory and processor cycles are cheap" paradigm that is current thought generally. In addition, the very uniqueness of each of the old machines as opposed to the current "everything is windows-based" and all pretty similar. So there's the distinction of many varied systems, some better in some areas while the rest are innovative or better in the remaining areas. These are in direct opposition to the "sameness" of current platforms. A third example is how many of us at least try to understand the complete system, down to the chips on the board. The recent school of thought is you just have to know how to use word & excel. There's quite a few more examples which I'm sure you all are cognizant of. And because of the fact that we are all here talking about these systems, well, that speaks for the tradition we're linked to. Windows can't be considered "classic" because it IS the recent school of thought/theory. When it hasn't been the prevailing school of thought for a while, AND it is in opposition of the then current school of thought - it may well become classic and perfect for discussing here. This is not likely to happen in our lifetimes. A major strike against that ever happening is that it was (is) SO pervasive so I'm not sure it ever be "classic". But in the final analysis, this argument is one that will be decided by our children & grandchildren, not us. This is exactly why I'm not opposed to DOS being discussed on the list. It comes from the days of the traditions I speak of above, before 90% of the cpu and memory was dedicated to a pretty gui. Regards, Jay West From randy at s100-manuals.com Sun Jan 30 13:07:09 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions References: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net> Message-ID: <008b01c506fe$ede5fe20$753cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "William Layer" > Hey all, > > Thanks for all the background and help on the Altair project. I'll be > taking some pics of the pile for a 'before and after' set. Hopefully there > will be an after worth mentioning ;-) > > Now on to Intel / Intellec MDS systems. I've got one that is alternately > described as an MDS225 or and MDS800. IIRC, the dual-disk unit is marked > MDS800, (blue in color) and the main chassis is marked MDS225 (white in > color, has a monitor, kb, and a series of pushbuttons with LED > indicators). > > Information on these units is pretty sparse on the web; multiple google > searches have yielded little more than years of manufacture, and some > price info. > > One question that should amuse the more veteran members of classiccmp is > this: What exactly is meant by "Microcomputer Development System"? It's > like that old joke about "Repairing Robots".. Are they referring to the > process of repairing a robot, or to robots that perform repairs? > > Is the MDS a system for developing microcomputers, or is it a > microcomputer that is used for other forms of hardware / software > development, or a little of both? I'm getting the feeling that the latter > might be the case. > > Secondly, what kind of operating system, applications, etc can one of the > MDS units run? I'm told that it is an ISIS based system, but I really > don't know much about ISIS. I assume it's a disk operating system, but > beyond that I'm clueless. I'd like to think that there is some > general-purpose OS I could run on it, play some wumpus, trek or life, > amortize my mortgage, or maybe fire up a terminal emulator and get into > the BBS scene. > > I'm clearly no expert in this old stuff, but I'm at least wise enough to > realize what I *don't* know. Can someone fill in a few of the gaps? > > My MDS has an 8080A CPU card in it, some kind of memory card, and a disk > controller. Also, a card that connects to a large ICE pod "Intel ICE-51", > if that helps. > > TIA, Bill I have some info on my site including software downloads. Many of the manuals can be found in Howards manuals (mirrored on my site). Randy www.s100-manuals.com From randy at s100-manuals.com Sun Jan 30 13:13:08 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Scott Stevens" > I paid good money (> $300) for a licensed copy of the full Acrobat for > Windows a number of years back, specifically to be able to archive > vintage manuals, magazines, and docs to the PDF format. Which I > presumed at the time to be open, and to stay open. At least my > expensive licensed copy of Acrobat is of an early enough version that > it'll presumably always produce PDF files that are readable on the new > readers. > > It's probably time to freeze the PDF format and refuse to let in DRM > hooks and whizz-woo features. Isn't the file format documented enough > that the format is 'freed' of Adobe's menace? I don't agree, Adobe needs to make some improvements. One I really want is compressed files. Other formats have great compression ratios when compared to PDF's. I post PDF's because that is the defacto standard but I want something that lets me post more on my site without costing me more. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From Innfogra at aol.com Sun Jan 30 13:18:16 2005 From: Innfogra at aol.com (Innfogra@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions Message-ID: I will try with some of this. I am sure there is more in the list archives. The MDS 800 was the first development system It was a Multibus 1 backplane and usually had a CPU card, memory card, a two disk floppy drive controller, a HD controller (SMD most likely) and a emulation card set. The dual 8 inch disk drive unit you have is originally off one of these, that is why it is labeled MDS 800. The MDS 225 is either a System 2 or 3 in the development system line. Usually the white ones were System 3s but not always. MDS 225 is the System 2 part number. There is also a funny looking System 4 which uses 5 1/4 inch floppys and HD. In development work they usually were plugged into an ICE or In Circuit Emulator. You have a ICE-51 which is used in developing circuits using the Intel 8051 or 8751 CPU chips. The ICE is usually plugged into the CPU socket in the circuit it is emulating. So they really are a computer system used for developing microcomputer systems. There is CPM available for the system 2 & 3s. They have been used for writing documentation but this was not their main job. Paxton Astoria, OR From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jan 30 13:24:29 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: > > > Oh how I hate PDF :-( >> >> It's still useful, but it's being perverted as a "read only" >> no-fair-use medium for DRM purposes, on Windows anyways. It's >> misused a lot too. >> >> >I paid good money (> $300) for a licensed copy of the full Acrobat for >Windows a number of years back, specifically to be able to archive >vintage manuals, magazines, and docs to the PDF format. Which I >presumed at the time to be open, and to stay open. At least my >expensive licensed copy of Acrobat is of an early enough version that >it'll presumably always produce PDF files that are readable on the new >readers. > >It's probably time to freeze the PDF format and refuse to let in DRM >hooks and whizz-woo features. Isn't the file format documented enough >that the format is 'freed' of Adobe's menace? Personally, I'm not among the "I hate PDF's" crowd. I first purchased a copy of Acrobat to create my own PDF's 9.5 years ago, and have upgraded a couple times since that time. I'm now running Acrobat 6.0 Professional, and while I'm not fond of DRM in all of it's aspects, I do like the fact that I lock down a PDF. I recently wanted to send something to someone relating to a non-computer related project I'm working on, and due to what it is, I don't want anyone being able to modify the file, but I don't mind them printing it out, I was able to do this with PDF. Another big advantage for me is that the file was created with an application that is 10+ years old, and very few people can read the format, while almost anyone can read the PDF. One thing I find very handy is that applications such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop can now open PDF's. If the PDF contains vector graphics, you can edit them with Illustrator. This is the first good method I've found for moving a lot of my data to something modern. It's interesting to note that a site that sells DRM'd PDF's of old RPG books for a lot of major companies has started offering "watermarked" PDF's that can be copied anywhere rather than the DRM'd ones that can only be used on one computer. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 30 13:30:20 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I recently wanted to send something to someone relating to a > non-computer related project I'm working on, and due to what it is, I > don't want anyone being able to modify the file, but I don't mind > them printing it out, I was able to do this with PDF. Sorry to burst your bubble, but you weren't. All you were able to do is make it a bit harder. (If it can be printed, it can be captured and modified - at least until they get DRM pushed into printers, and given the installed base, that won't be a for a while yet.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From melamy at earthlink.net Sun Jan 30 14:06:27 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions In-Reply-To: <008b01c506fe$ede5fe20$753cd7d1@randylaptop> References: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net> <008b01c506fe$ede5fe20$753cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050130150540.03ff2130@mail.earthlink.net> the only problem with Howard's site is that he charges for it. I can't afford it. >I have some info on my site including software downloads. Many of the >manuals can be found in Howards manuals (mirrored on my site). > > >Randy >www.s100-manuals.com From randy at s100-manuals.com Sun Jan 30 14:14:25 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions References: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net><008b01c506fe$ede5fe20$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <6.1.2.0.2.20050130150540.03ff2130@mail.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <001101c50708$4d10b300$3e3fd7d1@randylaptop> No, Howard does not charge to access his site. Howard does sell some great hardware and is a hardware/software consultant that he charges for but his site which includes documentation and software is free, at least to you he pays a hosting site to provide it. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From: "Steve Thatcher" > the only problem with Howard's site is that he charges for it. I can't > afford it. > > > >>I have some info on my site including software downloads. Many of the >>manuals can be found in Howards manuals (mirrored on my site). >> >> >>Randy >>www.s100-manuals.com From melamy at earthlink.net Sun Jan 30 14:28:28 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions In-Reply-To: <001101c50708$4d10b300$3e3fd7d1@randylaptop> References: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net> <008b01c506fe$ede5fe20$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <6.1.2.0.2.20050130150540.03ff2130@mail.earthlink.net> <001101c50708$4d10b300$3e3fd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050130152656.03fd4eb0@mail.earthlink.net> maybe there are two Howards then. The only one I know provides copies on per page copy price. Please share this second Howards site (I don't have it...). Thanks! At 03:14 PM 01/30/2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: >No, Howard does not charge to access his site. Howard does sell some >great hardware and is a hardware/software consultant that he charges for >but his site which includes documentation and software is free, at least >to you he pays a hosting site to provide it. From randy at randy482.com Sat Jan 29 18:11:35 2005 From: randy at randy482.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Replacing 8" drive with 3.5" drive on CP/M systems Message-ID: <000501c50660$46a8ecb0$5a3cd7d1@randylaptop> I have tried to get a quorum on comp.os.cpm but there are only a few with any opinions. We all agree that 3.5" drives are a viable way to go. Many prefer to never change from 8" drives. I have a variety of CP/M systems with a variety of storage mediums. The point is for those of us that use 3.5" HD drives should try and come to a consensus for a "standardized" format. Questions such as sector size and numbering come to mind. With more PC's dropping 3.5" drives does that mean there will be a limit to new drives all together? Are USB drives a reasonable option. I've been using Flash ROM cards and I am hoping to come up with a scheme for sharing data with PC's. I like Flash cards since digital cameras should help support continue on PC's. I'm also looking into IDE based CD/DVD drives but they are a one way road since I do not believe CP/M systems will ever write them. I am trying to build a quorum of technically minded CP/M users to try and develop a semi-standard and other ideas. Randy From herbjohnson at comcast.net Sat Jan 29 16:32:11 2005 From: herbjohnson at comcast.net (Herb Johnson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Altair8800 'kit' - can you identify this stuff? Message-ID: <41FC0EEB.3040005@comcast.net> From: "William Layer" >> Thanks for the info so far.. here are the ugly details on the 'kit'.. [details on the SD System S-100 card set in an Altair 8800 chassis, with assorted other cards] "Randy McLaughlin" posted: Herb Johnson has some great stuff on your disk controller you need to get: http://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/s100.html ----------------------- Thanks for the referral, Randy. In fact I have manuals on most of the cards that William mentioned, and I've emailed William accordingly. As Randy posted, it looks to me like there is not much left of the Altair, in the Altair! The SD System stuff probably ran the CP/M or SDOS system on those disks with that system. It would be reasonable, in fact, to get *another* S-100 box and put those SD System cards in THAT; and to see about rebuilding the remaining, actual MITS cards and the MITS chassis seperately. The MITS might need a very old memory card to work with that 8080 processor and front panel, due to some bus differences. But it's all in what the new owner wants to do and what resources he obtains to do so. Herb JOhnson Herbert R. Johnson, voice 609-771-1503, New Jersey USA web site domain mirror **MY "njcc.com" site & email is EXPIRED ** my email address: herbjohnson ATT comcast DOTT net if no reply, wait & try: hjohnson AAT retrotechnology DOTT com "Herb's Stuff": old Mac, SGI, 8-inch floppy drives S-100 IMSAI Altair computers, docs, by "Dr. S-100" -- Herbert R. Johnson, voice 609-771-1503, New Jersey USA web site domain mirror **MY "njcc.com" site & email is EXPIRED ** my email address: herbjohnson ATT comcast DOTT net if no reply, wait & try: hjohnson AAT retrotechnology DOTT com "Herb's Stuff": old Mac, SGI, 8-inch floppy drives S-100 IMSAI Altair computers, docs, by "Dr. S-100" From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 30 12:36:26 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <003301c506ed$87bddcf0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Jan 30, 5 11:02:49 am Message-ID: > level. Collecting also allows me to learn electronics, with systems that are > eminently more understandable and approachable than many modern systems. That is the main reason that I collect minicomputers, PERQs, etc. I can get amongst the CPU electornics, I can look at the outputs of the ALU on a logic analyser, I can watch microinstructions doing their thing. You can't do that on a micro :-) And FWIW, I am still learning, and probably will carry on doing that for a very long time. -tony From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 30 14:38:47 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: <003b01c506fe$79f18b60$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <20050130203848.6082.qmail@web52801.mail.yahoo.com> Not sure if I understand the final part of your statement... would you agree, or not, that within a few years (or possibly right now) we'd also have to include the earliest versions of Windows (and other early GUI shells) that were still just DOS underneath? > > This is exactly why I'm not opposed to DOS being discussed on the list. It > comes from the days of the traditions I speak of above, before 90% of the > cpu and memory was dedicated to a pretty gui. > > Regards, > > Jay West ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 665 readers and counting! From randy at s100-manuals.com Sun Jan 30 14:42:34 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions References: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net><008b01c506fe$ede5fe20$753cd7d1@randylaptop><6.1.2.0.2.20050130150540.03ff2130@mail.earthlink.net><001101c50708$4d10b300$3e3fd7d1@randylaptop> <6.1.2.0.2.20050130152656.03fd4eb0@mail.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <000601c5070c$3c168d00$0d92d6d1@randylaptop> From: "Steve Thatcher" > maybe there are two Howards then. The only one I know provides copies on > per page copy price. Please share this second Howards site (I don't have > it...). Thanks! > > At 03:14 PM 01/30/2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: >>No, Howard does not charge to access his site. Howard does sell some >>great hardware and is a hardware/software consultant that he charges for >>but his site which includes documentation and software is free, at least >>to you he pays a hosting site to provide it. You are probably thinking of Herb Johnson, He does not have many downloadable manuals. He physically copies each page and charges for them. Herb does have some downloadable material which is free. Herb has some material only available through him. For people with dial up internet Herb is definitely the easiest way to go. I've bought both Hardware and copies of manuals from Herb and can say he is fair and honest. Howard Harte (www.hartetechnologies.com/manuals/) provides freely downloadable material, around 3.5gb. My site has a mirror of Howards site plus some extra Intel files including the MDS stuff. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 30 14:44:25 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer In-Reply-To: <1107093210.7199.21.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> References: <1107093210.7199.21.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <20050130124145.C33790@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, james wrote: > I have the setup disk, but no suitable 5-1/4 drives. My classics are not > DOS-based :-) > I seem to recall there was a way to diskcopy using the HD as a buffer, > if this is true I could dupe the disk on my Portable III. Otherwise I > would need to get some 5-1/4 disk drives to install in another PC. DISKCOPY A: A: (you will need to swap source and target diskettes a few times. LOTS of times on older versions of DOS. WRITE-PROTECT the source disk for when you lose track and put the wrong one in the drive) From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Jan 30 14:44:52 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> der Mouse wrote: >>I recently wanted to send something to someone relating to a >>non-computer related project I'm working on, and due to what it is, I >>don't want anyone being able to modify the file, but I don't mind >>them printing it out, I was able to do this with PDF. > > Sorry to burst your bubble, but you weren't. All you were able to do > is make it a bit harder. (If it can be printed, it can be captured and > modified - at least until they get DRM pushed into printers, and given > the installed base, that won't be a for a while yet.) Well, where do you stop? DRM in video cards so that you can't take a screen capture? DRM in monitors so that the picture blanks out when you turn your head? DRM in the human optic nerve? I mean, come on. PDF is great for it's intended purpose: Creating portable documents that can be viewed and printed regardless of the resolution of the output device. A PDF I create with vector line art looks great on my 10-yr-old 300 DPI postscript printer, but on a 1200 DPI printer of today it is flawless. I have seen a lot of misuse of PDF (scanning something and NOT OCR'ing it, turning the PDF into a 100MB container for JPG files) but, overall, PDF is pretty darn good. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From randy at s100-manuals.com Sun Jan 30 14:47:10 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Altair8800 'kit' - can you identify this stuff? References: <41FC0EEB.3040005@comcast.net> Message-ID: <001501c5070c$e03fb280$0d92d6d1@randylaptop> From: "Herb Johnson" > From: "William Layer" > > >> Thanks for the info so far.. here are the ugly details on the 'kit'.. > [details on the SD System S-100 card set in an Altair 8800 chassis, > with assorted other cards] > > "Randy McLaughlin" posted: > > Herb Johnson has some great stuff on your disk controller you need to get: > > http://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/s100.html > > ----------------------- > > Thanks for the referral, Randy. In fact I have manuals on most of the > cards that William mentioned, and I've emailed William accordingly. As > Randy posted, it looks to me like there is not much left of the Altair, in > the Altair! The SD System stuff probably ran the CP/M or SDOS system on > those disks with that system. It would be reasonable, in fact, to get > *another* S-100 box and put those SD System cards in THAT; and to see > about rebuilding the remaining, actual MITS cards and the MITS chassis > seperately. The MITS might need a very old memory card to work with that > 8080 processor and front panel, due to some bus differences. > > But it's all in what the new owner wants to do and what resources he > obtains to do so. > > Herb JOhnson > > Herbert R. Johnson, voice 609-771-1503, New Jersey USA > web site > domain mirror > **MY "njcc.com" site & email is EXPIRED ** > my email address: herbjohnson ATT comcast DOTT net > if no reply, wait & try: hjohnson AAT retrotechnology DOTT com > "Herb's Stuff": old Mac, SGI, 8-inch floppy drives > S-100 IMSAI Altair computers, docs, by "Dr. S-100" Herb I just mentioned you and your service in another post about an MDS system but I forgot to mention you have hardware/software/docs for some Intel systems and may want to respond to that thread. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From dmabry at mich.com Sun Jan 30 14:48:49 2005 From: dmabry at mich.com (Dave Mabry) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions In-Reply-To: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net> References: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net> Message-ID: <41FD4831.8060007@mich.com> William Layer wrote: > Hey all, > > Thanks for all the background and help on the Altair project. I'll be > taking some pics of the pile for a 'before and after' set. Hopefully > there will be an after worth mentioning ;-) > > Now on to Intel / Intellec MDS systems. I've got one that is > alternately described as an MDS225 or and MDS800. IIRC, the dual-disk > unit is marked MDS800, (blue in color) and the main chassis is marked > MDS225 (white in color, has a monitor, kb, and a series of > pushbuttons with LED indicators). You have a "Series II" version of the Intel MDS (Microcomputer Development System). The 225 means it was delivered from Intel as an 8085-based system and an intrgral single-density 8" diskette drive. The cpu card is the one with the series of switches you mention. Each one triggers the corresponding IRQ to the cpu. You can hit "0" to enter the debugger (or monitor) because when ISIS-II is booted there is a vector there into the monitor. "1" will reboot ISIS. The rest are masked by the OS, so if you hit them they just light up and will stay pending because the interrupt controller has been told by ISIS not to pass them through. Some of the In-circuit Emulators used IRQ 7 as I recall, and unmasked it to force a manual breakpoint. The white color just means it was produced in the latter part of its product life. Intel changed from blue to white for some reason. The salesmen from Intel, at that time, told me it was because the IBM PC was that color (or close) and Intel wanted to leverage that inertia. Sounded like sales BS to me. I have several blue ones, all working, and one white one (thank you, Joe!) but it doesn't work. It's my project machine. The MDS-800 was a different machine and preceeded the Series II. Your drives are probably marked with that name because they were originally meant to be used with an MDS-800. Later in the product life of the external drive subsystem, as Paxton has already said, Intel went to a different box where the drives were horizontal. The drives were the same drives, just oriented differently. It was much easier to work on the style you have, but it takes up more space. > > Information on these units is pretty sparse on the web; multiple > google searches have yielded little more than years of manufacture, > and some price info. Hopefully, soon, there will be a bit more on the web. I'm trying to get something together on the Series II specifically. It really is a remarkable machine. > > One question that should amuse the more veteran members of classiccmp > is this: What exactly is meant by "Microcomputer Development System"? > It's like that old joke about "Repairing Robots".. Are they referring > to the process of repairing a robot, or to robots that perform > repairs? > > Is the MDS a system for developing microcomputers, or is it a > microcomputer that is used for other forms of hardware / software > development, or a little of both? I'm getting the feeling that the > latter might be the case. Intel, at that time, called a "microcomputer" a system that contained as its cpu a "microprocessor". That was the distinction in terms. The MDS was meant to develop systems that used Intel's microprocessors in a system, hence the Microcomputer Development System's name. With tools from Intel you could write code in any of several different languages, cross-compile or compile them into relocatable object code, "locate" that code appropriately for your target system, and then, if your pockets were really deep, hook up an in-circuit emulator to your target system and load that absolute object code and debug it in real time. You could have an EPROM programmer connected and burn your absolute code into memory devices from the MDS. You have a connector on the back of your 225 marked UPP I believe. That was meant to control the Intel UPP (Universal Prom Programmer) using the software called UPM (Universal Prom Mapper). Later Intel offered the iUP-200/201. It connected through one of the serial ports and used the software IPPS. The iUP supported the newer types of memories and Intel even supported that one hosted by an IBM PC with a version of IPPS that ran on it. Interestingly (at least to