From ghldbrd at ccp.com Sat Jul 1 05:46:42 2000 From: ghldbrd at ccp.com (Gary Hildebrand) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:54:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hello Mike On 30-Jun-00, you wrote: >>> I love pointing out to employers that the primary skill of a Phd is the >>> ability to stretch a simple project out to two years, and make it "seem" >>> reasonable to the boss. >> >> That's funny, cause here we see the primary skill of a PhD as taking an >> impossible task and managing to get two monkeys and an engineer who should > > Interesting point of view. I personally see no correllation with a Phd, and > the skill sets you describe. Don't we all know what BS, MS and PhD really means: Bull ____, more ____, and Piled higher and deeper. Getting the job isn't what you know, but how you can sell yourself and your ideas, no matter how half-baked they may be. -- Gary Hildebrand ghldbrd@ccp.com From ghldbrd at ccp.com Sat Jul 1 05:46:42 2000 From: ghldbrd at ccp.com (Gary Hildebrand) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:09 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hello Mike On 30-Jun-00, you wrote: >>> I love pointing out to employers that the primary skill of a Phd is the >>> ability to stretch a simple project out to two years, and make it "seem" >>> reasonable to the boss. >> >> That's funny, cause here we see the primary skill of a PhD as taking an >> impossible task and managing to get two monkeys and an engineer who should > > Interesting point of view. I personally see no correllation with a Phd, and > the skill sets you describe. Don't we all know what BS, MS and PhD really means: Bull ____, more ____, and Piled higher and deeper. Getting the job isn't what you know, but how you can sell yourself and your ideas, no matter how half-baked they may be. -- Gary Hildebrand ghldbrd@ccp.com From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jul 1 00:13:42 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room In-Reply-To: (message from William Donzelli on Fri, 30 Jun 2000 22:20:59 -0400 (EDT)) References: Message-ID: <20000701051342.12170.qmail@brouhaha.com> I wrote: > All of the really big iron I've worked with still had plugs. Some > were big-honkin' three-phase-Y 416V 50A/phase twist-lock plugs, but > they were still plugs. William Donzelli wrote: > Bigger, BIGGER! Medium sized mainframe and above. A Convex I have in the > shop has a cord, but its about the size of my wrist, and terminates in a > standard (large) electrical junction box. Apparently it was easier to > pull out the whole box instead of just cutting the cord. I'm talking LARGE sized mainframes. Each cabinet had a three-phase cable with plug. I don't think any one cabinet used more than 416V phase-to-phase at 50A/phase; that's sufficient for 60KW power dissipation, and I've never seen a single cabinet of mainframe gear that needed more than that. However, 100A and 125A pin & sleeve connectors are readily available (and comply with international standards such as IEC 309), so there really wouldn't be any good excuse for the equipment NOT to have a plug. Part of the reason for going to 416V, by the way, is so that the power cord doesn't have to be more than about 3-4 inches in diameter. They're unweildy enough at that size and you really wouldn't want anything bigger. From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Sat Jul 1 00:57:41 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: CQD-440 manual? Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000630225632.00c9d680@208.226.86.10> Help! The manual (switch settings and the like) for the CMD CQD-440 used to be on-line but I can't find it anywhere (Google has let me down, alas) If someone has the pointer please send it or post it! Thanks, --Chuck From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Sat Jul 1 01:03:01 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: CQD-440 manual? In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20000630225632.00c9d680@208.226.86.10> Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000630230243.00c9f280@208.226.86.10> Sorry, it is a CQD-420 and the site www.cmd.com seems to be missing. --Chuck At 10:57 PM 6/30/00 -0700, you wrote: >Help! The manual (switch settings and the like) for the CMD CQD-440 used >to be on-line but I can't find it anywhere (Google has let me down, alas) > >If someone has the pointer please send it or post it! Thanks, >--Chuck > From cem14 at cornell.edu Sat Jul 1 02:42:29 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <395D3D96.F73CB95@mainecoon.com> References: <200006302342.QAA01384@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.20000701034229.006bc130@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> At 05:38 PM 6/30/00 -0700, you wrote: >The principle problem with Ph.D.s is that their knowledge base tends to >be as narrow as any other new grads; the only distinction being that they >have significantly more depth in one very specific area. Worse, during >the past four years that they've been focused on that area they've >typically been in the "simplifying assumptions" world that's so prevalent >in academia; That's funny; I got my PhD out of showing other engineers and economists that the "simplifying assumptions" that they make when designing deregulated electric power markets _in the real world_ are, well, too simplistic. Electrons cannot be bribed to obey economics rather than Kirchhoff, period. Yet, that seems to be a hard point to sell to politicians and economists. >-- >Chris Kennedy >chris@mainecoon.com >http://www.mainecoon.com >PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 > From dburrows at netpath.net Sat Jul 1 06:24:49 2000 From: dburrows at netpath.net (Daniel T. Burrows) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: CQD-440 manual? Message-ID: <05c801bfe34f$38d5cb00$a652e780@L166> >Help! The manual (switch settings and the like) for the CMD CQD-440 used to >be on-line but I can't find it anywhere (Google has let me down, alas) > >If someone has the pointer please send it or post it! Thanks, >--Chuck IIRC the 420 is a 440 without the differential side populated, Here is the 440 manual save in text from their site, If you the original HTML version I have it also. Dan CMD Technical Support CQD440/443 Qbus Controller Installation Guide The QBUS CONTROLLER is an intelligent high performance Q-Bus single-ended or differential (sync/async) SCSI Host Adapter with dual SCSI ports. The QBUS CONTROLLER is fully compatible with the DEC Mass Storage Control Protocol (MSCP) and Tape Mass Storage Control protocol (TMSCP). The QBUS CONTROLLER can be used with the LSI-11/23, PDP-11/23+, Micro-PDP-11/53, 11/73, 11/83, 11/93, MicroVAX II, and MicroVAX III, VAX 4000 and DECsystem 5400 systems. It supports RT-11, TSX, DSM-11, ISM-11, RSX, RSTS, VMS, UNIX, ULTRIX, and other operating systems which use DU/TU drivers. Models: CQD-440/TM Disk and Tape (P44010A in U79 and P44009A in U93) CQD-440/TMP Disk/Tape with Passthru (P44010A in U79 and P44009A in U93) CQD-440/TMS Disk/Tape with Hardware Shadowing (P44010A in U79 and P44009A in U93) CQD-443 has the MicroVAX-3 metal mounting bracket, otherwise is the same board. Board Size Quad Wide Q-bus Emulation MSCP (DU driver) / TMSCP (TU driver) Bus Interface Standard MicroVAX or LSI-11 Q-bus Addressing 18- or 22-bit Addressing Interrupt Priority Level 4 or 5 Interrupt Vector Software programmable Transfer Mode Normal or block mode DMA Command Queuing Commands with optimized seek Data Buffer Capacity Virtual data buffer (infinite size) Bootstrap Auto bootstrap or utility bootstrap Defect Management Dynamic defect management Software Supported All standard DEC operating systems Multiple-Hosting Support multiple-hosting for disks, optical drives and tapes. Formatting On board format and bad block replacement (ISO standard for optical erasable disk format) Partitioning 2 or 4 equally divided partitions for disk drives Shadowing Any two disk drives of equal size on the bus can form a shadow set (for /TMS version only) Optional Software Tape Monitor Utility (TMU) SCSIformat ON-LINE (FMT) SCSI Library Manager (SLM for /TMJ only) LED Indicators Self test, error conditions Peripheral Interface Single Ended SCSI SCSI Transfer Rate: 10.0-MB/sec in Sync 7.0-MB/sec in Async SCSI Bus Parity Odd parity Devices Supported 7 SCSI devices disk or tape System Performance disconnect/reconnect, multiple-host SCSI Cable Length Single ended, up to 20-feet (6-meters), Single-ended fast up to 9 Feet and Differential narrow up to 82 feet Operating Temperature 5 to 50 degrees C Relative Humidity 10% to 90% , Non-condensing Power 5V DC 2.0 A Selecting CSR Address Before you install the QBUS SCSI host adapter under the VMS, Ultrix or Unix operating system you must select the Control and Status Register (CSR) address. If /T(tape only), then the appropiate tape csr is required. If /M(disk only), then the appropiate disk csr must be selected. If the dual function /TM controller is enabled so that both disk and tape are supported, two CSR addresses are required, one for disk and the other for tape. If /TM is being used as a tape only or disk only, then select the single appropiate CSR. Click here for help in CSR Address selection. RS232 CABLE CONNECTION HARDWARE SHADOW OPTION ON-LINE FORMAT OR TAPE MONITOR UTILITY DUALHOSTING FOR SCSI CLUSTERING QUICK SWITCH SETTINGS Host Adapter Switch and Jumper Selections Host Adapter ID Selections SW2-1 SW2-2 SW2-3 Initiator ID ON ON ON Host adapter ID=7, highest priority (F) ON ON OFF Host adapter ID=6 ON OFF ON Host adapter ID=5 ON OFF OFF Host adapter ID=4 OFF ON ON Host adapter ID=3 OFF ON OFF Host adapter ID=2 OFF OFF ON Host adapter ID=1 OFF OFF OFF Host adapter ID=0, lowest priority Note (F) means factory setting. Switch Settings SW2-4 ON Enable tape fast search option SW2-4 OFF Normal operation (F) SW2-5 ON Tape Monitor Utility enabled (/T, /TM) Disk SCSIformat ON-LINE enabled (/M, /TM) SW2-5 OFF Tape Monitor Utility disabled (F) Disk SCSIformat ON-LINE disabled (F) SW2-6 ON Tape sync mode disabled SW2-6 OFF Tape sync mode enabled (F) SW2-7 ON Disk sync mode disabled SW2-7 OFF Disk sync mode enabled (F) SW2-8 OFF Reserved (F) SW2-9 OFF Reserved (F) SW2-10 OFF Reserved (F) CQD-440 Pin Assignments W1 IN Differential SCSI terminator power enabled (F) W1 OUT Differential SCSI terminator power disabled W2 1-2 IN Single-ended Active Termination (F) W2 2-3 IN Single-ended Passive Termination W3 1-2 IN Reset W3 2-3 IN NMI (F) W6 IN Single-ended SCSI terminator power enabled (F) W6 OUT Single-ended SCSI terminator power disabled W7 OUT Reserved (F) W8, W9 IN Single-ended channel enabled (F) W10 OUT W11, W12 IN W13 OUT W4 & W5 IN W9, W10 IN Differential channel enabled W8 OUT W12, W13 IN W11 OUT W4 & W5 OUT W14 IN Reserved (F) W15 1-2 IN Reserved (F) W16-1 OUT 0.8-us DMA dwell time W16-2 OUT 1.6-us DMA dwell time W16-3 IN 3.2-us DMA dwell time (F) W16-4 OUT 6.4-us DMA dwell time W17 1-2 IN Eprom Size 512-Kbit or 1-Mbit W17 2-3 IN Eprom Size 256-Kbit W18 OUT 0 Wait State for Eprom Cycles (F) W18 IN 1 Wait State for Eprom Cycle W19-1 OUT Reserved (F) W19-2 OUT Reserved (F) W19-3 OUT Reserved (F) W20 1-2 IN Adaptive DMA enabled (F) W20 2-3 IN Adaptive DMA disabled W21 1-2 IN Adaptive DMA Dwell enabled (F) W21 2-3 IN Adaptive DMA Dwell disabled W22 1-2 IN Block mode DMA enabled (F) W22 2-3 IN Block mode DMA disabled W23 IN Auto-Bootstrap address=773000 (F) W23 OUT Auto-Bootstrap address=771000 W24 1-2 IN Auto-Bootstrap disabled (F) W24 2-3 IN Auto-Bootstrap enabled W25 OUT Reserved (F) W26 OUT Reserved (F) W27 OUT Reserved (F) W28 OUT Reserved (F) W29 OUT Reserved (F) W30 OUT Reserved (F) W31 1-2 Interrupt level 4 (F) W31 Cut Interrupt level 5--cut connection between 1-2 W32 1-2 22-Bit addressing (F) W32 Cut 18-Bit addressing--cut the connection 1-2 Note (F) means factory setting. CQD-440/TM CSR Addresses (Disk Only)P44009A Addr LSI-11 Micro VAX SW1-1 SW1-2 SW1-3 SW1-4 SW1-5 1 17772150 200001468 ON ON ON ON ON 2 17760334 200000DC ON ON ON ON OFF 3 17760354 200000EC ON ON ON OFF ON 4 17760374 200000FC ON ON ON OFF OFF 5 17760340 200000E0 ON ON OFF ON ON 6 17760344 200000E4 ON ON OFF ON OFF 7 17760350 200000E8 ON ON OFF OFF ON 8 17760360 200000F0 ON ON OFF OFF OFF 9 17760364 200000F4 ON OFF ON ON ON 10 17760370 200000F8 ON OFF ON ON OFF 11 17760400 20000100 ON OFF ON OFF ON 12 17760404 20000104 ON OFF ON OFF OFF 13 17760410 20000108 ON OFF OFF ON ON 14 17760414 2000010C ON OFF OFF ON OFF 15 17760420 20000110 ON OFF OFF OFF ON 16 17760424 20000114 ON OFF OFF OFF OFF 17 17760430 20000118 OFF ON ON ON ON 18 17760434 2000011C OFF ON ON ON OFF 19 17760440 20000120 OFF ON ON OFF ON 20 17760444 20000124 OFF ON ON OFF OFF 21 17760450 20000128 OFF ON OFF ON ON 22 17760454 2000012C OFF ON OFF ON OFF 23 17760460 20000130 OFF ON OFF OFF ON 24 17760464 20000134 OFF ON OFF OFF OFF 25 17760470 20000138 OFF OFF ON ON ON 26 17760474 2000013C OFF OFF ON ON OFF 27 17760500 20000140 OFF OFF ON OFF ON 28 17760504 20000144 OFF OFF ON OFF OFF 29 17760510 20000148 OFF OFF OFF ON ON 30 17760514 2000014C OFF OFF OFF ON OFF 31 disable disk OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF CQD-440/TM CSR Address Selections (Tape Only)P44010A Addr LSI-11 MicroVAX SW1-6 SW1-7 SW1-8 SW1-9 SW1-10 1 17774500 20001940 ON ON ON ON ON 2 17760404 20000104 ON ON ON ON OFF 3 17760444 20000124 ON ON ON OFF ON 4 17760504 20000144 ON ON ON OFF OFF 5 17760544 20000164 ON ON OFF ON ON 6 17760410 20000108 ON ON OFF ON OFF 7 17760450 20000128 ON ON OFF OFF ON 8 17760454 2000012C ON ON OFF OFF OFF 9 17760414 2000010C ON OFF ON ON ON 10 17760420 20000110 ON OFF ON ON OFF 11 17760460 20000130 ON OFF ON OFF ON 12 17760510 20000148 ON OFF ON OFF OFF 13 17760514 2000014C ON OFF OFF ON ON 14 17760520 20000150 ON OFF OFF ON OFF 15 17760550 20000168 ON OFF OFF OFF ON 16 17760554 2000016C ON OFF OFF OFF OFF 17 17760560 20000170 OFF ON ON ON ON 18 17760604 20000184 OFF ON ON ON OFF 19 17760610 20000188 OFF ON ON OFF ON 20 17760614 2000018C OFF ON ON OFF OFF 21 17760620 20000190 OFF ON OFF ON ON 22 17760644 200001A4 OFF ON OFF ON OFF 23 17760650 200001A8 OFF ON OFF OFF ON 24 17760654 200001AC OFF ON OFF OFF OFF 25 17760660 200001B0 OFF OFF ON ON ON 26 17760704 200001C4 OFF OFF ON ON OFF 27 17760710 200001C8 OFF OFF ON OFF ON 28 17760714 200001CC OFF OFF ON OFF OFF 29 17760744 200001E4 OFF OFF OFF ON ON 30 17760750 200001E8 OFF OFF OFF ON OFF 31 17760754 200001EC OFF OFF OFF OFF ON 32 disable tape OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF On-Board Utility The Utility can be accessed through the system console or the RS-232 Port on the CQD-440 or CQD-443. The CQD-440 uses a 10-pin RS-232 cable. The CQD-443 uses the same RS-232 MMJ cable used on the MicroVAX-3. To access the On-Board Utility through the RS-232 port, plug in the cable and power-on or Restart the computer. The On-Board Utility will display on the screen. Be sure to set the terminal to 9600 baud, 8 bit data, and no parity. Accessing the Utility Through the LSI or VAX System The On-Board Utility Program can be accessed by means of an ODT command for LSI and VAX systems. The above information can be changed without notice. Rev. Date: A = 04-15-96 Goto top of this page. From rdd at smart.net Sat Jul 1 08:14:01 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.20000701034229.006bc130@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Carlos Murillo wrote: > real world_ are, well, too simplistic. Electrons cannot be > bribed to obey economics rather than Kirchhoff, period. > Yet, that seems to be a hard point to sell to politicians > and economists. Well, consider what you were dealing with; politicians and economics typically appear to live in their own strange little worlds, far from reality. Do you atually expect them to believe that electrons can't be bribed or that such people as Kirchoff could possibly know more than they know about anything? Now, on the other hand, I'm sure that they, along with the marketing people, believe that electricity is something that comes from great big glowing lightbulbs that people carry around in wagons, wheelbarrows, etc., and these people also expect us believe this as well. Note: the aforementioned is in reference to the inane "Electricity: You use it, now you choose it" commercials and printed advertisements pertaining to people being able to choose which utility company to purchase their electricity from. -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Sat Jul 1 08:31:32 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF2@TEGNTSERVER> > > The new cables and fittings in mine are a mixture of Cat 5e and Cat 6, but > > I'm keeping the proper yellow stuff and the blue drops. I suspect the > > microVax would be offended otherwise :-) > > It is a well-known fact to all network hardware types that ethernet > electrons get very confused if forced to go down cable that's > not yellow ;-) No, No, No! They fall down the cable quite well, but once they fall down, they can't get back up! 8D From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Sat Jul 1 08:53:17 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: DEC CPU bulkhead issues Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF3@TEGNTSERVER> > Exact-a-mundo! I took it apart and cleaned out the switch (combination of > carbon-tet and compressed air) and voila! It works again. Thanks Bill! Chuck- WHERE are you able to find carbon tetrachloride? I thought it had been banned, and I haven't been able to find it for years. Really need some, too, to deglaze some rubber... -dq From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Sat Jul 1 08:56:26 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF4@TEGNTSERVER> > That's funny; I got my PhD out of showing other engineers > and economists that the "simplifying assumptions" that they > make when designing deregulated electric power markets _in the > real world_ are, well, too simplistic. Electrons cannot be > bribed to obey economics rather than Kirchhoff, period. > Yet, that seems to be a hard point to sell to politicians > and economists. Hoosier politicians have particular trouble understanding that some things are simply beyond their control; at some time (during the 1840s IIRC), a Hoosier legislator proposed a bill to change the value of Pi to 3.0 since that would make all calcultations involving Pi more easy to perform. I'm really surprised it that it failed to pass... -dq From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Sat Jul 1 08:59:20 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF5@TEGNTSERVER> > Have they released new vesrions of the Eddy Electron film, so that it > now covers ethernet networking and proper network cabling? If not, > I'd be inclined to suspect that this and other newer information > hasn't been well enough proven to warrant the creation of a new movie. > After all, we know that the Eddy Electron film is the one true source > of authoritative introductory information about what electrons do, > right? Everyone here did see this classic in their 10th grade > high-school (or whatever the equivalent of the first year of high > school is in other countries) electronics class, right? ;-) Was this the film that established that: 1) electrons are blue 2) protons are red 3) neutrons are green ??? From jrkeys at concentric.net Sat Jul 1 09:17:12 2000 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (John R. Keys Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: IBM 6091 monitors References: <20000630201037.A3748@saturn.ee.nd.edu> <395D703D.6D82E4E@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: <007f01bfe367$0db58600$f5721fd1@default> I have two of this units and I got one with a powerserver 320 from IBM and both work perfect. I got information from this list after I got my first one. Someone here had the manuals for this monitor and give me tips. I will look on my back-up system and see if I can find the information you need. John Keys ----- Original Message ----- From: Brian Mahoney To: Sent: Friday, June 30, 2000 11:14 PM Subject: Re: IBM 6091 monitors > IBM has one of the largest sites on the net, and 'for sure' the information > you need is there. Don't search from the main page, go to support and then > search. I have never yet not found what I needed. You have to go in with the > attitude that the what you're looking for is there, you just have to find > it. Kind of like my basement. > > Brian > > John Ott wrote: > > > Hello - > > > > I pulled 2 IBM 6091 19" monitors out of the trash. I think they were > > used on their power pc computers. I need info on this monitor, such > > as resolution, refresh rate and what are the white and black bnc > > connectors for. > > > > Any help is appreciated. > > > > john > > > > -- > > > > ************************************************************************ > > * * * > > * John Ott * Email: jott@saturn.ee.nd.edu * > > * Dept. Electrical Engineering * * > > * 275 Fitzpatrick Hall * * > > * University of Notre Dame * Phone: (219) 631-7752 * > > * Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA * * > > * * * > > ************************************************************************ > > -- > http://members.xoom.com/T3C/ > http://suite101.com/welcome.cfm/antique_computers > http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/9107/ > (_8^(I) > > > From rdd at smart.net Sat Jul 1 09:18:37 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF5@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: [Eddy Electron film] > Was this the film that established that: > > 1) electrons are blue > 2) protons are red > 3) neutrons are green Possibly; as it also taught us that one of them could even become a famous movie star. ;-) -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From rigdonj at intellistar.net Sat Jul 1 10:39:14 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: WTB: Tektronix 4041 Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000701103914.365f8802@mailhost.intellistar.net> I've gotten interested in the Tektronix 4041 system controllers. Does anyone have one that they might be willing to sell or will trade for other vintage computer stuff? I'm especially looking for the detachable keyboard for the 4041. I'm also intersted in swapping information with anyone about the 4041. Contact me directly. Joe From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jul 1 10:59:46 2000 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Most important characterisitic of all: Ownership or lease terms such that you NEVER need to move out, ever again. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin@xenosoft.com From foo at siconic.com Sat Jul 1 11:08:06 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF4@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > Hoosier politicians have particular trouble understanding > that some things are simply beyond their control; at some > time (during the 1840s IIRC), a Hoosier legislator proposed > a bill to change the value of Pi to 3.0 since that would > make all calcultations involving Pi more easy to perform. > > I'm really surprised it that it failed to pass... >From what I recall, it actually got pretty close until someone stood up to point out the stupidity of it all, whence it quickly died. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Sat Jul 1 12:20:35 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: DEC CPU bulkhead issues In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF3@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20000701101938.00defd50@208.226.86.10> At 09:53 AM 7/1/00 -0400, you wrote: >Chuck- > >WHERE are you able to find carbon tetrachloride? I thought it had >been banned, and I haven't been able to find it for years. Secret stash. Radio Shack dumped their cleaner/degreaser stock and I bought it (at least from one store) I've been metering it out ever since. --Chuck From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Sat Jul 1 12:31:53 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: DEC CPU bulkhead issues Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF7@TEGNTSERVER> > At 09:53 AM 7/1/00 -0400, you wrote: > >Chuck- > > > >WHERE are you able to find carbon tetrachloride? I thought it had > >been banned, and I haven't been able to find it for years. > > > Secret stash. Radio Shack dumped their cleaner/degreaser stock and I bought > it (at least from one store) I've been metering it out ever since. From kstumpf at unusual.on.ca Sat Jul 1 13:57:33 2000 From: kstumpf at unusual.on.ca (Kevin Stumpf/Nostalgic Technophile/Unusual Systems) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Old WordPerfect, Lotus, DOS, and Excel videos FS. References: Message-ID: <004301bfe38e$38149f40$7e81b7d1@kstumpf> My wife now works for the local MCC Thrift Shop - one that doesn't accept old computers, but they do accept books and videos. The following are too old to sell now, but I thought they would appeal to someone on the List. Video Professor Intro to WordPerfect 5.1 Intro to Lotus 123 2.2 & 3.0 Intro to DOS 5.0 Bob Deslaurier's Excel 5 All in excellent condition. $5 + shipping. The $5 goes to the Thrift Shop. Thank you. Kevin Stumpf - The Nostalgic Technophile - Unusual Systems www.nostalgictechnophile.com - 519.744.2900 EST/EDT (GMT - 5) From mbg at world.std.com Sat Jul 1 14:15:02 2000 From: mbg at world.std.com (Megan) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job Message-ID: <200007011915.PAA25699@world.std.com> >From what I recall, it actually got pretty close until someone stood up to >point out the stupidity of it all, whence it quickly died. I'm sorry, I guess I've been living in an alternate reality... since when did anyone getting up in congress/senate/whatever beauracratic organization you want to name and stating the stupidity of something ever *reliably* prevent it from passing? Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg KB1FCA | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ From rdd at smart.net Sat Jul 1 14:20:16 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: DEC CPU bulkhead issues In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF7@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: [someone srote about carbon tetrachloride:] > > Secret stash. Radio Shack dumped their cleaner/degreaser stock and I > bought > > it (at least from one store) I've been metering it out ever since. > > Not sure if this is still the case, but, while the sale of it was prohibited to individuals, companies could still buy it from mail-order electronics supply places. To get it all one need(ed)(s) is/was to manufacture a company name (e.g., like one does to get into an electronics trade show and get those free pit-beef sandwitches, etc. along with lots of freebies like samples and databooks), or, if they want a federal ID number, just start a corporation and do nothing with it but use it to make it easier to buy things from the bizdroids that don't like to sell to individuals. :-) :-) :-) There's more than one way to skin a bureaucrat! -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From foo at siconic.com Sat Jul 1 13:56:05 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <200007011915.PAA25699@world.std.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Megan wrote: > I'm sorry, I guess I've been living in an alternate reality... since > when did anyone getting up in congress/senate/whatever beauracratic > organization you want to name and stating the stupidity of something > ever *reliably* prevent it from passing? Well, surprisingly in this case it happened. I don't make the rumors, I just spread them. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From foxvideo at wincom.net Sat Jul 1 15:16:59 2000 From: foxvideo at wincom.net (Charles E. Fox) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: References: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF4@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.0.20000701161454.00a99140@mail.wincom.net> At 09:08 AM 7/1/2000 -0700, you wrote: >On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > > Hoosier politicians have particular trouble understanding > > that some things are simply beyond their control; at some > > time (during the 1840s IIRC), a Hoosier legislator proposed > > a bill to change the value of Pi to 3.0 since that would > > make all calcultations involving Pi more easy to perform. > > > > I'm really surprised it that it failed to pass... > > From what I recall, it actually got pretty close until someone stood up to >point out the stupidity of it all, whence it quickly died. > >Sellam International Man of Intrigue and >Danger >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The one I liked was when they were going to eliminate the U.S. Patent Office because everything had already been invented! Cheers Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Chas E. Fox Video Productions 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada email foxvideo@wincom.net Check out "The Old Walkerville Virtual Museum" at http://www.skyboom.com/foxvideo and Camcorder Kindergarten at http://www.chasfoxvideo.