me) also is the modules that plug into the iUP will also plug directly into the side of the Intel iPDS-100. That computer, running ISIS-PDS, has a corresponding IPPS to drive those modules. > > Secondly, what kind of operating system, applications, etc can one of > the MDS units run? I'm told that it is an ISIS based system, but I > really don't know much about ISIS. I assume it's a disk operating > system, but beyond that I'm clueless. I'd like to think that there is > some general-purpose OS I could run on it, play some wumpus, trek or > life, amortize my mortgage, or maybe fire up a terminal emulator and > get into the BBS scene. ISIS was Intel's operating system. Actually ISIS-II. I never used its predecessor so I don't know anything about that. The final version of ISIS-II that was released by Intel was 4.3 and included some nice enhancements that coupled with a firmware upgrade that went into the IOC (Input/Output Controller) card on the back panel of the Series II. I have recently sent that package to Randy and it is available on his web site for download. The enhancement also includes new firmware for the 8741 chip in the keyboard. ISIS-II was very similar in concept to CP/M, but different in structure. The disks were not interchangeable with CP/M logically, but there were programs available commercially from other vendors that ran on ISIS-II to read/write CP/M disks and vice versa. The "off the shelf" version of CP/M V2.2 from Digital Research would boot without any changes on an MDS-800 or a Series II with Intel's diskette controller board set. Many, MANY years ago, I modified significantly that BIOS so that it would boot on a Series II from the external double-density drives and read/write the internal single-density drive (when connected to the IOC) so that you can have the only real standard format for 8" diskettes supported. I can post that BIOS on Randy's site (with his permission and my thanks) if anyone is interested. I also wrote a BIOS for CP/M 2.2 that booted on an Intel MDS-225 with only the internal single density drive. I have an extensive collection of software for the ISIS-II OS for Intel MDS's, as well as CP/M programs configured for the MDS. As I find time I am transferring them over to a media that can be read today and the more interesting stuff I am posting. > > I'm clearly no expert in this old stuff, but I'm at least wise enough > to realize what I *don't* know. Can someone fill in a few of the > gaps? > > My MDS has an 8080A CPU card in it, some kind of memory card, and a > disk controller. Also, a card that connects to a large ICE pod "Intel > ICE-51", if that helps. If your cpu card actually has an 8080A on it, then your system would be more accurately called an MDS-220. That's interesting because the model number 225 means it was delivered with an 8085-based cpu. Someone has replaced it with an older cpu card. The 8080-based cpu card has 32K bytes of ram. If you wanted to do anything serious you added an additional 32K bytes with a second memory card. The 8085-based card upgraded the speed from 2.6MHz to 4MHz and the ram from 32k to 64k. It also supposedly had better bus arbritation circuitry and was required by Intel if you used certain bus-mastering cards, such as the RPC (8086-based "Resident Processor Card" for 8086 executables). Your ICE-51 is and In-Circuit Emulator for the 8051 cpu family. I think it had two multibus cards in the MDS, but I don't remember that off the top of my head for certain. The "pod" is the buffering for the cpu signals back to those cards for emulating, tracing, breaking, etc. > > TIA, Bill > > As you might gather from this post, I am prone to rambling about the Intel MDS's. Lately I have been on a kick to get mine working and have done a lot of repairs. So much of this is fresh in my mind. If you have any other specific questions, please feel free to ask. And if you need help there are lots of guys here with experience. Tony is especially good at hardware troubleshooting. He has helped me with diskette controller repairs. Sorry for the long post. Signing off now. Dave From jfoust at threedee.com Sun Jan 30 15:07:10 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050130150410.055dfa48@mail> At 11:16 PM 1/28/2005, chris wrote: >BTW: I just found this > >http://www.synthetic-ap.com/products/tpm/index.html > >If you have a mac, it will generate the patterns for you (single still >images) Several companies made/make such devices. I remember the NwTek Calibar as one of the first. Here are some: http://www.itworks.com/products/portapattern-basic.htm I seem to remember the Calibar was something on the order of a PIC processor generating a series of video and audio signals. - Joh From melamy at earthlink.net Sun Jan 30 15:15:38 2005 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions In-Reply-To: <000601c5070c$3c168d00$0d92d6d1@randylaptop> References: <20050130123513.6d4bcf96.william.layer@comcast.net> <008b01c506fe$ede5fe20$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <6.1.2.0.2.20050130150540.03ff2130@mail.earthlink.net> <001101c50708$4d10b300$3e3fd7d1@randylaptop> <6.1.2.0.2.20050130152656.03fd4eb0@mail.earthlink.net> <000601c5070c$3c168d00$0d92d6d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20050130161448.034d2120@mail.earthlink.net> you are correct... the problem of having a classic rated memory in use. Old chips tend to develop bit droppings... At 03:42 PM 01/30/2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: >From: "Steve Thatcher" >>maybe there are two Howards then. The only one I know provides copies on >>per page copy price. Please share this second Howards site (I don't have >>it...). Thanks! >> >>At 03:14 PM 01/30/2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: >>>No, Howard does not charge to access his site. Howard does sell some >>>great hardware and is a hardware/software consultant that he charges for >>>but his site which includes documentation and software is free, at least >>>to you he pays a hosting site to provide it. > >You are probably thinking of Herb Johnson, He does not have many >downloadable manuals. He physically copies each page and charges for >them. Herb does have some downloadable material which is free. Herb has >some material only available through him. For people with dial up >internet Herb is definitely the easiest way to go. I've bought both >Hardware and copies of manuals from Herb and can say he is fair and honest. > >Howard Harte (www.hartetechnologies.com/manuals/) provides freely >downloadable material, around 3.5gb. > >My site has a mirror of Howards site plus some extra Intel files including >the MDS stuff. > > >Randy >www.s100-manuals.com From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 30 15:21:28 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic References: <20050130203848.6082.qmail@web52801.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <003601c50711$a9e0fd20$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> You wrote... > Not sure if I understand the final part of your statement... Darn, I thought I was crystal clear :) > would you agree, > or not, that within a few years (or possibly right now) we'd also have to > include the earliest versions of Windows (and other early GUI shells) that > were > still just DOS underneath? We don't really decide what becomes classic computing. Society as a whole does. They have already spoken with regards to the machines we typically discuss here, by virtue of them moving to a different (and current) school of thought in those systems. They have yet to speak on various versions of windows because they are still in common use. My own view: (just examples to illustrate the point, not meant to be a definitive list) C64 w/GEOS - definitely on-topic DOS - definitely on-topic DOS with some other early GUI shell that is not the mainstream today - definitely on-topic DOS with Windows on top of it (Win 3.1) - grey area, I suspect not though as it's certainly representitive of the current school of thought Windows - not for a long, long, long, long time. Think decades. I think that by posing the question you do, in the exact way that you did, shows a desire for us to make some kind of determination. That's not our place. We can't decide history in advance of it occuring :) Jay From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 30 15:24:42 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard In-Reply-To: <013c01c5066a$b8525270$0500fea9@game> References: <200501291720.JAA08600@floodgap.com> <41FC017F.6000901@oldskool.org> <013c01c5066a$b8525270$0500fea9@game> Message-ID: <20050130131745.M33790@shell.lmi.net> > > It took me a while to discover WHY the original PCjr keyboard used rubber > keys: > > It was so the complete newbie could use thin cardboard "overlays" that > . . . > Could also be because a chicklet keyboard (membrane type) is allot cheaper > to make then a normal IBM keyboard with mechanical switches (of that > period). And also because the PCJr keyboard will withstand significant levels of abuse. It is not waterproof nor submersible (in stock form), but it can survive most splashes and spills. If you want to build hardware to use it on a PC, you could simply use a Jr, and connect THAT to the PC. Old, used, PCJr's are the cheapest source for the hardware needed to interface a Jr keyboard to anything else. In terms of the "line of sight" issue,... fresh batteries are essential. But connecting a cord (RJ11, but does it need a twist?) turns the Jr keyboard into a corded keyboard. Many years ago, during the great "how many buttons should a mouse have?" (HMBSAMH) debate, we used velcro to attach a Jr keyboard on top of a mouse. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Jan 30 15:38:57 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer In-Reply-To: <20050130124145.C33790@shell.lmi.net> References: <1107093210.7199.21.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> <20050130124145.C33790@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <41FD53F1.4070908@oldskool.org> Fred Cisin wrote: > DISKCOPY A: A: > (you will need to swap source and target diskettes a few times. > LOTS of times on older versions of DOS. Well, only once if the disk fits in RAM... Has nothing to with DOS version unless you're running 1.x. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Jan 30 15:41:43 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050130150410.055dfa48@mail> References: <6.2.0.14.2.20050130150410.055dfa48@mail> Message-ID: <41FD5497.1070605@oldskool.org> John Foust wrote: > Several companies made/make such devices. I remember the NwTek Calibar That was awesome. > http://www.itworks.com/products/portapattern-basic.htm That is *not* awesome -- it is a USB key running software. You hook it into a laptop and the laptop is the generator. See my previous message on not being able to trust the output of computers (noisy, wrong levels, etc.) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to Sun Jan 30 15:46:46 2005 From: jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FD55C6.4020307@compsys.to> >Al Kossow wrote: > I run RT11 on a ZIP drive, read a bunch of images, and sneakernet the > ZIP cart over to a system with E11 to dump the images. Jerome Fine replies: Please help me understand? I have also used a so-called SCSI insider Iomega 100 MByte Zip drive on both a real DEC PDP-11 using a CQD 220/TM host adapter and on a PC using an Adaptec AHA-2940AU host adapter. On both the PDP-11 and the PC, I run RT-11 (under E11 on the PC with MOUNT DU0: SCSI0:). Originally, I was asked to convert a PDP-11 system from an RQDX3 to a CQD 200/M host adapter. When a removable media was needed, the Zip drive was used instead of the RX50. Since the media on the Zip drive have a larger capacity than the RD53 drives originally on that PDP-11 system, a single media backup using the Zip drive became possible. When did SCSI 50 pin Zip drives first appear? That seems to be almost 10 years ago. Later, it became possible to also use the same Zip media under E11 on a PC to run RT-11 or just to transfer files. I have also used the Sony SMO S-501 with excellent results on both the real DEC PDP-11 and the PC. Once I had a SCSI host adapter on both systems, the SCSI drives were no longer a problem. It is also possible to take a SCSI hard drive running RT-11 on a real DEC PDP-11 and use the drive as is to run RT-11 on a PC under E11, although I had to work around the problem that Windows 98 SE does not initially recognize the SCSI hard drive because Windows 98 SE requires the SCSI hard drive to be initialized with a FAT 16 or FAT 32 directory (even though the specified error under Windows 98 SE is that the SCSI hard drive is not formatted). Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to Sun Jan 30 15:47:05 2005 From: jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FD55D9.4080409@compsys.to> >Tony Duell wrote: >>>Please don't take this as a flame, but I am always suprised by the people >>>who run classic computers (as opposed to running emulators) and who don't >>>want to get into the hardware. To me [1] that's one of the reasons for >>>running an old machine. >>> >>> >>Trust me, I don't take it as a flame, we just have different area's >>of interest. My area of interest is primarily in the Operating >> >Sure... > Jerome Fine replies: As many of you know, I am purely an RT-11 (operating system) addict. While I am able to wire wrap a DLV11-J board and plug it into the Qbus backplane, that is about my hardware limit. I doubt that I could successfully solder anything at this point and I do not wish to spend the time that it would take to acquire even 10% of what Tony has forgotten. >>Systems that run on the various platforms, and I'm coming to the >>conclusion that I'm better served by emulators in most cases. I'd >>really like to dig in and learn the hardware on my PDP-8's, and even >>the -11's at a very low level, but I simply do not have the time. >> >Well, while I doubt I could write an OS from scratch (or a compiler, >or...), I have been known to read source listings, make (small) changes, >and so on. If you turn that round, while I don't think everyone needs to >know how to _design_ a CPU (or whatever), it's helpful if you have some >idea how they work, and how to find faults, etc... > >Of course there is the big difference that correctly working hardware can >fail (a component can go out-of-spec), correctly working software >doesn't. But anyway... > Don't be so sure. I know of one bug in RT-11 which has been there for over 30 years. Because it fails on a random basis, and even then VERY rarely, the specific nature of the bug does not seem to have been detected, as far as I know, by anyone else. I have a fix which hobby users will have available as soon as the documentation is finished. Don't assume that even very widely used old software that seems to be working correctly has no bugs. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to Sun Jan 30 15:48:27 2005 From: jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FD562B.6000403@compsys.to> >Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >So I'm in the process of pulling a bunch of files off of some RX02 disks >to get them onto a PC. > >So far (thanks to help from Howard Harte) I've got an 11/44 with an RX02 >drive running RSTS that has the DD module loaded. I'm running the serial >tape drive simulator on a PC (I forget what it's called or who wrote it). >So I can do: > >COPY DY1:*.* DD0: > >Which then copies all the files off of the disk into an image file on my >PC. Works very nicely, albeit slowly (only 9600bps transfer rate). > >Is there a better way to do this? I've seen various postings of people >getting RX02 drives connected to Linux boxen. How so? Has anyone done >this? > >I also found this: > >http://www.chd.dyndns.org/rx02/ > >This is very cool. It's an RX02 simluator (hardware/software) that makes >your PDP11 think your PC is an RX02 drive. It would be great if I could >read the files from a real RX02 and then dump them into the emulated RX02. > > Jerome Fine replies: I am fortunate enough to have a SCSI host adapter connected to a Sony SMO S-501 on the real DEC PDP-11. On the PC, I have an Adaptec AHA-2940AU host adapter with a separate Sony SMO S-501. Thus, any files on either system can be copied to the SMO media and then read on the other system. Once the media is on the PC, then the PUTR program from John Wilson is easily able to read the file on the SMO media and transfer the file to the directory on the PC, although I admit that I have used PUTR only under Windows 95 and 98 SE. Of course, I doubt this really answers your question since it seems like you really want to easily be able to read RX02 media directly on the PC. >Can a PDP11 have two sets of RX02 drives installed at once? If so, do the >second set of drives become DY2: and DY3:? > Under RT-11, it is trivial to perform a SYSGEN which allows DY2: and DY3:, although you also must realize that the RX02 controller ONLY supports 18 bit addresses. Of course, the RT-11 operating system can support the full 4 MByte address space if there is extra code to support a bounce buffer within the DYX.SYS device driver. In addition, it is possible for both a real PDP-11 and an emulator to easily support up to 4 RX02 controllers for a total of 8 DY drives (DY0: => DY7:). But I don't think that I have ever seen a real PDP-11 system with more than 2 dual RX02 drives. AND as far as I know, neither emulator for the PDP-11 allows more than 2 RX02 controllers. BUT, if it was really important, I am sure that could easily be changed. There were also a few third party controllers that supported hardware 22-bit addresses, but DEC never bothered to allow this hardware. DECUS has RT-11 device drivers for RT-11 to support many of the third party RX02 controllers for RT-11 which have 22-bit hardware. In addition, I know where it is possible to find a version of DYX.SYS which supports a bounce buffer so that 22 bit user buffers are allowed under RT-11 with only 18 bit hardware for the RX02 controller, both real DEC RX02 and emulated. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From jfoust at threedee.com Sun Jan 30 15:49:57 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: <41FD5497.1070605@oldskool.org> References: <6.2.0.14.2.20050130150410.055dfa48@mail> <41FD5497.1070605@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050130154916.05710f40@mail> At 03:41 PM 1/30/2005, you wrote: >That is *not* awesome -- it is a USB key running software. You hook it into a laptop and the laptop is the generator. See my previous message on not being able to trust the output of computers (noisy, wrong levels, etc.) I wasn't recommending it, just pointing at that page - it described the Calibar as well as theirs, and there are others. - John From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Jan 30 15:55:50 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: NTSC test pattern generator on VCD? In-Reply-To: <6.2.0.14.2.20050130154916.05710f40@mail> References: <6.2.0.14.2.20050130150410.055dfa48@mail> <41FD5497.1070605@oldskool.org> <6.2.0.14.2.20050130154916.05710f40@mail> Message-ID: <41FD57E6.2030608@oldskool.org> John Foust wrote: > At 03:41 PM 1/30/2005, you wrote: > >>That is *not* awesome -- it is a USB key running software. You hook it into a laptop and the laptop is the generator. See my previous message on not being able to trust the output of computers (noisy, wrong levels, etc.) > > I wasn't recommending it, just pointing at that page - it described > the Calibar as well as theirs, and there are others. I know, I was just posting a warning. The specific product at that page is a media player they are marketing as a signal generator. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 30 16:01:20 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 14:44 -0600, Jim Leonard wrote: > der Mouse wrote: > >>I recently wanted to send something to someone relating to a > >>non-computer related project I'm working on, and due to what it is, I > >>don't want anyone being able to modify the file, but I don't mind > >>them printing it out, I was able to do this with PDF. > > > > Sorry to burst your bubble, but you weren't. All you were able to do > > is make it a bit harder. (If it can be printed, it can be captured and > > modified - at least until they get DRM pushed into printers, and given > > the installed base, that won't be a for a while yet.) > > Well, where do you stop? DRM in video cards so that you can't take a screen > capture? DRM in monitors so that the picture blanks out when you turn your > head? DRM in the human optic nerve? I mean, come on. Uh huh - DRM in the brain. I mean, look at the way countries are jumping on the compulsory biometric passport / ID card thing everywhere these days. Soon after that it'll be biometric cards with RFID chips in, then compulsory RFID implants, and soon after that it'll be possible just to zap someone if they're sitting in front of a piece of technology doing something that they're not supposed to ;-) Back to the PDF problem, I still don't follow the *why*. Sure, modern PCs generally have Acrobat reader installed. But even more machines than that can read postscript, and even more than that still can handle a bunch of TIFF images (I'm talking about scanned image data here of course, not plain text). Why would someone want to limit the audience who can view their data? And if someone receives a bunch of images and is desperate for PDF, then they obviously have a machine capable of handling PDF, and therefore running the various free tools that'll create PDF files from images. Going from images to PDF on a machine capable of viewing PDF is easy. Doing the opposite and going from PDF to images on a machine that's not capable of viewing PDF is so much harder. Given that you're representing the same data at the end of the day, surely it's a no-brainer? I'm not anti-PDF at all; in some situations it's very useful (much better than a Word doc, say) - but for scanned pages relating to classic hardware it seems the wrong choice. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 30 16:08:10 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer In-Reply-To: <41FD53F1.4070908@oldskool.org> References: <1107093210.7199.21.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> <20050130124145.C33790@shell.lmi.net> <41FD53F1.4070908@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20050130140611.M33790@shell.lmi.net> > > DISKCOPY A: A: > > (you will need to swap source and target diskettes a few times. > > LOTS of times on older versions of DOS. > On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: > Well, only once if the disk fits in RAM... Has nothing to with DOS version > unless you're running 1.x. I could be misremembering (as usual?), but ISTR it being around DOS 3.31 that they switched from using 64K for a buffer during DISKCOPY over to using all of RAM. From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Jan 30 16:11:13 2005 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: <20050130203848.6082.qmail@web52801.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050130203848.6082.qmail@web52801.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <41FD5B81.30205@mdrconsult.com> Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > Not sure if I understand the final part of your statement... would you agree, > or not, that within a few years (or possibly right now) we'd also have to > include the earliest versions of Windows (and other early GUI shells) that were > still just DOS underneath? Yeah! And what about DesQviewX? Huh, Huh???? I'm joking. Your question is valid, if this discussion is valid at all. Data point 1: I've never seen any opposition to discussion of SGI O2s, for example, even though they're several years short of the 10-year rule. Data point 2: I've never seen any discussion of MS Windows of *any* version survive more than a day or so. Well, not since Mr. Erlacher unsubbed. My point: There are too many exceptions to any on-topic/off-topic rule, whether it's based on age, architecture, sales base, speed, whatever. IMHO, even some of the Windows 9x/2k/XP threads have been very on-topic and useful, dealing with interaction with or support of classic systems. The real working rule seems to me to be "old stuff in which some of us are interested, but we Don't Do Windows if we can help it", and except for the What's On-Topic threads, the list seems to self-govern that pretty consistantly. The only genuine purpose of having a specific policy, again IMHO, is to guard the front door - to inform people looking to join a CC-list what we're about. Doc From redodd at comcast.net Sun Jan 30 16:25:10 2005 From: redodd at comcast.net (Ralph E. Dodd) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer Message-ID: <004001c5071a$904fa510$6401a8c0@mainpc> Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer >Joe - >Re: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2004-May/029003.html >Do you have a Portable III setup disk? Can you image/zip it and send it to me? I have a friend that >uses one of these regularly as a MIDI device - works great, now he wants to get his spare up and >running. >Thanks, >Mark Here it is. http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/obsolete_diagnostics.html Ralph From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 30 16:43:51 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:21 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic References: <20050130203848.6082.qmail@web52801.mail.yahoo.com> <41FD5B81.30205@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <002a01c5071d$2c0861c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> You wrote... > Yeah! And what about DesQviewX? Huh, Huh???? Desqview is clearly on-topic, see my previous post :> > Data point 1: I've never seen any opposition to discussion of SGI O2s, > for example, even though they're several years short of the 10-year rule. Because they fit the definition I gave (or more specifically, that the dictionary gave). They are generally considered classic :) > Data point 2: I've never seen any discussion of MS Windows of *any* > version survive more than a day or so. Well, not since Mr. Erlacher > unsubbed. True, I have a lot of faith in the self-policing nature of the people here :> And as an alternate datapointOfView, Mr. Erlacher did have some good input at times! I left out in my previous definition of "classic", the second word of the list name - "Computing". So classic cars are not on-topic. Unless you want to discuss interfacing an 11/40 to the engine, or the oddball microprocessor in the car that is no longer in common use ;) Jay West From mhstein at canada.com Sun Jan 30 14:36:55 2005 From: mhstein at canada.com (mhstein@canada.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Using an IBM PCjr wireless keyboard Message-ID: <20050130123656.12144.h011.c009.wm@mail.canada.com.criticalpath.net> ----------Original Message----------- ....Has anyone ever tried to use the PCjr wireless keyboard on a modern system? Any recommendations? Thanks. Rich --------------------------------------------- There is a Serial Port IR receiver on the mini-ITX hardware page; looks like the LIRC without the regulator. BTW: if you or anyone else (except Cameron - I know what he'd do with it!) needs or wants one, I've got a PCjr keyboard (the one with "real" keys), NOS/IB; $10+S mike mhstein at canada dot com From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 30 17:35:56 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: <002a01c5071d$2c0861c0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <20050130233556.24635.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> Yeah, if I recall, last time we had this thread someone brought up Forth being used in a Lotus. Ummm, that's Lotus the British sports car company, not Lotus the software company! or the oddball microprocessor > in the car that is no longer in common use ;) > > Jay West > > > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 665 readers and counting! From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Sun Jan 30 18:22:28 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <0501310022.AA23881@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > Sorry to burst your bubble, but your experiment has been tried already. > It was called the Soviet Union. It crumbled in a most mighty fashion > after about 50 years. Simply stated, Communism doesn't work. I'm stating here on the record that I most totally disagree with you on every single point, most importantly that the Soviet Union *never* failed or crumbled, but was rather decimated by an ET race of dragons, and I have enlisted in the Galactic Federation Armed Forces to fight and reverse that defeat. Communism DOES work, it is the most wonderful system in the Universe, and I *WILL* prove it to you, though unfortunately I'm afraid the proof will have to be in the form of a bullet to the head for all you greedy capitalist pigs. If it were up to me, I would like to flame you to death here on this list, but per Jay's request I'll refrain from doing so and this will be my final word on the subject. MS From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 30 18:24:45 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Replacing 8" drive with 3.5" drive on CP/M systems In-Reply-To: <000501c50660$46a8ecb0$5a3cd7d1@randylaptop> References: <000501c50660$46a8ecb0$5a3cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <20050130161503.V33790@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 29 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > I have tried to get a quorum on comp.os.cpm but there are only a few with > any opinions. > We all agree that 3.5" drives are a viable way to go. Many prefer to never > change from 8" drives. > I have a variety of CP/M systems with a variety of storage mediums. > The point is for those of us that use 3.5" HD drives should try and come to > a consensus for a "standardized" format. > Questions such as sector size and numbering come to mind. Why not just stick with 8"? About 25 years ago, I asked Gary Kildall what the standard format was for 5.25" CP/M. He replied "eight inch single density". I said, "but what about machines with 5.25 inch drives? What is the standard format for them?" He replied "eight inch single density." If you are going to create a "new" CP/M format, then I would recommend using the same PHYSICAL specs as PC and Mac: 80 tracks per side, 2 sides, 18 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector. That will simplify significantly the code needed to be able to write programs for transferring files back and forth. But the easiest ones to implement would be to match the format of their existing formats. 1.2M 5.25" drives were originally designed to be an almost drop-in replacement for 8" drives, with specs that look almost identical to the host machine. If you're intent on using 3.5" HD, then the easiest to implement (2 * 80 * 15 * 512) would waste a sizable amount of space, but who NEEDS more than that? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jan 30 18:31:25 2005 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 30 Jan 2005 15:35:56 PST." <20050130233556.24635.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200501310031.j0V0VPcw008241@mwave.heeltoe.com> Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >Yeah, if I recall, last time we had this thread someone brought up Forth being >used in a Lotus. really? which one? (ok, I'll admit it - I want a yellow '69 Europa. alway have. but I can't imagine it has any computers in it. maybe some webers ;-) -brad From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG Sun Jan 30 18:34:58 2005 From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic Message-ID: <0501310034.AA23977@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Jay, thank you for your definition of classicness, I have saved your message and will use it as a reference. It perfectly agrees with my own thoughts on what is classic and what isn't, and I'm glad that you were able to put it in writing eloquently so I didn't have to. :-) MS From Saquinn624 at aol.com Sun Jan 30 18:35:32 2005 From: Saquinn624 at aol.com (Saquinn624@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: manual file types Message-ID: <96.1fe335ee.2f2ed754@aol.com> Sounds like the most useful file types for scans of manuals would be one of: TIFF file (big) OCRed ASCII text (ugly) compressed PostScript of OCRed text (depending on OCR, could be nice). Is this right? -Scott Quinn From williams.dan at gmail.com Sun Jan 30 18:35:49 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: RL02 disk packs Message-ID: <26c11a6405013016357daad5e3@mail.gmail.com> There are 10 of these on ebay for ?15 each. Postage is quite high for just one. But they end tomorrow. I have no connection with seller, just thought someone would be interested. Dan From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jan 30 18:38:00 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: >Back to the PDF problem, I still don't follow the *why*. Sure, modern >PCs generally have Acrobat reader installed. But even more machines than >that can read postscript, and even more than that still can handle a >bunch of TIFF images (I'm talking about scanned image data here of >course, not plain text). > >Why would someone want to limit the audience who can view their data? >And if someone receives a bunch of images and is desperate for PDF, then >they obviously have a machine capable of handling PDF, and therefore >running the various free tools that'll create PDF files from images. I don't view PDF's as limiting my audience, I would view TIFF's as limiting my audience. People here need to stop and remember that they're not typical computer users. Shoot, some computer users have enough trouble reading PDF's, do you really think they're capable of handling other formats? Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From Saquinn624 at aol.com Sun Jan 30 18:51:59 2005 From: Saquinn624 at aol.com (Saquinn624@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Surplus Items (cleaning out my compuer room) Message-ID: Expanded list: This is kind of a mixup, things are listed as I got to them. If you want to trade for them, great, if not e-mail me and I might give it to you FFS. I'm in Western Wash., and I will ship stuff. Sun 4-drive lunchbox (most parts were removed) Sun Ultra-1 case (PS bad) I'm probably going to toss these, but if anyone needs them, they're FFS. Wyse-150 terminal -- works but NVRAM battery dead (BR-type lithium)(hit space on powerup to clear batt error) RS/6000 3CT parts. processor card, planar, S4.5 memory card, floppy, P/S, SCSI cable, processor power card, case, Medeco lock&key, Ethernet interface card (AUI & thin), probably some other stuff. Novell NetWare 2.2 serialized 5 user & manuals, for 286, 386, 486 Microsoft InPort bus mouse (8-bit ISA). Okidata Microline 24 pin printhead, carriage, narrow-format gear rack, RS-232 interface & tractor Compaq ProLiant drive tray for SCA drives, wide-ultra compatible [may be taken] Sun SPUD-2 sled Power Macintosh 7200/75 Logic board HP PA-8000 processor fan/heatsink assembly, from C180 Macintosh 1.44 MB diskette drive (new type-with door) Mac (DB-15) to VGA (HD-15) video cable Texas Microsystems SVC-70 SBus Versatec interface Sun SPARCstation 5/110, 128MB/2GB with SunOS 4.1.3_U1 or Solaris 2.6, includes Type 5c keyboard/mouse Indigo2 feet (in IMPACT purple) IBM P-200 20" 13W3 Trinitron monitor with 13W3 cable. IRIS Indigo drive sled IBM RS/6000 keyboard (clicky IBM with integrated speaker) IRIS Indigo2 IMPACT R4400/250 (Solid IMPACT) Indigo2 IMPACT R4400/250 Dual Head (Solid/Extreme) Indy R5000SC/150, XL8 (IRIX backups with above if wanted) Power Macintosh 7200 (Upgraded to Tsunami/180MHz)(can downgrade to orig. if wanted) IBM MCA GTX-150M graphics for RS/6000 IBM CATIA/CADAM Version 4 Release 2 software for AIX IBM AIX version 4.3.3 documentation IBM buttons and dials, model 6094-010 & 6094-020 Sun type 5c keyboard Dell Latitude CP PCMCIA card slot module Dell Latitude CP keyboard Dell Latitude CP 233 MHz Pentium-M processor module Dell Latitude CP touchpad& palm rest Dell Latitude CP bottom case with latches. Things I'm looking for: Motorola 88k (e.g. AViiON) , DEC stuff, SGI Indigo/IRIS 68k, small Control Data/Data General, and other "interesting" hardware, also Mac stuff, MMJ->console (DB-25m) cable, scope probes (for Tek 555? scope), SCSI cables, Sun Ultra1 RAM, and so on. S/W: IRIX, 4.0.5 (All platforms/IDE) Domain/OS 10.4.1 (tapes or installation tools and Authorized Area copy), DG/UX for AViiON 88k, NeXTstep/OpenStep (Intel/Sun), fun IRIX/SunOS/Solaris/Domain/HP-UX stuff, things like that. parallel keyboard for CP/M system, Apollo documentation (425e/SR10.4.1) or-make me an offer. -Scott Quinn From ggs at shiresoft.com Sun Jan 30 18:51:50 2005 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1107132710.12886.10.camel@fafnir.shiresoft.com> On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 09:35 -0800, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > So I'm in the process of pulling a bunch of files off of some RX02 disks > to get them onto a PC. > > So far (thanks to help from Howard Harte) I've got an 11/44 with an RX02 > drive running RSTS that has the DD module loaded. I'm running the serial > tape drive simulator on a PC (I forget what it's called or who wrote it). > So I can do: > > COPY DY1:*.* DD0: > > Which then copies all the files off of the disk into an image file on my > PC. Works very nicely, albeit slowly (only 9600bps transfer rate). > > Is there a better way to do this? I've seen various postings of people > getting RX02 drives connected to Linux boxen. How so? Has anyone done > this? On my 11/45 running v7 unix, I "dd" the floppies I want into the appropriate files on one of the disks and then use "tar" to write them onto a 9-track tape. I then sneakernet the 9-track tape over to a PC that has a SCSI 9-track tape drive and read them off. It turns out to be *much* faster than serial. It works *very* well and I use it in both directions...if there's an image that I want to get from the net onto "real" media, I put it on a tape and then carry the tape over to the 11/45 and write it onto the appropriate media. > > I also found this: > > http://www.chd.dyndns.org/rx02/ > > This is very cool. It's an RX02 simluator (hardware/software) that makes > your PDP11 think your PC is an RX02 drive. It would be great if I could > read the files from a real RX02 and then dump them into the emulated RX02. > > Can a PDP11 have two sets of RX02 drives installed at once? If so, do the > second set of drives become DY2: and DY3:? > -- TTFN - Guy From randy at s100-manuals.com Sun Jan 30 19:01:39 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Replacing 8" drive with 3.5" drive on CP/M systems References: <000501c50660$46a8ecb0$5a3cd7d1@randylaptop> <20050130161503.V33790@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <001401c50730$6e1016e0$ba3cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Fred Cisin" > On Sat, 29 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: >> I have tried to get a quorum on comp.os.cpm but there are only a few with >> any opinions. >> We all agree that 3.5" drives are a viable way to go. Many prefer to >> never >> change from 8" drives. >> I have a variety of CP/M systems with a variety of storage mediums. >> The point is for those of us that use 3.5" HD drives should try and come >> to >> a consensus for a "standardized" format. >> Questions such as sector size and numbering come to mind. > > Why not just stick with 8"? > About 25 years ago, I asked Gary Kildall what the standard format was for > 5.25" CP/M. > He replied "eight inch single density". > I said, "but what about machines with 5.25 inch drives? What is the > standard format for them?" > He replied "eight inch single density." > > > If you are going to create a "new" CP/M format, then I would recommend > using the same PHYSICAL specs as PC and Mac: 80 tracks per side, 2 sides, > 18 sectors per track, 512 bytes per sector. That will simplify > significantly the code needed to be able to write programs for > transferring files back and forth. > > But the easiest ones to implement would be to match the format of their > existing formats. 1.2M 5.25" drives were originally designed to be an > almost drop-in replacement for 8" drives, with specs that look almost > identical to the host machine. If you're intent on using 3.5" HD, then > the easiest to implement (2 * 80 * 15 * 512) would waste a sizable amount > of space, but who NEEDS more than that? > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com One of the "standard" formats recommended by Teac is 2 * 80 * 18 * 512 for 3.5" HD which I personally lean toward. As I see it there are more storage devices that use 512 byte sectors because of the great and all seeing OZ (aka Willy boy). The Imsai Series 2 SuperIO boots from Flash ROM but I have recommended to Howard Harte to put an offset of two tracks so other systems can use compatible formats. I agree 8" SSSD is the only standard that exists for CP/M, I am only trying to create a defacto-standard for systems coming into the 3.5" world. A format of consensus if possible, I am beginning to doubt that a quorum of interested people can be developed. Randy From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 30 19:02:39 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501310022.AA23881@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501310022.AA23881@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <20050130164825.M33790@shell.lmi.net> > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > Sorry to burst your bubble, but your experiment has been tried already. > > It was called the Soviet Union. It crumbled in a most mighty fashion > > after about 50 years. Simply stated, Communism doesn't work. On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Michael Sokolov wrote: > I'm stating here on the record that I most totally disagree with you > on every single point, most importantly that the Soviet Union *never* > failed or crumbled, but was rather decimated by an ET race of dragons, Dragons could never survive the Russian winter! It has defeated all other invaders. > and I have enlisted in the Galactic Federation Armed Forces to fight I'll bet that they promised to send you to a Magrathean pleasure planet. Military recruiters ALWAYS lie. > and reverse that defeat. Communism DOES work, it is the most wonderful > system in the Universe, and I *WILL* prove it to you, though unfortunately ... and you've seen ALL of the other systems in the universe? That could take MONTHS! > I'm afraid the proof will have to be in the form of a bullet to the head > for all you greedy capitalist pigs. If it were up to me, I would like to flame > you to death here on this list, but per Jay's request I'll refrain > from doing so and this will be my final word on the subject. There may be many insults that you could direct at Sellam. But he is not much of a capitalist, and in his dealings with me he hasn't been greedy. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Jan 30 19:06:25 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <41FD8491.4090203@oldskool.org> Jules Richardson wrote: > Back to the PDF problem, I still don't follow the *why*. Sure, modern > PCs generally have Acrobat reader installed. But even more machines than > that can read postscript, and even more than that still can handle a > bunch of TIFF images (I'm talking about scanned image data here of > course, not plain text). You must be talking from the position of a *nix user. In the Windows world -- where, like it or not, much of our newbie target audience is -- it is nearly impossible to view a .ps but is almost universally possible to view a .pdf. > And if someone receives a bunch of images and is desperate for PDF, then > they obviously have a machine capable of handling PDF, and therefore > running the various free tools that'll create PDF files from images. That is one of the MISuses of PDF. PDF should not be used as a container for bitmap images. PDF *should* be used for text-only documents, or documents lightly mixed with graphics (preferably resolution-independant vector/line-art). In case it wasn't obvious, PDF *is* Postscript! It's *portable* postscript. > I'm not anti-PDF at all; in some situations it's very useful (much > better than a Word doc, say) - but for scanned pages relating to classic > hardware it seems the wrong choice. If the scanned pages cannot be OCR'd then I completely agree. And it is at this point that I believe I am arguing for PDF for a poster that is not yourself :-) I should know better than to jump into threads where I can't see the top post ;-) The best format for mixed text and graphics that do NOT need to be indexed (ie converted to text) is DjVu ("DejaVu"). DjVu is a mixed-type format that keeps a B&W image of the text and a color or grayscale image of everything else in the same file, and each layer is compressed with a method appropriate to their content type. Unfortunately, the best DjVu tools cost significant money, so it hasn't taken off. I haven't used it beyond a few experiments myself. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 30 19:06:57 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Surplus Items (cleaning out my compuer room) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050130170352.G33790@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 Saquinn624@aol.com wrote: > Expanded list: > This is kind of a mixup, things are listed as I got to them. If you want to > trade for them, great, if not e-mail me and I might give it to you FFS. I'm in > Western Wash., and I will ship stuff. > Dell Latitude CP PCMCIA card slot module > Dell Latitude CP keyboard > Dell Latitude CP 233 MHz Pentium-M processor module > Dell Latitude CP touchpad& palm rest > Dell Latitude CP bottom case with latches. I could use the Latitude CP keyboard (and the rest of the Dell stuff as spares). How much would you want for them? Shipping would be to 94706 -- Fred Cisin cisin@xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com 1213 Cornell Ave Berkeley, CA 94706 PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366 Berkeley, CA 94701-1236 From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Jan 30 19:08:57 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer In-Reply-To: <20050130140611.M33790@shell.lmi.net> References: <1107093210.7199.21.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> <20050130124145.C33790@shell.lmi.net> <41FD53F1.4070908@oldskool.org> <20050130140611.M33790@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <41FD8529.8050704@oldskool.org> Fred Cisin wrote: >>>DISKCOPY A: A: >>>(you will need to swap source and target diskettes a few times. >>>LOTS of times on older versions of DOS. >> > On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: > >>Well, only once if the disk fits in RAM... Has nothing to with DOS version >>unless you're running 1.x. > > I could be misremembering (as usual?), but > ISTR it being around DOS 3.31 that they switched from using 64K for a > buffer during DISKCOPY over to using all of RAM. You misremember. My first PC clone came with 2.11 and it used all of available memory for the stock DISKCOPY.COM. I can't speak for 1.x because I haven't tested it. I wouldn't be surprised if 1.x only used 64K of RAM, though. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 30 19:13:35 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Surplus Items (cleaning out my compuer room) In-Reply-To: <20050130170352.G33790@shell.lmi.net> References: <20050130170352.G33790@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20050130171300.J33790@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 Saquinn624@aol.com wrote: > > Expanded list: Sorry That should have been sent privately! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 30 19:25:03 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200501310126.UAA17658@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > PDF is great for [its] intended purpose: Creating portable documents > that can be viewed and printed regardless of the resolution of the > output device. But not really any different from PostScript in that regard. At least not if you think of the Document Structuring Conventions as mandatory. > A PDF I create with vector line art looks great on my 10-yr-old 300 > DPI postscript printer, but on a 1200 DPI printer of today it is > flawless. And a PostScript file ditto, ditto. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Jan 30 19:30:07 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501310126.UAA17658@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <200501310126.UAA17658@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <41FD8A1F.8000007@oldskool.org> der Mouse wrote: >>PDF is great for [its] intended purpose: Creating portable documents >>that can be viewed and printed regardless of the resolution of the >>output device. > > But not really any different from PostScript in that regard. At least > not if you think of the Document Structuring Conventions as mandatory. > >>A PDF I create with vector line art looks great on my 10-yr-old 300 >>DPI postscript printer, but on a 1200 DPI printer of today it is >>flawless. > > And a PostScript file ditto, ditto. Yes, but how many windows users do you know that can view or print PS files? At least with PDF I know that 1. people can view it, and 2. people can print it without PS printers and not have it look like crap (line primitives are converter to line primitives, NOT rasterized like ghostscript does). -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From bpope at wordstock.com Sun Jan 30 19:29:04 2005 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: <003601c50711$a9e0fd20$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Jan 30, 05 03:21:28 pm Message-ID: <200501310129.UAA16145@wordstock.com> And thusly Jay West spake: > > My own view: (just examples to illustrate the point, not meant to be a > definitive list) > C64 w/GEOS - definitely on-topic What about new software on classic computers?? Say for example Wheels or WiNGs? Cheers, Bryan Pope From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 19:35:35 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Al Kossow wrote: > > Works very nicely > > Assuming there are no bad blocks on the floppy Right. That was other thing that I was going to ask about. Is there a way to tell the COPY command to not fail on errors? Is there a better command than COPY to use to move files over? > A Catweazel board in a PC will read DEC double density discs as well > although I've not been very impressed with abilities of the data > separator code on double-density data. I checked out the Catweazel recently and it's turned into much more than a disk controller. That's not a bad thing, but at any rate, is the software/drivers any good? > I've had the best results recovering RX02 data using dual-wide QBus > floppy controllers that have a 50 pin interface (Sigma Designs et. al.) > and a Qume DT-8 drive. > > I run RT11 on a ZIP drive, read a bunch of images, and sneakernet the > ZIP cart over to a system with E11 to dump the images. Can you provide a few more details? I assume the ZIP drive is running off a SCSI interface? How do you make the RX02 images under RT11: what utility do you use? I'm assuming since I can't find anything about subdirectories on RT11 that they don't exist? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 19:37:13 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: MAJOR OT - Re: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD286A.D9CB88FB@rain.org> Message-ID: On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Marvin Johnston wrote: > importantly to the comments below, I think you will find that Communism > and Socialism are not the same. Indeed, but MS has indicated he's a Communist, which is what I was referring to (inspite of the context of the message ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 19:46:47 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD2E41.4090803@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, woodelf wrote: > Why not just forget the 10 year rule altogether and just address the > problem of Microsoft/Mac/Linux > modern products. You need two lists soon -- classic computers ( blinking > lights) and classic 8 bit cpu's ( ie - cp/M) > and modern classic computers ... 386's +. > Ben. > PS. or just two lists ... stuff with binking lights and junk with out. :) > stuff: junk we keep. junk: stuff we toss out. Can we please stick to sane suggestions? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 30 19:50:39 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD2E41.4090803@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <41FD2E41.4090803@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20050130174017.S18147@localhost> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, woodelf wrote: > Subject: Re: Many things > > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > >> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >> In full knowledge that this will only prolong YAIOT10YRD (Yet Another >> Iteration of the 10 Year Rule Discussion) how about we say the rule is GAK! >>>>>>>>> I did not write the above, Sellam did :-) Communication technology failed us. > PS. or just two lists ... stuff with binking lights and junk with out. :) > stuff: junk we keep. junk: stuff we toss out. Well, many old machines, like the 1950's LGP-30, don't have *any* blinking lights. My LGP-21 POWER, STOP, START, I/O pushbuttons. Only three of them light. None blink. It's old. I think 10 yrs is as fine as anything, for now. Personally (my personal preference, not a judgement call) is anything in a beige box is landfill (I make rare exceptions). Hypothetically, in 5, 10, 15 years when the DEC crowd (bulk of the list) has been replaced with Microsoft products, I won't be here. That stuff bores me to tears. I realize others stay up at night fantasizing over it. Each their own perversions. Another alternative to the 10-year rule is something with a specific cutoff date, and an entirely subjective sloppy exceptions list. Personally, I'd be happy with the list utterly excluding Microsoft and Apple products wider than 8 bits (8088 is 16 bits). Or maybe two [four] lists, vintage Dos/Win (actually, that might fly anyways) and the crustier stuff separate. Not very seriously, you could say any computer that consumes < 5 amps at the line cord is excluded, but then there's the LGP-21 again -- 300 watts. Tom Jennings From tomj at wps.com Sun Jan 30 19:55:48 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20050130175204.P18147@localhost> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Zane H. Healy wrote: > and due to what it is, I don't > want anyone being able to modify the file, but I don't mind them printing it > out, I was able to do this with PDF. But that isn't true! I can trivially take apart PDFs. I cut'n'paste for fair-useish purposes routinely. "Don't want" people to take files apart, I agree with you, a well-crafted document becomes a mess. But if someone is determined, etc. It makes for a nice disclaimer for you to not support it post-mess, but it doesn't and can't actually stop anyone. It's just (viewable as) a byte stream, after all. Tom Jennings From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 30 19:48:45 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501310022.AA23881@ivan.Harhan.ORG> References: <0501310022.AA23881@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <200501310155.UAA17765@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Simply stated, Communism doesn't work. MS's take on it aside...actually, communism (as distinct from Communism) *does* work, right up to, usually, somewhere in the low hundreds of people. (I speculate that this is about the point at which you no longer can personally know everyone else involved.) Shared apartments, etc - often very communistic, sometimes explicitly so ("communes"), and they work. Until they get too big. (Or unless they're torn apart by other forces, which certainly happens.) Now, Communism, well, I'm not entirely sure just what that is, unless it's "what happens to communism when you try to extend it to something the size of a country". /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 19:54:00 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20050130152656.03fd4eb0@mail.earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Steve Thatcher wrote: > maybe there are two Howards then. The only one I know provides copies on > per page copy price. Please share this second Howards site (I don't have > it...). Thanks! I think you're thinking of Herb Johnson, who does charge. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 30 19:56:08 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <200501310159.UAA17783@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I don't view PDF's as limiting my audience, I would view TIFF's as > limiting my audience. People here need to stop and remember that > they're not typical computer users. Neither are people who want Classic computer documentation. I suspect that being in the "market" for scanned Classic documentation correlates positively, and at least moerately strongly, with preferring a bunch of TIFFs, or whatever, over a PDF. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 30 20:04:01 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic References: <200501310129.UAA16145@wordstock.com> Message-ID: <005201c50739$223731a0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> > What about new software on classic computers?? Say for example Wheels > or WiNGs? See previous post, it's covered. From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jan 30 20:04:56 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Randy wrote: > I don't agree, Adobe needs to make some improvements. One I really want > is compressed files. Other formats have great compression ratios when > compared to PDF's. I post PDF's because that is the defacto standard but > I want something that lets me post more on my site without costing me more. Huh? PDF supports G4 fax compression and the newer JBIG compression algorithms, which until very recently (with the advent of JBIG2) were the to highest-compression lossless bilevel algorithms publicly available. I stick to G4 because it's not encumbered by patents, but JBIG can compress about 5-10% better. For continuous-tone images, PDF supports JPEG compression and a few other types. What formats are you claiming have better compression than PDF? Eric From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 30 20:00:35 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD8491.4090203@oldskool.org> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> <41FD8491.4090203@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200501310205.VAA17814@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > In case it wasn't obvious, PDF *is* Postscript! It's *portable* > postscript. Actually, significantly less portable in someways; for example, a PDF is far more likely to be a binary file rather than a text file (as compared to a PostScript file). While I haven't looked into it in enough detail to be sure, I suspect that PDF is a rather emasculated subset of PostScript - that it's PS subsetted down to the point where it's no longer a general-purpose programming language with a heavy page-description slant, but rather a page-description language that cannot be used for general-purpose programming. Indeed, it would almost have to be for random access to the pages of a document to be possible. Deciding whether a given piece of PostScript code (such as the "showpage" that prints a page) is executed is, except for interpreter limits, equivalent to the halting problem - and in particular can, in principle, depend on everything earlier in the file. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 20:05:04 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <0501310022.AA23881@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Michael Sokolov wrote: > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > > Sorry to burst your bubble, but your experiment has been tried already. > > It was called the Soviet Union. It crumbled in a most mighty fashion > > after about 50 years. Simply stated, Communism doesn't work. > > I'm stating here on the record that I most totally disagree with you > on every single point, most importantly that the Soviet Union *never* > failed or crumbled, but was rather decimated by an ET race of dragons, > and I have enlisted in the Galactic Federation Armed Forces to fight > and reverse that defeat. Communism DOES work, it is the most wonderful > system in the Universe, and I *WILL* prove it to you, though unfortunately > I'm afraid the proof will have to be in the form of a bullet to the head > for all you greedy capitalist pigs. If it were up to me, I would like to flame > you to death here on this list, but per Jay's request I'll refrain > from doing so and this will be my final word on the subject. Ok, I give up. You win. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jan 30 20:06:07 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Replacing 8" drive with 3.5" drive on CP/M systems In-Reply-To: <20050130161503.V33790@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Fred Cisin wrote: > identical to the host machine. If you're intent on using 3.5" HD, then > the easiest to implement (2 * 80 * 15 * 512) would waste a sizable amount > of space, but who NEEDS more than that? Bill Gates. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jan 30 20:08:50 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Intellec MDS questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <32848.64.169.63.74.1107137330.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Paxton wrote: > The MDS 800 was the first development system It was a Multibus 1 backplane > and usually had a CPU card, memory card, a two disk floppy drive > controller, a HD controller (SMD most likely) The MDS 800 did NOT originally have a hard disk controller. That didn't appear until much later, well into the Series 2 era. Since the MDS 800 used Multibus, the HDC was available as a retrofit. In my experience, it was *very* rare to find an MDS 800 with an HDC, or even with the double-density FDC. > The MDS 225 is either a System 2 or 3 in the development system line. An "MDS 225" was specifically a Series II or a Series III, but I've forgotten which. If you upgraded a Series II to a Series III, the model number changed. Eric From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 30 20:08:52 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I keep on finding sync combining circuits that'll do seperate sync to > sync on green everywhere, but nothing to do the reverse! I thought the right thing there was to simply connect the green output to both the green video input and the sync input. However, that's coming from someone who has never tried it (at least not knowingly - I may have used adapters designed to do just that) and who does not really understand the signals involved.... /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jan 30 20:18:21 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Fwd: compaq's portable computer In-Reply-To: <20050130140611.M33790@shell.lmi.net> References: <1107093210.7199.21.camel@kendall.jdfogg.com> <20050130124145.C33790@shell.lmi.net> <41FD53F1.4070908@oldskool.org> <20050130140611.M33790@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <32937.64.169.63.74.1107137901.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Fred wrote: > I could be misremembering (as usual?), but > ISTR it being around DOS 3.31 that they switched from using 64K for a > buffer during DISKCOPY over to using all of RAM. Could well be. Certainly IBM DOS 1.0 and 1.1 didn't do it. The first program I wrote in assembly language for the PC, back in August 1981, was a disk copy utility for IBM DOS that used all available RAM. I just wanted it for my own use, but my employer was happy to have it for software production. At one point I was asked to add a way to produce copy-protected disks, but I didn't want anything to do with that. Originally I only supported 160K disks, since that's all DOS 1.0 supported. I think someone else at the company updated it for 180K, then 320K and 360K. AFAIK the company went under before the IBM AT appeared with its 1.2M high-density floppies. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jan 30 20:32:32 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD8491.4090203@oldskool.org> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> <41FD8491.4090203@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <33067.64.169.63.74.1107138752.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Jim wrote: > That is one of the MISuses of PDF. PDF should not be used as a container > for bitmap images. Why? What better open-standard file format can store a lot of pages using lossless bilevel compression? PDF can store the original bitmaps (well- compresses) together with the OCR results, so that you can have mostly-searchable files that still look like the original doument. (As opposed to typical OCR files that are completely screwed up and lose information.) And PDF can support a mix of bilevel and greyscale or monochrome in the same document, or even on the same page. > In case it wasn't obvious, PDF *is* Postscript! It's *portable* > postscript. Speaking as someone who has written software to read and write both Postscrpt and PDF, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that PDF is NOT Postscript. PDF happens to use a subset of the Postscript imaging model, and has superficially similar syntax in some areas, but that's about as close as they get. > The best format for mixed text and graphics that do NOT need to be indexed > (ie converted to text) is DjVu ("DejaVu"). DjVu is a mixed-type format > that keeps a B&W image of the text and a color or grayscale image of > everything else in the same file, and each layer is compressed with a > method appropriate to their content type. That's entirely possible with PDF as well. There are just relatively few tools that can do it, just as there are few tools that can do it in DjVu format. > Unfortunately, the best DjVu tools cost significant money, > so it hasn't taken off. Since PDF can do the same things, there seems to be little advantage to using DjVu instead. Eric From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 30 20:30:27 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050130174017.S18147@localhost> References: <41FD2E41.4090803@jetnet.ab.ca> <20050130174017.S18147@localhost> Message-ID: <200501310232.VAA18058@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Personally (my personal preference, not a judgement call) is anything > in a beige box is landfill (I make rare exceptions). Hypothetically, > in 5, 10, 15 years when the DEC crowd (bulk of the list) has been > replaced with Microsoft products, I won't be here. Hm? Lots of DEC gear has beige outsides. I've got a handful of pmax and alpha boxen, and indeed a DEC 10baseT hub, all of which are in beige cases.... Indeed, my BA123 isn't all that non-beige - or would be if I had all the side panels on it! :-) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From randy at s100-manuals.com Sun Jan 30 20:52:05 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> From: "Eric Smith" > Randy wrote: > > I don't agree, Adobe needs to make some improvements. One I really want > > is compressed files. Other formats have great compression ratios when > > compared to PDF's. I post PDF's because that is the defacto standard but > > I want something that lets me post more on my site without costing me more. > > Huh? PDF supports G4 fax compression and the newer JBIG compression > algorithms, which until very recently (with the advent of JBIG2) were > the to highest-compression lossless bilevel algorithms publicly available. > I stick to G4 because it's not encumbered by patents, but JBIG can > compress about 5-10% better. > > For continuous-tone images, PDF supports JPEG compression and a few other > types. > > What formats are you claiming have better compression than PDF? > > Eric DjVu has a hugely more efficient scheme for their files, DjVu files of the same document are a fraction of the size of PDF's. I don't want to switch to DjVu, partly of the legal tug of war going on with it, partly because I already bought Adobes Acrobat, partly over the fact it would confuse too many users unfamiliar with it. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 30 20:59:47 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things References: <0501310022.AA23881@ivan.Harhan.ORG> Message-ID: <00b701c50740$ecb9ad20$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> M. Sokolov wrote... > for all you greedy capitalist pigs. If it were up to me, I would like to > flame > you to death here on this list, but per Jay's request I'll refrain > from doing so My private off-list request to you didn't have much to do with flaming anyone. It had to do with asking you to refrain from including excessive amounts of political, religious, or social commentary in virtually all of your posts to the list. Consider this a second request. > and this will be my final word on the subject. I sincerely hope so. I noticed you agreed with my definition of on-topicness, thus, no more excuses for off-topicness ;) Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 30 22:04:44 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: HP 7900 related on ebay Message-ID: <000501c50749$ff8ffa40$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Item # 3870527239 is a 13215 power supply. This is the rackmount power supply designed to go with an HP 7900A disc drive. If you have a drive, get the power supply :) Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jan 30 22:26:21 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: two 11/34's, 11/03, six RK05's, etc Message-ID: <000f01c5074d$048aab00$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Ebay item # 5159917411 two 11/34's, an 11/03, six RK05's, over 100 RK05 packs, loads of docs & software, etc. etc. The guy doesn't want to ship any of it. Interestingly, he's about 20 minutes from my house. Since he doesn't want to ship he may have a hard time selling it. I don't want much of this, perhaps a couple of the RK05's. Someone willing to take a lot of this and go in with me? I just don't want to see it go to a landfill if no one buys it, and it's very close. Jay From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 30 22:40:53 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD55D9.4080409@compsys.to> from "Jerome H. Fine" at Jan 30, 5 04:47:05 pm Message-ID: > >Of course there is the big difference that correctly working hardware can > >fail (a component can go out-of-spec), correctly working software > >doesn't. But anyway... > > > Don't be so sure. I know of one bug in RT-11 > which has been there for over 30 years. Because No, I stand by what I said. If there's a bug, then that software is not correctly-working (even if it seems to be). The analogy for hardware would be a marginal timing problem (wher, peerhaps, every 10 years 2 signals arrive effetively in the wrong order). That's a mis-design, it's not working correctly. But correnctly-working software carries on working. Hardware on the other hand can stop workin if a component fails. -tony From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jan 30 23:08:25 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> Message-ID: <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Randy wote: > DjVu has a hugely more efficient scheme for their files, DjVu files of the > same document are a fraction of the size of PDF's. Having researched this somewhat a year ago, I'm going to (partly/mostly) disagree. DjVu files are only slightly smaller if they use lossless compression. By default, DjVu uses lossy compression, which is significantly smaller. But for archival purposes, I *much* prefer the lossless coding. Should I decide to OCR the documents at a later date, having the lossless bits is much better. The lossy encoding is designed to throw away stuff that has minimal effect on the human visual system when not under close scrutiny, but that isn't necessarily stuff that won't help an OCR program. Also, G4 coding is a much better known standard. If fifty years from now someone has to build their own drive to read an ancient CD, and discovers that it's full of compressed images, I think they've got a much better chance of being able to decode G4 images since the format is well-documented and well-known. However, if someone else went to the trouble of archiving a bunch of old computer docs in DjVu, I'd still thank them for doing so, as it is quite obviously much better to have the docs in DjVu format that to not have them at all. Eric From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 30 23:26:54 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Atari Portfolio screen contract? Message-ID: <20050131052654.78933.qmail@web52803.mail.yahoo.com> Hey, does anyone know how to adjust the display on a Portfolio? I read something about peeling off the screen protector, but that sounds risky. ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 665 readers and counting! From news at computercollector.com Sun Jan 30 23:28:39 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Oops! Figured it out, re: Portfolio screen contrast Message-ID: <20050131052839.74818.qmail@web52807.mail.yahoo.com> LOL, I just noticed the function key labeled (duh) "contrast"... ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 665 readers and counting! From tomj at wps.com Mon Jan 31 00:06:46 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20050130220315.U18147@localhost> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: >> modified - at least until they get DRM pushed into printers, and given Done! Most recent HP drivers for their scanners prevent copying of newer US$20 bills. Tosses you to an anti-counterfeit website! Windows of course. Color laser printers output a serial number indicator of some sort by a near-invisible pattern of yellow pixels overlaying the printed image. I imagine it's not 100% reliable but apparently it's been in place for some time. It sounds like tin-foil-hat black-helicopter stuff, but I found multiple stories about it online in places like The Standard. It's all very depressing. Tom Jennings From tomj at wps.com Mon Jan 31 00:16:30 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:22 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050130164825.M33790@shell.lmi.net> References: <0501310022.AA23881@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <20050130164825.M33790@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20050130221457.W18147@localhost> >> I'm afraid the proof will have to be in the form of a bullet to the head >> for all you greedy capitalist pigs. Just because some of us live in a capitalist country, doesn't mean we are capitalists. That's just a stupid oversimplification. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 31 00:25:03 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050130220315.U18147@localhost> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <20050130220315.U18147@localhost> Message-ID: <200501310627.BAA19231@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> - at least until they get DRM pushed into printers, > Done! Most recent HP drivers for their scanners prevent copying of > newer US$20 bills. Tosses you to an anti-counterfeit website! > Windows of course. As long as the interface is documented enough for open-source support, and the bugs aren't in the scanner itself, I'm fine with that. > Color laser printers output a serial number indicator of some sort by > a near-invisible pattern of yellow pixels overlaying the printed > image. I imagine it's not 100% reliable but apparently it's been in > place for some time. > It sounds like tin-foil-hat black-helicopter stuff, but I found > multiple stories about it online in places like The Standard. If I caught my printer doing that, I would tell them to fix it. If they tried to claim it was a feature, or otherwise refused, I'd return it and find a printer that printed what - and nothing but what - it was given to print. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jan 31 01:10:06 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FD8A1F.8000007@oldskool.org> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <200501310126.UAA17658@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD8A1F.8000007@oldskool.org> Message-ID: >Yes, but how many windows users do you know that can view or print PS files? Personally? Only ones with Adobe Acrobat Distiller, that way they can be turned into PDF's that can then be viewed and printed :^) Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jan 31 01:11:02 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501310627.BAA19231@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <20050130220315.U18147@localhost> <200501310627.BAA19231@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: > > Color laser printers output a serial number indicator of some sort by >> a near-invisible pattern of yellow pixels overlaying the printed >> image. I imagine it's not 100% reliable but apparently it's been in >> place for some time. > >> It sounds like tin-foil-hat black-helicopter stuff, but I found >> multiple stories about it online in places like The Standard. > >If I caught my printer doing that, I would tell them to fix it. If >they tried to claim it was a feature, or otherwise refused, I'd return >it and find a printer that printed what - and nothing but what - it was >given to print. Sadly I'm not sure you're going to be able to find a good current colour printer that doesn't do it :^( Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk Mon Jan 31 02:05:41 2005 From: ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk (Lawrence Wilkinson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: <20050130233556.24635.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050130233556.24635.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1107158741.7530.19.camel@ljw.me.uk> On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 23:35, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > Yeah, if I recall, last time we had this thread someone brought up Forth being > used in a Lotus. > > Ummm, that's Lotus the British sports car company, not Lotus the software > company! Hmmm, maybe that was me. In the mid '90s I worked for the company which made the dashboard for the Elise, and it is indeed based on a 68HC11 running Forth. The company is 'Stack' (http://www.stackltd.com) - now you see where the name comes from. See for what the innards look like - there are two stepper motors for the dials. -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk Ph +44(0)1869-811059 http://www.ljw.me.uk From lgomez at cdromsa.es Mon Jan 31 05:24:41 2005 From: lgomez at cdromsa.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Luis_G=F3mez?=) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Newbrain Display In-Reply-To: <008b01c506fe$ede5fe20$753cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: Near to the Nec FIP display in the Newbrain computer there is a little circuit with a componet with 10 pins where you can read: 27 CD-1867N TDK JAPAN Somebody know what is this component? I think it is used to control voltage supplied to de display. Somebody have the NEC FIP16A5R datasheet? It is the 16 character display in the Newbrain AD Regards Luis From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 31 06:12:03 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501310205.VAA17814@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> <41FD8491.4090203@oldskool.org> <200501310205.VAA17814@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <41FE2093.90509@oldskool.org> der Mouse wrote: >>In case it wasn't obvious, PDF *is* Postscript! It's *portable* >>postscript. > > Actually, significantly less portable in someways; for example, a PDF > is far more likely to be a binary file rather than a text file (as > compared to a PostScript file). That is the fault of the person who created the PDF, not a fault of the format itself. > While I haven't looked into it in enough detail to be sure, I suspect I'm sorry, do you normally post about things you haven't researched? -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Mon Jan 31 06:12:15 2005 From: huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au (Huw Davies) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: <003b01c506fe$79f18b60$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <003b01c506fe$79f18b60$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: On 31/01/2005, at 6:04 AM, Jay West wrote: > Windows can't be considered "classic" because it IS the recent school > of thought/theory. When it hasn't been the prevailing school of > thought for a while, AND it is in opposition of the then current > school of thought - it may well become classic and perfect for > discussing here. This is not likely to happen in our lifetimes. A > major strike against that ever happening is that it was (is) SO > pervasive so I'm not sure it ever be "classic". But in the final > analysis, this argument is one that will be decided by our children & > grandchildren, not us. The Model-T Ford is a useful analogy. During it's lifetime it was the dominant example of it's type (certainly in the US), but today, nobody is likely to argue that it's anything other than classic. I have to disagree though, I doubt that Windows will be the dominant force by the end of my lifetime (assuming that is that I live to the average life expectancy which gives me another 30 years or so). Just remember what the dominant paradigm was 30 years ago and the pace of technological change is accelerating. > This is exactly why I'm not opposed to DOS being discussed on the > list. It comes from the days of the traditions I speak of above, > before 90% of the cpu and memory was dedicated to a pretty gui. "I can't define Classic, but I sure know it when I see it" Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies@kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green" From huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Mon Jan 31 06:19:52 2005 From: huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au (Huw Davies) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Forth was Re: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: <1107158741.7530.19.camel@ljw.me.uk> References: <20050130233556.24635.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> <1107158741.7530.19.camel@ljw.me.uk> Message-ID: On 31/01/2005, at 7:05 PM, Lawrence Wilkinson wrote: > On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 23:35, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: >> Yeah, if I recall, last time we had this thread someone brought up >> Forth being >> used in a Lotus. >> >> Ummm, that's Lotus the British sports car company, not Lotus the >> software >> company! > > Hmmm, maybe that was me. In the mid '90s I worked for the company which > made the dashboard for the Elise, and it is indeed based on a 68HC11 > running Forth. The company is 'Stack' (http://www.stackltd.com) - now > you see where the name comes from. See > body_bluestack.html> for what the innards look like - there are two > stepper motors for the dials. No why did you have to post this :-) I'd just decided to buy a new Golf Turbo Diesel and now you tell me if I spend about $60K more I can get a car that runs Forth..... OK, to add a little bit of CC to this. ISTR that Forth was originally developed on PDP-11s but what other classic hardware of the era was it used? Which of these will fit inside the Golf :-) Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies@kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green" From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 31 06:22:13 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <33067.64.169.63.74.1107138752.squirrel@64.169.63.74> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <1107122480.28774.25.camel@weka.localdomain> <41FD8491.4090203@oldskool.org> <33067.64.169.63.74.1107138752.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <41FE22F5.6010407@oldskool.org> Eric Smith wrote: >>That is one of the MISuses of PDF. PDF should not be used as a container >>for bitmap images. > > Why? What better open-standard file format can store a lot of pages using > lossless bilevel compression? PDF can store the original bitmaps (well- > compresses) together with the OCR results, so that you can have > mostly-searchable files that still look like the original doument. (As > opposed to typical OCR files that are completely screwed up and lose > information.) > And PDF can support a mix of bilevel and greyscale or monochrome in > the same document, or even on the same page. I maintain that PDF should not be used merely as a container for existing graphics files because there is normally no easy free way to extract the image data and use it in another program. I know that it *can* do it, but the majority of users who do this screw it up massively (I'm thinking 150 DPI JPGs of scanned text). >>In case it wasn't obvious, PDF *is* Postscript! It's *portable* >>postscript. > > Speaking as someone who has written software to read and write both > Postscrpt and PDF, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that PDF is > NOT Postscript. PDF happens to use a subset of the Postscript > imaging model, and has superficially similar syntax in some areas, > but that's about as close as they get. I am familiar with the internals of PDF as well, which is why I wrote portable. Portable does not imply complete. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the "*is*" emphasis... > Since PDF can do the same things, there seems to be little advantage > to using DjVu instead. DjVu has other advantages, such as local/window/viewport decoding of images with ludicrously high dimensions/resolutions but I understand your point. Where are the tools to create DjVu-like PDF files? The best Acrobat can do is OCR text but still leave the source bitmap in place... If I scan in a page with a background color image with B&W text foreground, where are the PDF tools to properly handle layer seperation? (Not CMYK seperation, you know what I mean :-) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Mon Jan 31 06:23:30 2005 From: huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au (Huw Davies) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050130160204.48df78e4.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <20050128210955.0d220882.chenmel@earthlink.net> <20050130160204.48df78e4.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <00a55702a18c06835118a96726534835@kerberos.davies.net.au> On 31/01/2005, at 2:02 AM, Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 23:23:10 +0000 (GMT) > ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > >> OK, I suppose you could argue you can link up an X-terminal via >> ethernet or something, but... > Hmmm. A DEC VXT2000 [1] is a nice, classic X-terminal. > Should be compatible even with Mr. Sokolov. ;-) How about a VAXstation-100? Old, rare, slow, heavy :-) Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies@kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green" From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 31 06:26:24 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> Message-ID: <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> Eric Smith wrote: > By default, DjVu uses lossy compression, which is > significantly smaller. But for archival purposes, I *much* prefer the > lossless coding. Should I decide to OCR the documents at a later date, To be fair, DjVu lossy-encodes the graphics, not the text. One of the "selling points" of the format is that B&W text is kept on its own lossless layer. > Also, G4 coding is a much better known standard. If fifty years from > now someone has to build their own drive to read an ancient CD, and > discovers that it's full of compressed images, I think they've got a > much better chance of being able to decode G4 images since the format > is well-documented and well-known. Agreed. > However, if someone else went to the trouble of archiving a bunch of > old computer docs in DjVu, I'd still thank them for doing so, as it > is quite obviously much better to have the docs in DjVu format that > to not have them at all. Heh, also agreed :-) -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 31 06:51:15 2005 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <1107175875.30451.22.camel@weka.localdomain> On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 21:08 -0500, der Mouse wrote: > > I keep on finding sync combining circuits that'll do seperate sync to > > sync on green everywhere, but nothing to do the reverse! > > I thought the right thing there was to simply connect the green output > to both the green video input and the sync input. Yes, I expected that to work too, but no luck here with the Tek connected to my old 19" Sun 'goldfish bowl' screen (which was working when I last used it a few years ago) Unfortunately I don't have an LM1881 chip in the spares pile :-( I could have sworn there was an easier way though (i.e. not using a 'custom' chip) but digging through my saved schematics I can't find anything. The 21" Iiyama screen on my desktop PC has both BNC and VGA inputs and will do S-O-G of course, so I can still hook the Tek up that way - but the machine's noisy as all hell, so it would have been nice to get it into another room with its own display (and just telnet in to work on it) cheers Jules From frustum at pacbell.net Mon Jan 31 08:14:59 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net> Jim Leonard wrote: > Eric Smith wrote: > >> By default, DjVu uses lossy compression, which is >> significantly smaller. But for archival purposes, I *much* prefer the >> lossless coding. Should I decide to OCR the documents at a later date, I have a comment on that below. > > To be fair, DjVu lossy-encodes the graphics, not the text. One of the > "selling points" of the format is that B&W text is kept on its own > lossless layer. On my Wang site, I've put up all of my documents as both djvu (because they are much smaller -- often 1/3 the size) and as PDFs because almost nobody has djvu. DJVU doesn't really know what is text and what is graphics. It has a few different compression algorithms and applies each to regions of an image and uses which is best. I can show you a table of contents where part of it is bilevel and part is grayscale. This happened because the person who sent it to me scanned the document at low resolution grayscale. Although it doesn't really know text is per-se, one of its algorithms is to find glyph-like things. Once it has all glyph-like things isolated on a page, it compares them all to each other and if two glyphs are similar enough, it will just represent them both (or N of them) with one compressed glyph image. So for OCR purposes, I don't think this type of compression really hurts -- it replaces one plausible "e" image with another one. At work the high speed copier/printer/scanner can process 600 dpi bilevel images at an amazing rate. I can just ftp my images from the scanner after it cranks through a batch of pages. Unfortunately, the copier is very agressive about dithering and as a result, pure text pages are a lot more "furry" -- I don't know how to describe it -- the edges and interiors of text have a lot more pixel noise. As a result, the ratio of PDF/djvu sizes is a lot smaller than pages where I've used my desktop scanner. From pkoning at equallogic.com Mon Jan 31 09:16:03 2005 From: pkoning at equallogic.com (Paul Koning) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC References: Message-ID: <16894.19379.301000.963272@gargle.gargle.HOWL> >>>>> "Ashley" == Ashley Carder writes: >> So I'm in the process of pulling a bunch of files off of some RX02 >> disks to get them onto a PC. Ashley> Other folks have told me that a better way to get files from Ashley> the -11 to a PC is to install a 9-track tape drive on the -11 Ashley> and another 9-track drive on your PC. This is much faster. Ashley> The problem is that I don't have any 9-track tape drives Ashley> right now, so that's not an option for me. Ethernet works too, if your PDP11 OS is a recent enough version to support DECnet Phase IV. If so, you can use NFT to copy files, either to another copy of that OS running in emulation, or to DECnet/Linux. paul From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jan 31 09:18:17 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: two 11/34's, 11/03, six RK05's, etc In-Reply-To: <000f01c5074d$048aab00$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <000f01c5074d$048aab00$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200501311018.17479.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 30 January 2005 23:26, Jay West wrote: > Ebay item # 5159917411 > > two 11/34's, an 11/03, six RK05's, over 100 RK05 packs, loads of docs > & software, etc. etc. > > The guy doesn't want to ship any of it. Interestingly, he's about 20 > minutes from my house. Since he doesn't want to ship he may have a > hard time selling it. > > I don't want much of this, perhaps a couple of the RK05's. Someone > willing to take a lot of this and go in with me? I just don't want to > see it go to a landfill if no one buys it, and it's very close. I'm almost definately interested in this, and it's not too far away from me. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From wacarder at usit.net Mon Jan 31 09:29:24 2005 From: wacarder at usit.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC References: <16894.19379.301000.963272@gargle.gargle.HOWL> Message-ID: <001401c507a9$a5518de0$f71b0f14@wcarder1> > >> So I'm in the process of pulling a bunch of files off of some RX02 > >> disks to get them onto a PC. > Ashley> Other folks have told me that a better way to get files from > Ashley> the -11 to a PC is to install a 9-track tape drive on the -11 > Ashley> and another 9-track drive on your PC. This is much faster. > Ashley> The problem is that I don't have any 9-track tape drives > Ashley> right now, so that's not an option for me. > > Ethernet works too, if your PDP11 OS is a recent enough version to > support DECnet Phase IV. If so, you can use NFT to copy files, either > to another copy of that OS running in emulation, or to DECnet/Linux. > > paul I am normally running a 1979 era OS, although I suppose I could gen a more recent system, install an ethernet card, etc. I'll have to read more about this and perhaps pursue this at some point. Ashley From dholland at woh.rr.com Mon Jan 31 09:28:33 2005 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: VMS 5.5-2? Message-ID: <1107185313.7284.10.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> I'm getting back around to seeing if I can get the data off that Vax 4000/300 I've got, and thought I'd be a good idea to have OS media handy. So, anyone have VAX VMS 5.5-2 (and TCP/IP) handy, that I can beg/borrow/mooch? (ISO images are perfectly good). (AFAICT, 5.5-2 is not available through the Hobbyist program.) Thanks, David From jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to Mon Jan 31 09:28:59 2005 From: jhfinexgs2 at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FE4EBB.50700@compsys.to> >Tony Duell wrote: >No, I stand by what I said. If there's a bug, then that software is not >correctly-working (even if it seems to be). > >The analogy for hardware would be a marginal timing problem (wher, >peerhaps, every 10 years 2 signals arrive effetively in the wrong order). >That's a mis-design, it's not working correctly. > >But correnctly-working software carries on working. Hardware on the other >hand can stop workin if a component fails. > Jerome Fine replies: The problem with design bugs is that they can sometimes exist in both hardware and software (usually complex) for decades before the bug is identified. In the case of the software bug that I see in RT-11, it was found by inspecting the code, NOT by the bug causing a failure. PLUS, the difficulty with marginal timing problems is that they occur so infrequently AND they are almost impossible to duplicate. BOTH hardware and software, as far as I understand - although you would have the knowledge about being able to duplicate a marginal timing problem in hardware. BUT, when there is a marginal timing problem in software, that is often described as a race condition. The code was written (almost always NOT intentional due to a lack of understanding that the race condition exists - which is why it really is a bug in the first place) with the assumption that between instruction (a) and (b) - usually with relatively few instructions in-between - no other code would ever execute that relies upon using the results of the instructions at both (a) and (b) being executed at exactly the same time. The software solution is to reduce the number of instructions between (a) and (b) as much as possible (often having no instructions in-between) and then locking out interrupts before (a) and unlocking after (b) thereby ensuring that no other code which assumes that (a) and (b) were executed at the same time can be executed in-between (a) and (b). Perhaps you could define how hardware handles a timing problem. It would be interesting to hardware fellows like yourself, just as my description of the software timing problem would interest software fellows like myself (maybe). Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jan 31 09:29:19 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: two 11/34's, 11/03, six RK05's, etc In-Reply-To: <200501311018.17479.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <000f01c5074d$048aab00$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200501311018.17479.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200501311029.19779.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 31 January 2005 10:18, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Sunday 30 January 2005 23:26, Jay West wrote: Argh. Don't mind me, nothing to see here, move along people... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From tarsi at binhost.com Mon Jan 31 10:14:05 2005 From: tarsi at binhost.com (Nathan Pralle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: two 11/34's, 11/03, six RK05's, etc In-Reply-To: <200501311018.17479.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <000f01c5074d$048aab00$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200501311018.17479.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <41FE594D.4040603@binhost.com> I (or my associate) is willing to go in on this, we're within driving distance (Iowa). Nathan Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Sunday 30 January 2005 23:26, Jay West wrote: > >>Ebay item # 5159917411 >> >>two 11/34's, an 11/03, six RK05's, over 100 RK05 packs, loads of docs >>& software, etc. etc. >> >>The guy doesn't want to ship any of it. Interestingly, he's about 20 >>minutes from my house. Since he doesn't want to ship he may have a >>hard time selling it. >> >>I don't want much of this, perhaps a couple of the RK05's. Someone >>willing to take a lot of this and go in with me? I just don't want to >>see it go to a landfill if no one buys it, and it's very close. From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jan 31 10:20:18 2005 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: VMS 5.5-2? In-Reply-To: <1107185313.7284.10.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> References: <1107185313.7284.10.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: >I'm getting back around to seeing if I can get the data off that Vax >4000/300 I've got, and thought I'd be a good idea to have OS media >handy. > >So, anyone have VAX VMS 5.5-2 (and TCP/IP) handy, that I can >beg/borrow/mooch? (ISO images are perfectly good). > >(AFAICT, 5.5-2 is not available through the Hobbyist program.) It is on the Hobbyist V1 CD-ROM, of course obtaining a copy of that could be more than a little difficult :^( Personally I think that even though V3 is out, V1 should continue to be sold. For TCP/IP take a look at http://www.process.com/openvms/hobbyist.html If there isn't a reason that you need VAX/VMS V5.5-2, consider using OpenVMS V7.3 which is on the V3 Hobbyist CD-ROM. http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/mount.html Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Mon Jan 31 10:23:23 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: VAXstation-100 (was: Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <00a55702a18c06835118a96726534835@kerberos.davies.net.au> References: <20050128210955.0d220882.chenmel@earthlink.net> <20050130160204.48df78e4.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <00a55702a18c06835118a96726534835@kerberos.davies.net.au> Message-ID: <20050131172323.2e18f973.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:23:30 +1100 Huw Davies wrote: > VAXstation-100 Whatsthat? I know the VAXstation I, but not 100. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Mon Jan 31 10:32:38 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <1107175875.30451.22.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <1107175875.30451.22.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <20050131173238.5f807e8e.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 12:51:15 +0000 Jules Richardson wrote: > Unfortunately I don't have an LM1881 chip in the spares pile :-( > I could have sworn there was an easier way though You can use an OPA wired as a comparator too. Set the switch level to about 0.15 V and you get C-sync out of the comparator. The black level of a video signal is 0.3 V. Everything below down to 0 V is sync. You should use a TTl IC behind the comparator as a line driver. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Mon Jan 31 10:34:04 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20050131173404.3019de7d.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 21:08:52 -0500 (EST) der Mouse wrote: > I thought the right thing there was to simply connect the green output > to both the green video input and the sync input. Usualy the sync inputs are TTL level. A video signal is sync from 0 to 0.3 V and black to white from 0.3 to 0.7 V. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From waltje at pdp11.nl Mon Jan 31 11:15:37 2005 From: waltje at pdp11.nl (Fred N. van Kempen) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: two 11/34's, 11/03, six RK05's, etc In-Reply-To: <000f01c5074d$048aab00$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: yes. On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Jay West wrote: > Ebay item # 5159917411 > > two 11/34's, an 11/03, six RK05's, over 100 RK05 packs, loads of docs & > software, etc. etc. > > The guy doesn't want to ship any of it. Interestingly, he's about 20 minutes > from my house. Since he doesn't want to ship he may have a hard time selling > it. > > I don't want much of this, perhaps a couple of the RK05's. Someone willing > to take a lot of this and go in with me? I just don't want to see it go to a > landfill if no one buys it, and it's very close. > > Jay > > > -- Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist Visit the VAXlab Project at http://VAXlab.pdp11.nl/ Visit the Archives at http://www.pdp11.nl/ Email: waltje@pdp11.nl BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Mountain View, CA, USA From williams.dan at gmail.com Mon Jan 31 11:31:30 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: VAXstation-100 (was: Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <20050131172323.2e18f973.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <20050128210955.0d220882.chenmel@earthlink.net> <20050130160204.48df78e4.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <00a55702a18c06835118a96726534835@kerberos.davies.net.au> <20050131172323.2e18f973.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <26c11a640501310931aea16f2@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:23:23 +0100, Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:23:30 +1100 > Huw Davies wrote: > > > VAXstation-100 > Whatsthat? I know the VAXstation I, but not 100. > -- > > tsch??, > Jochen > > Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ > > I think this was similar to an x-terminal but for dec windows. I never seen one though Dan From news at computercollector.com Mon Jan 31 11:37:28 2005 From: news at computercollector.com (Computer Collector Newsletter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: <1107158741.7530.19.camel@ljw.me.uk> Message-ID: <20050131173728.77963.qmail@web52801.mail.yahoo.com> The one I want is the Elise, but I can't afford that, so I'm sticking with the Miata (it holds very little, why else do you think I collect PDAs/handhelds?)... anyway I've got a GPS antenna hooked up to my PocketPC.. so you could say my car is Windows powered... man that is a scary concept. (We all know the story of how Bill Gates supposedly said the auto industry should be more like the computer industry, in terms of much lower costs and stuff; and how some car exec replied with something like "yes but the cars would crash twice a day and ask 'are you sure' before the airbag goes off...) --- Lawrence Wilkinson wrote: > On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 23:35, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote: > > Yeah, if I recall, last time we had this thread someone brought up Forth > being > > used in a Lotus. > > > > Ummm, that's Lotus the British sports car company, not Lotus the software > > company! > > Hmmm, maybe that was me. In the mid '90s I worked for the company which > made the dashboard for the Elise, and it is indeed based on a 68HC11 > running Forth. The company is 'Stack' (http://www.stackltd.com) - now > you see where the name comes from. See > > for what the innards look like - there are two stepper motors for the dials. > -- > Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk > Ph +44(0)1869-811059 http://www.ljw.me.uk > ===== Tell your friends about the Computer Collector Newsletter! -- It's free and we'll never send spam or share your email address -- Publishing every Monday(-ish), ask about writing for us -- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all -- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news@computercollector.com -- 665 readers and counting! From aek at spies.com Mon Jan 31 11:44:08 2005 From: aek at spies.com (Al Kossow) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: VAXStation 100 Message-ID: Is a graphics display system that interfaced to a 780 through a unibus card and fibre optic link. An ACM article on it his here, if you have an account portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=357336&type=pdf It was the display that the original version of the X Window System was developed on. From dholland at woh.rr.com Mon Jan 31 11:47:44 2005 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: VMS 5.5-2? In-Reply-To: References: <1107185313.7284.10.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: <1107193664.7284.28.