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jul 1 12:24:26 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEF5@TEGNTSERVER> from "Douglas Quebbeman" at Jul 1, 0 09:59:20 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 431 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000701/620d8768/attachment.ksh From korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu Sat Jul 1 16:38:06 2000 From: korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <395D3D96.F73CB95@mainecoon.com> from Chris Kennedy at "Jun 30, 2000 05:38:46 pm" Message-ID: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> > > We also expect that a PhD should be able to perform any task that might > > require a mechanical, electrical, software or civil engineer, an MBA, > > economist, lawyer or priest. They better have learned more in that extra 4+ > > years of school than they did in the 16 previous. > > If you amend that to "...learned more about a very specific topic in that > extra 4+ years..." then I'd agree. That's not my experience. Specialization is required for the project, generalization is required for sucessfully completing it. Perhaps it's different in engineering than it is in the sciences. > The principle problem with Ph.D.s is that their knowledge base tends to > be as narrow as any other new grads; the only distinction being that they > have significantly more depth in one very specific area. I disagree. > I've had more than one occasion > where such people were literally reduced to tears in design meetings > as a consequence of being crucified by some staff engineer. I've also seen precisely the opposite where an engineer has been so caught up in the way things have been done that they can't understand that there just might be a better way or a case where the old way won't work. > It just means that there are problems > > I can drop in the lap of a typical PhD that would take a week to explain to > > the typical programmer. > > "...drop in the lap of a typical PhD who is familiar with the problem area..." Again I disagree. If a PhD is unfamiliar with the problem area they will get familiar with it damn quick. That's what is expected of them. If they don't do what's expected of them, you don't keep 'em around. Then again an engineer who is unfamiliar with the problem area will likely come into your office every hour and a half to ask a question. > When they were done we tried to find other things > for them to do, but they were only marginally more effective than > our new crop of four-year grads. The person in question is now making > use of their Ph.D. by teaching undergraduate CS courses. I'm not saying there aren't idiots with PhDs out there. Did you ever think that putting the PhDs to work doing the same tasks as the new crop of four-year grads was a waste of material? You don't hire a PhD to write Visual Basic code, you hire PhD's to do work that you need a PhD for. > > It's a different skill set, and should be treated as such. > > I don't see any evidence that the skill set is particularly different; Perhaps that's because you treat them like fresh undergrads. > All the Ph.D. represents is an additional four years of training in an > environment that is skewed from the one found in industry; Ph.D. must me different where you come from. Where I come from a Ph.D. candidate is not getting much training apart what they provide themselves. The biggest difference I see between people in industry and people doing their thesis projects is that people in industry work shorter hours. > It's all about what you can > do and how well it fits with my needs. Everything else is meaningless. Of course, and if you don't need Ph.D.'s working for you, so be it. But you might want to consider that the guy with the Ph.D. may be able to do quite a bit more than you need... Eric From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jul 1 17:16:30 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. In-Reply-To: (ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk) References: Message-ID: <20000701221630.19315.qmail@brouhaha.com> Tony wrote: > Surely a glance at just about any 'scope screen, or indeed the IBM 5151 > monitor I'm using a the moment, would convince you that electrons are, in > fact, green. After all, they leave a green image on the screen. > > QED Sorry to burst your bubble, but that proves that electrons are purple! From allisonp at world.std.com Sat Jul 1 17:54:32 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. Message-ID: <010301bfe3b0$f0eebbf0$7064c0d0@ajp166> From: Eric Smith >Tony wrote: >> Surely a glance at just about any 'scope screen, or indeed the IBM 5151 >> monitor I'm using a the moment, would convince you that electrons are, in >> fact, green. After all, they leave a green image on the screen. >> >> QED > >Sorry to burst your bubble, but that proves that electrons are purple! Only if they are very bright and you stare at them. ;) Besides all this electrons and holes stuff is bull. Anyone who has worked with electrical or electronics knows smoke is the powering force. The proof is when the smoke escapes, equipment stops working. ;) Allison From chris at mainecoon.com Sat Jul 1 19:33:03 2000 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Chris Kennedy) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <395E8DBF.1E29741F@mainecoon.com> "Eric J. Korpela" wrote: > > If you amend that to "...learned more about a very specific topic in that > > extra 4+ years..." then I'd agree. > > That's not my experience. Specialization is required for the project, > generalization is required for sucessfully completing it. Perhaps it's > different in engineering than it is in the sciences. Perhaps. After all, the field that I received *my* Ph.D. in was CS, and the joke at the time was that only non-sciences tack "science" onto the end of the name of their field, hence "computer science", "social science", "space science" and the like. You don't often hear people refer to "physics science", "chemistry science" and the like :-) > > The principle problem with Ph.D.s is that their knowledge base tends to > > be as narrow as any other new grads; the only distinction being that they > > have significantly more depth in one very specific area. > > I disagree. YMMV. I'm an empiricist; I call 'em as I see 'em. Is the typical Ph.D. more clueful than the typical four year? Sure. Is the typical Ph.D. more clueful that a four year with four years of experience? Generally not. It really has a lot to do with the dumbing down of CS coursework since the late 70's. > > I've had more than one occasion > > where such people were literally reduced to tears in design meetings > > as a consequence of being crucified by some staff engineer. > > I've also seen precisely the opposite where an engineer has been so caught > up in the way things have been done that they can't understand that there > just might be a better way or a case where the old way won't work. I haven't observed that any sort of degree or lack thereof immunizes against being out of touch with reality. Something else about this statement puzzles me; there's the implication that Ph.D. != engineer. I hold one in my field and identify as an engineer, so I'm an existence proof the the intersection of the two is a non-null set. > > It just means that there are problems > > > I can drop in the lap of a typical PhD that would take a week to explain to > > > the typical programmer. > > > > "...drop in the lap of a typical PhD who is familiar with the problem area..." > > Again I disagree. If a PhD is unfamiliar with the problem area they will > get familiar with it damn quick. Again, YMMV. In my experience there's nothing about someone having a Ph.D. which makes them particularly more adept at becoming facile with a new problem space than anyone else. If you're asserting that a new Ph.D. is better equipped that a new four-year I'll agree, but again, if the assertion is that the new Ph.D. is better off than the four-year-plus-four of experience it simply doesn't match my experience. > That's what is expected of them. If they > don't do what's expected of them, you don't keep 'em around. Both those statements apply to anyone, regardless of what sort of degrees they might hold. > Then again an > engineer who is unfamiliar with the problem area will likely come into your > office every hour and a half to ask a question. Uh, no. That fits in the category of "don't keep them around". It's technicians that I expect that sort of behavior from, and they don't come into my office, they come into the office of someone four steps down the food chain. So-called "self-starting" is required of everyone. > > When they were done we tried to find other things > > for them to do, but they were only marginally more effective than > > our new crop of four-year grads. The person in question is now making > > use of their Ph.D. by teaching undergraduate CS courses. > > I'm not saying there aren't idiots with PhDs out there. The person I was referring to was not and is not an idiot. They are a counterexample to what seems to be an assertion that Ph.D.'s a mythically endowed with something which makes them superior to people who don't have them. I have *no doubt* that in some fields this is the case, but it's not in my industry segment. Most innovation in my field comes *from* industry, not academia, so anyone who would choose to spend another four years in that setting is viewed with something approaching suspicion -- which is why there's a tiny difference in the average starting salaries for new four-year vs. Ph.D. holders which essentially reaches a delta of zero after five years. > Did you ever > think that putting the PhDs to work doing the same tasks as the new crop > of four-year grads was a waste of material? You don't hire a PhD to write > Visual Basic code, you hire PhD's to do work that you need a PhD for. I don't hire anyone to do visual basic code. I hire people to work on formal verification tools, superscalar processor design and mission critical systems. Nobody is "wasted"; I don't think we have anyone on technical staff who doesn't cost us six figures so "wasting" someone is an expensive luxury. People are given projects which stress them; if I ask someone what they're doing and the answer doesn't routinely include the phrases "...trying to figure out..." then it's time to give them something more challenging to do. > > > It's a different skill set, and should be treated as such. > > > > I don't see any evidence that the skill set is particularly different; > > Perhaps that's because you treat them like fresh undergrads. Uh, no. I treat everyone the same: tell me what you can do, I'll ask you to do 115% of that, and we'll go from there. That's the reason we generally credit for having a low turnover rate on technical staff. > > All the Ph.D. represents is an additional four years of training in an > > environment that is skewed from the one found in industry; > > Ph.D. must me different where you come from. Where I come from a Ph.D. > candidate is not getting much training apart what they provide themselves. Right, which is the same training that the guy with the four year degree has done, save for the fact that he's been doing it in industry on a technical team with people who have a responsibility to see to it that he's given the skills he needs to succeed -- or is assigned to something more suitable. Thanks for making my argument for me. > The biggest difference I see between people in industry and people doing > their thesis projects is that people in industry work shorter hours. *ROFL* I'm trying to think of the last time that I worked on a project where 65+ hour weeks didn't have to be sustained for the lifetime of the project, and for the life of me I think it was 1982. Avant! wasn't all that atypical with it's unspoken requirement that people turn in 80+ hour weeks even when it wasn't crunch time. The difference I see is that if you're late on your thesis you can add time, a luxury that isn't afforded in industry. > > It's all about what you can > > do and how well it fits with my needs. Everything else is meaningless. > > Of course, and if you don't need Ph.D.'s working for you, so be it. I've got quite a few (just shy of half the technical staff), but they work for me not because they have Ph.D.s but because they've demonstrated the ability to produce results across the strangely broad range of problems that we address. However they're *no more able* to do so than their contemporaries with six year, four year or even no degrees. This may be due to a sampling error; most technical people in this organization have more than 12 years of experience and the newbies are never coddled but rather immersed into mainstream projects with assigned mentors. > But > you might want to consider that the guy with the Ph.D. may be able to do > quite a bit more than you need... With apologies to Fred Brooks, there's no silver bullet for most interesting technical problems. This thread began with assertions regarding the relevance of degrees in the current job market, and someone tweaked your sensibilities with respect to holders of doctorates (for whatever reason -- as I said, I've got one and I didn't feel that it was a completely unreasonable slam). If your assertion is that a newly stamped out Ph.D. is more clueful than a new four-year the odds are good that you're correct, but it hardly makes them an ubergeek and in most industrial settings the delta between the two converges quickly. I brought this up at a staff dinner last night; of 30 people present more than half of us had Ph.D.s. *All* of us agreed that if we were faced with the choice *today* of pursuing an advanced degree or going to industry we'd forgo the degree or pursue it as a background task for purely emotional reasons. *That* is the economic reality of the industry that I live in. Cheers, Chris. -- Chris Kennedy chris@mainecoon.com http://www.mainecoon.com PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 From rdd at smart.net Sat Jul 1 19:48:54 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <200007011915.PAA25699@world.std.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Megan wrote: > I'm sorry, I guess I've been living in an alternate reality... since > when did anyone getting up in congress/senate/whatever beauracratic > organization you want to name and stating the stupidity of something > ever *reliably* prevent it from passing? Never, that I recall. You know, I'll bet that if someone else had stood up after the stupidity of the idea of changing pi to 3.0 was mentioned, I'm surprised that another idiot/politician (basically the same thing, right?) didn't stand up and just suggest outlawing pi, which, as we all know, would have been passed into law just to simplify things and create a new law that would create more jobs due to more people being prosecuted and fined for using pi. -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From rdd at smart.net Sat Jul 1 20:10:09 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: How electronic equipment really works (was: Your dream computer room.) In-Reply-To: <010301bfe3b0$f0eebbf0$7064c0d0@ajp166> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, allisonp wrote: > Besides all this electrons and holes stuff is bull. Anyone who has > worked > with electrical or electronics knows smoke is the powering force. The > proof > is when the smoke escapes, equipment stops working. ;) Yes, that's how it appears; however, I'll tell you the secret about the real powering force: somewhat dry air of the right temperature. That's right, change the moisture content or fiddle too much with temperature, and then the smoke that moves through the air powering the circuitry at the lowest level will escape, as could some fire, which is fueled by the air and the carbon in resistors. I'd also tell the secret of why circuitry overheats when those electrons get a little too busy doing their thing, and how the term thermal runaway really originated, but there are ladies present. -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From mark at cs.ualberta.ca Sat Jul 1 21:36:37 2000 From: mark at cs.ualberta.ca (Mark Green) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <395E8DBF.1E29741F@mainecoon.com> from Chris Kennedy at "Jul 1, 2000 05:33:03 pm" Message-ID: <20000702023640Z433355-6835+141@scapa.cs.ualberta.ca> > "Eric J. Korpela" wrote: > > > > If you amend that to "...learned more about a very specific topic in that > > > extra 4+ years..." then I'd agree. > > > > That's not my experience. Specialization is required for the project, > > generalization is required for sucessfully completing it. Perhaps it's > > different in engineering than it is in the sciences. > > Perhaps. After all, the field that I received *my* Ph.D. in was > CS, and the joke at the time was that only non-sciences tack "science" > onto the end of the name of their field, hence "computer science", > "social science", "space science" and the like. You don't often > hear people refer to "physics science", "chemistry science" and the like :-) > > > > The principle problem with Ph.D.s is that their knowledge base tends to > > > be as narrow as any other new grads; the only distinction being that they > > > have significantly more depth in one very specific area. > > > > I disagree. > > YMMV. I'm an empiricist; I call 'em as I see 'em. Is the typical Ph.D. > more clueful than the typical four year? Sure. Is the typical > Ph.D. more clueful that a four year with four years of experience? Generally > not. It really has a lot to do with the dumbing down of CS coursework since > the late 70's. > Ph.D.'s are incredably variable. Whether they have a clue or not depends upon the university, department, and even supervisor. I've seen Ph.D.'s that didn't know why they worked on a particular topic, or its significance. The only answer I got was: "my supervisor told me to do it". As far as I'm concerned that's a total waste of 4 or 5 years of your life. They are basically doing another undergraduate degree, but in more depth. They will be no better than a good undergraduate with a year or two of experience, probably worse. I will not assign a topic to a Ph.D student. I force them to come up with their own topic, tell me why its important, and do all the work to produce the thesis. In my area (computer graphics), this quite often means a fair amount of non-trivial coding. It also means doing a lot of reading outside of computer graphics, and CS in general. I also don't care very much about undergraduate grades, I want someone who can think for themselves not repeat what the prof said at the front of the classroom. In computer graphics, almost all of the Ph.D's go to industry, at the present time its almost impossible to hire faculty in this area. I think part of what you see in CS Ph.D.'s is due to the job market. A lot of the really talented undergraduates go directlyuy to industry instread of going to graduate school. The ones that do go to graduate school are always thinking about getting a job, so do the minimal amount of work to get through, etc. This isn't always the case, but it seems to be the case with a large number of students. In the other area I work in (media arts), the Ph.D.'s are far more interesting. Since there isn't as large a job market (unfortunately this is changing), the students tend to do research that is of real interest to them, and not what will get them a job. The difference in maturity is like night and day. -- Dr. Mark Green mark@cs.ualberta.ca McCalla Professor (780) 492-4584 Department of Computing Science (780) 492-1071 (FAX) University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2H1, Canada From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Sat Jul 1 19:21:51 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: DEC CPU bulkhead issues Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEFA@TEGNTSERVER> > On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > [someone srote about carbon tetrachloride:] > > > Secret stash. Radio Shack dumped their cleaner/degreaser > stock and I > > bought > > > it (at least from one store) I've been metering it out ever since. > > > > > > Not sure if this is still the case, but, while the sale of it was > prohibited to individuals, companies could still buy it from > mail-order electronics supply places. To get it all one need(ed)(s) > is/was to manufacture a company name (e.g., like one does to get into > an electronics trade show and get those free pit-beef sandwitches, > etc. along with lots of freebies like samples and databooks), or, if > they want a federal ID number, just start a corporation and do nothing > with it but use it to make it easier to buy things from the bizdroids > that don't like to sell to individuals. :-) :-) :-) > > There's more than one way to skin a bureaucrat! Well, until they recently came up with a replacement for Halon, you could still go to a local small airport/air park and buy Halon extinguishers "for your plane". :-) From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Sat Jul 1 19:24:58 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEFB@TEGNTSERVER> > > Was this the film that established that: > > > > 1) electrons are blue > > 2) protons are red > > 3) neutrons are green > > > > Surely a glance at just about any 'scope screen, or indeed the IBM 5151 > monitor I'm using a the moment, would convince you that electrons are, in > fact, green. After all, they leave a green image on the screen. > > QED Hmm... then what subatomic particle does my amber-tubed Wyse 50 use? I do happen to know it's *not* a plasma display... ;-) Speaking of which: anybody know where I could find an old Plato terminal? -dq From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Jul 1 21:47:35 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Odd PAL Message-ID: I finally unburied a whole shipload of PALs I bought many years ago, and started to sort them. I have a few National Semiconductor types called 20C1s. What is the organization of these? Apparently not a popular item, as I found little information on the web. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Jul 1 21:51:17 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Friden help Message-ID: Does anyone on the list have any experience with Friden Automatic Calculators? I have been fooling around with one, and it mostly works, but every few minutes locks up. I am not sure what is causing a problem, as the machine is quite complex. It only locks up when calculating. I am sure it needs a lube job, but at this point all I have done is bathe the whole thing in WD40. When things are going well, I will give it a real lube job. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From dlw at trailingedge.com Sat Jul 1 23:04:23 2000 From: dlw at trailingedge.com (David Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II Message-ID: <395E78F7.4650.19E1499@localhost> I picked up a MicroVAX II today, thanks Nick, and need some help in getting it up and running. I want to run VMS on this, not interested in the version of BSD out there, already have enough Unix boxen. The main thing I'm missing, besides getting VMS itself are drives. This system is in the BA123 enclosure and has a TK50 tape drive. It contains the following boards: M7606-AC M7608-BP M7608-BP M7546 M7516 M7516 M3104 M9058 What all drive options are there and what would people recommend? What are my options for getting VMS for this? Any other help or comments appreciated. Thanks. ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From foxnhare at jps.net Sat Jul 1 23:41:35 2000 From: foxnhare at jps.net (Larry Anderson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Time spent Looking VS time spent "Playing" References: <200006290255.VAA17686@opal.tseinc.com> Message-ID: <395EC7E6.C7238E69@jps.net> > From: "FBA" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2000 9:07 AM > Subject: Time spent Looking VS time spent "Playing" > > > > How much time do you devote searching for old machines? > Quite a bit, bot "old machines" per se, but classic computng related materials. > > How much time "Playing" (fixing, using etc...) these machines? > > I've been trying to fit in more time playing with the C128. How many hours > a week, I can't precisely say. But I probably spend as much time playing > per week as I do looking, if not more.... This last year has been pretty miserable for me, my BBS (runs on a Commodore 64, which is my most active "classic activity") was literally down for months and ignored for a year. Tax return time did bring it back to life with a high speed modem and 20mghz accellerator, but it is still in need of programmatic overhaul to use the accellerator and my network feeds aree still stranded in Washington... :P Also my (classic computing) web pages needs updating (usually reserved for holidays but I will have to wait on that too). But I have collected lots of stuff to play with later (how many of us say that and know we have too much "stuff" and not enough "later"...) I hope in august to have available time to put more life into my classics... I must protest on the concentration of the aquiring of computers, I have had time to divide up my hobby into several categories (where the "collecting computers" bit is actually kinda small): Collecting Computers Hardware (peripherals, etc) Software Computer Books and Magazines Computing Ephemera (ads, reciepts, pins, t-shirts, games, toys, etc.) Researching (see books, magazines, above...) Reading Technical Information via Internet Contacting People related to classic computing Documenting Web Pages Articles Presentations Promoting Posting/responding in newsgroups, Maillists (like this one) Also web Ppge Running a Classic BBS or Classic Display Rambling on about how bad off the world is without good computer education in schools... (as in usage, programming, electonics, not just CAI) From foo at siconic.com Sat Jul 1 23:46:28 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEFB@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > Speaking of which: anybody know where I could find an old Plato terminal? I'd be interested too. I have a manual set for Plato applications. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Sun Jul 2 01:44:59 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:11 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II In-Reply-To: <395E78F7.4650.19E1499@localhost> Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000701234216.00e18740@208.226.86.10> I'd recommend a nice ESDI controller (Dilog 696-20 or RQ11D/E (Webster/Sigma/etc) If you can find a RRD-40 interface (CD-ROM) that would be good to since VMS from CD is easier to load than VMS from TK50 (having done both recently I really recommend CD). If you can find (good luck!) a SCSI controller for it then your options are pretty much wide open. BTW VMS lives very nicely on a 500 - 600MB disk with lots of layered products. --Chuck At 11:04 PM 7/1/00 -0500, you wrote: >What all drive options are there and what would people >recommend? What are my options for getting VMS for this? Any >other help or comments appreciated. From dpeschel at eskimo.com Sun Jul 2 01:49:16 2000 From: dpeschel at eskimo.com (Derek Peschel) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jul 01, 2000 10:51:17 PM Message-ID: <200007020649.XAA06906@eskimo.com> > Does anyone on the list have any experience with Friden Automatic > Calculators? I have been fooling around with one, and it mostly works, but > every few minutes locks up. I am not sure what is causing a problem, as > the machine is quite complex. It only locks up when calculating. I am sure > it needs a lube job, but at this point all I have done is bathe the whole > thing in WD40. When things are going well, I will give it a real lube job. I doubt WD40 is the best thing for the job. There are other chemicals that are designed to clean metal. There is a mailing list about old calculators called CALCLIST. I can get you the relevant addresses. (I think I need to resubscribe too.) The people there can give you an amazing amount of expert advice. -- Derek From korpela at albert.ssl.berkeley.edu Sun Jul 2 02:21:56 2000 From: korpela at albert.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <395E8DBF.1E29741F@mainecoon.com> from Chris Kennedy at "Jul 1, 2000 05:33:03 pm" Message-ID: <200007020721.AAA01185@sagan.ssl.berkeley.edu> > > The biggest difference I see between people in industry and people doing > > their thesis projects is that people in industry work shorter hours. > > *ROFL* I'm trying to think of the last time that I worked on a project where > 65+ hour weeks didn't have to be sustained for the lifetime of the project, and > for the life of me I think it was 1982. Avant! wasn't all that atypical with > it's unspoken requirement that people turn in 80+ hour weeks even when it > wasn't crunch time. At 80+ you still get to go home. It gets hard when 130+ is required for more than a few weeks in a row. My personal record is 152 work hours (yes, conscious and working, not sleeping or eating) in a single week. I hope to never have to find out whether I'm too old to break it. If you aren't sleeping in bubble wrap under a desk with a guy holding a machine gun walking the halls, you haven't had a long day. :) But, of course, academia is easy. I can only think of one project I've worked on that had flexible deadlines. Of course that was very much to its detriment. > The difference I see is that if you're late on your > thesis you can add time, a luxury that isn't afforded in industry. When you're late for a delivery required to support a launch, your project and your thesis go away. You deliver an instrument, or you deliver an inert model with equivalent mass and vibrational properties. Guess which one you build first. Industry doesn't have a monopoly on sink or swim. > If your assertion is that a newly stamped out Ph.D. is > more clueful than a new four-year the odds are good that you're correct, > but it hardly makes them an ubergeek and in most industrial settings the > delta between the two converges quickly. Could be a selection effect. Maybe we get the cream of the crop in PhDs here. Maybe we require them to be more the ubergeek than is usual. > I brought this up at a staff dinner last night; of 30 people present more > than half of us had Ph.D.s. *All* of us agreed that if we were faced with > the choice *today* of pursuing an advanced degree or going to industry we'd > forgo the degree or pursue it as a background task for purely emotional > reasons. *That* is the economic reality of the industry that I live in. I see no contradiction in that, those bright enough to sucessfully complete a PhD and be sucessful in industry would have likely succeeded without one. I might answer the same way if I didn't think mine had gotten me anything. Question: Half of the 30 people present had PhDs, what fraction of your new hires do? Another one: Do those 15+ PhDs on the staff think their primary skill is making a simple project last two years? Eric From richard at idcomm.com Sun Jul 2 03:58:18 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> See my remark below, plz. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric J. Korpela To: Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2000 3:38 PM Subject: Re: Getting a good job > > > We also expect that a PhD should be able to perform any task that might > > > require a mechanical, electrical, software or civil engineer, an MBA, > > > economist, lawyer or priest. They better have learned more in that extra 4+ > > > years of school than they did in the 16 previous. > > > > If you amend that to "...learned more about a very specific topic in that > > extra 4+ years..." then I'd agree. > > That's not my experience. Specialization is required for the project, > generalization is required for sucessfully completing it. Perhaps it's > different in engineering than it is in the sciences. > This is what I meant initially when I said the PhD has, at least once, performed and completed an entire task. Not necessarily so with Bachelors, or even Masters, though the latter are required to do more with less direction. While the specialized skills are required to do the job, the generalized skills acquired in doing an ENTIRE piece of work are rare but essential. Consequently, it's the PhD's who are chosen to lead, or manage an operation, simply for their experience in "doing a job" to completion. Look around your lab or work area at home . . . how many of your homebuilt bits of apparatus have "real" legends or printed labels for all the knobs and switches? How many of your projects end up in a box that's screwed shut? That's where the truth of the matter lies. Everybody has built a thingie or two that never gets past the wirewrap board even though it's been used occasionally for 10-20 years. It often starts out as an immediate need, but ends up as a tool. I like my tools "finished", i.e. in a sealed box with external knobs that don't require a screwdriver to operate them. I like to be able to use them without taking the back panel off another piece of gear to get the power supply I need. Now, I do have stuff lying about that's never been finished, but that's just what they are: unfinished. If I build a tool to completion, you can bet there's documentation. . . particularly for revisions, and the knobs and switches are documented as well as labelled on the box. Moreover, the box is complete enough that I don't have to worry about spilling coffee on it or having parts fall out if I turn it over. > > > The principal problem with Ph.D.s is that their knowledge base tends to > > be as narrow as any other new grads; the only distinction being that they > > have significantly more depth in one very specific area. > > I disagree. > I'm sure there are both types, but my experience has been that the PhD types are often working far outside their own discipline but are able to handle the job because of their experience and training. They understand how difficult it is to get those things done that aren't within your own specialty. It's easy to design a circuit. Powering and packaging it is often where the real challenge lies. Designing durable and serviceable interconnects is not a trivial task either. I haven't seen an HDL for wiring and packaging. > > > I've had more than one occasion > > where such people were literally reduced to tears in design meetings > > as a consequence of being crucified by some staff engineer. > > I've also seen precisely the opposite where an engineer has been so caught > up in the way things have been done that they can't understand that there > just might be a better way or a case where the old way won't work. > > > It just means that there are problems > > > I can drop in the lap of a typical PhD that would take a week to explain to > > > the typical programmer. > > > > "...drop in the lap of a typical PhD who is familiar with the problem area..." > > Again I disagree. If a PhD is unfamiliar with the problem area they will > get familiar with it damn quick. That's what is expected of them. If they > don't do what's expected of them, you don't keep 'em around. Then again an > engineer who is unfamiliar with the problem area will likely come into your > office every hour and a half to ask a question. > > > When they were done we tried to find other things > > for them to do, but they were only marginally more effective than > > our new crop of four-year grads. The person in question is now making > > use of their Ph.D. by teaching undergraduate CS courses. > > I'm not saying there aren't idiots with PhDs out there. Did you ever > think that putting the PhDs to work doing the same tasks as the new crop > of four-year grads was a waste of material? You don't hire a PhD to write > Visual Basic code, you hire PhD's to do work that you need a PhD for. > > > > It's a different skill set, and should be treated as such. > > > > I don't see any evidence that the skill set is particularly different; > > Perhaps that's because you treat them like fresh undergrads. > > > All the Ph.D. represents is an additional four years of training in an > > environment that is skewed from the one found in industry; > > Ph.D. must me different where you come from. Where I come from a Ph.D. > candidate is not getting much training apart what they provide themselves. > The biggest difference I see between people in industry and people doing > their thesis projects is that people in industry work shorter hours. > > > It's all about what you can > > do and how well it fits with my needs. Everything else is meaningless. > > Of course, and if you don't need Ph.D.'s working for you, so be it. But > you might want to consider that the guy with the Ph.D. may be able to do > quite a bit more than you need... > > Eric > > From richard at idcomm.com Sun Jul 2 04:40:00 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Odd PAL References: Message-ID: <002401bfe409$7efcd280$0400c0a8@winbook> 20C1 is a 24-pin programmable decoder with two sums of 8 product terms OR'd into a single final Or/Nor gate. It's clearly intended for use as a decoder, having 20 inputs and a single output sum of products with both true and complement outputs on separate inputs. It's right here in my '89 NS programmable logic databook. If you want, I can (probably fairly soon) scan it for you and email you the image (in TIFF). ----- Original Message ----- From: William Donzelli To: Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2000 8:47 PM Subject: Odd PAL > I finally unburied a whole shipload of PALs I bought many years ago, and > started to sort them. I have a few National Semiconductor types called > 20C1s. What is the organization of these? Apparently not a popular item, > as I found little information on the web. > > William Donzelli > aw288@osfn.org > > From vcf at siconic.com Sun Jul 2 04:01:55 2000 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Exhibit at VCF 4.0! Message-ID: It's time to start thinking about what you're going to exhibit at VCF 4.0. The deadline for registration is September 20, 2000. You can register at: http://www.vintage.org/exhibit.html Rules for the exhibit competition can be found at: http://www.vintage.org/cgi-bin/content.pl?id=r00 Strut your classic computer stuff!!! Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au Sun Jul 2 05:33:58 2000 From: geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au (Geoff Roberts) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <002101bfe411$0bb12940$0100a8c0@helpdesk> I am the proud owner of a HP85 after a friend persuaded a country rubbish dump operator that it really belonged in a museum or something similar. Seems to work ok, found a listing for a fractal program on the web and it worked after I corrected a typo in the listing. (And added a line to clear the graphics screen at the start of each run. I haven't been able to test the printer properly, but it appears ok, and I can't test the tape drive because I don't have any media. Anyone out there know 1) Where (if?) I can get tape media for it? 2) Any software about? 3) Any expansion modules. Seems to be an original HP85 (85A?) S/N 2204B 38784 No idea where it came from originally. Possibly a local govt office. Came from a VERY small town in the hills. First HP I've been able to find, nice little machine.... Cheers Geoff Roberts Computer Systems Manager Saint Mark's College Port Pirie, South Australia geoffrob@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au From wanderer at bos.nl Sun Jul 2 10:06:48 2000 From: wanderer at bos.nl (wanderer) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Duplicating an RSX-11M+ system disk. References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <395F5A88.71BF@bos.nl> Hello All, I have a bit of a weird problem, I'm trying to make a 2nd bootable system disk containig RSX-11M+. I have an 11/83 with 2 RD53's and 1 RD54, and the system is on one of the RD53's. I booted [6,54]brusys.sys and then used DSC to copy the contents to the 2nd RD53. DSC did not report any error. Then when trying to boot du2 (the 2nd RD53), nothing happens besides a number of retries to access the boot information. DSC is supposed to copy the boot information as well as the data, so I'm wondering what I do wrong. Thanks, Ed -- The Wanderer | Geloof nooit een politicus! wanderer@bos.nl | Europarlementariers: zakken- http://www.bos.nl/homes/wanderer | vullers en dumpplaats voor Unix Lives! windows95/98 is rommel! | mislukte politici. '96 GSXR 1100R / '97 TL1000S | See http://www.bos.nl/homes/wanderer/gates.html for a funny pic. of Gates! From rdd at smart.net Sun Jul 2 08:55:50 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <200007020721.AAA01185@sagan.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, Eric J. Korpela wrote: [someone unquoted elsewhere write:] > > *ROFL* I'm trying to think of the last time that I worked on a project where > > 65+ hour weeks didn't have to be sustained for the lifetime of the project, and > > for the life of me I think it was 1982. Avant! wasn't all that atypical with > > it's unspoken requirement that people turn in 80+ hour weeks even when it > > wasn't crunch time. That borders on foolishness. People have lives and committments outside of the paid workplace, and to expect people to work more than somewhere between 32 to 40 hours per week, not counting the time it takes to drive to and from the workplace, is greed and inconsideration on the employers' behalf. > At 80+ you still get to go home. It gets hard when 130+ is required for > more than a few weeks in a row. My personal record is 152 work hours When sleep is reduced, then it can have a negative impact on one's health - talke a look, there's plenty of evidence out there in the psychophysiological damage that this can cause. Caffeine should never be relied on as a substitute for needed sleep. Gastric ulcers, auto accidents, immune system impairment leading to increased incidences of cancer, etc. are amongst the results of not getting enough sleep. I've worked with people who continuously drank coffee, bragging about their levels of consumtion of it, making a big deal over how little sleep they were getting, as if it made them look important. Do such people realize that they're boasting about destroying their health? > > The difference I see is that if you're late on your > > thesis you can add time, a luxury that isn't afforded in industry. That's not a luxury, it's called protecting one's life, and if enough people did it, companiues would be forced to like it or else; that is, if there was a way to not allow them to keep hiring cheap foreign labor to displace employees who are citizens of the country where they're working (e.g. the droves of H/J visa employees being hired by U.S. employers to replace U.S. citizens who won't work long hours for peanuts). Perhaps we need to tar and feather a few politicians; can't think of a much better solution at the moment. -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From mark_k at iname.com Sun Jul 2 11:52:39 2000 From: mark_k at iname.com (Mark) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: New Find and Am2900 Bipolar Microprocessor Databook Message-ID: Hi, [Apologies if this has already been mentioned, I'm a bit behind with my email.] On Wed, 21 Jun 2000 Tony Duell wrote: > > I have a copy of the AMD 2900 databook, which I might try to scan in > > somewhere (I can photocopy sections out for John if he needs them right > > away); someone also recently provided me with a scanned version of the > > Am2901 datasheet, which I can share. > > > > You're on your own for a copy of Mick and Brick - it's copyrighted, so I > > Well, the 2900 databook is copyrighted as well... Most companies don't seem > to mind people copying their data sheets (after all, it sells their > chips!), but it doesn't mean you can scan an post a copy of the databook > without checking first. None of the companies concerned is likely to care at all. Though actually getting many to say so officially might not be easy. On Fri, 23 Jun 2000 Pat Barron wrote: > Well, I corresponded with some folks at AMD, and didn't quite get > everything I wanted, but this might help somebody. > > They have approved me making up to 10 copies of the Am2900 databook. My > plan is to scan it in and turn it into a PDF file. Therefore, I can only > make copies available to 10 people. > > ... > > If substantially more than 10 people are interested, I'll go back to them > and request further permission, but this was all they felt they could let > me do without running my request through legal review. There is no need to do this, because 2900 data books/sheets by various companies including AMD are already available in scanned format (PDF files) online. Go to http://www.freetradezone.com/ After registering you can use the Design Center section to browse and download data sheets and data books for many kinds of current and discontinued devices (including 2900 series from several manufacturers). They even have some data books from the 1970s online. Just enter 2900 or 2901 or whatever in the part number box and click the search button. That site is probably a good first place to look if you are after the data sheet for any discontinued device. -- Mark From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Jul 2 06:54:27 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II Message-ID: <016301bfe421$40cbb950$7064c0d0@ajp166> >in getting it up and running. I want to run VMS on this, not interested in the version of BSD out there, already have enough Unix boxen. The main thing I'm missing, besides getting VMS itself are drives. This system is in the BA123 enclosure and has a TK50 tape drive. It contains the following boards: M7606-AC CPU M7608-BP Memory M7608-BP Memory M7546 Tape controller (TK50) M7516 DELQA (eithernet) M7516 DELQA (eithernet)... machine was likely used as a router. M3104 16port serial M9058 Disk breakout board (used for going from RQDX3 controller to MFMdisks and floppies) >What all drive options are there and what would people recommend? What are my options for getting VMS for this? Any other help or comments appreciated. Ok, what you need is either a RQDX3 (M7555 hard disk controller board and a few RD54s or a SCSI card like the CMD200 and RZ56(680mb). The problem is SCSI controllers generally don't go cheap. Ideally to run VMS7.2 you need 300mb of disk(s) however smaller is possible. The SCSI board is convenient as it will allow for a CDrom needed to install from hobbiest CD. Other wise RRD40 and controller will be needed or someone that can cut TK50s from the CD. There is a hobbiest VMS license and even media available (www.decus.org). I happen to run one of these and they are fine systems for 1987 technology. Allison From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Jul 2 06:57:10 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II Message-ID: <016401bfe421$43692080$7064c0d0@ajp166> From: Chuck McManis >I'd recommend a nice ESDI controller (Dilog 696-20 or RQ11D/E >(Webster/Sigma/etc) If you can find a RRD-40 interface (CD-ROM) that would >be good to since VMS from CD is easier to load than VMS from TK50 (having >done both recently I really recommend CD). If you can find (good luck!) a >SCSI controller for it then your options are pretty much wide open. BTW VMS >lives very nicely on a 500 - 600MB disk with lots of layered products. Chuck, a SCSI board with one good drive and a CDrom would be likely a better choice depeding on what can be found. I used this combo CMD200, RZ56 and toshiba Cdrom. Allison From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Jul 2 07:28:51 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job Message-ID: <016501bfe421$48f4a6f0$7064c0d0@ajp166> From: Richard Erlacher >Look around your lab or work area at home . . . how many of your homebuilt >bits of apparatus have "real" legends or printed labels for all the knobs >and switches? How many of your projects end up in a box that's screwed >shut? That's where the truth of the matter lies. Everybody has built a >thingie or two that never gets past the wirewrap board even though it's been >used occasionally for 10-20 years. It often starts out as an immediate >need, but ends up as a tool. It's one habit I try to avoid and as a result I do have some boxes that are in one case 35 years old, labled, docs and all. At that age I'd have to have been a child prodigy to be a PHD. I build tools for myself, a few are hand wired some wirewrap but neither are a bad thing only an idication of cost to do a decent 2 or 4 layer board was out of reach. Then again sloppy work doesn't last. Call it a do it once and do it right mindset. Now cabinetry, that eluded me for years how to get truly good looking boxen not made of wood with some metal. >I like my tools "finished", i.e. in a sealed box with external knobs that >don't require a screwdriver to operate them. I like to be able to use them Drills sharp, wrenches clean and all that are part of completing a project as well. >but that's just what they are: unfinished. If I build a tool to completion, >you can bet there's documentation. . . particularly for revisions, and the It was documentation, in depth that got me a lot of advanced credit. I was designing from the ground up by HS. The information and techniques are not secret, or hard to learn. The idea that a PHD is required to do something useful is bogus. It reeks of classism and ignores those that out there doing it on far less save for one skill not discussed, ability to learn for ones self and apply it to other technologies. >I'm sure there are both types, but my experience has been that the PhD types >are often working far outside their own discipline but are able to handle >the job because of their experience and training. They understand how I"ve found that there are many hacks out there too, fond of building Rube Golbergian crap. Allison From hsappleton at sprintmail.com Sun Jul 2 11:44:42 2000 From: hsappleton at sprintmail.com (Compusync) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Needs help - Information about older DEC products Message-ID: <007d01bfe444$d440f880$9e7efea9@headleys> Hi It seems that Compaq does not carry much info on older DEC products. Is there some site where I could enter an identifying number and will be able to get info on that particular products? Regards Headley -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000702/bfb2f83d/attachment.html From korpela at albert.ssl.berkeley.edu Sun Jul 2 12:12:18 2000 From: korpela at albert.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: from "R. D. Davis" at "Jul 2, 2000 09:55:50 am" Message-ID: <200007021712.KAA12562@sagan.ssl.berkeley.edu> > > At 80+ you still get to go home. It gets hard when 130+ is required for > > more than a few weeks in a row. My personal record is 152 work hours > > When sleep is reduced, then it can have a negative impact on one's > health - talke a look, there's plenty of evidence out there in the > psychophysiological damage that this can cause. If course it has a negative impact, both physically and psychologically. The question is, which has the greatest impact a couple weeks lack of sleep or failure of a major project. (Of course I'm talking management side. Even here, the staff engineers work a 40 hour week in general. For the scientist, it's the culmination of 3-10 years of work.) > (e.g. the droves of H/J visa employees being hired by > U.S. employers to replace U.S. citizens who won't work long hours for > peanuts). Perhaps we need to tar and feather a few politicians; can't > think of a much better solution at the moment. The bulk of politicians seem unaware and take the claims of the high tech industry leaders at face value. If you haven't called your congress critters with your concerns, you should. If course, here in CA, your congress critters won't listen to a constituent without a briefcase full of unmarked bills. People in small states have more clout. Eric From frustum at pacbell.net Sun Jul 2 12:46:52 2000 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <002101bfe411$0bb12940$0100a8c0@helpdesk> References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <4.3.0.20000702102650.00b73610@pacbell.net> At 08:03 PM 7/2/00 +0930, Geoff Roberts wrote: >I am the proud owner of a HP85 after a friend persuaded a country rubbish >dump operator that it really belonged in a museum or something similar. >Seems to work ok, found a listing for a fractal program on the web and it >worked after I corrected a typo in the listing. (And added a line to clear >the graphics screen at the start of each run. >I haven't been able to test the printer properly, but it appears ok, and I >can't test the tape drive because I don't have any media. Good save; it is a well built machine, and a nice departure from the hundreds of MS BASIC machines of the day. I have one too, and it came with some tapes. The rub is this. Typically, the tape rollers have been sitting in one position for 10 years or more, causing a flat spot on the roller. Worse than that, I followed the directions of the manual which said to rub the roller with isopropyl alcohol every so often to clean them up. Well, I tried that and the roller disintegrated after I attempted to use it, ruining one of the tapes by leaving sticky orange residue on the tape, plus chunks of the rubber came off the roller and got stuck in various other parts of the mechanism. I don't know if there is a way to replace the rollers; right now my hope is to hook it up to an external floppy or hard disk (my HP85 has the I/O ROM module, so it should be possible). I'll just forsake the tape drive, I guess. Now for a bit of background, the HP85 uses a custom HP processor that is quite interesting. It operates at only 600 KHz or so, and even the quickest operations take two cycles; most take 4 or more. Where it gets interesting is that a number of operations (add, sub, shift, etc), can operate on 1 to 8 byte words, with each addition byte adding one clock to the operation. So adding a byte takes 4 cycles, adding 8 bytes takes 11 cycles. The obvious instructions operate either on binary data or BCD. All instructions are a single byte, except for a few that have an immediate operand. There are many addressing modes. Perhaps most strange is that although there are 64 byte-wide registers, the operands to instructions are specified by two register pointers. Thus each instruction doesn't carry register pointers at all. There is the DRP (destination register pointer) and the ARP (address (or source) register pointer). To add R18 to R23, the instruction sequence would be (in pseudo code): DRP <-- 23 ARP <-- 18 ADDB (add byte) Of course, DRP and ARP don't need to be loaded if they already point to the register you want. Because there is a lot of register twiddling, the assembler lets you pretend the instruction allow specifying the register directly, and the assembler reloads ARP and DRP as necessary, so in fact, you could code the above operation more like "ADDB R23, R18". The uP itself fits in a 28 pin DIP, with a single 8b data/address bus. All the peripherals that connect to this bus know the protocol so that many times the address doesn't need to be transmitted at all. For example, everyone on the bus basically keeps a copy of the PC, so as long as instructions are fetched sequentially, no address is sent an the ROMS and RAMS just keep incrementing their copy of the PC. Things like jump instructions cause the uP to send the address out (in two cycles, of course, it is a 16b address). I believe that the HP 75 uses this same processor, as of course the HP 86 and HP 87 do too. This and a lot more is documented in the assembler ROM. It has a wealth of information. Enough, in fact, that I've been toying with writing an emulator for it, but of all the defunct old computers, HP is one of the few that is still in business and would probably seriously care if someone ripped their ROMs for an emulator. If somebody thinks HP might not care, then I might consider writing the emulator. ----- Jim Battle == frustum@pacbell.net From hofmanwb at worldonline.nl Sun Jul 2 21:14:39 2000 From: hofmanwb at worldonline.nl (W.B.(Wim) Hofman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Duplicating an RSX-11M+ system disk. Message-ID: <20000702175952.34D2436E47@pandora.worldonline.nl> Ed, Did you use the /VE option with DSC? If you can, use BRU to copy a disk. I never had any problems with disks copied with BRU. A possiblility that you could not boot, could be that DU2: is not generated into your RSX11M+. Wim ---------- > From: wanderer > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Duplicating an RSX-11M+ system disk. > Date: Sunday, July 02, 2000 8:06 AM > > Hello All, > > I have a bit of a weird problem, I'm trying to make a 2nd bootable > system disk containig RSX-11M+. > > I have an 11/83 with 2 RD53's and 1 RD54, and the system is on one > of the RD53's. I booted [6,54]brusys.sys and then used DSC to copy > the contents to the 2nd RD53. DSC did not report any error. > Then when trying to boot du2 (the 2nd RD53), nothing happens besides > a number of retries to access the boot information. > > DSC is supposed to copy the boot information as well as the data, > so I'm wondering what I do wrong. > > Thanks, > > Ed > > -- > The Wanderer | Geloof nooit een politicus! > wanderer@bos.nl | Europarlementariers: zakken- > http://www.bos.nl/homes/wanderer | vullers en dumpplaats voor > Unix Lives! windows95/98 is rommel! | mislukte politici. > '96 GSXR 1100R / '97 TL1000S | > See http://www.bos.nl/homes/wanderer/gates.html for a funny pic. of > Gates! From richard at idcomm.com Sun Jul 2 13:08:28 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job References: <200007021712.KAA12562@sagan.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <001701bfe450$88f5f400$0400c0a8@winbook> This supports what I've long maintained, i.e. that management doesn't know the difference between "good" work and what you get when your people are overstressed and overworked. Too many managers see labor as a pool at which to direct money, and whenever the number of man-hours per dollar goes up, they're proud, regardless of the quality. Likewise, that old saw about doing a good job doesn't wash any more in the face of management's behavior of buying lots of cheap help based strictly on credentials. However, that's the world we live in. As soon as the reality becomes one in which they can import two bodies from Bangladesh, who, by the way, probably have a better education and speak and write a better english than the typical U.S. engineering grad, for less than what they pay you, it's time to work up a current resume'. When you move on, make sure it's for more money, as every manager knows that more money's a good reason for changing jobs. They don't understand that you'd sometimes like to use that boat you bought with your last raise, and maybe seeing the kids on Christmas or the 4th of July might be nice. Nobody will understand getting a job you like better if it's not for more $$$, and in today's market, nobody faults you for leaving, even after a short time, if you get 10% or better for making the move. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric J. Korpela To: Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2000 11:12 AM Subject: Re: Getting a good job > > > At 80+ you still get to go home. It gets hard when 130+ is required for > > > more than a few weeks in a row. My personal record is 152 work hours > > > > When sleep is reduced, then it can have a negative impact on one's > > health - talke a look, there's plenty of evidence out there in the > > psychophysiological damage that this can cause. > > If course it has a negative impact, both physically and psychologically. > The question is, which has the greatest impact a couple weeks lack of sleep > or failure of a major project. (Of course I'm talking management side. > Even here, the staff engineers work a 40 hour week in general. For the > scientist, it's the culmination of 3-10 years of work.) > > > (e.g. the droves of H/J visa employees being hired by > > U.S. employers to replace U.S. citizens who won't work long hours for > > peanuts). Perhaps we need to tar and feather a few politicians; can't > > think of a much better solution at the moment. > > The bulk of politicians seem unaware and take the claims of the high tech > industry leaders at face value. If you haven't called your congress critters > with your concerns, you should. If course, here in CA, your congress critters > won't listen to a constituent without a briefcase full of unmarked bills. > People in small states have more clout. > > Eric > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 2 11:38:26 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Odd PAL In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jul 1, 0 10:47:35 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 959 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000702/f1e5f1b0/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 2 11:45:54 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jul 1, 0 10:51:17 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1910 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000702/8ef406dc/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 2 11:55:00 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <002101bfe411$0bb12940$0100a8c0@helpdesk> from "Geoff Roberts" at Jul 2, 0 08:03:58 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1371 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000702/c0cc49c6/attachment.ksh From oliv555 at arrl.net Sun Jul 2 13:59:47 2000 From: oliv555 at arrl.net (Nick Oliviero) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II References: <016401bfe421$43692080$7064c0d0@ajp166> Message-ID: <395F9123.64882F63@arrl.net> David, if you do go the SCSI route, I've got some RZ55 and RZ57s you're welcome to. Might even have a spare skid floating around. Have a couple of RRD40 but no caddies; a later model drive may be the better choice. In a pinch, I can loan you my microVMSv4.7 tape (TK50) but I think you can do better. Nick allisonp wrote: > Chuck, a SCSI board with one good drive and a CDrom would be likely a > better > choice depeding on what can be found. I used this combo CMD200, RZ56 > and toshiba Cdrom. > > Allison From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Sun Jul 2 14:22:00 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Duplicating an RSX-11M+ system disk. Message-ID: <000702152200.26200f77@trailing-edge.com> >I have a bit of a weird problem, I'm trying to make a 2nd bootable >system disk containig RSX-11M+. > >I have an 11/83 with 2 RD53's and 1 RD54, and the system is on one >of the RD53's. I booted [6,54]brusys.sys and then used DSC to copy >the contents to the 2nd RD53. DSC did not report any error. >Then when trying to boot du2 (the 2nd RD53), nothing happens besides >a number of retries to access the boot information. > >DSC is supposed to copy the boot information as well as the data, >so I'm wondering what I do wrong. Which version of 11M+ are you using? DSC became "unsupported" in recent. versions, the "supported" way of doing what you want is BRU. DSC isn't even included in the last few binary releases. (Thank the heavens that you aren't having to deal with PRESERV or ROLLIN!) -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 From chris at mainecoon.com Sun Jul 2 14:29:48 2000 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Chris Kennedy) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job References: <200007021712.KAA12562@sagan.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001701bfe450$88f5f400$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <395F982C.14180885@mainecoon.com> Richard Erlacher wrote: > This supports what I've long maintained, i.e. that management doesn't know > the difference between "good" work and what you get when your people are > overstressed and overworked. Too many managers see labor as a pool at > which to direct money, and whenever the number of man-hours per dollar goes > up, they're proud, regardless of the quality. This is very true, and hardly a new phenomena. It was 1982 when I heard my VP of Engineering mutter the phrase "The logic analyzer you want costs $50,000, but engineering overtime is free". It would be difficult to claim that the situation has improved since. > Likewise, that old saw about > doing a good job doesn't wash any more in the face of management's behavior > of buying lots of cheap help based strictly on credentials. I'd agree, save for the fact that I can't really buy "cheap" labor in the local market. The vast majority of B1-B holders make the same amount as a US citizen because the immigration laws require it. The only way to tap into the cheap market is to go the HCL route, where you get a couple of token B1-B holders deposited on site who lob most of the work over the pond to some guy getting paid in rupees. While that model works for very specific tasks (like getting something ported to a new platform), it sucks for others. > However, that's the world we live in. As soon as the reality becomes one in > which they can import two bodies from Bangladesh, who, by the way, probably > have a better education and speak and write a better english than the > typical U.S. engineering grad, for less than what they pay you, it's time to > work up a current resume'. I'm not sure it's any different from any other market. When the skills you have become a commodity item then the only way to avoid suffering economically is to evolve a new set of skills which are not. > When you move on, make sure it's for more money, as every manager knows that > more money's a good reason for changing jobs. They don't understand that > you'd sometimes like to use that boat you bought with your last raise, and > maybe seeing the kids on Christmas or the 4th of July might be nice. It's certainly the case that this statement is true of most managers, but that's largely because their management (in response to their shareholders) are holding their feet to the fire (usually indirectly, via stock valuation and bonuses). That's in response to all the competing firms doing the same, including the guy in Madras whose banging out the same number of hours but costing less to do it. This isn't meant to be a defense of the situation; I'm just utterly unclear on how one makes it better when someone in the next country over has more or less the same skill set and is willing to work long hours for less money -- save, as I said earlier, to keep retooling ourselves with new skills in new technologies. > Nobody will understand getting a job you like better if it's not for more > $$$, and in today's market, nobody faults you for leaving, even after a > short time, if you get 10% or better for making the move. Actually, people *do* understand you taking laterals -- it's considered a damning comment on the prospects of the project that you're leaving, its management, the company in general or all of the above. -- Chris Kennedy chris@mainecoon.com http://www.mainecoon.com PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jul 2 14:31:24 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Argh!! You moan at me for perhaps over enthusiastic restorations that > damage the fabric of a computer, and then you lubricate with WD40??? > That, IMHO is a whole lot worse. Running a machine for 10s without proper > lubrication can ruin it... Now, in order to MAKE THINGS CLEAR TO THOSE THAT LIKE ASSUMING THINGS, I bathed the mechanism in WD40 to get the old lubricant and garbage _out_. That is what WD40 is _made_ for, so it looks like I used the product in a very _proper_ manner. I am sure this machine had not been run in fifteen years, and maybe never lubed at all thru its entire lifetime. Running for a few minutes (yes, just a few) on what little lubrication WD40 provides (or the short term rejuvenation of the old lubricant) is a whole bunch safer than running with nothing, or the old garbage still present (in fact, when I first obtained the machine, I spun the motor by hand to find the whole mechanism had seized). When I am confident that things are operating properly, I will lube the thing up with a good synthetic oil. For now, liberal shots of WD40 when I work on the machine are just fine. > OK, back to the problem. I've got a wind-the-crank Facit mechanical > calculator that sometimes malfunctions (carriage doesn't lock at the > right point, etc). The cause has _always_ been old, gummy, lubricant that > is causing spring-loaded linkages either not to move or to more too late. > A pawl is released, but it doesn't move forward to lock another linkage > -- things like that. It appears to be within the carriage. When the thing does lock up, the digits get very sticky, as well as the clearing mechanism. With some fiddling with the clearing mechanism, the seize goes away. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jul 2 14:42:19 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Odd PAL In-Reply-To: <002401bfe409$7efcd280$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: > 20C1 is a 24-pin programmable decoder with two sums of 8 product terms OR'd > into a single final Or/Nor gate. It's clearly intended for use as a > decoder, having 20 inputs and a single output sum of products with both true > and complement outputs on separate inputs. > > It's right here in my '89 NS programmable logic databook. > > If you want, I can (probably fairly soon) scan it for you and email you the > image (in TIFF). No, that is OK, but thanks for the offer. I just found these in a pile of "normal" PALs (16R8, 20L10, and the like), and started to get confused. It appears that the 20C1 was a dog, as very few people seem to have used it (or still sell it). I have never seen one on any scrap boards. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jul 2 15:03:26 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: <200007020649.XAA06906@eskimo.com> Message-ID: > I doubt WD40 is the best thing for the job. There are other chemicals that > are designed to clean metal. Probably not the best thing, but certainly up to the task. The old lubricant is good as dead, and who knows what other junk is in the gears. The point of the bath was to clean it all up (and I must say it did - the WD40 was coming out a horrible brown color, mixed with fuzz). When I think things are working well, I will have the "fun" of lubricating it properly. A service manual should have that info. But for right now, constant shots of WD40 will work fine (I have also been spinning the motor by hand quite a bit - not fun considering the motor is buried). > There is a mailing list about old calculators called CALCLIST. I can get > you the relevant addresses. (I think I need to resubscribe too.) The > people there can give you an amazing amount of expert advice. OK, thanks. I will perhaps subscribe and get some advice. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 2 15:40:42 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jul 2, 0 03:31:24 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 2202 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000702/f171cd94/attachment.ksh From dlw at trailingedge.com Sun Jul 2 17:31:11 2000 From: dlw at trailingedge.com (David Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II In-Reply-To: <016401bfe421$43692080$7064c0d0@ajp166> Message-ID: <395F7C5F.19944.1668B7B@localhost> It looks to me like the controller is going to be the more difficult to locate. I have a box of old unknown boards, some are DEC, I'll have to sort through and see if I have anything of use (either in my system or for trading) in there. Does anyone have any good sources for controllers and/or the drives online? Any suggestions on average costs? Thanks. On 2 Jul 2000, at 7:57, allisonp wrote: > From: Chuck McManis > >I'd recommend a nice ESDI controller (Dilog 696-20 or RQ11D/E > >(Webster/Sigma/etc) If you can find a RRD-40 interface (CD-ROM) that > would > >be good to since VMS from CD is easier to load than VMS from TK50 > (having > >done both recently I really recommend CD). If you can find (good > >luck!) > a > >SCSI controller for it then your options are pretty much wide open. > >BTW > VMS > >lives very nicely on a 500 - 600MB disk with lots of layered > >products. > > > > Chuck, a SCSI board with one good drive and a CDrom would be likely a > better choice depeding on what can be found. I used this combo > CMD200, RZ56 and toshiba Cdrom. > > Allison > > ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Sun Jul 2 18:09:01 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II In-Reply-To: <395F7C5F.19944.1668B7B@localhost> References: <016401bfe421$43692080$7064c0d0@ajp166> Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000702155828.00cfb410@208.226.86.10> This is the issue of course, cost. I agree with Allison whole heartedly that the _easiest_ thing to do is to slap a SCSI controller in there and then stick a CD-ROM drive and a couple of GB SCSI disk and you're totally up to speed and off to the races. However, SCSI controllers are not common. I've lucked into a couple but that took a couple of _years_ of VAX filtration. (and about 20 vaxes later) The most common one by far is the Viking QTO/QDO/QDT. This is a dual wide controller, widely licensed, with three variants, tape only (QTO), disk only (QTD), and tape and disk (QTD). Most (all?) VAX SCSI controllers come in these three variants. This is probably because the tapes and disks used different protocols (TMSCP vs MSCP). A Viking QTD from a DEC Reseller will set you back anywhere from $250 - $800. A nicer CMD controller like the one Allison recommended I've seen listed for $2000! Contrast that to an ESDI controller that you can usually find for $30 - $50. The cheapest way to get up and running is with an RQDX3 and a couple of MFM drives. However you will need either a VAX2000 or a Microvax Diagnostic tape to format them. The issue with them as that the biggest ones (RD54's) are in such demand that they too command a premium. So that is why SCSI, while nice, is often difficult on a shoestring. And if you find an old VAX that has had a SCSI controller added, that is a good deal. --Chuck At 05:31 PM 7/2/00 -0500, you wrote: >It looks to me like the controller is going to be the more difficult to >locate. I have a box of old unknown boards, some are DEC, I'll >have to sort through and see if I have anything of use (either in my >system or for trading) in there. Does anyone have any good >sources for controllers and/or the drives online? Any suggestions >on average costs? > >Thanks. > >On 2 Jul 2000, at 7:57, allisonp wrote: > > From: Chuck McManis > > >I'd recommend a nice ESDI controller (Dilog 696-20 or RQ11D/E > > >(Webster/Sigma/etc) If you can find a RRD-40 interface (CD-ROM) that > > would > > >be good to since VMS from CD is easier to load than VMS from TK50 > > (having > > >done both recently I really recommend CD). If you can find (good > > >luck!) > > a > > >SCSI controller for it then your options are pretty much wide open. > > >BTW > > VMS > > >lives very nicely on a 500 - 600MB disk with lots of layered > > >products. > > > > > > > > Chuck, a SCSI board with one good drive and a CDrom would be likely a > > better choice depeding on what can be found. I used this combo > > CMD200, RZ56 and toshiba Cdrom. > > > > Allison > > > > > > > >----- >David Williams - Computer Packrat >dlw@trailingedge.com >http://www.trailingedge.com From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jul 2 18:08:10 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Not it's NOT! WD40, as its name implies, is a Water Displacer. It's not a > penetrating oil really (although it's not too bad at that) and it's not a > degreasing solvent. You are wrong. Sorry. Check the MSDS, and you will find that WD40 is mostly Stoddard Solvent. Stoddard Solvent is handy stuff, its primary use is being a degreasing solvent that is "somewhat" safe to use (unlike others that are quite aromatic). There is also some propellant in WD40, as well as a little bit of lubricant. The lubricant does not last long, so it is at best a very short term solution. Stoddard Solvent is a petroleum distillate. Its a complex mixture of various solvents, many of which can be found in what you know as "degreasers". The mixture is set so that the stuff is not as dangerous to use as pure kerosene, naptha, etc.. Those are better solvents, but come with headaches that I do not need. So go check your facts before you flame me again. I know what I am talking about, and I am just following the advice of the experts in the field. I know that WD40 is not much of a lubricant, and I do realise that proper lubrication is required after a cleansing. I have rebuild many aircraft dynamotors, many reaching 60 years of age, and not one has had a bearing failure because of an improper lube job on my part. I must be doing something correct. > True enough. But why do people persist in wanting to run machines almost > as soon as they get them? I've never had any problem with taking things > slowly -- taking them apart carefully, cleaning, inspecting, lubricating, > etc. And then, perhaps a month after getting the machine, finally turning > it on. As I said in another post, my first action was to turn the motor by hand. I am still doing that to a great extent. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 2 19:21:09 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jul 2, 0 07:08:10 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 3564 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000703/6a993565/attachment.ksh From mbg at world.std.com Sun Jul 2 21:09:05 2000 From: mbg at world.std.com (Megan) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <200007030209.WAA22810@world.std.com> >This and a lot more is documented in the assembler ROM. It has a wealth >of information. Enough, in fact, that I've been toying with writing an >emulator for it, but of all the defunct old computers, HP is one of the >few that is still in business and would probably seriously care if >someone ripped their ROMs for an emulator. If somebody thinks HP might >not care, then I might consider writing the emulator. They might care... but regardless, you could do what someone else did in relation to the HP48... they wrote an emulator, and simply told people that they didn't provide the ROM images, that was up to the user of the emulator to provide -- by having an HP48[GX] from which they could download a copy of the ROM to use. The person even provided a copy of a program which would assist in down-loading the ROM image. Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg KB1FCA | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ From jhfine at idirect.com Sun Jul 2 21:16:37 2000 From: jhfine at idirect.com (Jerome Fine) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job References: Message-ID: <395FF785.CC22264A@idirect.com> >R. D. Davis wrote: > That borders on foolishness. People have lives and committments > outside of the paid workplace, and to expect people to work more than > somewhere between 32 to 40 hours per week, not counting the time it > takes to drive to and from the workplace, is greed and inconsideration > on the employers' behalf. Jerome Fine replies: Hey - are you advocating that we spend some time with our spouses and get to know our children and grandchildren. Now that is totally contrary to the work ethic. We might also wind up being happy and stop suffering from afluenza. > When sleep is reduced, then it can have a negative impact on one's > health - talke a look, there's plenty of evidence out there in the > psychophysiological damage that this can cause. Caffeine should never > be relied on as a substitute for needed sleep. Gastric ulcers, auto > accidents, immune system impairment leading to increased incidences of > cancer, etc. are amongst the results of not getting enough sleep. I've > worked with people who continuously drank coffee, bragging about their > levels of consumtion of it, making a big deal over how little sleep > they were getting, as if it made them look important. Do such people > realize that they're boasting about destroying their health? Now you are try to use reverse psychology on us. > That's not a luxury, it's called protecting one's life, and if enough > people did it, companiues would be forced to like it or else; that is, > if there was a way to not allow them to keep hiring cheap foreign > labor to displace employees who are citizens of the country where > they're working (e.g. the droves of H/J visa employees being hired by > U.S. employers to replace U.S. citizens who won't work long hours for > peanuts). Perhaps we need to tar and feather a few politicians; can't > think of a much better solution at the moment. I think everyone should have placed on their tombstone: "This person was dedicated to the job and gave everything to the company. Death came as a joyful end to a dedicated career and the family is now able to spend the income and the insurance money which there was never time enough to enjoy. This person is not missed since he/she was not around in any case." Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine From marvin at rain.org Sun Jul 2 21:26:14 2000 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job References: Message-ID: <395FF9C6.6C09E8C@rain.org> "R. D. Davis" wrote: > > outside of the paid workplace, and to expect people to work more than > somewhere between 32 to 40 hours per week, not counting the time it > takes to drive to and from the workplace, is greed and inconsideration > on the employers' behalf. It is really hard for me to take your comment seriously; I would *really* hope you are jesting here!!!!! From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Jul 2 18:54:55 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II Message-ID: <01ca01bfe490$224f2920$7064c0d0@ajp166> From: David Williams It looks to me like the controller is going to be the more difficult to locate. I have a box of old unknown boards, some are DEC, I'll have to sort through and see if I have anything of use (either in my system or for trading) in there. Does anyone have any good sources for controllers and/or the drives online? Any suggestions on average costs? Ok, SCSI controllers are easy to find just not cheap. RXDX3 controllers for MFM disks (RD54 and friends) are fairly common and cheap. EDSI contrllers are less common but the drives are fairly cheap. It's the easiest thing to solve in VAXland. Allison On 2 Jul 2000, at 7:57, allisonp wrote: > From: Chuck McManis > >I'd recommend a nice ESDI controller (Dilog 696-20 or RQ11D/E > >(Webster/Sigma/etc) If you can find a RRD-40 interface (CD-ROM) that > would > >be good to since VMS from CD is easier to load than VMS from TK50 > (having > >done both recently I really recommend CD). If you can find (good > >luck!) > a > >SCSI controller for it then your options are pretty much wide open. > >BTW > VMS > >lives very nicely on a 500 - 600MB disk with lots of layered > >products. > > > > Chuck, a SCSI board with one good drive and a CDrom would be likely a > better choice depeding on what can be found. I used this combo > CMD200, RZ56 and toshiba Cdrom. > > Allison > > ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From dlw at trailingedge.com Sun Jul 2 21:46:05 2000 From: dlw at trailingedge.com (David Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20000702155828.00cfb410@208.226.86.10> References: <395F7C5F.19944.1668B7B@localhost> Message-ID: <395FB81D.28202.24FF144@localhost> On 2 Jul 2000, at 16:09, Chuck McManis wrote: > tapes and disks used different protocols (TMSCP vs MSCP). A Viking QTD > from a DEC Reseller will set you back anywhere from $250 - $800. A > nicer CMD controller like the one Allison recommended I've seen listed > for $2000! Contrast that to an ESDI controller that you can usually > find for $30 - $50. Wow! Ok, I really want to run VMS but not $2000 enough. Well I sometimes have some pretty good luck, maybe I'll find one cheaper. But I'll take what I can get. Getting the box running if the main goal. Other than that I'm not too concerned about the type of drives. Thanks for all the info. Now I just have to find some controllers. ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jul 2 21:49:14 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > OK, I was not clear. Yes, WD40 will dissolve grease, and as such could be > classed as a degreasing solvent. No, not "could be", it IS. The solvent in it is the degreaser, and the oil is the repeller. > But it's not a _good_ degreasing > solvent, mainly because of all the gunge it leaves behind, which may well > be a mixture of the heavier oils in the WD40, the old lubricant, etc. > > If I want to clean or degrease something then WD40 is _NOT_ what I'd choose. I use WD40 because it takes quite a bit to give me a headache, and it will not explode at the slightest spark. My safety comes first. > In any case, cleaning/degreasing a mechanism is _NOT_ done by soaking > said mechanism in a solvent, or by spraying it with solvent, or anything > like that. It's done by taking it apart, cleaning each part separately, > and then relubricating. The problem with soaking in solvent is that the > solvent (not suprisingly) forms a solution with the old oil/grease. This > solution then coats the mechanism, the solvent evaporates, leaving said > oild oil/grease in all sorts of places where it's not wanted. Like > leaving grpahics grease remains on insulators (yes, I have seen the > result of that). When you degrease each part separately, you dry them off > after pulling them out of the solvent, of course. Perhaps if you _remember_ back a little while, I mentioned that I dip stuff in a stronger solvent (acetone, generally) to get rid of this buildup. It is very fast acting, so I do not expose myself to it very long. It does the job, and leaves bare metal for the new grease or oil. > I've seen enough mechanisms that have been 'treated' with WD40 to know > that I don't like the results. No matter what the 'theory' might say. Amazing... > Surely what's important is not how long they've lasted up until now, but > how long they carry on running _after_ you've rebuilt them. You do really take me for some sort of moron, don't you? Even though I have pointed out in the past that I am aware of how WD40 is to be used, and how things are to be relubed, you just had to assume the worst and go for the throat. Thanks a lot, thanks a whole lot. Maybe now I can see why you complain about not being able to get a job or why the museums don't seem to want you around. With your "never wrong" attitude, the reason shines like a beacon in the night. I must thank the other poster that pointed me towards the Calculator list - I plan on trying that out. I certainly hope that the people there will not give me this sort of "help" with my project. If I knew I was going to run into this crap, I would not have asked in the first place. Next topic, please... William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From dlw at trailingedge.com Sun Jul 2 22:11:38 2000 From: dlw at trailingedge.com (David Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II In-Reply-To: <01ca01bfe490$224f2920$7064c0d0@ajp166> Message-ID: <395FBE1A.8822.2675807@localhost> Ok, I'll have to start searching and see what I can come up with. BTW, didn't someone say that I couldn't format the RD54s on here? Or maybe my mind is slipping. What other issue such as this might I encounter with the different setups? On 2 Jul 2000, at 19:54, allisonp wrote: > Ok, SCSI controllers are easy to find just not cheap. > RXDX3 controllers for MFM disks (RD54 and friends) > are fairly common and cheap. > EDSI contrllers are less common but the drives are fairly cheap. > > It's the easiest thing to solve in VAXland. > > Allison ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From dburrows at netpath.net Sun Jul 2 22:05:26 2000 From: dburrows at netpath.net (Daniel T. Burrows) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II Message-ID: <078c01bfe49b$c32e52c0$a652e780@L166> Contact me off list. I have several ESDI controllers that I have been saving for the hobby users. WQESD, Dilog DQ696, etc. I even have some drives to go with them. The cheapest you will find for decent SCSI controllers are the CMD CQD220/TM (Disk and Tape). I find them on the wholesale side but the min. I have paid is $500. I typically pay $550 to $650 each even in quantity's of 10+. Normal end user prices I have seen are $735 to $1200. Keep your eyes open for Emulex UC07 and UC08. With late versions of the firmware they work nicely with CD's. The Vikings are solid but rather slow but will talk to CD's also with late firmware. Dan -----Original Message----- From: David Williams To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Date: Sunday, July 02, 2000 6:40 PM Subject: Re: Reviving a MicroVAX II It looks to me like the controller is going to be the more difficult to locate. I have a box of old unknown boards, some are DEC, I'll have to sort through and see if I have anything of use (either in my system or for trading) in there. Does anyone have any good sources for controllers and/or the drives online? Any suggestions on average costs? Thanks. On 2 Jul 2000, at 7:57, allisonp wrote: > From: Chuck McManis > >I'd recommend a nice ESDI controller (Dilog 696-20 or RQ11D/E > >(Webster/Sigma/etc) If you can find a RRD-40 interface (CD-ROM) that > would > >be good to since VMS from CD is easier to load than VMS from TK50 > (having > >done both recently I really recommend CD). If you can find (good > >luck!) > a > >SCSI controller for it then your options are pretty much wide open. > >BTW > VMS > >lives very nicely on a 500 - 600MB disk with lots of layered > >products. > > > > Chuck, a SCSI board with one good drive and a CDrom would be likely a > better choice depeding on what can be found. I used this combo > CMD200, RZ56 and toshiba Cdrom. > > Allison > > ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From donm at cts.com Sun Jul 2 22:43:34 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <395F982C.14180885@mainecoon.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, Chris Kennedy wrote: See below. > Richard Erlacher wrote: > > > This supports what I've long maintained, i.e. that management doesn't know > > the difference between "good" work and what you get when your people are > > overstressed and overworked. Too many managers see labor as a pool at > > which to direct money, and whenever the number of man-hours per dollar goes > > up, they're proud, regardless of the quality. > > This is very true, and hardly a new phenomena. It was 1982 when I heard > my VP of Engineering mutter the phrase "The logic analyzer you want costs > $50,000, but engineering overtime is free". It would be difficult to > claim that the situation has improved since. > > > Likewise, that old saw about > > doing a good job doesn't wash any more in the face of management's behavior > > of buying lots of cheap help based strictly on credentials. > > I'd agree, save for the fact that I can't really buy "cheap" labor in the > local market. The vast majority of B1-B holders make the same amount as > a US citizen because the immigration laws require it. The only way to tap > into the cheap market is to go the HCL route, where you get a couple of > token B1-B holders deposited on site who lob most of the work over the > pond to some guy getting paid in rupees. While that model works for very > specific tasks (like getting something ported to a new platform), it sucks > for others. > > > However, that's the world we live in. As soon as the reality becomes one in > > which they can import two bodies from Bangladesh, who, by the way, probably > > have a better education and speak and write a better english than the > > typical U.S. engineering grad, for less than what they pay you, it's time to > > work up a current resume'. > > I'm not sure it's any different from any other market. When the skills you > have become a commodity item then the only way to avoid suffering economically > is to evolve a new set of skills which are not. > > > When you move on, make sure it's for more money, as every manager knows that > > more money's a good reason for changing jobs. They don't understand that > > you'd sometimes like to use that boat you bought with your last raise, and > > maybe seeing the kids on Christmas or the 4th of July might be nice. > > It's certainly the case that this statement is true of most managers, but > that's largely because their management (in response to their shareholders) > are holding their feet to the fire (usually indirectly, via stock I would submit that there is probably a lot less pressure from shareholders directly than there is from so-called 'consumer lawyers' of the Milberg, Weiss...Lerach ilk, who get a few small shareholders to put their names on a suit against company "X", get it classified as a 'class-action' suit, and walk away with millions while the shareholders get left holding an empty bag. - don > valuation and bonuses). That's in response to all the competing firms doing > the same, including the guy in Madras whose banging out the same number of > hours but costing less to do it. > > This isn't meant to be a defense of the situation; I'm just utterly unclear > on how one makes it better when someone in the next country over has > more or less the same skill set and is willing to work long hours for > less money -- save, as I said earlier, to keep retooling ourselves > with new skills in new technologies. > > > Nobody will understand getting a job you like better if it's not for more > > $$$, and in today's market, nobody faults you for leaving, even after a > > short time, if you get 10% or better for making the move. > > Actually, people *do* understand you taking laterals -- it's considered > a damning comment on the prospects of the project that you're leaving, > its management, the company in general or all of the above. > > > -- > Chris Kennedy > chris@mainecoon.com > http://www.mainecoon.com > PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 > From spc at armigeron.com Sun Jul 2 22:49:32 2000 From: spc at armigeron.com (Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <395FF9C6.6C09E8C@rain.org> from "Marvin" at Jul 02, 2000 07:26:14 PM Message-ID: <200007030349.XAA23430@armigeron.com> It was thus said that the Great Marvin once stated: > > "R. D. Davis" wrote: > > > > outside of the paid workplace, and to expect people to work more than > > somewhere between 32 to 40 hours per week, not counting the time it > > takes to drive to and from the workplace, is greed and inconsideration > > on the employers' behalf. > > It is really hard for me to take your comment seriously; I would *really* > hope you are jesting here!!!!! Why do you hope he is jesting? Unless you actually *enjoy* slaving away for an employer who forces 60+ hour weeks ... -spc (Who was once told by my partner that he would rather have me show up at 9 am and be useless for the rest of the day than show up in the afternoon and actually get stuff done ... ) From marvin at rain.org Sun Jul 2 22:58:39 2000 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:12 2005 Subject: Getting a good job References: <200007030349.XAA23430@armigeron.com> Message-ID: <39600F6F.4618E056@rain.org> Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: > > It was thus said that the Great Marvin once stated: > > > > "R. D. Davis" wrote: > > > > > > outside of the paid workplace, and to expect people to work more than > > > somewhere between 32 to 40 hours per week, not counting the time it > > > takes to drive to and from the workplace, is greed and inconsideration > > > on the employers' behalf. > > > > It is really hard for me to take your comment seriously; I would *really* > > hope you are jesting here!!!!! > > Why do you hope he is jesting? Unless you actually *enjoy* slaving away > for an employer who forces 60+ hour weeks ... 32 to 40 hours would be a joke for every professional I've ever met as well and anyone else who takes their play (work) seriously. "Slaving away" is a choice, believe it or not, and at least to me would indicate a job change would be in order regardless of the hours worked. From foo at siconic.com Mon Jul 3 00:32:08 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Are we done with all this off-topic crap yet? Message-ID: Dudes, can we move on already? Go to the farking employer-master/employee-slave list to carry on all this Phd good/bad, work week long/short shit. Doesn't exist? Good, start one or something. Shit already. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From marvin at rain.org Mon Jul 3 01:46:06 2000 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Are we done with all this off-topic crap yet? References: Message-ID: <396036AE.13C2B3DE@rain.org> Sellam Ismail wrote: > > Dudes, can we move on already? > > Go to the farking employer-master/employee-slave list to carry on all > this Phd good/bad, work week long/short shit. Doesn't exist? Good, > start one or something. Haven't you learned yet that the best way to short circuit such topics is to raise another one that people are interested in? BTW, I need your address assuming you want some stuff sent to you. From richard at idcomm.com Mon Jul 3 02:03:01 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Getting a good job References: <200007030349.XAA23430@armigeron.com> <39600F6F.4618E056@rain.org> Message-ID: <002b01bfe4bc$bb341340$0400c0a8@winbook> I don't know where this business of a 32-40 hour work week comes from. The only time I got away with 40 or fewer hours was when I was in the military or when I worked for the government at various levels. Other than that, my work week more often than not ranged between 80 and 120 hours, and longer if I was consulting for several clients at once. Moreover, even when I was on a relatively stabile project in the aerospace industry, I had only to wait until 1/4 of my allotted time had passed, for the "powers that be" to pull half my budget for use in a proposal (since R&D and proposals both came out of the same "new business acquisition expenditures" account. That meant that, having burned 1/4 of my personnel budget. I had to dismiss all my help and do the technical and some of the management work myself, keeping only one other fellow, usually a sharp dresser, so he could attend all the meetings and allow me to do effectively all the useful work. Since I took some math in college, I quickly learned that, while it was fun to work on the IR&D, I could get an extra $80 per hour consulting on the outside after everybody was gone from the plant. That compared favorably with the $00 per hour I got for spending my nights working on the IR&D. That's gone up some, I guess, but those were the numbers in '89. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Marvin To: Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2000 9:58 PM Subject: Re: Getting a good job > > > Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: > > > > It was thus said that the Great Marvin once stated: > > > > > > "R. D. Davis" wrote: > > > > > > > > outside of the paid workplace, and to expect people to work more than > > > > somewhere between 32 to 40 hours per week, not counting the time it > > > > takes to drive to and from the workplace, is greed and inconsideration > > > > on the employers' behalf. > > > > > > It is really hard for me to take your comment seriously; I would *really* > > > hope you are jesting here!!!!! > > > > Why do you hope he is jesting? Unless you actually *enjoy* slaving away > > for an employer who forces 60+ hour weeks ... > > 32 to 40 hours would be a joke for every professional I've ever met as well > and anyone else who takes their play (work) seriously. "Slaving away" is a > choice, believe it or not, and at least to me would indicate a job change > would be in order regardless of the hours worked. > > From wmsmith at earthlink.net Mon Jul 3 02:39:17 2000 From: wmsmith at earthlink.net (Wayne M. Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> <002101bfe411$0bb12940$0100a8c0@helpdesk> Message-ID: <00ac01bfe4c1$cbbdd520$3ba0b2d1@Smith.earthlink.net> > Anyone out there know 1) Where (if?) I can get tape media for it? I have had fairly good success finding the occasional tape on eBay, often very inexpensively ($2-3 each), whereas the retailers who still have them want $30+ each. (See, Ebay isn't all bad.) The tape designations that will work in the HP 85 include the following: HP 98200A (also known as the HP 200, Series 9800) DC 100A mini (made y 3M/Scotch) Of course if the person who has the tapes lists them as being for the HP 85, the price goes way up. The DC 100As are more recent and easier to find. Good luck. From wmsmith at earthlink.net Mon Jul 3 02:50:42 2000 From: wmsmith at earthlink.net (Wayne M. Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> <002101bfe411$0bb12940$0100a8c0@helpdesk> <00ac01bfe4c1$cbbdd520$3ba0b2d1@Smith.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <00bc01bfe4c3$63dac2e0$3ba0b2d1@Smith.earthlink.net> > > Anyone out there know 1) Where (if?) I can get tape > media for it? > > I have had fairly good success finding the occasional > tape on eBay, often very inexpensively ($2-3 each), > whereas the retailers who still have them want $30+ > each. See, for example, http://www.dreamretail.com/cgi-win/dream44.exe/~p009000 123473 -- although we're talking CDN $s. From geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au Mon Jul 3 04:14:02 2000 From: geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au (Geoff Roberts) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> <002101bfe411$0bb12940$0100a8c0@helpdesk> <00ac01bfe4c1$cbbdd520$3ba0b2d1@Smith.earthlink.net> <00bc01bfe4c3$63dac2e0$3ba0b2d1@Smith.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <039101bfe4cf$0823f280$de2c67cb@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wayne M. Smith" To: Sent: Monday, July 03, 2000 5:20 PM Subject: Re: HP 85 stuff > > > Anyone out there know 1) Where (if?) I can get tape > > media for it? > > > > I have had fairly good success finding the occasional > > tape on eBay, often very inexpensively ($2-3 each), > > whereas the retailers who still have them want $30+ > > each. > > See, for example, > http://www.dreamretail.com/cgi-win/dream44.exe/~p009000 > 123473 -- although we're talking CDN $s. Never been on EBay, can't see the point from this hemisphere. I would probably do better locally. I'll check around now that I know what to look for, probably heaps around, just have to find 'em. Tks. Cheers Geoff Roberts Computer Systems Manager Saint Mark's College Port Pirie, South Australia geoffrob@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au netcafe@tell.net.au ICQ: 1970476 From allisonp at world.std.com Mon Jul 3 04:48:33 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II Message-ID: <002f01bfe4d4$5cc669d0$6c64c0d0@ajp166> From: David Williams Ok, I'll have to start searching and see what I can come up with. BTW, didn't someone say that I couldn't format the RD54s on here? Or maybe my mind is slipping. What other issue such as this might I encounter with the different setups? mostly correct. if you need to format a RD54 or a RD54 like drive you need either software that is hard to find or a far cheaper solution another small( 0.5cuFt) Microvax2000. Those can be found for near nothing to free if there is no disks installed and the firmware can format disks. FYI if it has 8mb or more of ram it will run VMS very nicely using a smaller disk for swaping and the eithernet for remote boot and system. Allison From allisonp at world.std.com Mon Jul 3 04:44:46 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II Message-ID: <002e01bfe4d4$5c19af10$6c64c0d0@ajp166> From: David Williams On 2 Jul 2000, at 16:09, Chuck McManis wrote: > tapes and disks used different protocols (TMSCP vs MSCP). A Viking QTD > from a DEC Reseller will set you back anywhere from $250 - $800. A > nicer CMD controller like the one Allison recommended I've seen listed > for $2000! Contrast that to an ESDI controller that you can usually > find for $30 - $50. Wow! Ok, I really want to run VMS but not $2000 enough. Well I sometimes have some pretty good luck, maybe I'll find one If you don't your not looking. I got mine for free. The 2000 number is obviously a price for a new part. don't forget there is also EDSI and the DEC RQDX3. Of those two the RQDX3 is generally very cheap and usually free. Drives can be a problem as the RD54s are the hot item, but they are found. Allison From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Mon Jul 3 07:50:03 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEFD@TEGNTSERVER> > On Sat, 1 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > > Speaking of which: anybody know where I could find an old Plato terminal? > > I'd be interested too. I have a manual set for Plato applications. You have a manual set for a CDC-based Plato application? Or for one of the later incarnations of Plato (such as on the TI/99a)? -dq From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Mon Jul 3 08:04:54 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Getting a good job Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEFE@TEGNTSERVER> > People are given projects which stress them; if > I ask someone what they're doing and the answer doesn't routinely include > the phrases "...trying to figure out..." then it's time to give > them something more challenging to do. This would be such a miracle to find here in the Louisville area. Instead, it's the opposite: when a superior has asked how I'm doing and when the answer has typically included "...trying to figure out..." then they think I've lost my focus and have gone off on a tangent. The expectation is that you've learned all you need to know, and now you're expected to regurgutate it upon command. And while that was bad in programming, it's even worse in support; my boss is an athelete, and since that's the paradigm he's most familiar with, he expects me to be working from some playbook: you know, 3rd down, 50 yards, use play #32. Sure wish there was an easy way to import that California good attitude here; maybe there's something I could drop in the local water supply? Ok, Echelon, I was just kidding on that last part.... -doug q From rigdonj at intellistar.net Mon Jul 3 09:08:17 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <002101bfe411$0bb12940$0100a8c0@helpdesk> References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000703090817.09af047e@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 08:03 PM 7/2/00 +0930, you wrote: >I am the proud owner of a HP85 after a friend persuaded a country rubbish >dump operator that it really belonged in a museum or something similar. >Seems to work ok, found a listing for a fractal program on the web and it >worked after I corrected a typo in the listing. (And added a line to clear >the graphics screen at the start of each run. >I haven't been able to test the printer properly, but it appears ok, and I >can't test the tape drive because I don't have any media. > >Anyone out there know 1) Where (if?) I can get tape media for it? Yes, Any DC-100 tape will work in it, after you format it, including DEC tapes. > 2) Any software about? Yes. lots but none is posted on the web that I know of. Beware that the HP cassettes are very prone to broken belts and shedding their media so original tapes may not be usable. > 3) Any expansion modules. Yes, There's lots of them still available. Check Eb-bay. I haven't priced other modules but the HP-IB interfaces seem to be only bringing about $15 right now. > >Seems to be an original HP85 (85A?) S/N 2204B 38784 Yes, it's an 85A. It only has 16k of memory. >No idea where it came from originally. Possibly a local govt office. Came >from a VERY small town in the hills. HP must have sold a zillion of the HP-85s. They turn up all over the place. > >First HP I've been able to find, nice little machine.... Yes, they are but they have two problems. The "rubber" feed wheel on the tape drive turns to goo and the two belts that operate the printer wear out. You can test the printer by pressing the "TEST" button. It should display and print the full character set. Joe > >Cheers > >Geoff Roberts >Computer Systems Manager >Saint Mark's College >Port Pirie, >South Australia >geoffrob@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au > > > From rigdonj at intellistar.net Mon Jul 3 09:36:08 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: References: <002101bfe411$0bb12940$0100a8c0@helpdesk> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000703093608.3957692c@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 05:55 PM 7/2/00 +0100, Tony wrote: > >> 2) Any software about? > >Most HP software came on ROM modules that plug into a ROM Drawer, I wouldn't say *most* software came on ROMs. There were a lot of ROMs for it but they usually included low level routines for handling plotters, printers, special I/O, matrix routines and the like. There is/was TONS of software for the HP 85, including Training Paks and Solutions books. There was also a lot of software availble directly from HP that they wrote to control various HP test equipment. > >There are a few interesting ROMs for this machine. Many of them are >'system extensions', like I/O drivers, Plotter functions, Mass Storage >functions (you can use HPIB disk and tape drives with it if you have an >HPIB card), etc. There was certainly also an assembler ROM, but I've >never managed to get that one. There are a number of other interfaces for the 85. There are both DCE and DTE RS-232 interfaces, a GPIO (General Purpose I/O with 16 parallel lines that can be used as input or output or both) and a HP-IL interface. There's also a plug-in MODEM for it. Probably the strangest plug-in is the CPM module. It has it's own Z-80 CPU and 64k of memory. I just got one but I don't have a manual for it and I haven't had time to experiment with it. (Does anyone have a manaul for it?) Joe From rigdonj at intellistar.net Mon Jul 3 09:20:16 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <4.3.0.20000702102650.00b73610@pacbell.net> References: <002101bfe411$0bb12940$0100a8c0@helpdesk> <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000703092016.334f2394@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 10:46 AM 7/2/00 -0700, Jim wrote: >At 08:03 PM 7/2/00 +0930, Geoff Roberts wrote: > > >The uP itself fits in a 28 pin DIP, with a single 8b data/address bus. All >the peripherals that connect to this bus know the protocol so that many >times the address doesn't need to be transmitted at all. For example, >everyone on the bus basically keeps a copy of the PC, so as long as >instructions are fetched sequentially, no address is sent an the ROMS >and RAMS just keep incrementing their copy of the PC. Things like >jump instructions cause the uP to send the address out (in two cycles, >of course, it is a 16b address). > >I believe that the HP 75 uses this same processor, as of course the >HP 86 and HP 87 do too. Yes, the HP 75 uses a CMOS version of the HP 85 CPU. In fact, when you bought the assembly langauge programming material for the HP75 from HP they included a copy of the assembly language book for the HP 85. > >This and a lot more is documented in the assembler ROM. It has a wealth >of information. Enough, in fact, that I've been toying with writing an >emulator >for it, but of all the defunct old computers, HP is one of the few that is >still >in business and would probably seriously care if someone ripped their ROMs >for an emulator. If somebody thinks HP might not care, then I might consider >writing the emulator. I'd like to see an emulator for it. I doubt HP would care, they've been good about giving their permission for people to copy manuals and what not. I know several people that have gotten HPs permission to copy stuff. If you're serious about writing the emulator I can check with them and find out who to talk toat HP about getting permission to copy the ROMs. Joe From Hans.Franke at mch20.sbs.de Mon Jul 3 09:28:38 2000 From: Hans.Franke at mch20.sbs.de (Hans Franke) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: The Original MS-DOS 4.0 In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEED@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <3960BF36.24954.7B2A5BCA@localhost> > > Well, I never heared about the version you are refering to, but > > DOS was basicly starting from 2.0 able to do task switching. > > All Informations necersary where contained within a series of > > structures with a single root. The only missing thing was a > > table of task pointers to switch between - and a service to > > store and restore the screen content. There have been several > > products offering this service. And with DOS 4 MS supplied the > > infamous shell, capable of doing this. You could load several > > applications and switch via a hot key combination. Windows is > > still today (at least Win9x) based on this very same mechanism > > for context switching. Also the functions for 'background' > > applications/drivers where designed to support application > > switching. The famous TSR mechanism was not only ment to steal > > some memory for crude interrupt handlers, but also for true > > serviceprovider tasks within the OS ... well, I guess most > > programmers never realized the potential offered and kept > > limited to a simple one programm state of mind. > > All this was already available starting with DOS 2.x, just > > it has never been 'official' until DOS 4.x > I'd have to differ with you a bit on this. A co-worker and I > spent 6 months writing a DOS 2.0-compatible file system for > our own application which contained its own home-rolled > multitasker; we had to write the file system because the > DOS file system calls were (and through at least 3.3) were > not serially-reentrant. > The context switching you're referring to revolves around > switching some data structures, such as the file handle > table; but you have to wait until a file system call is > done before you can swap to the next task. Not useful > when (like us) you're developing real-time software. Maybe I should have added some ** around core issues: The system was designed for *application* switching. Read: switch maual between lets say Wordstar and dBase. Dos itself was never reentrant, a switch could only be issued from outside of most functions - and a switch within a (hardware) interrupt was close to impossible (one way to make it was for example to check the IndosFlag (address gathered by 21/34) and the critical error section flag) If a task switch request occured while inside DOS you had to postpone your switch until it was save. Other ways include the Idle (int28) function of dos and simple DOS warpers. Starting with 3.0 MS offered within the 21/5D functions several additional hooks/Lists to allow easy *application* task switching - and typicaly, with 4.x almost all of these functions became 'official' counterparts - just to be dropped again in 5.0... As soon as you view DOS as a single critical section your task switchhing should work fine - or you have to dig into all hooks to allow a lower granuality of non switching sections, and DOS offers quite a lot to do so. The famous LoL (List of Lists) has always been a good start - but even without this 'internal' info multitasking can be done. I did a lot of DOS hacking during the 80s ... starting with DOS 2.11 - and I had to maintain 2.11 compatibility for a long time since most installations around did use only 2.11. (One of the first things I did was a (almost) 100% DOS managed file buffer hack to use free mem as cache - some of our machines where still in 1988 dual FD/no HD installations - bu just adding a small buffer allocator/dealocator to the File Buffer management). Around 1990 I also did a pure real mode multitasking OS for a very special setup - to replace a planned 150,000 USD Unixsystem by a 8MHz 80286 :) > As an aside, this was for the last firm for which I worked > as a programmer; I left in '90, and dropped in for a visit > in '95; at that time, they told me the system I'd designed > was running in a DOS box under the Alpha-release of Win95 > and was beating a comparable application running on a VAX. > I felt very good that day... :)) Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 2.0 am 28./29. April 2001 in Muenchen http://www.vintage.org/vcfe http://www.homecomputer.de/vcfe From mmcfadden at cmh.edu Mon Jul 3 09:33:27 2000 From: mmcfadden at cmh.edu (McFadden, Mike) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Getting a Good Job(OT)(Long) Message-ID: Here is my take on excessive work expectations. If that is the example you want to set for your children and expresses your values, i.e. your work is the most important thing in life and all else including family is peripheral, then you should work 80+ hours. However don't be surprised when your children have the same values and don't have time for you. If your company sees you as a resource to be consumed and then discarded for the newer/cheaper model then you may be in the right field. If you are single and want the challenge then work is like a drug, intoxicating for the knowledge and accomplishment. When you are married then perhaps life has other meanings, watching your children grow is exciting. I have been on both sides of this spectrum, when I was single the most excitement, all of my friends, my world revolved around work. When I got married and had children I realized that there was more to life and my values have changed. I'm not saying either lifestyle is the best, just works best for me. The hard part is the interaction between the hardcode work people and the hardcore humans, conflicting values. Mike mmcfadden@cmh.edu From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Mon Jul 3 09:59:27 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 97548D Hard Drives Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF00@TEGNTSERVER> I'm looking for a small number (two or three) of these drives; they're 5 1/4 inch full-height differential SCSI drives; they tend to be found in Sun boxen. Anybody have any they'd be willing to part with via sale/trade? -doug quebbeman From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Mon Jul 3 10:11:28 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 97548D Hard Drives Message-ID: <000703111128.26200fe3@trailing-edge.com> >Subj: HP 97548D Hard Drives >I'm looking for a small number (two or three) of these drives; >they're 5 1/4 inch full-height differential SCSI drives; they >tend to be found in Sun boxen. > >Anybody have any they'd be willing to part with via sale/trade? Do you need these exact HP drives? If it's a capacity issue, there's a very valuable technique called "mode page editing" that will let you adjust drive capacities downward so that you can use large-capacity recent-manufacture SCSI drives in place of older low-capacity SCSI drives. It's a very valuable technique when the hardware or OS don't support large-capacity drives, a very common situation with older hardware. Tim. From allisonp at world.std.com Mon Jul 3 09:43:02 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp@world.std.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEFE@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > Instead, it's the opposite: when a superior has asked how I'm > doing and when the answer has typically included "...trying to > figure out..." then they think I've lost my focus and have gone > off on a tangent. The expectation is that you've learned all you Gak! Here the reverse is true like the first case, I'm not expected to know all. I am however expected to use my skills to find out what I need to know and solve problems. that I enjoy greatly! Allison From foo at siconic.com Mon Jul 3 09:50:36 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Are we done with all this off-topic crap yet? In-Reply-To: <396036AE.13C2B3DE@rain.org> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, Marvin wrote: > Haven't you learned yet that the best way to short circuit such topics is to > raise another one that people are interested in? Yeah, but I'm fresh out of topics. Everything has already been covered :) > BTW, I need your address assuming you want some stuff sent to you. Coming up. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com Mon Jul 3 10:53:40 2000 From: John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: DEC VRT16 / 1660 monitor In-Reply-To: <3960BF36.24954.7B2A5BCA@localhost> Message-ID: <000301bfe506$dbe7f6c0$0e0301ac@dba00802.databaseamerica.com> Hi, I decided to do some things with my poor neglected DEC stuff this weekend and came up with quite a few working (and cleaner) setups. One thing I can't figure out without help is where a Digital VRT16-A RGB monitor (?Sony GDDM? 1660) is supposed to Go. Anyone have the facts on this one? What is its resolution, and which systems is it supposed to match? John A. From pechter at pechter.dyndns.org Mon Jul 3 11:06:37 2000 From: pechter at pechter.dyndns.org (Bill Pechter) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: mode page editing In-Reply-To: <000703111128.26200fe3@trailing-edge.com> from "CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com" at "Jul 3, 2000 11:11:28 am" Message-ID: <200007031606.MAA04580@bg-tc-ppp917.monmouth.com> > >Subj: HP 97548D Hard Drives > >I'm looking for a small number (two or three) of these drives; > >they're 5 1/4 inch full-height differential SCSI drives; they > >tend to be found in Sun boxen. > > > >Anybody have any they'd be willing to part with via sale/trade? > > Do you need these exact HP drives? If it's a capacity issue, there's > a very valuable technique called "mode page editing" that will let > you adjust drive capacities downward so that you can use large-capacity > recent-manufacture SCSI drives in place of older low-capacity SCSI > drives. It's a very valuable technique when the hardware or OS don't > support large-capacity drives, a very common situation with older hardware. > > Tim. > > OK -- what's the tips and procedures to do this... I've got some of the HP97xxx drives (300 mb non-differential) and maybe one of the differential's (but it's got problems). It appears that 2gb drives are getting cheaper than old disks. Bill -- bpechter@monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today? | Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow? | BSD: Are you guys coming, or what? From mmcfadden at cmh.edu Mon Jul 3 11:17:01 2000 From: mmcfadden at cmh.edu (McFadden, Mike) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Reviving a MicroVAX II Message-ID: To: David Williams et al I have two MicroVax II's in the deskside cabinets each with 3 drives. I'll check them out at home and report what's in them exactly. I know I have memory and the disks. I haven't opened them recently. If somebody wants them for shipping plus packing I'd gladly transfer them to you. I've got a Microvax 2000 to work with. Mike mmcfadden@cmh.edu From foo at siconic.com Mon Jul 3 10:23:34 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Your dream computer room. In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEFD@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > You have a manual set for a CDC-based Plato application? Or for one > of the later incarnations of Plato (such as on the TI/99a)? These aren't exactly Plato manuals afterall but they are Plato related. Written Composition and the Computer, Sep/71 Teaching Selected Geometry Topics Via a Computer System, Jun/69 A Digitally Addressable Random-Access Image Selector and Random-Access Audio System, Aug/70 Spelling, Word, and Concept Recognition, Oct/72 Multimode Knowledge of Results in Plato Courseware, Jan/73 Computer-Based Science Education, May/73 The Design of an Economically Viable Large-Scale Computer-Based Education System, Jul/73 Critical Incidents in the Evolution of Plato Projects, Jun/77 These documents are out of the Computer-based Education Research Laboratory (CERL) of the University of Illinois. I gotthem from a professor involved with tge project. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From mmcfadden at cmh.edu Mon Jul 3 11:29:42 2000 From: mmcfadden at cmh.edu (McFadden, Mike) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: DEC VRT16 / 1660 monitor Message-ID: I always look at www.monitorworld.com VRT16-DA Resolution: 1280 X 1024 Sync: Sync on Green H freq/Vfreq: 70khz/66hz Tube made by: Sony Tube model: GDM1660 Tube Size: 16" http://www.monitorworld.com/Monitors/dec/VRT16DA.html Mike mmcfadden@cmh.edu From vcf at siconic.com Mon Jul 3 10:31:40 2000 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: C65 owners unite! Message-ID: I'm passing this message along... >Reply-To: "Andreas Waldhelm" >From: "Andreas Waldhelm" >To: >Subject: C65 >Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 16:45:56 +0200 >Organization: Star EDV >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 > >Hi! > >Im proud to be a Commodore C65 prototype owner. >I want to make a list of all C65 owners and the s/n wich you find on the >back of the C65. This is a good way to find out how many are sold (150?) >and how many are still working. Please mail me if you know any C65 >owners. > >thanks in advance > >Andreas >Hamburg / Germany Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com Mon Jul 3 11:55:35 2000 From: John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: DEC VRT16 / 1660 monitor In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000601bfe50f$827ea030$0e0301ac@dba00802.databaseamerica.com> This was an enormous help, Thanks Mike. From John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com Mon Jul 3 12:02:38 2000 From: John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: microVAX-II GPX. which monitor In-Reply-To: <000301bfe506$dbe7f6c0$0e0301ac@dba00802.databaseamerica.com> Message-ID: <000701bfe510$7ea82750$0e0301ac@dba00802.databaseamerica.com> Hi, This weekend I was playing with a microVAX-II GPX and had good luck using a spare console to do Some things on it, most esp. booting it up fine. However, It seems to be running VMUnix, and I probably should get a monitor on to it to see what's going on (headless right now). The console seems to only control the low-level HW, not the O/S. An old Apple mono NTSC monitor sorta-almost could display the video, but it was a pretty sad affair. Again, anyone out there know what monitor freq & scan this guy wants to talk to? Mono BNC on the cable. John A. From cem14 at cornell.edu Mon Jul 3 12:04:05 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo-Sanchez) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: DEC VRT16 / 1660 monitor References: <000301bfe506$dbe7f6c0$0e0301ac@dba00802.databaseamerica.com> Message-ID: <3960C785.D25973B3@cornell.edu> Hi John; I have a VRT16-DA on my Vaxstation 4000/60 with the 8-plane hi-res framebuffer. It does 1280x1024 @ 66Hz; the VRT16-HA/H4 can do 66 or 72 Hz. In the manual of a Decstation 5000/33 that I have there is a list of turbochannel framebuffers that work with the VRT16: VRT16-DA/D4: PMAG-JA, PMAGB-BA, PMAG-CA, PMAG-DA, PMAG-EA, PMAG-FA VRT16-HA/H4: PMAG-JA, PMAGB-JA, PMAGB-BA, PMAGB-BC, PMAGB-BE, PMAG-CA, PMAG-DA, PMAGB-DA, PMAG-EA, PMAGB-EA, PMAG-FA, PMAGB-FA. John Allain wrote: > Digital VRT16-A RGB monitor (?Sony GDDM? 1660) > Anyone have the facts on this > one? What is its resolution, and which systems is > it supposed to match? > > John A. -- Carlos Murillo-Sanchez email: cem14@cornell.edu 428 Phillips Hall, Electrical Engineering Department Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Mon Jul 3 12:42:23 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 97548D Hard Drives In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF00@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000703104130.00aad100@208.226.86.10> What are the specs for the Drive? I've got a spare Seagate ST42400ND (2.1GB Diff) around somewhere that I could be convinced to part with. --Chuck At 10:59 AM 7/3/00 -0400, you wrote: >I'm looking for a small number (two or three) of these drives; >they're 5 1/4 inch full-height differential SCSI drives; they >tend to be found in Sun boxen. > >Anybody have any they'd be willing to part with via sale/trade? > >-doug quebbeman From wanderer at bos.nl Mon Jul 3 14:41:04 2000 From: wanderer at bos.nl (wanderer) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Duplicating an RSX-11M+ system disk. References: <000702152200.26200f77@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <3960EC50.31F7@bos.nl> I'm using 4.1, and when I use BRU from brusys, I get the message that the target may not be a bootable system. Ed CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com wrote: > > >I have a bit of a weird problem, I'm trying to make a 2nd bootable > >system disk containig RSX-11M+. > > > >I have an 11/83 with 2 RD53's and 1 RD54, and the system is on one > >of the RD53's. I booted [6,54]brusys.sys and then used DSC to copy > >the contents to the 2nd RD53. DSC did not report any error. > >Then when trying to boot du2 (the 2nd RD53), nothing happens besides > >a number of retries to access the boot information. > > > >DSC is supposed to copy the boot information as well as the data, > >so I'm wondering what I do wrong. > > Which version of 11M+ are you using? DSC became "unsupported" in recent. > versions, the "supported" way of doing what you want is BRU. DSC isn't > even included in the last few binary releases. > > (Thank the heavens that you aren't having to deal with PRESERV or > ROLLIN!) > > -- > Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com > Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ > 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 > Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 -- The Wanderer | Geloof nooit een politicus! wanderer@bos.nl | Europarlementariers: zakken- http://www.bos.nl/homes/wanderer | vullers en dumpplaats voor Unix Lives! windows95/98 is rommel! | mislukte politici. '96 GSXR 1100R / '97 TL1000S | See http://www.bos.nl/homes/wanderer/gates.html for a funny pic. of Gates! From frederik at freddym.org Mon Jul 3 12:54:08 2000 From: frederik at freddym.org (Frederik Meerwaldt) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Needs help - Information about older DEC products In-Reply-To: <007d01bfe444$d440f880$9e7efea9@headleys> Message-ID: > Hi Hi! > It seems that Compaq does not carry much info on older DEC products. Is there some site where I could enter an identifying number and will be able to get info on that particular products? Depends on what you search.... If you search for VAX-Stuff, www.vaxarchive.org (or was it .com?!) should be the right point to start. It has some PDP11 Docs, too. And please wrap line at 70 Characters. Bye, Freddy From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 12:26:36 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <200007030209.WAA22810@world.std.com> from "Megan" at Jul 2, 0 10:09:05 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 993 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000703/3043c002/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 12:49:30 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jul 2, 0 10:49:14 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 4983 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000703/f0a7377d/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 13:10:23 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.20000703090817.09af047e@mailhost.intellistar.net> from "Joe" at Jul 3, 0 09:08:17 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 2191 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000703/b872d6b2/attachment.ksh From lemay at cs.umn.edu Mon Jul 3 15:13:49 2000 From: lemay at cs.umn.edu (Lawrence LeMay) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: paper tape punch isnt punching Message-ID: <200007032013.PAA03236@caesar.cs.umn.edu> I bought a paper tape reader/punch on ebay, a DSI NC2400. unfortunately, 2 of the holes arent punching through the mylar tape that came with the unit. does anyone have experience with this unit, or know what might be causing the problem? I know western numerical controls sells refurbished units, but I expect they would charge quite a bit just to replace the punching mechanism. their web page mentions something about "The precision die blocks are interchangeable and field-replaceable in just minutes, no adjustments necessary". so, I'm hoping that means I can buy a new set of punch parts and replace them easily. and hopefully inexpensively. any suggestions welcome, especially if they mean we stop discussing the job market. -Lawrence LeMay From rdd at smart.net Mon Jul 3 16:05:26 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Getting a good job In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAEFE@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > in support; my boss is an athelete, and since that's the paradigm > he's most familiar with, he expects me to be working from some > playbook: you know, 3rd down, 50 yards, use play #32. No idea what that means; I don't know much about football - not really anxious to learn anything about it either. Perhaps you've just hit the nail on the head regarding something wrong with society: sports like baseball, football, hockey, basketball, etc. need to be done away with. If people want exercise, let them go swimming, do circuit weight training or collect and hack computers, ride horses, get involved in martial arts, etc. - things that are actually good for the mind and body, as opposed to sitting on a sofa watching a bunch of overpaid jocks on steriods, with the mental capactiy to utter, "duhhh, I plays footbawl," tossing a ball around, spitting in public and scratching their private parts. A good start might be to convert public parks with ballfields to parks with gardens and convert golf courses to something more civilized, like horse pastures with space set aside for weekly hamfests - that is, once the holes are filled in and the land is detoxified. Hacking and collecting computers - the bigger the better - is great for the mind and body; I think that's something we all know. :-) Speaking of weekly, or even monthly, hamfests, does anyone know of an area where weekly or monthly hamfests take place like weekly flea markets appear in some places? > Sure wish there was an easy way to import that California good > attitude here; maybe there's something I could drop in the local > water supply? More likey it's something in the air supply there... you need to get someone smoking the right stuff and exhaling it into the exhaust system in your boss's office if you want that California atmosphere where you work. You might want to watch one of those films about Californians to learn more about them... any title with "Cheech and Chong" in it will suffice. Be forewarned, if you do this, things may turn out stranger than you want them to, as I hear California's as strange as New York City and Washington, DC (shudder!). ;-) Good luck! -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From hofmanwb at worldonline.nl Tue Jul 4 00:43:49 2000 From: hofmanwb at worldonline.nl (W.B.(Wim) Hofman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: IDV11-A/IDV11-C Message-ID: <20000703213137.08D4036B3A@pandora.worldonline.nl> Has anybody an idea where I could get/buy the following DEC Special Systems Q-bus cards? 5 or more IDV11-C (M8005) 16 bit digital relais output 3 or more IDV11-A (M5026) 16 bit digital isolated input It would save us a lot of trouble if we could put our hands on them. Thanks in advance Wim From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 15:42:38 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: paper tape punch isnt punching In-Reply-To: <200007032013.PAA03236@caesar.cs.umn.edu> from "Lawrence LeMay" at Jul 3, 0 03:13:49 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 2526 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000703/7cc8cbd8/attachment.ksh From rigdonj at intellistar.net Mon Jul 3 17:51:18 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.1.16.20000703090817.09af047e@mailhost.intellistar.net> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000703175118.31377e42@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 07:10 PM 7/3/00 +0100, Tony wrote: >> > 2) Any software about? >> >> Yes. lots but none is posted on the web that I know of. Beware that the >> HP cassettes are very prone to broken belts and shedding their media so >> original tapes may not be usable. >> > >If the tape itself is good (not shedding oxide), then you can replace the >belt with one from another cartridge. This will at least let you read the >tape a few times. > >HP85s with an HPIB interface and a mass storage ROM (IIRC) can support >floppy drives. If you have this sort of set-up, it's worth copying any >tapes you find onto floppies. That's been one of my long term projects. Does anyone have a tapes that I'll donate so that I can copy them? > > >> >First HP I've been able to find, nice little machine.... >> >> Yes, they are but they have two problems. The "rubber" feed wheel on >> the tape drive turns to goo and the two belts that operate the printer wear >> out. You can test the printer by pressing the "TEST" button. It should >> display and print the full character set. > >I've only ever once had an electronic fault on one. This was a shorted >capacitor on the PSU/printer driver board (the vertical one to the left >of the printer assembly), and it caused at least one of the PSU outputs >to be missing. Hmmm. interesting. I don't think I've ever seen an 85 with an electrical fault. Except for the tape drives and printers they seem to run forever . > Joe From lemay at cs.umn.edu Mon Jul 3 17:20:54 2000 From: lemay at cs.umn.edu (Lawrence LeMay) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: paper tape punch isnt punching In-Reply-To: from Tony Duell at "Jul 3, 2000 09:42:38 pm" Message-ID: <200007032220.RAA03430@caesar.cs.umn.edu> > > > > I bought a paper tape reader/punch on ebay, a DSI NC2400. > > > > unfortunately, 2 of the holes arent punching through the mylar tape that > > came with the unit. does anyone have experience with this unit, or know > > what might be causing the problem? > > I don't know this unit at all, but I can make some guesses. There are > basically 2 types of electrically driven punch -- those where the > solenoids operate the punch pins directly (like the Facit 4070) and those > where the solenoid operates a linkage which enables a drive from the > motor/camshaft to operate the punch pin, like the Teletype BRPE, the GNT > 34, etc. > > Firstly, is there any mark on the tape at all? If not, try operating the > solenoid armature by hand (with the motor turning if necessary). If it > punches now, then suspect that either the solenoid is defective, wildly > out of adjustment, or that (hopefully) the drive electronics is > malfunctioning. I say hopefully to the last one because electronic parts > are easier to get and cheaper than mechanical ones! If it still doesn't > work, look for damaged, misadjusted, or sticking linkages. Forgot to mention that the 2 holes that arent punching are adjacent to one another. Also, the guy I bought it from mentioned it hadnt been used in 10 years. There is a slight partial hole punched for one of the holes. Also, there was one time when it did punch on all 8 hole, but only once, ie, for one character only, and after that those 2 didnt punch properly since. > > If there is a mark on the tape then either the punch pin is _very_ worn > (unlikely if the others are fine) or the solenoid or drive link needs > adjusting. Or maybe the solenoid is mechanically defective -- the rotary > solenoids used in Facit 4070s suffer from this. Often they can be > repaired once you understand how they should work. > > Don't overlook the possibility of old lubricant gumming things up (!). In > fact you probably should clean and lubricate the machine right now. > > > > > > I know western numerical controls sells refurbished units, but I expect they > > would charge quite a bit just to replace the punching mechanism. their > > web page mentions something about "The precision die blocks are interchangeable > > and field-replaceable in just minutes, no adjustments necessary". so, > > I'm hoping that means I can buy a new set of punch parts and replace > > them easily. and hopefully inexpensively. > > The punch pins are normally machined to fit in one hole in a particular > die block and shouldn't be moved around. So a new die will come with new > punch pins. Expect to pay a few hundred dollars for a block+pins -- at > least that's the sort of price I've been quoted. > > If it is that easy to take the die out, do so. Take out the pins, keeping > them in order (9 jam jar lids :-)). See if the 'defective' pins are > noticeably shorter than the rest -- if not, the problem is likely to be > elsewhere. > > -tony > From mikeford at socal.rr.com Mon Jul 3 18:13:13 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: References: from "William Donzelli" at Jul 1, 0 10:51:17 pm Message-ID: >The best lubricant I've found for small mechanisms is clock oil. You get >this from clock spares stockists, and it's fairly expensive. But you only I used to work in the clothing industry, and what we settled on for the sewing machines was Mobile 1 synthetic 5 or 10 wt oil. I think we had to buy quarts or so, but it worked well. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 17:30:16 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: paper tape punch isnt punching In-Reply-To: <200007032220.RAA03430@caesar.cs.umn.edu> from "Lawrence LeMay" at Jul 3, 0 05:20:54 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 924 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000703/066daee1/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 17:34:48 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.20000703175118.31377e42@mailhost.intellistar.net> from "Joe" at Jul 3, 0 05:51:18 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 885 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000703/3eec27c3/attachment.ksh From wmsmith at earthlink.net Mon Jul 3 18:48:47 2000 From: wmsmith at earthlink.net (Wayne M. Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff References: <3.0.1.16.20000703090817.09af047e@mailhost.intellistar.net> <3.0.1.16.20000703175118.31377e42@mailhost.intellistar.net> Message-ID: <006901bfe549$3be4ffe0$849eb2d1@Smith.earthlink.net> > >HP85s with an HPIB interface and a mass storage ROM (IIRC) can support > >floppy drives. If you have this sort of set-up, it's worth copying any > >tapes you find onto floppies. > > That's been one of my long term projects. Does anyone have a tapes that > I'll donate so that I can copy them? Some of the HP 85 software came on diskettes. My HP Regression Analysis Pac has 5 1/4 inch diskettes for the HP 83, 85 and 87, which is a good thing since the oxide on the tape is so deteriorated that the tape won't read. I'll teledisk the files to anyone who's interested, subject to the usual copyright disclaimers. I'd like to get the RA Pac copied onto a usable tape, so if anyone's willing, I'll send a blank tape and a diskette for copying. -W From geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au Mon Jul 3 20:48:37 2000 From: geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au (Geoff Roberts) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff References: Message-ID: <001d01bfe559$f9936620$de2c67cb@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Duell" To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 3:40 AM Subject: Re: HP 85 stuff > > > 2) Any software about? > > > > Yes. lots but none is posted on the web that I know of. Beware that the > > HP cassettes are very prone to broken belts and shedding their media so > > original tapes may not be usable. Ok, I'll keep that in mind. I'm going to try and track down some NOS, bound to be a fair bit floating around. > HP85s with an HPIB interface and a mass storage ROM (IIRC) can support > floppy drives. If you have this sort of set-up, it's worth copying any > tapes you find onto floppies. No, I don't have any of the addons for the machine, I'll be looking for them now that I know what to look for. > > >First HP I've been able to find, nice little machine.... > > > > Yes, they are but they have two problems. The "rubber" feed wheel on > > the tape drive turns to goo I'm going to pull the thing down and check that. Copyed a prev msg about a replacement. Whatever works. > > and the two belts that operate the printer wear > > out. You can test the printer by pressing the "TEST" button. It should > > display and print the full character set. Printer seems ok. > I've only ever once had an electronic fault on one. This was a shorted > capacitor on the PSU/printer driver board (the vertical one to the left > of the printer assembly), and it caused at least one of the PSU outputs > to be missing. Ok, I'll keep it in mind if it ever plays up. > This board can be run disconnected from the rest of the machine (just > connect the input from the mains transformer). Also, the custom 40 pin > printer control chip is socketed on most machines, and can be removed and > stored in conductive foam. This lets you work on the PSU with little risk > to anything you can't replace if you make a mistake. sounds good. > > FWIW, much of the logic in the HP85 runs at 6V (not a typo). Unusual. > custom interface IC that links to the processor bus and lets you hang a > conventional 5V microcontroller-based interface off the other side. > Information on this seems to be hard to find, although the HP-IL > interface user manual includes a schematic of that interface, with > pinouts of the bus and the bus translator chip. Hmmm, that has possibilities.. I am also lead to believe the 85 can talk to various pieces of HP test equipment, and that they share a common bus. (With the right interface of course). > Oh, one last thing. If you want to take the top off, first pull off the > eject button from the tape drive. Then undo the screws on the bottom, and > lift the casing off. If you don't remove the eject button first, you'll > have problems getting the case to come free. Ok, thanks for that. Often the worst part of fixing (ptbl tv for instance) is not the fault, but getting the case either on, off or both. With some stuff it's like getting an egg back into it's shell. cheers Geoff Roberts Computer Systems Manager Saint Mark's College Port Pirie, South Australia geoffrob@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au netcafe@tell.net.au ICQ: 1970476 From rigdonj at intellistar.net Mon Jul 3 22:39:24 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:13 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <006901bfe549$3be4ffe0$849eb2d1@Smith.earthlink.net> References: <3.0.1.16.20000703090817.09af047e@mailhost.intellistar.net> <3.0.1.16.20000703175118.31377e42@mailhost.intellistar.net> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000703223924.477fd04a@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 04:48 PM 7/3/00 -0700, Wayne wrote: >> >HP85s with an HPIB interface and a mass storage ROM >(IIRC) can support >> >floppy drives. If you have this sort of set-up, it's >worth copying any >> >tapes you find onto floppies. >> >> That's been one of my long term projects. Does >anyone have a tapes that >> I'll donate so that I can copy them? > >Some of the HP 85 software came on diskettes. My HP >Regression Analysis Pac has 5 1/4 inch diskettes for >the HP 83, 85 and 87, which is a good thing since the >oxide on the tape is so deteriorated that the tape >won't read. I'll teledisk the files to anyone who's >interested, subject to the usual copyright disclaimers. I'm intereted. But I don't know if Teledisk will work on the HP 8x disks. I THINK it will but I've never tried it. >I'd like to get the RA Pac copied onto a usable tape, >so if anyone's willing, I'll send a blank tape and a >diskette for copying. I can try to make a tape copy for you if you're not in a hurry. I don't know when I'll have time to set everything up for disk/tape copying again but I need to do it soon. I've got a pile of stuff to transfer. Joe > >-W > > From cem14 at cornell.edu Mon Jul 3 22:11:35 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: OT?: failure modes of a RAMDAC Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.20000703231135.011aaf24@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> This is OT in that the piece of hardware that I'm looking at (matrox millenium pci card) is newer than 10 years. On the other hand, any comments on this might be useful for older equipment as well. Here's the scoop: the video card in my home computer suddenly started acting flaky. The image flickers and has diminished brightness; at first I thought that it was the monitor, until I noticed that the area inside the dialog window that pops up when operating the setup menus in the monitor does not flicker and has normal brightness. Aha, cable or connector, I thought. So I tested another monitor. Exact same symptoms on the second monitor. Ok, then a cold solder joint in the card. I extracted the card and had a good look at it. Nothing looks wrong. I put the thing back in and it still had the flickering. Then, all of a sudden, brightness jumps back to normal and everything works fine for the rest of the session. Next day, I power up, and several hours later the symptoms reappear suddenly. I am thinking that the output of the RAMDAC is being severely affected by something that diminishes its swing. As far as I can tell, all colors are affected uniformly. The flicker is random, does not appear to be tied to a given frequency, and seems to affect the whole screen (refresh is currently 85 Hz; changing it does not alleviate the problem). So I wonder if there is some oscillation in the output of the RAMDAC or an internal short that limits the swing or what. Has anyone seen this sort of failure before? carlos. From donm at cts.com Mon Jul 3 23:10:33 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.20000703223924.477fd04a@mailhost.intellistar.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, Joe wrote: > > At 04:48 PM 7/3/00 -0700, Wayne wrote: > >> >HP85s with an HPIB interface and a mass storage ROM > >(IIRC) can support > >> >floppy drives. If you have this sort of set-up, it's > >worth copying any > >> >tapes you find onto floppies. > >> > >> That's been one of my long term projects. Does > >anyone have a tapes that > >> I'll donate so that I can copy them? > > > >Some of the HP 85 software came on diskettes. My HP > >Regression Analysis Pac has 5 1/4 inch diskettes for > >the HP 83, 85 and 87, which is a good thing since the > >oxide on the tape is so deteriorated that the tape > >won't read. I'll teledisk the files to anyone who's > >interested, subject to the usual copyright disclaimers. > > I'm intereted. But I don't know if Teledisk will work on the HP 8x > disks. I THINK it will but I've never tried it. The only exceptions that I can think of are hard-sectored, group-code- recorded, variable-speed, or double-density-128-byte-sectored. All of these being controlled by the hardware and not TeleDisk. - don > >I'd like to get the RA Pac copied onto a usable tape, > >so if anyone's willing, I'll send a blank tape and a > >diskette for copying. > > > I can try to make a tape copy for you if you're not in a hurry. I don't > know when I'll have time to set everything up for disk/tape copying again > but I need to do it soon. I've got a pile of stuff to transfer. > > Joe > > > >-W > > > > > > From Hans.Franke at mch20.sbs.de Tue Jul 4 06:08:28 2000 From: Hans.Franke at mch20.sbs.de (Hans Franke) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Archives of OS/360-ish public domain software? In-Reply-To: References: from "William Donzelli" at Jun 28, 0 09:43:35 pm Message-ID: <3961E1CC.996.7F99727E@localhost> > > Also, lets face it - IBM just doesn't have the prestige that DEC stuff > > does in the hacker world. I bet many IBM tapes and such were thrown away > The problem with (1970's) IBM machines as against similar vintage DEC > machines is that the IBM machines have a lot less 'hacker' documentation > available. For some IBM systems it can even be hard to get the binary > opcode list, something that DEC have been known to stick in the > advertising flyer. I can't tell about the small stuff, but for /3x0 systems the opcodelist was omnipresent - and all necersary information for IPL and (software) problem diagnosis. Let's face it, the numbers of people with a /3x0 at hoe is close to zero, so all stuff was done at your job. Terms like shareware, or free software never has been an issue. It was more like an old boys network. With an exception of IBMs software and some comercial package it was always up to some kind of trade and haggle - If you hear about some interesting app, you just ask to get it - often you got huge packages for free (Well, not realy, you always did sen back some bottles of beer or Cognac for the next 'Meeting' :) There are user groups among mainframe users, and most are still in existence - just again, they are like english clubs and not just a regular reserved table in some pizza shop. > DEC machines generally had at least schematics and a technical manual > available. And most of the components were off-the-shelf. This, alas, > doesn't apply to IBM machines. Again it's more a thing of quantity, so it is less known, but the same you said is true for the IBM (Big Iron) world - Buy a Fujitsu CPU, add Hitatchi chanel controller ans some drives, add CDC tapes, maybe some SIEMENS network/terminal components and Terminals from someone else (lets say Tandberg :) - now add an OS of your flavour (in most cases some IBM OS) and you have a working mainframe system. And if you took a non IBM OS, you even managed it to be completly IBM free :) > > by the hackers themselves. > I don't think there was a deliberate policy amongst hackers to throw this > stuff out (certainly not from any of the hackers I've met), but you can > bet 'that ancient tape of IBM software' would have been a good candidate > for a scratch tape :-( Jep. After a machine is dismissed, most of the storage medias have just been thrown away. But Tapes (and other medias) where DATA storage. And the data has been just moved to newer medias on a regular schedule. Programm tapes are quite raere within the mainframe world - remember, within each generation you can put all software a data center did use on just one (or a maximum of two) tapes. And these two tapes where kept among _thousands_ of data tapes. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 2.0 am 28./29. April 2001 in Muenchen http://www.vintage.org/vcfe http://www.homecomputer.de/vcfe From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Tue Jul 4 08:03:25 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000704090325.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> Hi folks - The topic of reading or writing older "odd" disk formats (hard-sectored, GCR, whatever) comes up here pretty often. And often the discussion leads towards the Catweasel floppy interface (currently available commercially, as I understand) or the Compaticard interfaces (not currently being manufactured, as I understand). I've recently "modernized" my foreign format disk reading hardware. The idea of both the "old" version and the "new" versions are very similar to each other, and to what other tools like the Catweasel and the Compaticard do: Data from a floppy disk drive comes as a series of pulses on the read data line. All these circuits (using different means) buffer up to an entire track of data in RAM, and then allow a user program to look at the buffer and analyze the data on its own terms. They also allow control over rudimentary floppy functions such as step in/out, load head/start motor, etc. *I* buffer the pulses on the read data line by simply recording a "1" bit if there was a pulse in a window, and a "0" if there wasn't. I sample at 4MHz, meaning that a complete revolution of a floppy requires most a megabit of RAM. I also buffer information such as index pulse data (essential for decoding many hard-sectored floppy formats.) The bit rate from most standard floppy formats is roughly 500 kHz, meaning my 4 MHz sample rate oversamples by a factor of 8 or so. Yes, it's overkill for many applications, but I want to be sure that all information on the floppy is faithfully represented in the buffer. Besides, many GCR and some MFM variants use half- or even third-fundamental-frequency components (sliding the pulse in the window to encode more data without increasing the clock rate) and oversampling is necessary for these formats. Other buffers (I believe the Catweasel falls in this category) record the times between successive pulses in RAM, instead of the "raw bits". My "previous generation" buffer had a megabit of SRAM and interfaced via a 16-bit-in and 16-bit-out parallel interface (usually to a DR11-style interface on a PDP-11). The megabit of SRAM was made up of a whole bunch of 2k*8 SRAMS, meaning that just the buffer memory required a couple of sizable PC boards. (If you're familiar with the technology, you'll get the idea that "previous generation" buffer was based on chips readily available around 15 years ago.) My "new generation" buffer has the same megabit of SRAM - but now in a single SRAM chip - and interfaces via a PC-clone bidirectional parallel port. Other than the big SRAM chip, the rest of the buffer is just eleven SSI and MSI HCTTL IC's. The eleven chips form the PC-side interface, the floppy-side interface, the timing clocks, the buffer sequencer, and the buffer address (17 bits) counters. So how is my buffer different than, for example, the Catweasel? 1. The Catweasel uses some custom LSI parts, as far as I can figure out. My circuit is much more "hackable", anyone with a TTL databook can figure out what it does and improve on it. Or you can build one yourself from scratch. (Other than the 128K*8 SRAM, all the other parts were literally purchased from the local electronics shop. Heck, most of the chips can be bought at Radio Shack!) Total cost for the chips in my buffer is about $30.00, about half of that in the SRAM chip. 2. The Catweasel uses a proprietary, largely undocumented programming interface. My circuitry is entirely open, and I think it's pretty easy to program. (My first hack at acquiring data with the new buffer was dashed off in about half an hour under QBASIC.) 3. The Catweasel requires a bus slot inside a PC-clone. My new buffer uses a much more general purpose parallel interface. So you can hook it up to a laptop, or even to something that isn't a PC-clone at all. Those are what I see as advantages over the Catweasel. There are also some disadvantages: 4. You can't just go out and buy my buffer, but you can buy Catweasels off the shelf. 5. My buffer is strictly "read-only" as I use it. I think the Catweasel (and Compaticard) both allow writing. Would it be worth writing up my new floppy disk data buffer so that others could improve on it? Would anyone be interested in unstuffed and/or stuffed PCB's? Should I give it a name? (The "Timweasel", anyone? I gotta think of a better name!) -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 From Hans.Franke at mch20.sbs.de Tue Jul 4 08:42:44 2000 From: Hans.Franke at mch20.sbs.de (Hans Franke) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: languages (Ebonics) In-Reply-To: <20000309184429.A4535@loomcom.com> References: <20000309145552.A26512@dbit.dbit.com>; from wilson@dbit.dbit.com on Thu, Mar 09, 2000 at 02:55:52PM -0500 Message-ID: <396205F4.13993.8026AEFC@localhost> [very late add on:] Take a look at http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/read.cgi?id=20000704&thread=6215 :)) quite a nice translation of todays userfriendly cartoon Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 2.0 am 28./29. April 2001 in Muenchen http://www.vintage.org/vcfe http://www.homecomputer.de/vcfe From allisonp at world.std.com Tue Jul 4 09:06:27 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <006401bfe5c1$27c0f870$7564c0d0@ajp166> > *I* buffer the pulses on the read data line by simply recording >a "1" bit if there was a pulse in a window, and a "0" if there wasn't. >I sample at 4MHz, meaning that a complete revolution of a floppy >requires most a megabit of RAM. I also buffer information such as >index pulse data (essential for decoding many hard-sectored floppy formats.) Sounds like a variation of the "Wells" controller ca. 1976, used 1x4k memory to buffer up all the the disks bits. Lots of SSI ttl to serialize/deserial the bits in and out of the ram but otherwise simple and functional. Check early BYTE or KB for the article on it. His design was limited to mfm (then the only thing used) but it would take little to deal with that. >Would it be worth writing up my new floppy disk data buffer so that >others could improve on it? Would anyone be interested in unstuffed and/or >stuffed PCB's? Should I give it a name? (The "Timweasel", anyone? I >gotta think of a better name!) If you would, please. I'd find it interesting. Allison From richard at idcomm.com Tue Jul 4 11:48:17 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000704090325.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <004501bfe5d7$b0bbf2e0$0400c0a8@winbook> This approach to reading and interpreting data recorded on a floppy is very sound, though it might be a bit tricky to interpret. It will almost surely guarantee that you can duplicate the diskette, and quite precisely. However, to that end, if 8" diskettes are on your list of targets, you should oversample 16x so that you can deal in a fairly standard way with the write precompensation. You won't see it on reads, hopefully, but you definitely will want to generate appropriate offsets for writing when you set about to duplicate a diskette. For quite some time I've tried to persuade Eric Smith, who's quite knowledgable about programming the SCENIX SX processor, to write some firmware that would create, functionally, a FDC chip out of one of these ultra-fast single-chippers. The sampling and passing to an external micro for buffering would have to be done by the SX, but since it would function as a FDC, it could get away with relying on an outside master controller to take the sampled data and store it in memory. Data would then be processed to reduce its size prior to archival and would also require pre-write processing to expand it to its 16x or perhaps even 32x oversampled format to generate adequate sufficiently fine resolution for proper write-precompensation. Back when the discussion was about archiving old floppy disk contents, there was considerable discussion how to read and replicate existing FD's. At that time I suggested the methodology in which I have the most confidence, i.e. oversampling at a rate compatible with normal write precomp and subsequently reducing the sample resolution with software. The fact is that it's not difficult to sample and store the signal from the FDD. Interpreting it in light of the modulation, data format, data rate, etc, is quite involved, but certainly achievable, though someone has to undertake to write the code with which to accomplish this. Having the entire diskette sampled as has been suggested, a track at a time means that one's computer can, at its own pace, reduce, interpret, reformat, etc, the data prior to writing it to a duplicate. The reformatting of the data into its original format offers the advantage of phase coherency between sectors so the PLL on the controller doesn't have to shift phase between sectors. That will make the job easy in a case where the PLL has, over time, drifted off its nominal data rate. More importantly, however, the data can be reclaimed and error-corrections made, that are not possible with the FDC. Sampling circuits are quite straighforward and don't need much software to operate them, particularly if they're put in parallel with the FDC. The FDC can be used to direct the headload and seek operations and, in fact, the FDC can tell whether a given sector was recovered correctly, thereby lending confidence to the notion that the data sampled in that particular pass was completely readable. There are, IIRC, 10416 byte-times, nominally in an 8" FD track at MFM. at 16x ovrsampling, that's a fair amount of data. While there are a number of 256Kx8 SRAMS out there, they're not likely to be lying in the corner unused. I recommend, therefore that such a circuit be devised with DRAMS. Those are available on one of those PC-video cards in the bottom drawer, that you don't use any longer. I doubt it will take any longer than 30 minutes to design an adequate sampling circuit readable from a PC's parallel port in EPP mode. In about a week, I may have time to do that and build it up. If somebody's got the time an is willing to take on the coding burden to prove/disprove this notion, I'd be willing to fabricate the circuit and send it to whoever is willing to do the coding. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 7:03 AM Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > Hi folks - > > The topic of reading or writing older "odd" disk formats > (hard-sectored, GCR, whatever) comes up here pretty often. And often > the discussion leads towards the Catweasel floppy interface (currently > available commercially, as I understand) or the Compaticard interfaces > (not currently being manufactured, as I understand). > > I've recently "modernized" my foreign format disk reading > hardware. The idea of both the "old" version and the "new" versions > are very similar to each other, and to what other tools like the > Catweasel and the Compaticard do: > > Data from a floppy disk drive comes as a series of pulses on > the read data line. All these circuits (using different means) buffer > up to an entire track of data in RAM, and then allow a user program to > look at the buffer and analyze the data on its own terms. They also > allow control over rudimentary floppy functions such as step in/out, > load head/start motor, etc. > > *I* buffer the pulses on the read data line by simply recording > a "1" bit if there was a pulse in a window, and a "0" if there wasn't. > I sample at 4MHz, meaning that a complete revolution of a floppy > requires most a megabit of RAM. I also buffer information such as > index pulse data (essential for decoding many hard-sectored floppy formats.) > > The bit rate from most standard floppy formats is roughly 500 kHz, meaning > my 4 MHz sample rate oversamples by a factor of 8 or so. Yes, it's overkill > for many applications, but I want to be sure that all information on the > floppy is faithfully represented in the buffer. Besides, many GCR and > some MFM variants use half- or even third-fundamental-frequency components > (sliding the pulse in the window to encode more data without increasing > the clock rate) and oversampling is necessary for these formats. > > Other buffers (I believe the Catweasel > falls in this category) record the times between successive pulses in > RAM, instead of the "raw bits". > > My "previous generation" buffer had a megabit of SRAM and > interfaced via a 16-bit-in and 16-bit-out parallel interface (usually > to a DR11-style interface on a PDP-11). The megabit of SRAM was made > up of a whole bunch of 2k*8 SRAMS, meaning that just the buffer memory > required a couple of sizable PC boards. (If you're familiar with the > technology, you'll get the idea that "previous generation" buffer was > based on chips readily available around 15 years ago.) > > My "new generation" buffer has the same megabit of SRAM - but > now in a single SRAM chip - and interfaces via a PC-clone bidirectional > parallel port. Other than the big SRAM chip, the rest of the buffer is > just eleven SSI and MSI HCTTL IC's. The eleven chips form the PC-side > interface, the floppy-side interface, the timing clocks, the buffer > sequencer, and the buffer address (17 bits) counters. > > So how is my buffer different than, for example, the Catweasel? > > 1. The Catweasel uses some custom LSI parts, as far as I can figure out. > My circuit is much more "hackable", anyone with a TTL databook can figure > out what it does and improve on it. Or you can build one yourself from > scratch. (Other than the 128K*8 SRAM, all the other parts were literally > purchased from the local electronics shop. Heck, most of the chips can > be bought at Radio Shack!) Total cost for the chips in my buffer is > about $30.00, about half of that in the SRAM chip. > > 2. The Catweasel uses a proprietary, largely undocumented programming > interface. My circuitry is entirely open, and I think it's pretty easy > to program. (My first hack at acquiring data with the new buffer was > dashed off in about half an hour under QBASIC.) > > 3. The Catweasel requires a bus slot inside a PC-clone. My new buffer uses > a much more general purpose parallel interface. So you can hook it up > to a laptop, or even to something that isn't a PC-clone at all. > > Those are what I see as advantages over the Catweasel. There are also > some disadvantages: > > 4. You can't just go out and buy my buffer, but you can buy Catweasels > off the shelf. > > 5. My buffer is strictly "read-only" as I use it. I think the Catweasel > (and Compaticard) both allow writing. > > Would it be worth writing up my new floppy disk data buffer so that > others could improve on it? Would anyone be interested in unstuffed and/or > stuffed PCB's? Should I give it a name? (The "Timweasel", anyone? I > gotta think of a better name!) > > -- > Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com > Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ > 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 > Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 > > From aclark at envirolink.org Tue Jul 4 11:57:21 2000 From: aclark at envirolink.org (Arthur Clark) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: newbie intro - free TRS stuff Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.0.20000704122551.00d02340@envirolink.org> Hello to all fellow classic computer enthusiasts! I just heard about this mailing list last week. I'm glad to have found such an active discussion group. My primary interest is the Apple ][ & /// series. (I am a member of the venerable Washington Apple Pi.) I would be happy to swap private email with like-minded folks on this mailing list. I am always in search of Apple hardware for my collection, please send email if you have such to unload. Suggestions of individuals and companies who deal in old Apple hardware are also always welcome. I enjoy the old machines, but have been driven nearly mad trying to find hardware that people are actually willing to sell. ATTENTION TRS COLLECTORS: last year I inherited an enormous quantity of software and hardware from an old TRS business network. The console, terminals, cards, and printer are gone. All that remains is available for the cost of shipping, to good homes. I have five large boxes of 8 inch disks, with multiple copies of Xenix, with manuals. Many other boxes of system manuals and other sundries are also available. I also have an external hard drive, "Tandy Thirtyfive Meg Disk System." While I do not collect Tandy, I just can't bear the thought of all this stuff going to a landfill. I know how I feel when I am occasionally subjected to someone's story of how a friend of theirs had a "bunch of old Apple stuff, but finally just threw it all away last year." Anyone within driving distance of south-central Pennsylvania is welcome to come and look at everything. It's all free. If you want it, just arrange to come and pick it up. Regards & Happy 4th, Arthur Clark From korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu Tue Jul 4 12:08:00 2000 From: korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <001d01bfe559$f9936620$de2c67cb@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au> from Geoff Roberts at "Jul 4, 2000 11:18:37 am" Message-ID: <200007041708.KAA26939@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> > HP85s with an HPIB interface and a mass storage ROM (IIRC) can support > floppy drives. If you have this sort of set-up, it's worth copying any > tapes you find onto floppies. On a related note. I have several machines with HPIB/GPIB/IEEE-??? type interfaces, and occasionally see disk drives with the same interface. Is the protocol such that one size fits all? Is there a good HPIB reference available that someone could recommend? Could a PC with a GPIB card act as a file server, or is there some host/slave dichotomy that prevents such things? Eric From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Tue Jul 4 12:11:20 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000704131120.