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> On Mon, 2005-01-31 at 08:20 -0800, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > For TCP/IP take a look at http://www.process.com/openvms/hobbyist.html I've downloaded MultiNet for my SIMH'd VMS 7.3 images at some point, its probably still floating around somewhere on my system. (Good to know it works for 5.5) > > If there isn't a reason that you need VAX/VMS V5.5-2, consider using > OpenVMS V7.3 which is on the V3 Hobbyist CD-ROM. > http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/mount.html I ordered/obtained VMS 7.3 from the Hobbyist some time ago. I was looking for 5.5-2 as a insurance policy. I'm not entirely certain what's on the box, beyond some unspecified database, and jukebox software, so I figured I'd better have a insurance policy handy. And I _have_ to re-load the OS/erase everything at some point (requirement of obtaining the box) so I figured I'd reload what was already on it. David > > Zane > > From randy at s100-manuals.com Mon Jan 31 12:10:35 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: PDF's was Many things References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74><41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> <41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <000c01c507c0$2aefc8c0$bf3dd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Jim Battle" Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 8:14 AM > Jim Leonard wrote: >> Eric Smith wrote: >> >>> By default, DjVu uses lossy compression, which is >>> significantly smaller. But for archival purposes, I *much* prefer the >>> lossless coding. Should I decide to OCR the documents at a later date, > > I have a comment on that below. > >> >> To be fair, DjVu lossy-encodes the graphics, not the text. One of the >> "selling points" of the format is that B&W text is kept on its own >> lossless layer. > > On my Wang site, I've put up all of my documents as both djvu (because > they are much smaller -- often 1/3 the size) and as PDFs because almost > nobody has djvu. For me I looked into DjVu but like Jim I decided it is not practical to only post DjVu. I started with a simple goal to post the manuals of greatest interest to me. I found a site that had similar goals (Howard Harte's manual site) and decided to send my manuals to him and mirror his site. I also mirror other sites I consider important such as Jim's SOL-20 Archive and post other files not part of my mirrors. After some thought I signed up for a 3gb site with a 25gb/mo band width. Before I knew it Howard's site exploded to over 3.5gb. I faced with the choice of going to DjVu or putting out more cash to keep the files as PDF's. I ended up purchasing another 4gb site with 75gb/mo bandwidth that I hyperlink to transparently giving me 7gb, I just hope it is good enough to last a year. I use PDF's simply because it works and it is the defacto-standard. It is not a perfect answer but it is the "best" answer, it gives access to the majority. Anyone unable to handle either the large file sizes or PDF formats have other options: They can talk a friend into downloading it and converting to PS or printing, pay a office supply/cyber-cafe to do it, check with Herb Johnson. I provide the PDF's for free but if someone has to pay someone to print them they are at least available. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From james at jfc.org.uk Mon Jan 31 12:11:08 2005 From: james at jfc.org.uk (James Carter) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <1107195067.13147.1.camel@pc004> On Mon, 2005-01-31 at 02:08, der Mouse wrote: > > I keep on finding sync combining circuits that'll do seperate sync to > > sync on green everywhere, but nothing to do the reverse! > > I thought the right thing there was to simply connect the green output > to both the green video input and the sync input. that approach has worked for me before (connecting an SGI Indy to a projector). YMMV, of course. -- James F. Carter http://www.jfc.org.uk/ From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 31 12:30:31 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FE4EBB.50700@compsys.to> References: <41FE4EBB.50700@compsys.to> Message-ID: <200501311842.NAA29107@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Perhaps you could define how hardware handles a timing problem. It > would be interesting to hardware fellows like yourself, just as my > description of the software timing problem would interest software > fellows like myself (maybe). Well, I'm not the person you're responding to, but I was somewhat involved when a friend of mine found a timing problem in hardware. What's more, it was on Classic hardware. :-) This fellow was doing robot control work. A MicroVAX-II was the main host, but it couldn't handle both the control loop (running at something in the 1KHz-10KHz range) and the main OS. So we got a KA620 and slapped it in as a second CPU. (The KA620 is a KA630 deliberately mutated enough that VMS won't run on it - P0 and P1 page tables live in physcal space rather than kernel virtual space. DEC at the time made it quite hard to get a KA630 that didn't have a machine around it; the KA620 was their answer for people who wanted multi-CPU machines.) The inter-processor interrupt mechanism on the KA6[23]0 takes the form of a register in Qbus device space that any bus master (such as another CPU) can prod; when prodded in a particular way, it produces a distinctive "doorbell" interrupt. But every now and then it wasn't. Wasn't producing an interrupt, that is. He finally wrote some _really_ simple test programs - we're talking tens of instructions - and left them running overnight. Sure enough, some small fraction (ca. 0.1%, if memory serves) of doorbell interrupts simply got lost. We reported this to DEC, together with the test programs (which were simple enough to hand-assemble and type in on the machine's consoles) and they eventually found the bug. Apparently some relevant signal's etch run ran clear across the board. The design output impedance of the driver and the capacitance between the etch run and the rest of the world combined such that it should _never_ have worked, and the only reason it worked most of the time was that they overdesigned their hardware by something approaching an order of magnitude. They came up with an ECO/FCO for it, which I think involved decreasing a pullup resistor, and as far as I know, as long as their service organization for uVAXIIs existed, you could get it if you knew to ask for that change order by number. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From stanb at dial.pipex.com Mon Jan 31 12:55:33 2005 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Forth was Re: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:19:52 +1100." Message-ID: <200501311855.SAA08800@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Huw Davies said: > > OK, to add a little bit of CC to this. ISTR that Forth was originally > developed on PDP-11s but what other classic hardware of the era was it > used? Which of these will fit inside the Golf :-) Actually ISTR that it was originally developed on an IBM 1130, which is how it became to be called Forth. The 1130 was described as a "third generation computer" and Chuck Moore considered his language a "fourth generation computer language" and wanted to call it "Fourth". But the 1130 only permitted five character identifiers, so it became "Forth". -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb@dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From stanb at dial.pipex.com Mon Jan 31 12:46:44 2005 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 30 Jan 2005 22:06:46 PST." <20050130220315.U18147@localhost> Message-ID: <200501311846.SAA08708@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, > On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote: > > >> modified - at least until they get DRM pushed into printers, and given > > Done! Most recent HP drivers for their scanners prevent copying of > newer US$20 bills. Tosses you to an anti-counterfeit website! > Windows of course. > > Color laser printers output a serial number indicator of some sort > by a near-invisible pattern of yellow pixels overlaying the > printed image. I imagine it's not 100% reliable but apparently > it's been in place for some time. > > It sounds like tin-foil-hat black-helicopter stuff, but I found > multiple stories about it online in places like The Standard. > Seems like going about things the wrong way to me. Here in the UK when high quality laser printers came out they added a security metal strip to the paper in the bills and changed the pattern and colours of ink used for ones which are pretty much impossible to copy accurately. All new printer designs are tested by the Treasury to see if the technology has advanced enough to make good copies. In our firm with a weekly cash turnover of over $1 million we used to get a few forgeries, but they were easy to spot. (Are your bills still all the same size, or have you copied everyone else and made the larger dominations bigger to stop people bleaching small bills to print big ones?) -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb@dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Jan 31 13:23:35 2005 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight K. Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things Message-ID: <200501311923.LAA16456@clulw009.amd.com> >From: "Ashley Carder" > >I, too, like my vintage systems as much as the next guy, but lately I've >been finding >myself using the HyperTerminal app on my modern Win2K PC as the console >when I'm doing things on my 1973 PDP-11/40. I can toggle over to the web >browser while I'm copying RK05 disk packs, cut and paste the output of the >PDP-11/40 RT11 DIR command into an email on Outlook, and use simh to >test and run the RL01 disk image that I just sent from the 11/40 to my PC ---snip--- Hi Ashley I use my laptop as a replacement for papertape as well as a terminal. Dwight From ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk Mon Jan 31 13:34:13 2005 From: ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk (Lawrence Wilkinson) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Forth was Re: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: References: <20050130233556.24635.qmail@web52810.mail.yahoo.com> <1107158741.7530.19.camel@ljw.me.uk> Message-ID: <1107200052.8394.7.camel@ljw.me.uk> On Mon, 2005-01-31 at 12:19, Huw Davies wrote: > No why did you have to post this :-) > > I'd just decided to buy a new Golf Turbo Diesel and now you tell me if > I spend about $60K more I can > get a car that runs Forth..... I suppose it's just as well I never mentioned that the McLaren F1 road car runs the same system :-) In fact the Elise /can/ be used as a general-purpose Forth system, as the debug port (suitably encrypted) is just a Forth command-line - it has the standard vocabulary and a bit of free memory to do your own stuff. I can't remember how the debug port works, so don't bother asking! -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk Ph +44(0)1869-811059 http://www.ljw.me.uk -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence@ljw.me.uk Ph +44(0)1869-811059 http://www.ljw.me.uk From tomj at wps.com Mon Jan 31 13:40:11 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501310627.BAA19231@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG> <1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050129184357.S977@localhost> <20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net> <200501301932.OAA18051@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <41FD4744.3000009@oldskool.org> <20050130220315.U18147@localhost> <200501310627.BAA19231@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20050131113531.X1053@localhost> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, der Mouse wrote: >> Done! Most recent HP drivers for their scanners prevent copying of >> newer US$20 bills. Tosses you to an anti-counterfeit website! >> Windows of course. > > As long as the interface is documented enough for open-source support, > and the bugs aren't in the scanner itself, I'm fine with that. The stories say it's in the printer/scanner, but I wonder about that. For the scanner, the circumstances point to it being in the driver; identifying a pattern (eg. the little "20"s on the bill) is probably too big (still) to embed in the printer; they noticed something was up when the new driver recommended download was > 100 MB! For the printer, it's entirely possible it's in the printer; I can imagine that it depends on the type of output or document size or something, but all it has to do is output a pixel pattern that's likely hashed and well-distributed. The pattern by design won't change per-image, only per-printer. > If I caught my printer doing that, I would tell them to fix it. If > they tried to claim it was a feature, or otherwise refused, I'd return > it and find a printer that printed what - and nothing but what - it was > given to print. Good luck! :-) Tom Jennings From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 31 13:52:27 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Newbrain Display In-Reply-To: References: <008b01c506fe$ede5fe20$753cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <40000.64.139.41.130.1107201147.squirrel@64.139.41.130> > Near to the Nec FIP display in the Newbrain computer there is a little > circuit with a componet with 10 pins where you can read: > > 27 > CD-1867N > TDK > JAPAN > > Somebody know what is this component? I think it is used to control > voltage > supplied to de display. If it's a small circuit board, it's probably a DC-DC converter (or a DC-AC inverter, if the display needs AC). Many Ethernet cards used to use a TDK CE2054 DC-DC converter to produce isolated 9V DC from 5V DC in I've got big pile of surplus ones, and the data sheet *used* to be on line, but I can't find the copy I downloaded and now it's no longer on their web site. Eric From tomj at wps.com Mon Jan 31 13:58:00 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501311846.SAA08708@citadel.metropolis.local> References: <200501311846.SAA08708@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: <20050131115453.E1053@localhost> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Stan Barr wrote: > (Are your bills still all the same size, or have you copied everyone > else and made the larger dominations bigger to stop people bleaching > small bills to print big ones?) Same size, but the artwork on thr 20's has radically changed. Metal strips, reactive inks, etc ad nauseum. I'm sure there's a large and serious counterfeit problem and I can understand the need to worry about it, and that there will be Side Effects. It's just the current downward spiral seems to me to be a paranoid/fascist approach. I think fascist is the right word, now, not a screechy exaggeration. 'The use of force to acheive political ends' especially domestically (we've (U.S., not me personally) exported force of course for many decades :-) Tom Jennings From vcf at siconic.com Mon Jan 31 13:56:40 2005 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: PDF's was Many things In-Reply-To: <000c01c507c0$2aefc8c0$bf3dd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote: > I started with a simple goal to post the manuals of greatest interest to me. > I found a site that had similar goals (Howard Harte's manual site) and > decided to send my manuals to him and mirror his site. I also mirror other > sites I consider important such as Jim's SOL-20 Archive and post other files > not part of my mirrors. After some thought I signed up for a 3gb site with > a 25gb/mo band width. Before I knew it Howard's site exploded to over > 3.5gb. > > I faced with the choice of going to DjVu or putting out more cash to keep > the files as PDF's. > > I ended up purchasing another 4gb site with 75gb/mo bandwidth that I > hyperlink to transparently giving me 7gb, I just hope it is good enough to > last a year. > > I use PDF's simply because it works and it is the defacto-standard. It is > not a perfect answer but it is the "best" answer, it gives access to the > majority. > > Anyone unable to handle either the large file sizes or PDF formats have > other options: They can talk a friend into downloading it and converting to > PS or printing, pay a office supply/cyber-cafe to do it, check with Herb > Johnson. >From the sounds of it, we as a community would benefit greatly if a number of us started bit torrent sites. I'll start looking in to it. I'm not sure if my budget will allow a bigger pipe (I've only got 256K up) but if enough of us started adopting bit torrent then we could reach a critical mass and it would be easier for everyone to exchange manual scans. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From tomj at wps.com Mon Jan 31 14:03:39 2005 From: tomj at wps.com (Tom Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: DG NOVA4/X runs Message-ID: <20050131115841.B1053@localhost> Well I just put a cord on it, plugged it in and powered on. No smoke escaped. The CPU passes self-test (no idea what it really checks, but it alleges to be thorough) after I seated the memory board (I forgot just how tough to seat the 15 in square DG boards are). I can poke memory, registers, etc just fine. Took a bit to get the console wired right (to minicom on a laptop, 9600/8/n/1) as the sample cable (from the orig. install) was misleading. The tape drive probably has a bad vacuum sensor; I'll look at it Tuesday again. Might be cable fell off. It otherwise loads the tape and one vac col does the right thing. Other functions seem to work. I have a 2nd tape drive, not yet tested. The disk (10 fixed, 10 removable) is not behaving right. Problem with load/ready. Looks mechanically OK but I will do one more test before the covers come off and the scope and DVM come out. Tom Jennings From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 31 14:08:11 2005 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Forth was Re: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: <1107200052.8394.7.camel@ljw.me.uk> Message-ID: <001401c507d0$982ff940$5b01a8c0@flexpc> > In fact the Elise /can/ be used as a general-purpose Forth system, as > the debug port (suitably encrypted) is just a Forth command-line If it's Forth, why does it need the additional encryption :-) Antonio From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 31 14:13:27 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: PDF, DjVu, scanned pages, text and line art vs. continuous-tone images (was Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <42066.64.139.41.130.1107202407.squirrel@64.139.41.130> I wrote: > By default, DjVu uses lossy compression, which is > significantly smaller. Jim wrote: > To be fair, DjVu lossy-encodes the graphics, not the text. One of the > "selling points" of the format is that B&W text is kept on its own > lossless layer. If so, that's apparently a recent change. When I experimented with the demo of the commercial product about 18 months ago, it definitely was using lossy coding on the entire image. When I used it to encode a bitmap of a page of text (from a TIFF encoded with lossless G4 coding) into a DjVu file, and extracted it again, it was not able to reconstruct pixel-identical output. I xor'd the original with the extracted file, and there were differences at all of the character edges. It is my belief that this is why it was able to store the file in only about 70% of the space occupied by the G4 lossless version. I'm not disputing that the DjVu format is *capable* of doing what you say, but in my experience that's not what the available software actually did. Jim wrote in another message: > DjVu has other advantages, such as local/window/viewport decoding of > images with ludicrously high dimensions/resolutions but I understand > your point. I'm not sure I fully understand, but it doesn't sound like anything that the PDF format can't support. I would rather invest effort into improving the capabilities of free PDF viewer software such as xpdf rather than pushing a different standard. > Where are the tools to create DjVu-like PDF files? I've been doing it myself with an experimental version of my "tumble" program. With that, it's an entirely manual process. I have to split the continuous-tone images into a separate layer or file using a separate editor (such as Gimp). Then I use tumble to compose a page with the background as G4 and the images as JPEG. I also am experimenting with using this for pages that are only text and line art, but that have a few colors. For instance, DEC manuals that had user input printed in blue. I separate the blue text into another layer, and G4 encode it separately from the black text. PDF has an imagemask operator that can be used to draw a blue rectangle the size of the whole page, but clipped to the blue G4 image. Acrobat reader handles this correctly, but some other PDF processing programs do not. I hope to automate the multi-color text problem in tumble using code derived from Tim Shoppa's "timify.c". Automating the detection and processing of continuous tone images is in my plans as well, but further out. There don't seem to be any good published algorithms for image detection, so I'll have to experiment with it. As a first step I plan to do 2D FFTs on areas of the page; text and line art should predominantly have DC and high frequencies, while continuous-tone images should have a more even frequency distribution. So far I'm doing this work by scanning a page twice, once in bilevel and once in greyscale or color. I do that because the published algorithms for converting greyscale text and line art to bilevel (thresholding) are nowhere near as good as what's done in a good scanner. Picture Elements makes a PCI card that can be used to do this (and even works with Linux), but it's very expensive so I really want a software-only solution. But the experimental version of tumble is still very buggy and not yet publicly released, so it won't help you any. Acrobat can do the manual approach as well, if you use a separate editor to split the page into layers, and import each layer separately. It appears that there are some expen$ive programs that do such things in a more automated fashion listed on pdfzone. Also I'm told that some OCR packages can do this, but I haven't verified it. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 31 14:18:06 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Lossy compression vs. archiving and OCR (was Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> <41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <42605.64.139.41.130.1107202686.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Jim Battle wrote about DjVu: > So for OCR purposes, I don't think this type of compression really hurts > -- it replaces one plausible "e" image with another one. No, that's exactly the kind of BS you DO NOT WANT for a file that you plan to OCR. What if you've got a mathematical formuala that has some latin "e" letters and some greek epsilons in it? Or perhaps normal and italic "e" letters? DjVu may well think they are "close enough", while a good OCR program might be able to tell them apart accurately. The point of wanting lossless compression is that even if a good OCR program today can't tell them apart accurately, a good OCR program ten years from now might. But if you use lossy compression now, you are likely discarding information that the OCR program will need. Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 31 14:20:53 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <20050131173238.5f807e8e.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <1107175875.30451.22.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050131173238.5f807e8e.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <42943.64.139.41.130.1107202853.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Jules Richardson wrote (regarding sync separation): > Unfortunately I don't have an LM1881 chip in the spares pile :-( > I could have sworn there was an easier way though Jochen wrote: > You can use an OPA wired as a comparator too. Set the switch level to > about 0.15 V and you get C-sync out of the comparator. The black level > of a video signal is 0.3 V. Everything below down to 0 V is sync. You > should use a TTl IC behind the comparator as a line driver. Won't work reliably if the video is AC-coupled, which is *very* common. The LM1881 (and the improved-spec EL4581) are designed to deal with that. From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 31 14:29:30 2005 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: 11/34 stuff response Message-ID: <013701c507d3$918762b0$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Wow. I think the entire list responded with interest on this. It sounds like several people are very interested in bidding on this - and I'm certainly not going to stand in the way. My primary interest is one RK05, an RK11D set, and some of the memory boards which could be used in my 11/45 restoration. Since so many people have already said they will bid on it, perhaps the best thing I can do is stand back and let everyone fight it out. However, bear in mind that I'm in St. Louis, 20 minutes from the guy. So I'd be willing to help out locally if the winning bidder wants, and would like to deal on the above mentioned stuff. Jay From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 31 14:31:19 2005 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:23 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <200501311846.SAA08708@citadel.metropolis.local> References: <200501311846.SAA08708@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: <200501312035.PAA00176@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > (Are your bills still all the same size, or have you copied everyone > else and made the larger dominations bigger to stop people bleaching > small bills to print big ones?) Not quite everyone else. Canadian paper money is still all the same size independent of denomination. We have, however, recently started issuing new $20 notes (and presumably higher denominations) with metallic inks and raised printing and watermark pictures and such that are approximately impossible to do with consumer-grade printers. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From frustum at pacbell.net Mon Jan 31 14:51:00 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Lossy compression vs. archiving and OCR (was Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <42605.64.139.41.130.1107202686.squirrel@64.139.41.130> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> <41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net> <42605.64.139.41.130.1107202686.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <41FE9A34.2090208@pacbell.net> Eric Smith wrote: > Jim Battle wrote about DjVu: > >>So for OCR purposes, I don't think this type of compression really hurts >>-- it replaces one plausible "e" image with another one. > > > No, that's exactly the kind of BS you DO NOT WANT for a file that you > plan to OCR. What if you've got a mathematical formuala that has some > latin "e" letters and some greek epsilons in it? Or perhaps normal > and italic "e" letters? DjVu may well think they are "close enough", > while a good OCR program might be able to tell them apart accurately. Eric, the level of differences it allows aren't anything so gross: gee, these are both serif fonts, so they are close enough. No. When you scan to bilevel, exactly where an edge crosses the threshold is subject to exact placement of the page, what the scanner's threshold is, and probably what phase the 60 Hz AC is since it to some degree couples to the lamp brightness (hopefully not much at all, but if you are splitting hairs...). Thus there is no "perfect" scan. If you are scanning as such a low resolution that two "e"s from different fonts might get confused with each other, your OCR attempts will be hopeless as well. > The point of wanting lossless compression is that even if a good > OCR program today can't tell them apart accurately, a good OCR program > ten years from now might. lossless from what? scan your perfectly clean page with the most expensive scanner you can afford, then reseat the page and do it again, 1000 times; no two are going to be exactly the same. So lossless in this context means perfectly preserving a known imperfect image. Realizing that there is an error floor, allowing other substitutions that are within that error bound to get a 3x compression improvement sounds like a great algorithm to me. > But if you use lossy compression now, you are likely discarding > information that the OCR program will need. If you scan at a good enough resolution (300 dpi for any normal sized text, I doubt it makes one whit of difference. As an aside, I worked four for years at a company that ended up merging with what was Caere and is now softscan. If Bob Stek is still subscribed, he will remember the company. He used the Calera Recognition Systems scanners to scan all of the Sherlock Holmes books and made the first electronic archive of all of the stories. What I knew about OCR is now 10 years past, so perhaps things have changed radically, but I doubt it. From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 31 15:15:16 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Lossy compression vs. archiving and OCR (was Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <41FE9A34.2090208@pacbell.net> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> <41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net> <42605.64.139.41.130.1107202686.squirrel@64.139.41.130> <41FE9A34.2090208@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <48318.64.139.41.130.1107206116.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Jim Battle wrote: > When you > scan to bilevel, exactly where an edge crosses the threshold is subject > to exact placement of the page, what the scanner's threshold is, and > probably what phase the 60 Hz AC is since it to some degree couples to > the lamp brightness (hopefully not much at all, but if you are splitting > hairs...). Thus there is no "perfect" scan. Never claimed there was. But I don't want software to DELIBERATELY muck about with the image, replacing one glyph with another. That's potentially MUCH WORSE than any effect you're going to get from the page being shifted or skewed a tiny amount. > If you are scanning as such a low resolution that two "e"s from > different fonts might get confused with each other, your OCR attempts > will be hopeless as well. But that's what you yourself said that the DjVu software does. It replaces glyphs with other glyphs that it thinks are similar. No matter how good a job it thinks it can do of that, I DO NOT WANT IT FOR ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS. I normally scan at 300 or 400 DPI; when there is very tiny text I sometimes use 600 DPI. Even at those resolutions, it can be difficult to tell some characters apart, expecially from poor quality originals. But usually I can do it if I study the scanned page very closely. No, OCR today cannot do as good a job at that as I can. Someday OCR may be better. But arbitrarily replacing the glyphs with other ones the software considers "good enough" is going to f*&# up any possibility of doing this by either a human OR OCR. And all to make the file a little smaller. DVD-R costs about $0.25 to store 4.7GB of data, so I just can't get excited about using lossy encoding for text and line art pages that usually don't encode with lossless G4 to more than 50K bytes per page. Eric From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 31 15:15:17 2005 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: PDF, DjVu, scanned pages, text and line art vs. continuous-tone images (was Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <42066.64.139.41.130.1107202407.squirrel@64.139.41.130> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> <42066.64.139.41.130.1107202407.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <41FE9FE5.6080805@oldskool.org> Keep in mind that I am not an advocate of DjVu, I'm just pointing out some technical details why PDF is not 100% perfect for everything. Read below: Eric Smith wrote: >>DjVu has other advantages, such as local/window/viewport decoding of >>images with ludicrously high dimensions/resolutions but I understand >>your point. > > I'm not sure I fully understand, but it doesn't sound like anything > that the PDF format can't support. I would rather invest effort into > improving the capabilities of free PDF viewer software such as xpdf > rather than pushing a different standard. PDF cannot support local decoding (at least, not without some major redesign). DjVu supports decoding any local region of a gigantic bitmap, say, 20000x20000. For example, you could pan around said image in a window without having to download it all. >>Where are the tools to create DjVu-like PDF files? > > I've been doing it myself with an experimental version of my "tumble" > program. With that, it's an entirely manual process. I have to split > the continuous-tone images into a separate layer or file using a > separate editor (such as Gimp). Then I use tumble to compose a page > with the background as G4 and the images as JPEG. You're not exactly helping your argument if you have to write your own software to do it *and* it's laborious :-) > I hope to automate the multi-color text problem in tumble using code > derived from Tim Shoppa's "timify.c". Automating the detection and > processing of continuous tone images is in my plans as well, but further > out. There don't seem to be any good published algorithms for image > detection, so I'll have to experiment with it. As a first step I plan > to do 2D FFTs on areas of the page; text and line art should predominantly > have DC and high frequencies, while continuous-tone images should have > a more even frequency distribution. > > So far I'm doing this work by scanning a page twice, once in bilevel and > once in greyscale or color. I do that because the published algorithms > for converting greyscale text and line art to bilevel (thresholding) are > nowhere near as good as what's done in a good scanner. Picture Elements > makes a PCI card that can be used to do this (and even works with Linux), > but it's very expensive so I really want a software-only solution. All of this sounds like Pagis Pro, a 5+ year old program that interfaced with scanners beyond 24-bit (most scanners are 30-, 36-, or more). It automatically recognized text from graphics and encoded appropriately. -- Jim Leonard (trixter@oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From emu at ecubics.com Mon Jan 31 15:42:44 2005 From: emu at ecubics.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Lossy compression vs. archiving and OCR (was Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <48318.64.139.41.130.1107206116.squirrel@64.139.41.130> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> <41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net> <42605.64.139.41.130.1107202686.squirrel@64.139.41.130> <41FE9A34.2090208@pacbell.net> <48318.64.139.41.130.1107206116.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <41FEA654.3060804@ecubics.com> Eric Smith wrote: > Even at those resolutions, it can be difficult to tell some characters > apart, expecially from poor quality originals. But usually I can do > it if I study the scanned page very closely. No, OCR today cannot do > as good a job at that as I can. Someday OCR may be better. But > arbitrarily replacing the glyphs with other ones the software considers > "good enough" is going to f*&# up any possibility of doing this by > either a human OR OCR. > > And all to make the file a little smaller. DVD-R costs about $0.25 > to store 4.7GB of data, so I just can't get excited about using lossy > encoding for text and line art pages that usually don't encode with > lossless G4 to more than 50K bytes per page. I'm here completely with Eric. However, probably we should distinguish how we actually scan the stuff, and how we distribute the scans. As the most work is anyway in setting up the scanner, name the files, check if all pages are there, etc. I don't like to do it twice, so I scan at least 300-400 dpi, most of the time with two bits per dot/pixel. And put it on DLT as an original, then play with what I got. And, every few years, I even check if the OCR is good enough, or still not, ... Cheers From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Mon Jan 31 15:33:22 2005 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: der Mouse "Re: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal?" (Jan 30, 21:08) References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <10501312133.ZM15339@mindy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jan 30 2005, 21:08, der Mouse wrote: > > I keep on finding sync combining circuits that'll do seperate sync to > > sync on green everywhere, but nothing to do the reverse! > > I thought the right thing there was to simply connect the green output > to both the green video input and the sync input. > > However, that's coming from someone who has never tried it (at least > not knowingly - I may have used adapters designed to do just that) and > who does not really understand the signals involved.... Hmm, now that you mention it, I remember trying something like that several years ago, when we had to have an SGI (RGB, SOG) drive a video projector (RGB, CSYNC). We had a 13W3-to-3xBNC cable and put a BNC T-piece on the green, with a short coax to the CSYNC BNC on the projector. It worked well enough, even though the T-piece and cable were 50-ohm cheapernet parts. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From randy at s100-manuals.com Mon Jan 31 15:46:30 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Lossy compression vs. archiving and OCR (was Re: Many things) References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org><41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net><42605.64.139.41.130.1107202686.squirrel@64.139.41.130><41FE9A34.2090208@pacbell.net> <48318.64.139.41.130.1107206116.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <000e01c507de$54d27520$393fd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Eric Smith" Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 3:15 PM > But that's what you yourself said that the DjVu software does. It > replaces glyphs with other glyphs that it thinks are similar. No matter > how good a job it thinks it can do of that, I DO NOT WANT IT FOR > ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTS. > > I normally scan at 300 or 400 DPI; when there is very tiny text I > sometimes use 600 DPI. > > Even at those resolutions, it can be difficult to tell some characters > apart, expecially from poor quality originals. But usually I can do > it if I study the scanned page very closely. No, OCR today cannot do > as good a job at that as I can. Someday OCR may be better. But > arbitrarily replacing the glyphs with other ones the software considers > "good enough" is going to f*&# up any possibility of doing this by > either a human OR OCR. > > And all to make the file a little smaller. DVD-R costs about $0.25 > to store 4.7GB of data, so I just can't get excited about using lossy > encoding for text and line art pages that usually don't encode with > lossless G4 to more than 50K bytes per page. > > Eric The point is not you nor your preferences you can store the documents any way you want, you can decide to share or not. If you decide to share you can ship the documents on DVD's or offer them on a website. My documents are not perfect but I believe they are the best I can provide given the variables of convenience and cost. These questions face every archivist, if I decided to archive "perfect documents" how many could I archive? Randy www.s100-manuals.com From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Mon Jan 31 15:49:57 2005 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <42943.64.139.41.130.1107202853.squirrel@64.139.41.130> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> <200501310210.VAA17888@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <1107175875.30451.22.camel@weka.localdomain> <20050131173238.5f807e8e.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <42943.64.139.41.130.1107202853.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <20050131224957.382b7b44.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 12:20:53 -0800 (PST) "Eric Smith" wrote: > Won't work reliably if the video is AC-coupled, which is *very* > common. I know. But I build a quick and dirty sync separator with a simple comparator and it worked so well that I never got around to build a proper sync separator based on a LM1881. :-) -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 31 16:14:50 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Lossy compression vs. archiving and OCR (was Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <000e01c507de$54d27520$393fd7d1@randylaptop> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org><41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net><42605.64.139.41.130.1107202686.squirrel@64.139.41.130><41FE9A34.2090208@pacbell.net> <48318.64.139.41.130.1107206116.squirrel@64.139.41.130> <000e01c507de$54d27520$393fd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <52477.64.139.41.130.1107209690.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Randy wrote: > My documents are not perfect but I believe they are the best I can provide > given the variables of convenience and cost. As I stated in another post, my comments are only intended to influence ongoing archival efforts, and are not in any way intended to criticize the efforts of people who are scanning documents and making them available. I have found several of the documents on your web site to be very helpful. Thanks for providing them! Even though I don't like lossy compression applied to text and line art, and try to discourage it, a lossy-compression DjVu file of a document is MUCH more useful than not having the document at all. I might try to draw the line at JPEGs of text and line art though. They literally hurt my eyes (by causing eye strain) due to the bluriness of the edges. Still, if it's a document I really need I suppose I'd rather be able to get the JPEG than nothing at all. > These questions face every archivist, if I decided to archive "perfect > documents" how many could I archive? None at all. Anyone that thinks otherwise is a fool. Eric From randy at s100-manuals.com Mon Jan 31 16:35:09 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Lossy compression vs. archiving and OCR (was Re: Many things) References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org><41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net><42605.64.139.41.130.1107202686.squirrel@64.139.41.130><41FE9A34.2090208@pacbell.net><48318.64.139.41.130.1107206116.squirrel@64.139.41.130><000e01c507de$54d27520$393fd7d1@randylaptop> <52477.64.139.41.130.1107209690.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <000e01c507e5$20d607d0$863cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "Eric Smith" Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 4:14 PM > Randy wrote: >> My documents are not perfect but I believe they are the best I can >> provide >> given the variables of convenience and cost. > > As I stated in another post, my comments are only intended to influence > ongoing archival efforts, and are not in any way intended to criticize > the efforts of people who are scanning documents and making them > available. > > I have found several of the documents on your web site to be very > helpful. Thanks for providing them! > > Even though I don't like lossy compression applied to text and line art, > and try to discourage it, a lossy-compression DjVu file of a document > is MUCH more useful than not having the document at all. > > I might try to draw the line at JPEGs of text and line art though. They > literally hurt my eyes (by causing eye strain) due to the bluriness > of the edges. Still, if it's a document I really need I suppose I'd > rather be able to get the JPEG than nothing at all. > >> These questions face every archivist, if I decided to archive "perfect >> documents" how many could I archive? > > None at all. Anyone that thinks otherwise is a fool. > > Eric I too have seen people try and use JPEG's for document archiving, I also find them hard to read (I don't do it). For now and the immediate future I will continue with 300 DPI TIFF's in PDF's. Randy www.s100-manuals.com From frustum at pacbell.net Mon Jan 31 17:04:50 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: ISA bus hack Message-ID: <41FEB992.1050304@pacbell.net> Mentioning my old employer, Calera Recognition Systems, reminded me of this ISA bus "hack." The OCR accelerator cards that Calera sold were able to find a free space in the memory map of the ISA bus and could even support multiple cards on one bus. No flash, jumpers, or dipswitches were involved, and this was before any Plug and Play. How it worked was this. The cards had a 68020 on them, along with a couple megabytes of memory and a few ASICs that accelerated key parts of the OCR algorithm. The 68020 would wake up from reset and "spin" -- meaning it would program a control register to indicate what address it was located at. It would park there for a while waiting to get written to by the host x86. If it didn't receive a write, it would move to the next address range, etc, and go around again and again util it was told to stay put. Complicating all of this was that the card very well might map to an address where some other card or memory already lived. The OCR card, in this mode, did not drive any signals, and was able to handle to 0 wait state writes. If the x86 was writing to or reading from RAM where the card was also located, the 68020 would see these and ignore them unless they followed a very complicated asymptotically approaching 0 probability sequence such that a card, seeing the sequence, was certain that it was the x86 trying to talk to it. Once a card received the sequence and was told to become visible, it would then turn on any handshake logic and could respond to reads and writes. The next layer of the onion was that multiple cards could be in the system at the same time. You don't want two cards to "wake up" at the same address in memory and then have a tristate catfight. Instead, part of the wake up sequence involved a one bit at a time arbitrartion process based on the card's unique serial numbers. Finally, the memory system attached to the 68020 wasn't fast enough to receive the reads and writes with zero wait state performance. However, the reset and interrupt request logic was, so that is what was used to signal to the 68020. The magic sequence of writes was seen on the 68020 as a sequence of interrupts and resets that followed a certain pattern (the logic could tell apart a hard reset from a soft reset; we were worried that the 68020's internal state wouldn't persist through soft reset, so we used a register that was inside one of the ASICs that was known to not get reset to hold the required tracking state). Parts of the implementation were overly complicated due to the fact that none of it was designed up front. It was implemented after we realized that we really didn't need to use the dip switches. Although it was all stochastic, all of the shenanigans would typically take less than a second so that nobody really noticed, and not having dip switches made the card a snap to install. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jan 31 17:01:36 2005 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: does anybody remember who was building generic front panels. Message-ID: <41FEB8D0.70207@jetnet.ab.ca> topic says all. I seem to have lost the web link. From randy at s100-manuals.com Mon Jan 31 17:26:01 2005 From: randy at s100-manuals.com (Randy McLaughlin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: does anybody remember who was building generic front panels. References: <41FEB8D0.70207@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <000a01c507ec$3d42c730$d23cd7d1@randylaptop> From: "woodelf" Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 5:01 PM > topic says all. I seem to have lost the web link. You may be referring to the Imsai Series 2 (www.imsai.net). Randy www.s100-manuals.com From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 31 17:25:54 2005 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: ISA bus hack In-Reply-To: <41FEB992.1050304@pacbell.net> References: <41FEB992.1050304@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <58952.64.139.41.130.1107213954.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Jim wrote: > Mentioning my old employer, Calera Recognition Systems, reminded me of > this ISA bus "hack." Very clever. Thanks for sharing the description; that's the kind of information that we'd probably never find anywhere else. The one-bit-at-a-time arbitration based on a node number or serial number has been used in many other arbitration protocols. I wonder where it was first invented. Eric From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 31 17:47:32 2005 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FE22F5.6010407@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <003101c507ef$3cfcdd30$5b01a8c0@flexpc> > I maintain that PDF should not be used merely as a container > for existing graphics files because there is normally > no easy free way to extract the image data and use it in > another program. I think ImageMagik will do this sort of thing quite happily. As for using PDF as a container for scanned images: that's actually one way I think it *should* be used. Perfect OCR would be better than G4 TIFF living in a PDF wrapper. When such OCR exists, I'll happily run everything I have through it - then we'll have tiny PDFs and we'll easily be able to turn them into text or html on the fly for those who want them that way. The problem today is that perfect (or even near perfect) OCR is a long way off, despite the strides that seem to have been taken lately. A typical document I scan will have 200-300 pages. Just how many errors would you be willing to tolerate in such a document? It's even worse when you realise that there are plenty of technical phrases and the occasional semi-mathematical expression. > majority of users who do this screw it up massively (I'm > thinking 150 DPI JPGs of scanned text). The the scan was born screwed. Shoving it into or dragging it out of a convenient viewing wrapper makes no difference to its essential nature. If this is the only scan, then it is better than nothing. Otherwise, use someone else's scan. In both cases a gentle email pointing out the problem might help prevent future "issues". > Where are the tools to create DjVu-like PDF files? The best > Acrobat can do is > OCR text but still leave the source bitmap in place... If I > scan in a page > with a background color image with B&W text foreground, where > are the PDF tools > to properly handle layer seperation? (Not CMYK seperation, > you know what I > mean :-) I've had real trouble with RSTS and RT-11 documents which contained mostly B&W text but with some examples of output in colour, sections that apply to only one or other format on a grey-, or pink-shaded background and foreground text sometimes in dark red or blue. The original scans are huge (colour, possibly 24-bit, TIFF). I've not found any reasonable way of automatically post-processing them to produce something reasonable. It *should* be possible to split the B&W text out and into its own G4 encoded layer, do the same for the various colours of text (each encoded as bi-level G4 and then the layer marked as "display this in colour X") and blocks of shading in further layers for the background where applicable. If DejaVu can do this, I'm all ears! Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini@iee.org From frustum at pacbell.net Mon Jan 31 17:48:25 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Lossy compression vs. archiving and OCR (was Re: Many things) In-Reply-To: <48318.64.139.41.130.1107206116.squirrel@64.139.41.130> References: <0501290052.AA20831@ivan.Harhan.ORG><1107027831.27506.40.camel@weka.localdomain><20050129184357.S977@localhost><20050130134155.0b1d0e90.chenmel@earthlink.net><009a01c506ff$bd8fc430$753cd7d1@randylaptop> <32836.64.169.63.74.1107137096.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <004101c5073f$d9686a00$cf7ba8c0@MODEM> <32837.64.169.63.74.1107148105.squirrel@64.169.63.74> <41FE23F0.10407@oldskool.org> <41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net> <42605.64.139.41.130.1107202686.squirrel@64.139.41.130> <41FE9A34.2090208@pacbell.net> <48318.64.139.41.130.1107206116.squirrel@64.139.41.130> Message-ID: <41FEC3C9.5060109@pacbell.net> Eric Smith wrote: > Jim Battle wrote: > >>When you >>scan to bilevel, exactly where an edge crosses the threshold is subject >>to exact placement of the page, what the scanner's threshold is, and >>probably what phase the 60 Hz AC is since it to some degree couples to >>the lamp brightness (hopefully not much at all, but if you are splitting >>hairs...). Thus there is no "perfect" scan. > > Never claimed there was. But I don't want software to DELIBERATELY > muck about with the image, replacing one glyph with another. That's > potentially MUCH WORSE than any effect you're going to get from the > page being shifted or skewed a tiny amount. "potentially" is the key word. if the encoding software is crappy, then they such a substitution could turn all "e"s into "x"s. sure. but the djvu encoder doesn't make gross substititutions like that. Contrary to what you say, skew has a much larger effect on the sampling than djvu's encoders have. Which scanner you use has a much larger effect on the sampling too. ... > I normally scan at 300 or 400 DPI; when there is very tiny text I > sometimes use 600 DPI. > > Even at those resolutions, it can be difficult to tell some characters > apart, expecially from poor quality originals. But usually I can do > it if I study the scanned page very closely. No, OCR today cannot do > as good a job at that as I can. Someday OCR may be better. But > arbitrarily replacing the glyphs with other ones the software considers > "good enough" is going to f*&# up any possibility of doing this by > either a human OR OCR. Eric, in picking a case where the djvu algorithm *might* cause problems, you must also confess that in this case scanning in bilevel, even lossless, is going to be a bad choice too. If the page is that poor, you should be using grayscale. Why be religious about lossiness and claim anything less is going to "f*&#" up your efforts when you've just tossed away the bulk of the information? > And all to make the file a little smaller. DVD-R costs about $0.25 > to store 4.7GB of data, so I just can't get excited about using lossy > encoding for text and line art pages that usually don't encode with > lossless G4 to more than 50K bytes per page. "A little" can be 3x. For distribution, it is a big deal. Until recently, it made a signficant difference on disk price too, but now that you can get 120 GB hard drives in a box of cereal, that isn't so much of a concern. Of course you can use whatever format you want for your archiving. Making it available in a more accessible format means that more people are likely to take advantage of it. For most documents, it is the information that I care about preserving, not the pixels. I would be overjoyed if Adobe would buy out lizardtech and adopt some of their technology, even the lossy bits. From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 31 17:49:29 2005 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FE3D63.2060305@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <003201c507ef$82ab4dd0$5b01a8c0@flexpc> > Although it doesn't really know text is per-se, one of its > algorithms is > to find glyph-like things. Once it has all glyph-like things > isolated > on a page, it compares them all to each other and if two glyphs are > similar enough, it will just represent them both (or N of > them) with one > compressed glyph image. That looks like information loss to me. If one of those glyph-like things was not the same symbol as the others, then the algorithm has just introduced an error. > So for OCR purposes, I don't think this type of compression > really hurts > -- it replaces one plausible "e" image with another one. But one of them might have been something other than an "e". Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini@iee.org From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 31 17:53:46 2005 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: manual file types In-Reply-To: <96.1fe335ee.2f2ed754@aol.com> Message-ID: <003301c507f0$1bb1cdb0$5b01a8c0@flexpc> > TIFF file (big) The general consensus seems to be that bi-level scanning with a resolution of at least 300dpi but preferably 400dpi (although I tend to use 600dpi). G4 encoded TIFF is pretty good space wise (obviously lously compared to text). > OCRed ASCII text (ugly) OCR is (almost) certain to introduce errors. You'll need a significant investment in proof-reading to fix this! > compressed PostScript of OCRed text (depending on OCR, could be nice). If you can OCR, then any format that can represent that text in whatever fonts and layout the original document used (and uses an efficient openly-documented format) should do. Most of my text documents are PDF. You can turn PDF into text (or html I guess) where appropriate. But you cannot OCR (or at least, I bet you cannot OCR without introducing errors). Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini@iee.org From vrs at msn.com Mon Jan 31 17:54:12 2005 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: does anybody remember who was building generic front panels. References: <41FEB8D0.70207@jetnet.ab.ca> <000a01c507ec$3d42c730$d23cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: > From: "woodelf" > Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 5:01 PM > > topic says all. I seem to have lost the web link. > > You may be referring to the Imsai Series 2 (www.imsai.net). Or to the "Homebrew PDP-11 console" at http://www.pdp-11.nl/? Vince From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Mon Jan 31 17:56:01 2005 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: PDF's was Many things In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003401c507f0$6c58edc0$5b01a8c0@flexpc> > From the sounds of it, we as a community would benefit > greatly if a number > of us started bit torrent sites. I'll start looking in to > it. I'm not > sure if my budget will allow a bigger pipe (I've only got > 256K up) but if > enough of us started adopting bit torrent then we could reach > a critical > mass and it would be easier for everyone to exchange manual scans. Alternatively the existing hobby sites might become the latest collateral damage in the war being actively fought by various DCMA-enforcing bodies. Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini@iee.org From gordon at gjcp.net Mon Jan 31 18:05:32 2005 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FEC7CC.7030404@gjcp.net> Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > I realize they may or may not have been spoken in jest, and in any event > you certainly have a right to utter them, but in this day and age, all it > takes is one person to finally get fed up with your nonsensical rants and > report you to the FBI or DHS (Department of Homeland Security), in which > case you would probably end up at Guantanmo Bay, and if you're lucky > you'll be the guy at the top of the pyramid. That does rather assume that he's in the United Soviet States of America... Gordon. From williams.dan at gmail.com Mon Jan 31 18:19:26 2005 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> Message-ID: <26c11a64050131161923cfb60c@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:38:59 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote: > > does anyone happen to have a schematic for a simple circuit to extract > sync information from a sync-on-green video signal? > > I've got a screen here I'd like to hook up to the Tek (I left the normal > monitor I use with the Tek at Bletchley), but it needs either seperate H > and V sync lines hooked up, or composite sync - it won't do sync on > green (which is all that the Tek provides). > > I keep on finding sync combining circuits that'll do seperate sync to > sync on green everywhere, but nothing to do the reverse! > > cheers > > Jules > > I don't know if this is any help, but I bought a vga adaptor which has both a male and female vga connector and converts sync-on-green both ways. I will try and find the name of the company I bought ift from, it was only about $45 including postage from the US. It has worked for me using any combination of pc, sun. dec and sgi monitors and machines. I have thrown at it. Dan From melt at microvax.org Mon Jan 31 18:19:19 2005 From: melt at microvax.org (Alex White) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: extracting H/V sync from sync-on-green video signal? In-Reply-To: <26c11a64050131161923cfb60c@mail.gmail.com> References: <1107095939.28828.5.camel@weka.localdomain> <26c11a64050131161923cfb60c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, Dan Williams wrote: > I don't know if this is any help, but I bought a vga adaptor which has > both a male and female vga connector and converts sync-on-green both > ways. I will try and find the name of the company I bought ift from, > it was only about $45 including postage from the US. > It has worked for me using any combination of pc, sun. dec and sgi > monitors and machines. I have thrown at it. If you find out where you got it from, i'd love to have one of these too :) alex/melt From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 31 17:51:43 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <20050130220315.U18147@localhost> from "Tom Jennings" at Jan 30, 5 10:06:46 pm Message-ID: > Color laser printers output a serial number indicator of some sort > by a near-invisible pattern of yellow pixels overlaying the > printed image. I imagine it's not 100% reliable but apparently > it's been in place for some time. If that's true, it's a darn good reason to use classic printers :-) If I bought a printer and found it was puting stuff on the paper that was not specified by the input data, it would go straight back to the shop as being defective. Period. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 31 17:58:48 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Newbrain Display In-Reply-To: from "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Luis_G=F3mez?=" at Jan 31, 5 12:24:41 pm Message-ID: > > Near to the Nec FIP display in the Newbrain computer there is a little > circuit with a componet with 10 pins where you can read: > > 27 > CD-1867N > TDK > JAPAN I haev the official Newbrain scheamtics here.... That component is probably a transformer. The module it's part of is a DC-DC converter to run the display. It has, apparently, 7 connections : 1) +5V input 2, 5) linked together, seem to be a -ve output (22uF to ground 3) Output,also -ve (22uF togoround, also goes to Vbb on the DS8881, and the pull-downs on the segment (anode) leads) 4,6 ) Heater outputs to the display > > Somebody know what is this component? I think it is used to control voltage > supplied to de display. > > Somebody have the NEC FIP16A5R datasheet? It is the 16 character display in > the Newbrain AD I can at least tell you : Heater : 1,37 Grids (digit select) : 3,5,7,9,14,16,18,20,22,24,27,29,31,33,35 Anodes (segments) : 4,6,8,10,13,15,17,21,23,25,28,30,32,34 -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 31 18:00:43 2005 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Forth was Re: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: from "Huw Davies" at Jan 31, 5 11:19:52 pm Message-ID: > OK, to add a little bit of CC to this. ISTR that Forth was originally > developed on PDP-11s but what other classic hardware of the era was it > used? Which of these will fit inside the Golf :-) Isn't it quicker to list the classic computers that don't run Forth? Heck, there's even a Forth ROM for the HP71 and a Forth tape for the HP75... -tony From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jan 31 18:42:12 2005 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FEC7CC.7030404@gjcp.net> References: <41FEC7CC.7030404@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <200501311942.12165.pat@computer-refuge.org> Gordon JC Pearce declared on Monday 31 January 2005 07:05 pm: > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > I realize they may or may not have been spoken in jest, and in any > > event you certainly have a right to utter them, but in this day and > > age, all it takes is one person to finally get fed up with your > > nonsensical rants and report you to the FBI or DHS (Department of > > Homeland Security), in which case you would probably end up at > > Guantanmo Bay, and if you're lucky you'll be the guy at the top of > > the pyramid. > > That does rather assume that he's in the United Soviet States of > America... For those who haven't payed attention to his threads about this before, he lives in California, which, last I checked, is still a part of the US. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From zmerch at 30below.com Mon Jan 31 19:03:35 2005 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Forth was Re: The definition of On Topic In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20050131195521.03a6e0f8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Tony Duell may have mentioned these words: > > OK, to add a little bit of CC to this. ISTR that Forth was originally > > developed on PDP-11s but what other classic hardware of the era was it > > used? Which of these will fit inside the Golf :-) > >Isn't it quicker to list the classic computers that don't run Forth? >Heck, there's even a Forth ROM for the HP71 and a Forth tape for the HP75... I keep hearing about this new-fangled 'Forth' thingy, and I keep saying to my self -- someday I'll learn it... but I don't have it yet for any of my machines, to my knowledge. Over on the Model 100 list, a listmember there was able to get the book 'Thinking Forth' republished in PDF format through it's author, Leo Brodie. The link to the message in the archives (which are online now... ;-) ) is here: http://ccarchive.30below.com/cgi-bin/wrapper?list=m100&cmd=showthread&month=200501&threadid=kkhmbidindnehjmdheib Or this tinyurl thingy... http://tinyurl.com/4bykh [[ As an offtopic aside -- how long are those thingies cached, anyway??? ]] Now I just have to get a Forth interpreter/compiler for the M100... Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers _??_ zmerch@30below.com (?||?) If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead _)(_ disarmament should *not* be your first career choice. From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Jan 31 19:49:24 2005 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (shoppa_classiccmp@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Reading RX01/02 disks on a PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41FEE024.nailK2U11N658@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > So far (thanks to help from Howard Harte) I've got an 11/44 with an RX02 > drive running RSTS that has the DD module loaded. I'm running the serial > tape drive simulator on a PC (I forget what it's called or who wrote it). Install RT-11 or BSD2.11 with TCP/IP network via Ethernet (DEUNA or DELUA) and you can just FTP image files in and out of the machine. > Can a PDP11 have two sets of RX02 drives installed at once? If so, do th > second set of drives become DY2: and DY3:? Yes, you can, but the second pair will be at a different CSR/vector that you have to configure. In order to get RSTS/E to see it, you'll probably have to put them where it'll autoconfigure it. Tim. From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 31 19:56:23 2005 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FEC7CC.7030404@gjcp.net> References: <41FEC7CC.7030404@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <20050131175511.K70633@shell.lmi.net> > Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > I realize they may or may not have been spoken in jest, and in any event > > you certainly have a right to utter them, but in this day and age, all it > > takes is one person to finally get fed up with your nonsensical rants and > > report you to the FBI or DHS (Department of Homeland Security), in which > > case you would probably end up at Guantanmo Bay, and if you're lucky > > you'll be the guy at the top of the pyramid. On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > That does rather assume that he's in the United Soviet States of America... MOST of the involuntary residents of Gitmo were NOT in the U.S. From frustum at pacbell.net Mon Jan 31 20:27:14 2005 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <003201c507ef$82ab4dd0$5b01a8c0@flexpc> References: <003201c507ef$82ab4dd0$5b01a8c0@flexpc> Message-ID: <41FEE902.2020405@pacbell.net> Antonio Carlini wrote: >>Although it doesn't really know text is per-se, one of its >>algorithms is >>to find glyph-like things. Once it has all glyph-like things >>isolated >>on a page, it compares them all to each other and if two glyphs are >>similar enough, it will just represent them both (or N of >>them) with one >>compressed glyph image. > > > That looks like information loss to me. yes, it is information loss. scanning bilevel is a much worse information loss. scanning at 300 dpi, or 600 dpi, or 1000 dpi is information loss. viewing the document on a CRT is information loss. > If one of those glyph-like > things was not the same symbol as the others, then the algorithm > has just introduced an error. yes, you are right, *if*. And that is where you are wrong to assume it is likely to make a difference. >>So for OCR purposes, I don't think this type of compression >>really hurts >>-- it replaces one plausible "e" image with another one. > > > But one of them might have been something other than an "e". Antonio -- yes, if you assume that the encoder is going to make gross errors, then it is a bad program and it shouldn't be used. but have you ever used it? it doesn't do anything of the sort. imagine a page with 2000 characters, all of one font and one point size, and that 150 of them are the letter "e". In a tiff image, there will be 150 copies of that e, all very slightly different. In the djvu version, the number of unique 'e's will depend on the scanned image, but it isn't going to replace them all with a single 'e' -- there might be 50 'e's instead of 150. Thank about that -- to the naked eye, all 150 look identical unless yo blow up the image with a magnifying tool. djvu is still being selective enough about what matches and what doesn't that it still has 50 copies of the 'e' after it has collapsed ones that are similar enough. It isn't very agressive at all about coalescing glyphs. As far as I know there is a bound on how small of a size it will try to group so that for really small point sizes, nothing bad happens at all. The differences it allows are truly inconsequential. It is like complaining that mp3 (or insert your favorite encoder here) sucks because in theory it can do a poor job of it. In fact, ones that do a poor job get left behind and the ones that do a good job get used. From dvcorbin at optonline.net Mon Jan 31 20:38:13 2005 From: dvcorbin at optonline.net (David V. Corbin) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Many things In-Reply-To: <41FEE902.2020405@pacbell.net> Message-ID: >>> >>> yes, it is information loss. scanning bilevel is a much >>> worse information loss. scanning at 300 dpi, or 600 dpi, >>> or 1000 dpi is information loss. viewing the document on a >>> CRT is information loss. >>> And if one really wants to get down to low levels, simply exposing the original to the lamp of the scanner is information loss...... [Not that this matters for the vast majority of documents, but I would not want to use a standard scanner on a really valuable [old] document thoushands of times.......] From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jan 31 21:05:18 2005 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: does anybody remember who was building generic front panels. In-Reply-To: References: <41FEB8D0.70207@jetnet.ab.ca> <000a01c507ec$3d42c730$d23cd7d1@randylaptop> Message-ID: <41FEF1EE.6010607@jetnet.ab.ca> vrs wrote: >Or to the "Homebrew PDP-11 console" at http://www.pdp-11.nl/? > > Vince > >. > > > That was the link I was looking for, thanks. I was hoping he had more on the panel rather than the interface to it. Note the PDP-8 front panel/emulator is nice. Note most of my lurking here is for information about classic computers so I can build my own special cpu since a real classic computers or out of my price range. I was hoping for a PCB of the 11's led and switch board so I don't have to home brew my own. I guess I'll need also now to download this front panel designer program from here: http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/home/index.htm Now is there a need for 8's and 11's front panels ( or other classics ) from classic computer users? Woodelf. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 31 21:57:06 2005 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: does anybody remember who was building generic front panels. In-Reply-To: <41FEF1EE.6010607@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <41FEB8D0.70207@jetnet.ab.ca> <000a01c507ec$3d42c730$d23cd7d1@randylaptop> <41FEF1EE.6010607@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 20:05:18 -0700, woodelf wrote: > vrs wrote: > > >Or to the "Homebrew PDP-11 console" at http://www.pdp-11.nl/? > > > That was the link I was looking for, thanks. I was hoping he had more on > the panel rather than the interface to it. Henk's project is the guts behind it, not so much the metalwork. What I need to do is find a cheap source of suitable switches - I have a pair of board sets (2 CPU, 2 I/O) and most of the guts to populate them at home already (some of the parts are surplus from a failed Commodore dealer, making it _doubly_ classic ;-) Between this front panel stuff, and a couple of modern Elf projects (Elf2K and Micro/Elf), I am going to be hitting local hamfests hard for appropriate toggle switches. I have a wad of C&K paddle switches, but they aren't right for either of the Elf designs (I _could_ use them on a custom -8 or -11 FP, but the particular C&K switches I have are might narrow, narrower than the ones used on the FP6120, so they will look funny on a 19"-wide FP). If I had a source of genuine DEC PDP-8/L toggles, I do have a dead -8/L FP board (that came to me with smashed lights and missing plastic toggles)... -ethan From Saquinn624 at aol.com Mon Jan 31 23:33:04 2005 From: Saquinn624 at aol.com (Saquinn624@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: machine room organization Message-ID: <12c.5674f472.2f306e90@aol.com> Does anyone on the list have any good tips for keeping a tidy machine room? I'm sick of tripping over CPUs and dealing with cable Gorgons when switching machines (I don't have near enough space for 1 monitor/keyboard/mouse per workstation). A/B/[C/D/E] switches work great for serial consoles, but not workstations. -Scott From vrs at msn.com Mon Jan 31 23:50:32 2005 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: does anybody remember who was building generic front panels. References: <41FEB8D0.70207@jetnet.ab.ca><000a01c507ec$3d42c730$d23cd7d1@randylaptop><41FEF1EE.6010607@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > Henk's project is the guts behind it, not so much the metalwork. What > I need to do is find a cheap source of suitable switches - I have a > pair of board sets (2 CPU, 2 I/O) and most of the guts to populate > them at home already (some of the parts are surplus from a failed > Commodore dealer, making it _doubly_ classic ;-) Between this front > panel stuff, and a couple of modern Elf projects (Elf2K and > Micro/Elf), I am going to be hitting local hamfests hard for > appropriate toggle switches. I have a wad of C&K paddle switches, but > they aren't right for either of the Elf designs (I _could_ use them on > a custom -8 or -11 FP, but the particular C&K switches I have are > might narrow, narrower than the ones used on the FP6120, so they will > look funny on a 19"-wide FP). The switches do seem to be the hard part. Mostly the stuff that is available is smaller then the old stuff. > If I had a source of genuine DEC PDP-8/L toggles, I do have a dead > -8/L FP board (that came to me with smashed lights and missing plastic > toggles)... I was looking for 8/L (or 8/e) stuff, but couldn't find anything close. I did find some 8/i style rockers, but although they will fit the PCB of an 8/i front panel, the rocker arm is quite a bit smaller than the ones used on the 8/i. Vince From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jan 31 23:51:54 2005 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:24 2005 Subject: Fwd: RE: Computer Rescue in Massachusetts Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20050131235123.058f2dd0@mail> >From: "Marie Proverb" >At 09:41 PM 1/25/2005, you wrote: >>Hello, >> >>We are attempting to find homes for an ancient: >> >>"Commodore 64" ...the keyboard (pcu) was not communicating with the >monitor....some software...probably the manuals...I read that there are >persons who repair and collect these. >> >>Apple II GS; Packard Bell with their respective monitors, keyboards, >printers, manuals and software. >> >>Any suggestions would be appreciated. >> >>Sincerely, >> >>Marie P. From greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz Sun Jan 30 18:23:24 2005 From: greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz (Greg Ewing) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:26 2005 Subject: Simon? (Re: Blast from the Past) In-Reply-To: <41FC7B8E.A4F2CBC5@rain.org> References: <41FC7B8E.A4F2CBC5@rain.org> Message-ID: <41FD7A7C.4050205@canterbury.ac.nz> Marvin Johnston wrote: > How did Simon differ from other simple relay machines, like the first > Stibitiz calculators? It was more general purpose, it was portable, and > it was popularized in the press. 13 articles on Simon appeared in > Radio-Electronics in 1950 and 1951. Is there any information about the architecture of this machine on the web? A brief googling doesn't seem to turn up anything with much detail. -- Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+ University of Canterbury, | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a | Christchurch, New Zealand | wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Inc. | greg@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz +--------------------------------------+ From jdbryan at acm.org Mon Jan 31 11:36:01 2005 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:27 2005 Subject: Data I/O manual sought In-Reply-To: <00ac01c504e3$3effdc90$6400a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200501311736.j0VHa2OS022268@mail.bcpl.net> On 27 Jan 2005 at 20:44, Jay West wrote: > Also, I'm looking for a "recent" version of firmware for my 29B. Can > anyone copy theirs for me? A caveat regarding firmware updates: while I don't have a Firmware Update Kit manual for the mainframe, the corresponding manual for the 303A-011A adapter indicates that the V11.1 kit comes with four EPROMs, a PAL, and a resistor. The manual also indicates that updating from V05+ requires changing the EPROMs and PAL, updating from V02-V04 additionally requires changing the resistor, and updating from V01 additionally requires a daughter-board swap. The main board in my 29B (V5.0) appears to have seven EPROMs and three bipolar PROMs. So I don't know if updating the mainframe firmware is just a matter of installing new EPROMs, or whether one or more of the bipolar PROMs (and maybe some other hardware) must be updated at the same time. Perhaps someone has a Firmware Update Kit manual for the mainframe and can confirm what is included. -- Dave From ddl-cctech at danlan.com Mon Jan 31 15:20:15 2005 From: ddl-cctech at danlan.com (Dan Lanciani) Date: Sun Feb 27 13:52:27 2005 Subject: Help to ID Emulex board Message-ID: <200501312120.QAA07370@ss10.danlan.com> On Jan 29 2005, 10:05, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: | | What is this board? | | Made by Emulex. Has ASSY# SU0210401. ROM on board says |"SC0210201-AXC W/ | Boot Strap". | | Has on top two 26-pin connectors and one 60-pin. Note that this board uses a 10MHz SMD interface so it will not support the Saber drives or even the Eagles. (An SC03 would handle the latter but not the former.) Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com