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> >For quite some time I've tried to persuade Eric Smith, who's quite >knowledgable about programming the SCENIX SX processor, to write some >firmware that would create, functionally, a FDC chip out of one of these >ultra-fast single-chippers. "Better" is the enemy of "good enough". If I can throw something together in an afternoon out of TTL chips from Radio Shack, why go to the effort of creating what amounts to a custom chip? Maybe my priorities are too much on the "just do it" side, and not enough on the "do it Dick's way" side :-). >Interpreting it in light of the modulation, data format, data rate, etc, is >quite involved, but certainly achievable, though someone has to undertake to >write the code with which to accomplish this. The code obviously varies depending on the encoding method, but my method - a completely public circuit design with easy interface to a wide variety of computers - allows the user to write the decryption code in whatever he/she might be familiar with on whatever platform he/she wants. > Having the entire diskette >sampled as has been suggested, a track at a time means that one's computer >can, at its own pace, reduce, interpret, reformat, etc, the data prior to >writing it to a duplicate. The reformatting of the data into its original >format offers the advantage of phase coherency between sectors so the PLL on >the controller doesn't have to shift phase between sectors. That will make >the job easy in a case where the PLL has, over time, drifted off its nominal >data rate. ??? There is no need for a hardware PLL if you oversample by a factor of a few. >There are, IIRC, 10416 byte-times, nominally in an 8" FD track at MFM. at >16x ovrsampling, that's a fair amount of data. That's absolutely true. But RAM chips are fairly cheap these days, and I took advantage of that in my design. > While there are a number of >256Kx8 SRAMS out there, they're not likely to be lying in the corner unused. I used an ISSI 62C1024-7, a 128K*8 70ns 32-pin DIP, and it's good enough for me. Cost was $12.00. Looking in my Digi-Key catalog, it seems you can get 512K*8 parts for about $15.00 today, but they're in TSSOP's which aren't so quickly breadboarded for me. (Though they are the obvious solution if you transfer my design to a PCB layout.) I'm sure a fair number of people on this list have access to unused 486 motherboards with socketed cache RAM parts in the 32K*8 to 128K*8 range. These oughta do fine too. >I recommend, therefore that such a circuit be devised with DRAMS. Again, "better" is the enemy of "good enough". I made my circuit with parts that were easily available to me, and I decided that it wasn't worth the effort to build a DRAM controller when SRAM is so cheap. (And SRAM kept the parts count down, too...) You obviously have different priorities. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jul 4 12:17:04 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000704090325.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: >So how is my buffer different than, for example, the Catweasel? > >2. The Catweasel uses a proprietary, largely undocumented programming >interface. My circuitry is entirely open, and I think it's pretty easy >to program. (My first hack at acquiring data with the new buffer was >dashed off in about half an hour under QBASIC.) Thier doc's pretty much stink, or at least did when I got mine! >3. The Catweasel requires a bus slot inside a PC-clone. My new buffer uses >a much more general purpose parallel interface. So you can hook it up >to a laptop, or even to something that isn't a PC-clone at all. The Catweasel is also available for the Amiga, at least it was last time I checked. However, I'm still more than a little pissed off by what I consider to be false advertising. When I got mine they listed a whole list of formats that it could read, when in reality it could hand Amiga, C1542, and PC floppies. The hardware might support more, but the software didn't. As I understand it the PC version might have better support, but when you consider that the Catweasel was originally an Amiga board... >Those are what I see as advantages over the Catweasel. There are also >some disadvantages: > >5. My buffer is strictly "read-only" as I use it. I think the Catweasel >(and Compaticard) both allow writing. Supposidly the Catweasel can write most formats it can read. I know it can do the only ones I was able to read. >Would it be worth writing up my new floppy disk data buffer so that >others could improve on it? Would anyone be interested in unstuffed and/or >stuffed PCB's? Should I give it a name? (The "Timweasel", anyone? I >gotta think of a better name!) Maybe/probably. It would be nice to stuff one in a Linux box, or will it work in an Alpha under VMS :^) Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh@holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Tue Jul 4 13:06:52 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000704140652.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> >>2. The Catweasel uses a proprietary, largely undocumented programming >>interface. My circuitry is entirely open, and I think it's pretty easy >>to program. (My first hack at acquiring data with the new buffer was >>dashed off in about half an hour under QBASIC.) >Thier doc's pretty much stink, or at least did when I got mine! It sounds like John Wilson has reverse-engineered at least *some* of their programming interface, though last I heard there were parts of the interface that were a mystery even to him :-). >>Would it be worth writing up my new floppy disk data buffer so that >>others could improve on it? Would anyone be interested in unstuffed and/or >>stuffed PCB's? Should I give it a name? (The "Timweasel", anyone? I >>gotta think of a better name!) >Maybe/probably. It looks like my circuit can be put on roughly a 3" x 4" PCB, meaning that after paying for ExpressPCB overhead it'll be maybe $20 or so per PCB in small quantities. The PCB would have a 24-pin header for interfacing to a PC-clone parallel port (or whatever cabling you want to any other sort of parallel type port on another hardware platform), and 34-pin and 50-pin headers to hook to 3.5", 5.25", and 8" disk drives. I haven't priced the chip costs, but they'll probably total around $25 or so from a hobby place like Jameco or from a real distributor like Digi-Key. Chip lineup in my current design: 1 62C1024 128K*8 SRAM. 1 74HCT373 for latching control signals from parallel port, 3 of the outputs are used to drive the head load and step/direction lines to the floppy drive. 8 MHz crystal clock. 1 74HCT74 for bi-phase clock generation and pulse synchronization from the floppy read line 2 74HCT175's to make a seven-stage ring counter. Only 3 phase outputs are used, one to latch and increment the counters, one to latch the outputs of the shift register, and one to do the write enable. 1 74HCT164 for taking serial data from the 74HCT74 pulse synchronizer and turning it into 7-bit wide parallel out. (The 8th bit comes from the index line). 1 74HCT374 for latching the shift register data and tri-stating it onto the memory buffer bus. 1 74HCT04 and 1 74HCT00 for gating and inverting as necessary 2 74HCT590's and 1 74HCT93 for making a 20-bit buffer address counter. (17 bits are used in the current implementation, though we obviously could just drop in a bigger SRAM and use the extra address bits.) I took some pains in my design to allow things to be sped up for more oversampling at a later date. (I'd probably want to replace the 74HCT93 with a third 74HCT590 just to make all the address counters fully synchronous, but I only had 2 HCT590's in my junk box when I built this implementation). The timing from the ring counter and the rest of the HCT logic ought to make sampling up to 40 MHz very straightforward (I'd have to lengthen the write-enable from the ring counter at higher clock speeds to cover a couple of clock phases). > It would be nice to stuff one in a Linux box, or will it >work in an Alpha under VMS :^) Anything with a bidirectional parallel port oughta work fine. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 12:40:25 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <001d01bfe559$f9936620$de2c67cb@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au> from "Geoff Roberts" at Jul 4, 0 11:18:37 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 3593 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000704/95b5b1bb/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 12:42:57 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: OT?: failure modes of a RAMDAC In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.20000703231135.011aaf24@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> from "Carlos Murillo" at Jul 3, 0 11:11:35 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1311 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000704/b26181b1/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 12:46:52 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: from "Don Maslin" at Jul 3, 0 09:10:33 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 979 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000704/7ba34b90/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 13:03:22 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000704090325.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> from "CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com" at Jul 4, 0 09:03:25 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1702 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000704/3b989e78/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 13:08:47 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <200007041708.KAA26939@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> from "Eric J. Korpela" at Jul 4, 0 10:08:00 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1466 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000704/0e369a27/attachment.ksh From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jul 4 12:21:47 2000 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Vintage Computer Festival 4.0 Message-ID: Vintage Computer Festival 4.0 September 30 through October 1, 2000 San Jose Convention Center San Jose, California Mark you calendar! The fourth annual Vintage Computer Festival is scheduled for Saturday, September 30th though Sunday, October 1st at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California. The Vintage Computer Festival is a celebration of computers and their history. The event features speakers, a vintage computer exhibition, a vintage computer marketplace, and contests like The Nerd Trivia Challenge. We showcase all different types of computers for all differents kinds of platforms in all different shapes and sizes. REGISTER EARLY AND SAVE! Since you're already a VCF fan, we'd like to extend an early-bird registration offer to you. Register by July 15th and pay only $15 per person (after July 15th the fee will jump to $20 per person). Your registration includes complete event access, including speakers, the exhibition and the marketplace. And just like last year, the first 32 registrants will receive a VCF t-shirt! Act fast to secure your early registration and a free VCF t-shirt. We've made it easier than ever for you register online as we are now accepting credit card payments. Visit the VCF website for complete details. EXHIBIT YOUR VINTAGE COMPUTER Vintage Computer Collectors: we want you! Exhibit your favorite computer in the Vintage Computer Exhibition. Prizes will be awarded in 12 different categories, as well as a Best of Show prize which includes $50 cash! For complete details on the VCF Exhibition, visit: http://www.vintage.org/2000/exhibit.html To see the exhibits from VCF 3.0 go to: http://www.vintage.org/exhibit99.html BUY/SELL/TRADE AT THE VINTAGE COMPUTER MARKETPLACE Do you have some vintage computer items you'd like to sell? Whether you rent a booth or sell on consignment, the Vintage Computer Marketplace is the premier venue for selling old computers and related items. If you would like to rent a booth or inquire about consignment rates, please send e-mail to vendor@vintage.org for more information or visit: http://www.vintage.org/2000/vendor.html CHECK OUT THE NEW SITE! If you haven't visited the VCF website in a while, come on over and have a look at the completely new design. You'll find it easier to navigate and easier to find the information you're looking for. We've got plenty of good stuff to read and hundreds of new links to explore vintage computing on the web. We're constantly adding new content. Stop on by for a visit! TELL A FRIEND! TELL A FRIEND! TELL A FRIEND! We really hope to see you at VCF 4.0! And remember, tell your friends!! Vintage Computer Festival 4.0 September 30th through October 1st, 2000 San Jose Convention Center San Jose, California http://www.vintage.org From jrkeys at concentric.net Tue Jul 4 13:26:10 2000 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (John R. Keys Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: newbie intro - free TRS stuff References: <4.3.2.7.0.20000704122551.00d02340@envirolink.org> Message-ID: <001a01bfe5e5$582d52a0$91711fd1@default> I'm always on the lookout for user manuals, service manuals, or what have you for all types of hardware. Let me no the postage to send a box of manuals to zip 55110. Thanks John John Keys ----- Original Message ----- From: Arthur Clark To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 11:57 AM Subject: newbie intro - free TRS stuff > Hello to all fellow classic computer enthusiasts! > > I just heard about this mailing list last week. I'm glad to have found > such an active discussion group. My primary interest is the pple ][ & /// > series. (I am a member of the venerable Washington Apple Pi.) I would be > happy to swap private email with like-minded folks on this mailing list. I > am always in search of Apple hardware for my collection, please send email > if you have such to unload. Suggestions of individuals and companies who > deal in old Apple hardware are also always welcome. I enjoy the old > machines, but have been driven nearly mad trying to find hardware that > people are actually willing to sell. > > ATTENTION TRS COLLECTORS: last year I inherited an enormous quantity of > software and hardware from an old TRS business network. The console, > terminals, cards, and printer are gone. All that remains is available for > the cost of shipping, to good homes. I have five large boxes of 8 inch > disks, with multiple copies of Xenix, with manuals. Many other boxes of > system manuals and other sundries are also available. I also have an > external hard drive, "Tandy Thirtyfive Meg Disk System." > > While I do not collect Tandy, I just can't bear the thought of all this > stuff going to a landfill. I know how I feel when I am occasionally > subjected to someone's story of how a friend of theirs had a "bunch of old > Apple stuff, but finally just threw it all away last year." > > Anyone within driving distance of south-central Pennsylvania is welcome to > come and look at everything. It's all free. If you want it, just arrange > to come and pick it up. > > Regards & Happy 4th, > > Arthur Clark > > From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Tue Jul 4 13:33:19 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000704140652.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000704112342.00cb0e30@208.226.86.10> First, this is a really cool idea. I am glad someone has taken the time to make it real. At 02:06 PM 7/4/00 -0400, Tim wrote: >Chip lineup in my current design: [bunch of parts] > 8 MHz crystal clock. > 1 62C1024 128K*8 SRAM. 1 Xilinx CPLD (XC9572 should more than handle it) The CPLD comes in a PLCC (44 pin) and thus is "hacker friendly" If you send me a schematic I can generate a bit file for the PLD. Digikey sells these for $5.53 in single quantities, if we can get by with fewer logic cells then the cheaper one is $3.30 each in single quantities. >I took some pains in my design to allow things to be sped up for more >oversampling at a later date. The CPLD is supposed to run up to 100Mhz so you should have some head-room. I could do a timing analysis at 16, 20, and 24Mhz and see if anything falls out of spec. >Anything with a bidirectional parallel port oughta work fine. This is definitely the way to go, it has become a fairly "universal" interface. Point me to the schematics and I'll see if it will fit in the smallest CPLD. --Chuck From foo at siconic.com Tue Jul 4 12:25:13 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000704090325.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jul 2000 CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com wrote: > Would it be worth writing up my new floppy disk data buffer so that > others could improve on it? Would anyone be interested in unstuffed and/or > stuffed PCB's? Should I give it a name? (The "Timweasel", anyone? I > gotta think of a better name!) How about "Dogferret"? Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From whdawson at mlynk.com Tue Jul 4 14:06:44 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: newbie intro - free TRS stuff In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.0.20000704122551.00d02340@envirolink.org> Message-ID: <000601bfe5ea$fe5737e0$e3e3dfd0@cobweb.net> Arthur, I'm heading out the door now. I think I need to clarify my last email. I will take all the Tandy things you have available. Thanks, Bill Dawson whdawson@mlynk.com ? Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope -> -----Original Message----- -> From: owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org -> [mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Arthur Clark -> Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 12:57 PM -> To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org -> Subject: newbie intro - free TRS stuff -> -> -> Hello to all fellow classic computer enthusiasts! -> -> I just heard about this mailing list last week. I'm glad to -> have found -> such an active discussion group. My primary interest is the -> Apple ][ & /// -> series. (I am a member of the venerable Washington Apple -> Pi.) I would be -> happy to swap private email with like-minded folks on this -> mailing list. I -> am always in search of Apple hardware for my collection, -> please send email -> if you have such to unload. Suggestions of individuals and -> companies who -> deal in old Apple hardware are also always welcome. I enjoy the old -> machines, but have been driven nearly mad trying to find -> hardware that -> people are actually willing to sell. -> -> ATTENTION TRS COLLECTORS: last year I inherited an enormous -> quantity of -> software and hardware from an old TRS business network. The -> console, -> terminals, cards, and printer are gone. All that remains is -> available for -> the cost of shipping, to good homes. I have five large -> boxes of 8 inch -> disks, with multiple copies of Xenix, with manuals. Many -> other boxes of -> system manuals and other sundries are also available. I -> also have an -> external hard drive, "Tandy Thirtyfive Meg Disk System." -> -> While I do not collect Tandy, I just can't bear the thought -> of all this -> stuff going to a landfill. I know how I feel when I am occasionally -> subjected to someone's story of how a friend of theirs had a -> "bunch of old -> Apple stuff, but finally just threw it all away last year." -> -> Anyone within driving distance of south-central Pennsylvania -> is welcome to -> come and look at everything. It's all free. If you want -> it, just arrange -> to come and pick it up. -> -> Regards & Happy 4th, -> -> Arthur Clark -> From donm at cts.com Tue Jul 4 14:22:19 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000704090325.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jul 2000 CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com wrote: > 5. My buffer is strictly "read-only" as I use it. I think the Catweasel > (and Compaticard) both allow writing. > > Would it be worth writing up my new floppy disk data buffer so that > others could improve on it? Would anyone be interested in unstuffed and/or > stuffed PCB's? Should I give it a name? (The "Timweasel", anyone? I > gotta think of a better name!) I would be interested in further information and possibly a PCB as well. However, my interest would be greatly enhanced by a "write also" capability as it fits better with my "archive and recreate" activities in the system disk world. - don From richard at idcomm.com Tue Jul 4 14:31:20 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000704131120.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <004d01bfe5ee$6f1e5820$0400c0a8@winbook> Gee! I didn't mean to suggest there was any inadequacy in what you've done here, Tim. It just rang a bell with respect to the archival discussion that went on for some weeks a couple of months back, and that suggests thee were numerous people interested enough to follow it. I have a revised sampler that will work in both directions in rework down in my basement, and I've determined it needs more memry, but there isn't much space on that rather small board. Fact is, I need to DRAM to make it fit physically, without rearranging components. Nobody else has to use them. It's just a FREE solution for me and perhaps others. Please see my embedded remarks below. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 11:11 AM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > >For quite some time I've tried to persuade Eric Smith, who's quite > >knowledgable about programming the SCENIX SX processor, to write some > >firmware that would create, functionally, a FDC chip out of one of these > >ultra-fast single-chippers. > > "Better" is the enemy of "good enough". If I can throw something together > in an afternoon out of TTL chips from Radio Shack, why go to the effort of > creating what amounts to a custom chip? > I've used the same comment myself, Tim, but what I meant by this remark is that, since most of the popular FDC's commonly used to read/write floppies are not to easy to find/implement these days, a single person programming an FDC code set into a programmable single-chipper with enough drive at the pins to dispense with the need for external buffers would be an easy and general solution to the problem of how to build an interface. I didn't intend this to be mixed up with the sampling arrangement, which could, conceivably, work in parallel with ANY FDC, but would, of course, be best with a FDC that could read/write the format in question so that it would provide assurance that a given sample of the bitstream from the FDD was readable. > > Maybe my priorities are too much on the "just do it" side, and not enough > on the "do it Dick's way" side :-). > > >Interpreting it in light of the modulation, data format, data rate, etc, is > >quite involved, but certainly achievable, though someone has to undertake to > >write the code with which to accomplish this. > > The code obviously varies depending on the encoding method, but my method - > a completely public circuit design with easy interface to a wide variety > of computers - allows the user to write the decryption code in whatever he/she > might be familiar with on whatever platform he/she wants. > I was not aware that any form of encryption was involved, though the sampler would, indeed grab the data as-is, and allow its external processing off line, and subsequent regeneration of the by-then-massaged file. I did suggest a completely public approach. The entire core process is achievable with a few common, standard-logic (and therefore already obsolete) IC's and an oscillator at 32x the fastest data rate one will attempt to sample. AFAIK, that would be 16 MHz, BTW. The assumption is that the device will be used with a PC that has EPP parallel port capability as nealy all PC's made after '93 have. The FDC keeps track of the heads and operates the drive mechanism, and the sampler grabs the entire track where the heads sit at that moment by tapping onto the data path, albeit in parallel by means of OC drivers. > > > Having the entire diskette > >sampled as has been suggested, a track at a time means that one's computer > >can, at its own pace, reduce, interpret, reformat, etc, the data prior to > >writing it to a duplicate. The reformatting of the data into its original > >format offers the advantage of phase coherency between sectors so the PLL on > >the controller doesn't have to shift phase between sectors. That will make > >the job easy in a case where the PLL has, over time, drifted off its nominal > >data rate. > > ??? There is no need for a hardware PLL if you oversample by a factor of a > few. > You've clearly missed my point, Tim. The PLL of which I wrote is the one on the system that will attempt to read the regenerated diskette, produced by sampling to a data file at another place and time, subsequently reduced in size, and then re-"inflated" at a resolution compatible with the appropriate write precompensation, since that MUST be used in the regeneration process. The sampler doesn't need a PLL due to the high sample rate. The FDC that later reads the regenerated file will be presented with a diskette, the transitions on which are written with the approriate write precompensation. This will mean the PLL only has to sync once per track, since all the data on a given track is coherently timed, transition-by-transition. So long as the diskette is not subsequently written, the data will always be coherent, thereby requiring no resynchronization. THIS WOULD BE BETTER THAN A BRAND NEW DISKETTE, since it wojuld be clock-coherent. This would only be of benefit to the system attempting to read the regenerated diskette. One additional advantage would be that it would allow anyone, ostensibly with any system at all capable of handling the target drive, and even some that can't, to write a diskette in any sufficiently well-understood modulation (FM, MFM, GCR, RLL, ERLL, etc) and format that's desired without having a capable FDC. A PDP-8, then, could generate a diskette readable by an APPLE-][ even though it hasn't got an Apple controller. Moreover, a PC could write hard-sectored 8" diskettes using an external 8" drive and the sampler, if properly implemented. > > >There are, IIRC, 10416 byte-times, nominally in an 8" FD track at MFM. at > >16x ovrsampling, that's a fair amount of data. > > That's absolutely true. But RAM chips are fairly cheap these days, and I took > advantage of that in my design. > > > While there are a number of > >256Kx8 SRAMS out there, they're not likely to be lying in the corner unused. > > I used an ISSI 62C1024-7, a 128K*8 70ns 32-pin DIP, and it's good enough > for me. Cost was $12.00. Looking in my Digi-Key catalog, it seems you can > get 512K*8 parts for about $15.00 today, but they're in TSSOP's which aren't > so quickly breadboarded for me. (Though they are the obvious solution > if you transfer my design to a PCB layout.) > > I'm sure a fair number of people on this list have access to unused 486 > motherboards with socketed cache RAM parts in the 32K*8 to 128K*8 range. > These oughta do fine too. > > >I recommend, therefore that such a circuit be devised with DRAMS. > > Again, "better" is the enemy of "good enough". I made my circuit > with parts that were easily available to me, and I decided that it > wasn't worth the effort to build a DRAM controller when SRAM is so > cheap. (And SRAM kept the parts count down, too...) You obviously > have different priorities. > Modern (or fairly modern) DRAMs are quite simple, and I was thinking in terms of circuit size and cost, counting on the likelihood that most of the participants in this discussion have an old '386/486 or even a video card with 256kx4 drams on board, and therefore availablel for scavenging. 256K bytes are necessary to oversample at 32x, and thats the rate required for write precomp. Hard-sectored MFM diskettes are probably rare, but 8" diskettes in ERLL with hard sectoring would be closer to 250K. If all you do is read, you can do things with much less hardware, and much less software as well. I made no assertion that what I proposed was BETTER than anything at all. 4x oversampling is adequate for reading. That's what you set out to do. However, In the context of the prior discussion regarding archiving of boot diskettes or whatever other diskettes, a device capable of writing physically incompatible diskettes was called for. It's that target I was addressing. The reason I mentioned the SX is that it's capable of functioning as a combined HDC/FDC and possibly addressing more different formats than any of the chips I've used, largely since that's limited only by the capacity of its program store and the imagination of the author of its firmware. That came up only because I've seen more than one plaintive cry that the FDC that someone wanted either wasn't available any more, or that the one they had couldn't do one thing or another. It's a relevant concept from the standpoint that at, say 96 MHz, the SX could present an entirely self-contained solution to both these problems in addition to which it could also handle the sampling. It's possible, but not until the code is written. That, Sir, would be the ideal solution, in my opinion, since everybody could then hook up this single device in whatever way is deemed appropriate for their application, and I like the EPP myself, to handle "foreign" disk formats in any way that's desired. It would take lots of future projects off the "back burner" and let them be realized. > > -- > Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com > Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ > 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 > Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 > > From korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu Tue Jul 4 14:51:00 2000 From: korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20000704112342.00cb0e30@208.226.86.10> from Chuck McManis at "Jul 4, 2000 11:33:19 am" Message-ID: <200007041951.MAA28665@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> > > 8 MHz crystal clock. > > 1 62C1024 128K*8 SRAM. > 1 Xilinx CPLD (XC9572 should more than handle it) > > The CPLD comes in a PLCC (44 pin) and thus is "hacker friendly" If you send > me a schematic I can generate a bit file for the PLD. Digikey sells these > for $5.53 in single quantities, if we can get by with fewer logic cells > then the cheaper one is $3.30 each in single quantities. I've actually been thinking about doing something like this. The advantage of the FPGA is you could program it in situ. If you know the controller that was really supposed to read the disk, you could probably just emulate that controller in the gate array. Of course, this is more complexity, but it is optional complexity. The default configuration would be the sample everything and sort it all out later version. Eric From richard at idcomm.com Tue Jul 4 14:51:07 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <4.3.1.2.20000704112342.00cb0e30@208.226.86.10> Message-ID: <006501bfe5f1$350bad60$0400c0a8@winbook> The only problem I'd point out is the the 9500 series CPLD's drive only 8 mA per output and, unless you were planning to pair them up, i.e. use multiple pins tied together to drive the FD cable, you might have problems. I don't know about Tim's design, but I'd say the necessary logic to interface via EPP will easily fit in the XC9572, and, in fact, one might find an easy enough way to make an FDC fit in there as well. The parts count with a SCENIX SX would be be lower, though, in that you need one oscillator, e.g. 96 MHz, and one IC, the SX, which will comfortably drive the cable. The SX-28 cost about $5.50 in onesies last time I acquired some. Yes, it's a really COOL idea, particularly with this particular CPLD family, because the software with which to program them is FREE from their web site, and you have the choice of doing it while on-line or downloading to your own computer. Moreover, if you want to compare schematics with someone else, you can do that if they have the same software, making schematics easy to exchange. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Chuck McManis To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 12:33 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > First, this is a really cool idea. I am glad someone has taken the time to > make it real. > > At 02:06 PM 7/4/00 -0400, Tim wrote: > >Chip lineup in my current design: > > [bunch of parts] > > > 8 MHz crystal clock. > > 1 62C1024 128K*8 SRAM. > 1 Xilinx CPLD (XC9572 should more than handle it) > > The CPLD comes in a PLCC (44 pin) and thus is "hacker friendly" If you send > me a schematic I can generate a bit file for the PLD. Digikey sells these > for $5.53 in single quantities, if we can get by with fewer logic cells > then the cheaper one is $3.30 each in single quantities. > > >I took some pains in my design to allow things to be sped up for more > >oversampling at a later date. > > The CPLD is supposed to run up to 100Mhz so you should have some head-room. > I could do a timing analysis at 16, 20, and 24Mhz and see if anything falls > out of spec. > > >Anything with a bidirectional parallel port oughta work fine. > > This is definitely the way to go, it has become a fairly "universal" interface. > > Point me to the schematics and I'll see if it will fit in the smallest CPLD. > > --Chuck > > > From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Tue Jul 4 15:53:52 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000704165352.20200106@trailing-edge.com> >The only problem I'd point out is the the 9500 series CPLD's drive only 8 mA >per output and, unless you were planning to pair them up, i.e. use multiple >pins tied together to drive the FD cable, you might have problems. The biggest problem is with the outputs that'll drive the floppy disk bus. Typically it's an open-collector output terminated to +5V with 150 ohms, so you have to be able to sink 30 mA or so. So yes, this may be a concern. (Or you can cheat and tie the lines high with "only" 220 or 300 or 470 ohms - shouldn't be a big problem as long as there's only one drive on the bus.) Do any CPLD's have "real" open-collector outputs, or can you fake it by sending the output into tristate mode? (I'm asking this as a guy who's never designed with CPLD's but does know 74XX00 series logic pretty well.) I don't think it's an issue either way with exactly one controller and one floppy drive on the bus. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 From vcf at siconic.com Tue Jul 4 16:21:50 2000 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: need homes (fwd) Message-ID: Stuff up for grabs. Please contact the original sender. Reply-to: crx_runner@hotmail.com ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 12:41:24 PDT From: Dave Broadbent Subject: need homes I have the following to give away: I had started a collection, then decided to stop. I am located in Souderton, PA (near Phila) Apple 111+, with monitor, with three additional drives. I never tested this to see if it works. Compaq Portable, the first model, have two, one works, one does not. Franklin Ace 1000, with BMC monitor(Aug, 1982), with two Rana System 5 1/4 drives, with Gemini 10 printer. This I am sure works. Dave work no. 215 540-0800 ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From r.stek at snet.net Tue Jul 4 18:17:20 2000 From: r.stek at snet.net (Bob Stek) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000704090325.202000cf@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: I am probably one of the least electronically sophisticated members of this list with narrower interests than many (S-100, CP/M, 8080, Z-80, NorthStar, Apple, IBM - no significant DEC or UNIX experience). But as an archivist interested in preserving old "stuff" I can appreciate the availability of the "Tim-Weasel" even if I can't offer much in the way of help in design of hardware or writing of software. (Though I have done some documentation - I did much of Steve Ciarcia's original home control manual and the HAL brainwave biofeedback unit. So if that is of any use ....) I guess I am the fairly knowledgeable CP/M-educated "power user" of the late 70's and early 80's. I would certainly encourage you and the rest of the list to make this an open source type project that could be assembled by someone like me (it took me two weeks of soldering to get my Sol-20 together, and then 6 weeks of &^$&$*-ing around to find the 2 diodes I put in backwards, numerous cold solder joints, etc. in order to get it working). In short - go for it. Bob Stek Saver of Lost SOLs From richard at idcomm.com Tue Jul 4 18:49:29 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007041951.MAA28665@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <000d01bfe612$7f6fdae0$0400c0a8@winbook> The CPLD offers a number of advantages over FPGA's. They're not the same. An FPGA uses a RAM lookup table in to define the function executed by a logic cell. CPLD's use EPROM/EEPROM cells to store the logic configuration. Most FPGA's require an external configuration prom of one sort or another, which it boots on reset. The FPGA has lots of logic available, though it's uncommon for more than half of it to be useable. CPLD's have less logic, but it's all available and often used up. Having several devices on the same footprint with differing capacities is very useful, since you can then save money by using a device that's "barely" enough without changing device packages. Neither of these technologies offers enough drive to handle a FD cable, however. It's remarkable how little logic is needed to do a job like this one. Aside from the buffer RAM, it's really quite simple. The data rate is low enough even at 32x that it easily allows writing a byte to the RAM in or reading from it in a single bit-time, and what looks to me as the best candidate for a cheap and ubiquitous part to use is a 1Mx4 DRAM. The addresses can be muxed in the CPLD and refresh (while it's idling) is easy to in hidden mode, in which it uses an internal refresh counter. I don't know what 256Kx8 SRAMS cost these days (I could look ...) but if I already have 1Mx4 DRAMS, it's easy to choose. The data port on the RAMs can be handled with a single serial/parallel in, serial/parallel out shift register (like a 74195) that allows you to operate on the data interface with the RAM each 4 bits by either loading or reading the shift register. I like this CPLD approach because anybody who wants to try their hand at this can do so at no cost other than materials because the software is available over the web, the programming cable schematic is available at www.xilinx.com, and the software with which to program the things is also on the web. The cable is even useable with other manufacturers' devices because it is virtually standardized. My download cable is made such that I can switch pins from one header to another so I don't have to have two cables, one for XILINX and one for everyone else. It's not an expensive arrangement, however. As I wrote previously, the software also provides a really handy way to communicate schematics between folks working with the same software. I've not seen Tim's logic diagram for his sampler, but I do have one of my own, and find that there's not enough logic involved to warrant use of a CPLD in mine. It consists of a PAL, two counters, two shift registers and a couple of 256Kx4 DRAMs. These components were chosen because I had them, not because they lead to an elegant design. The entire sampling circuit will easily fit into the small CPLD that's been suggested, including the DRAM interface, and the interface to the PC's EPP port. If this thing is to function as a rudimentary FDC, which would be VERY convenient, then it would be easy enough to limit the current on the cable by keeping it short and substituting larger resistor values for the 150-ohm numbers found on many drives. That will solve the drive problem and shorter cables will not mind. I'd encourage everybody to try it. These in-circuit programmables are really neat! I like 'em LOTS better than FPGA's, though there are getting to be a number of in-circuit programmable config proms as well. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric J. Korpela To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 1:51 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > 8 MHz crystal clock. > > > 1 62C1024 128K*8 SRAM. > > 1 Xilinx CPLD (XC9572 should more than handle it) > > > > The CPLD comes in a PLCC (44 pin) and thus is "hacker friendly" If you send > > me a schematic I can generate a bit file for the PLD. Digikey sells these > > for $5.53 in single quantities, if we can get by with fewer logic cells > > then the cheaper one is $3.30 each in single quantities. > > I've actually been thinking about doing something like this. The advantage > of the FPGA is you could program it in situ. If you know the controller that > was really supposed to read the disk, you could probably just emulate that > controller in the gate array. Of course, this is more complexity, but it > is optional complexity. The default configuration would be the sample > everything and sort it all out later version. > > Eric > > From rdd at smart.net Tue Jul 4 19:00:38 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Jul 2000, William Donzelli wrote: > I use WD40 because it takes quite a bit to give me a headache, and it > will not explode at the slightest spark. My safety comes first. However, as Tony pointed out, WD40 is still not the right thing to use. WD40 is good for removing dampness from a push-reel mower's blades, but that's just to displace water and prevent rust. I wouldn't use it to clean anything, as it will just gum things up where you don't want things gummed up. If you're careful, more useful chemicals are safe to use... that is, if you don't do something stupid with them. When I was in college, I recall acetone being one of the least harmful chemicals used in general chemistry labs; you can purchase it in a hardware store... actually, it's also bottled and sold as fingernail polish remover. [written to A.R. Duell] > Maybe now I can see why you complain about not being able to get a job or > why the museums don't seem to want you around. With your "never > wrong" attitude, the reason shines like a beacon in the night. That's an false, and most unfair, hit below the belt. I've exchanged e-mail with Tony for nearly a decade, and never found him to have a "never wrong" attitude. He's been very helpful to me, and others, and has unselfishly spent a great deal of time helping others solve problems as well as taking the time to inform others of his many hacks and restorations, giving us detailed exampes of how to do things the right way. I recon that few, if any, others on this list have accomplished as much as he has with restoration and software/hardware hacking, and figuring other things out as well. > Next topic, please... But first, an apology to Tony from you is in order. -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From foo at siconic.com Tue Jul 4 18:43:01 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Friden help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jul 2000, R. D. Davis wrote: > > Next topic, please... > > But first, an apology to Tony from you is in order. Oh geez. Since when did you become the expert on mailing list etiquette? Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From mann at pa.dec.com Tue Jul 4 19:51:23 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <200007050051.RAA17598@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Let me interject a few notes about the Catweasel here. Quoting from Tim Shoppa's original message: > 1. The Catweasel uses some custom LSI parts, as far as I can figure out. It uses a PLD. The 1996 version, which I have, uses a MACH 211. I'm not sure what the new 2000 version uses; probably something similar. The PLD equations aren't released, though, so knowing this doesn't tell you much. > My circuit is much more "hackable", anyone with a TTL databook can figure > out what it does and improve on it. Or you can build one yourself from > scratch. (Other than the 128K*8 SRAM, all the other parts were literally > purchased from the local electronics shop. Heck, most of the chips can > be bought at Radio Shack!) Total cost for the chips in my buffer is > about $30.00, about half of that in the SRAM chip. I sympathize with that, but for those of us who are much better at software than hardware, something off-the-shelf is a big plus. You can get a Catweasel for $85 to $95 completely assembled. > 2. The Catweasel uses a proprietary, largely undocumented programming > interface. My circuitry is entirely open, and I think it's pretty easy > to program. (My first hack at acquiring data with the new buffer was > dashed off in about half an hour under QBASIC.) You can now get the documentation for the programming interface just by asking the designer (Jens Schoenfeld). He told me that it isn't secret anymore. The document is in German, but I could provide a translation if anyone needs it. (My German isn't that great, but the document is so simple you can almost read it without knowing any German.) There is also an open-source Linux driver, and the program I wrote for reading FM and MFM disks to one of the TRS-80 emulator formats (cw2dmk) is also open source. > 3. The Catweasel requires a bus slot inside a PC-clone. My new buffer uses > a much more general purpose parallel interface. So you can hook it up > to a laptop, or even to something that isn't a PC-clone at all. That's a real plus; on the other hand, if you do have a PC clone with an ISA slot, it's more convenient having the board inside the computer than hanging off the parallel port (especially if you're already using the parallel port for something else). > Those are what I see as advantages over the Catweasel. There are also > some disadvantages: > > 4. You can't just go out and buy my buffer, but you can buy Catweasels > off the shelf. > > 5. My buffer is strictly "read-only" as I use it. I think the Catweasel > (and Compaticard) both allow writing. Yes, the Catweasel allows writing. I haven't tried this yet, though. Another point to note is that the Catweasel samples at 7 or 14 MHz (software selectable). In reading some old 8" MFM disks, I found that there had been a lot of bit-shifting over the years (or maybe there was not enough write precomp applied to begin with), and I had to use an extra heuristic to make them readable at all. I'm not sure that 4 MHz would have been a high enough sample rate for these. Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu Tue Jul 4 20:11:31 2000 From: korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000d01bfe612$7f6fdae0$0400c0a8@winbook> from Richard Erlacher at "Jul 4, 2000 05:49:29 pm" Message-ID: <200007050111.SAA02162@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> > The CPLD offers a number of advantages over FPGA's. They're not the same. > An FPGA uses a RAM lookup table in to define the function executed by a > logic cell. CPLD's use EPROM/EEPROM cells to store the logic configuration. > Most FPGA's require an external configuration prom of one sort or another, > which it boots on reset. Actually it's pretty easy to get an Xylinx FPGA to read a program from a serial or parallel line, so all you need to do to reprogram is assert reset and feed in the data correctly. But I can see your point on the CPLDs. I generally go FPGA because I like to have lots of available logic for flexibility's sake. Anyone have schematics for a large number of floppy controllers? :) Eric From richard at idcomm.com Tue Jul 4 20:17:36 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000704165352.20200106@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <001901bfe61e$d471d320$0400c0a8@winbook> The hardware isn't the principal challenge in this case, friends, it's the software to interpret what's read or to-be-written. Moreover, trimming the file size down is just a part of the process, since it has to be reduced and then re-inflated in order to position the transitions correctly to effect write-precompensation. That requires diligent study of the various formats, modulation schemes, and error-detection/correction codes. Reducing the sampled data to binary files is not trivial, but once one has the hang of finding the data field after a probably somewhat disorderly write-splice on the diskette it's probably not that bad. Since the time used in the write-splice is limited, it can be found easily enough, simply counting bit-times. This is a VERY achievable task, and particularly with the inexpensive XIlinx CPLD's. Please see embedded comments below. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 2:53 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > >The only problem I'd point out is the the 9500 series CPLD's drive only 8 mA > >per output and, unless you were planning to pair them up, i.e. use multiple > >pins tied together to drive the FD cable, you might have problems. > > The biggest problem is with the outputs that'll drive the floppy disk bus. > Typically it's an open-collector output terminated to +5V with 150 ohms, so > you have to be able to sink 30 mA or so. So yes, this may be a concern. > (Or you can cheat and tie the lines high with "only" 220 or 300 or 470 ohms - > shouldn't be a big problem as long as there's only one drive on the bus.) > What can be done in this case is to take a page out of IBM's book and terminate with 1K and keep the cable short. Now, they terminated with 1K on BOTH drives, but since it works on one, it works on both. If the cable is quite short, you can get away with a 1k pullup. The limit on package dissipation, can be dealt with by considering that only a very few lines will ever be driven at one time: DSn*, STP*, DIR-IN*, WG*, and DATA*. If you're worried about the dissipation, you can use multiple pins to drive these lines, and spread them around the device so you don't get "hot-spots" on the die. > > Do any CPLD's have "real" open-collector outputs, or can you fake it by > sending the output into tristate mode? (I'm asking this as a guy who's > never designed with CPLD's but does know 74XX00 series logic pretty > well.) I don't think it's an issue either way with exactly one controller > and one floppy drive on the bus. > Some have open-drain outputs, but the tristate ones are as good. Instead of driving a negative going signal into the cable, you drive a buffered ground to the cable, enabled with the data. It's as fast as OC and just as easy. > -- > Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com > Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ > 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 > Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 > > From cem14 at cornell.edu Tue Jul 4 20:17:00 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: References: <001d01bfe559$f9936620$de2c67cb@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au> Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.20000704211700.0117383c@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> At 06:40 PM 7/4/00 +0100, Tony wrote: >> > HP85s with an HPIB interface and a mass storage ROM (IIRC) can support >> > floppy drives. If you have this sort of set-up, it's worth copying any >> > tapes you find onto floppies. My HP85B works perfectly with an HP9121 dual floppy drive. It is also the only mass storage device I can use, since the pinch roller in the tape drive disintegrated and I haven't got down to fixing it; I don't even know what diameter it is supposed to be. My 85B has the following plugins: 82909A 128K RAM module 82937A HPIB interface 82936A ROM drawer with "I/O", "Advanced prgm" and "plotter/printer" ROMS. I am looking for the math and assembler ROMS. 82940A GPIO interface. I have manuals for all of these, as well as the owner's and programming manual for the 85B. I am looking for the two tapes that comprise the software of the HP 3056DL data logging system. This system consisted of one HP 85B and one or two HP 3421 data acquisition and control units. >There are several plugins for this machine. The ones that I've heard >about are : -snip- >Various RAM drawers (I have a 16K one somewhere). These contain DRAM and >a custom HP interface/controller chip, so it's decidedly non-trivial to >make your own! A word of caution: the 16K RAM module intended for the HP85A can damage the HP85B. This is clearly stated in one of the manuals. >RS232 interface(s). There are believed to be 2 of these (DTE and DCE), but >I think the only difference is in the cable. As this is fixed to the >interface module, it makes sense to claim they are 2 different units, but >doubtless it's possible to use the 'wrong' one if that's what you have! I would not be surprised if it was actually the same module with an internal DIP jumper for DTE/DCE selection; several serial interfaces from that era (such as the HP 82164) had that option. >HPIL interface. I want one of those, >Z80 CP/M drawer (Z80+64K DRAM, essentially. Lets the HP85 run normal CP/M >programs). ...and one of these too. I've seen two show up on eBay, but my pockets weren't sufficiently deep. >> Hmmm, that has possibilities.. I am also lead to believe the 85 can >> talk to various pieces of HP test equipment, and that they share a >> common bus. (With the right interface of course). > >If you add an HPIB interface, and possibly the I/O ROM, then you can talk >to just about any HPIB/GPIB/IEEE488 device ever made. Doubtless the HPIL >interface will talk to instruments with that interface (like the HP3421) >but I've never tried it. Mine talks perfectly to both of my 3421's (which have the HP-IB option). I think Joe Rigdon told me that they can talk to floppy drives that support the "amigo" command set. I've also used it to talk to a 59306A relay actuator, a 5328A counter, and a 59313A A/D converter. >> > Oh, one last thing. If you want to take the top off, first pull off >> the >> > eject button from the tape drive. Then undo the screws on the bottom, >> and >> > lift the casing off. If you don't remove the eject button first, >> you'll >> > have problems getting the case to come free. >> >> Ok, thanks for that. Often the worst part of fixing (ptbl tv for Thanks too, Tony. This will be handy when I get to fix that pinch roller. carlos. From mann at pa.dec.com Tue Jul 4 20:21:20 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Archives Message-ID: <200007050121.SAA30125@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> I used to read this mailing list from the archives instead of joining it, but I lost track of it when Kevan Heydon's archive went away earlier this year, and I didn't find a new place to read it until yesterday. Now I've actually joined the list so that doesn't happen again. If the folks who maintain the present archives are reading this, I'd like to point out two problems: - The archive on www.classiccmp.org is extremely incomplete. If no one has time to fix it, perhaps you could put in a link to the much better archive at www.retrobytes.org/classiccmp - The archive at www.retrobytes.org/classiccmp has a minor problem: it doesn't know what month it is. All the messages posted since April are archived under April 2000, including those posted in May, June, and July 2000. Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Tue Jul 4 20:34:54 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <200007050111.SAA02162@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> References: <000d01bfe612$7f6fdae0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000704183209.00cf9100@208.226.86.10> At 06:11 PM 7/4/00 -0700, someone wrote: > > The CPLD offers a number of advantages over FPGA's. They're not the same. > > An FPGA uses a RAM lookup table in to define the function executed by a > > logic cell. CPLD's use EPROM/EEPROM cells to store the logic > configuration. > > Most FPGA's require an external configuration prom of one sort or another, > > which it boots on reset. Not all FPGAs use RAM, infact it is one of the suggested advantages of Xilinx FPGAs but it isn't a requirement. CPLDs generally have simpler configuration blocks (or macrocells, or what ever the manufacturer wants to call them) >Actually it's pretty easy to get an Xylinx FPGA to read a program from a >serial or parallel line, so all you need to do to reprogram is assert reset >and feed in the data correctly. This is true and the ultimate "catweasal" type board would have a nice fat ram loaded FPGA connected to the interface logic and a high speed ram buffer. Probably a programmable clock too. That way you could run anything from an actual WD1793 type chip to an HP logic analyzer just by downloading a different setup. --Chuck From mann at pa.dec.com Tue Jul 4 20:47:17 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Reading disks with Catweasel Message-ID: <200007050147.SAA19052@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> I noticed that someone forwarded one of my early messages about the Catweasel software I was working on to the list. I've made a lot more progress since then, so in case anyone is interested, below are a few more messages giving the latest news. Basically, it's working well, even on 8" disks. My program (cw2dmk) reads disks into a file format that represents decoded FM or MFM data, with the location of ID address marks noted, but no other indication of missing clocks or other odd stuff. This might be useful beyond the two TRS-80 emulators that currently support it, but it isn't the universal format that folks on this list were trying to design a month or two ago. Designing a format like that is an interesting problem. After my experience reading disks with the Catweasel, I'm not sure that simply recording the raw sample data is a good archival format. After my program decodes the FM or MFM data and checks for things like CRC errors and missing/unexpected data address marks, there are a fair number of errors that go away if I do a few retries at resampling the track. (Most disks have none, but they happen often enough to be noticeable when I'm reading a lot of disks.) So an archiver that just blindly sampled each track once without trying to decode it might end up recording data that could not be decoded later. Also, writing a good decoder is a bit of a pain, and some (what appears to me) black magic to reconstruct the data after bit-shifting has occurred. It would be nice to do the decoding once, up front, and archive decoded data. On the other hand, really strangely copy-protected disks from systems with disk controllers that are partly implemented in software might not be decodable using a general-purpose algorithm. Maybe it would be best to *try* to decode the data, do some retries if it can't be decoded, and archive both the result of decoding and the raw samples just for maximum safety.... --Tim ========Message 1======== From: mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 19:47:28 -0700 (PDT) To: trs80@cs.ubc.ca Subject: Announcing cw2dmk: read any TRS-80 floppy with a Catweasel ----- Background: The Catweasel ISA floppy disk controller is an add-in card for the PC ISA bus. It uses specialized hardware, not a standard floppy disk controller chip, and it can be programmed to read and write just about any disk format. Catweasel cards were in short supply for a while, but as of July 2000 they should be available for purchase again. See http://www.jschoenfeld.com/ and http://apd2.tripod.com/catweasl.htm. I've written a free program for the Catweasel called cw2dmk that can read any disk written by a TRS-80, including single-density and copy-protected disks. The disk is saved as a DMK image file, suitable for use in either the xtrs TRS-80 emulator for Unix, or David Keil's TRS-80 emulator for MS-DOS. cw2dmk runs on Linux, MS-DOS, or Windows 95/98. You can download it from http://www.tim-mann.org/trs80resources.html. Source code is included. My program uses some code from Michael Krause's Linux drivers for the Catweasel (which work with Amiga and MS-DOS diskettes). Besides TRS-80 disks, cw2dmk should be able to read any disk written by a WD177x/179x or by a standard PC (NEC765-compatible) disk controller. Currently it's not too useful to have non-TRS-80 disks in DMK format, but perhaps additional tools that work with this format will become available in the future. For example, I'd like to write a program that uses a Catweasel to write a DMK image back to a real floppy disk. This would provide a nice way of archiving disks from many old machines and making physical copies when needed. Another likely future direction for cw2dmk is to be able to write JV1 and JV3 disk images, when the disk being read can be represented in one of those formats. Those are the formats that Jeff Vavasour's and Matthew Reed's TRS-80 emulators need. By the way, I don't get a cut of Catweasel sales. :-) ========Message 2======== From: mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 21:33:59 -0700 (PDT) Newsgroups: comp.sys.tandy, comp.os.cpm Subject: Re: Announcing cw2dmk: read any TRS-80 floppy with a Catweasel ----- Oops. In that announcement, I forgot to say "TRS-80 Model I, III, 4, or 4P". These are the models that are currently supported by the emulators that use DMK format. Disks written by other computers that used the TRS-80 brand name will probably be readable too, but the images aren't currently too useful since there is not yet any software that uses DMK format other than these emulators. I do plan to read some Model II/12 disks for archival purposes when I get my 8" drive plugged in, and I'm also going to take a shot at reading some 3.5" Model 100 disks that someone is mailing me, but I don't have any results to report on that yet. ========Message 3======== From: Gary Shanafelt <...> Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 22:02:21 -0500 To: trs80@cs.ubc.ca Subject: Re: Announcing cw2dmk: read any TRS-80 floppy with a Catweasel ----- Tim, In your last message about the Catweasel board, you mentioned David Keil's emulator using DMK image files while Jeff Vavasour's and Matt Reed's used JV1 and JV3 format files. What's the difference? All the emulators call their files .DSK files; I recently downloaded David's program, set it up with some of the .DSK files from the Vavasour/Reed emulators, and it worked with them without further ado. I thought all these .DSK files were a single standard TRS-80 emulator format, but I guess not? ========Message 4======== From: mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 21:27:01 -0700 (PDT) To: Gary Shanafelt <...> Cc: trs80@cs.ubc.ca Subject: Re: Announcing cw2dmk: read any TRS-80 floppy with a Catweasel ----- The emulators all give the .DSK extension to their files, but they are using several different formats, which I've given the names DMK, JV1, and JV3. Full details are on http://www.tim-mann.org/trs80/dskspec.html, but here is a summary. JV1 can only handle single density disks with directory on track 17. Jeff Vavasour's Model I emulator works only with JV1 images. Jeff's Model III/4 emulator doesn't support JV1 images at all, but all the other major emulators will work with a JV1 image if you give one to them. JV3 can handle normal single and double density disks, but most forms of copy-protected disk are not representable. Almost all of the images on Ira Goldklang's site (www.trs-80.com) are in JV3. All the major emulators except Jeff's Model I emulator will work with JV3 images. Jeff originated this format in his Model III/4 emulator. DMK can handle anything that a TRS-80 disk controller can write to the disk, including all the copy-protected formats. Even protected game disks where the program does a Read Track and looks for specific data in the gaps between sectors can be recorded in DMK format and will run in emulators that support it. Currently only David Keil's emulator and xtrs support this format. David originated the format. Ira now has a small collection of images in DMK format that can't be represented in JV3 format. ========Message 5======== From: mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 16:17:10 -0700 (PDT) To: ... Subject: Early 8" results with Catweasel on LS-DOS disks ----- Thought you might be interested to hear that I tried reading a few 8" disks with a Catweasel last night, using my custom program (cw2dmk). They were mostly TRS-80 Model II LS-DOS disks with an FM track 0 and MFM on the rest of the disk. The FM was easy to read; the MFM required tweaking the thresholds in my program because the bit-shifting effect (that write precompensation is meant to adjust for) varies so much from the outer to inner tracks, and makes a sudden jump backward at track 44 where write precomp was turned on when the disks were written. I found a setting that worked, but it's touchy; a few retries were needed on tracks near 43 and 76. I might try to devise an algorithm that sets the thresholds automatically for each track by doing a histogram and looking for the exact location of the peaks and valleys, or I might try doing something that emulates a phase locked loop in software instead of using fixed thresholds.... The main disks I tried reading were copies of Model II/12 LS-DOS that Lamar Owen and Fred Dolan sent. The disk Fred sent had CRC errors on about half the tracks (usually one error per track), no matter what I did. I'm going to poke a bit more to see if it's a problem with my software or if the disk is really bad. The disks Lamar sent read OK once I got the thresholds right. ========Message 6======== From: mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:30:21 -0700 (PDT) To: ... Subject: Re: Early 8" results with Catweasel on LS-DOS disks ----- An update for those who may be interested: I found a heuristic to make up for insufficient write-precompensation (or for flux transitions that were close together moving farther apart over time). With this added to cw2dmk, I was able to read most of the 8" disks that I have without getting errors, including the one from Fred Dolan that previously showed CRC errors on about half the tracks. Here's the idea. When decoding MFM, the interval between each two successive flux transitions should be either short (2 cycles), medium (3), or long (4). Because of a physical effect, short transitions that come next to medium or long ones tend to spread out into their space. So after I classify a transition, I compute how long it ideally should have been and save the difference between the real and ideal lengths. I then add k times the difference to the next transition before classifying it, where k is a tuning parameter. With k=0, we have the old algorithm. A value of k around 0.5 to 0.8 made the difficult disks readable. Usually the exact value wasn't too critical, but on the really bad disks I had to experiment a bit to find the best setting. I imagine this technique (or something better) is well known in the disk drive industry, but it was a kick to me when I thought of it and it worked so well. I might go back to some 5.25" disks I have that showed CRC errors when read on a normal PC controller, and see if this trick will let me read some of them. Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From richard at idcomm.com Tue Jul 4 21:14:45 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:14 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007050051.RAA17598@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: <002301bfe626$cad0f1e0$0400c0a8@winbook> The truth is, there's quite a bit one could learn from the Catweasel. I'm not particularly interested, however, since the REAL problem is inherently solved with Tim's sample-buffer circuit, and would be completely solved, i.e. write capable with just a bit more hardware and quite a bit of software. The CPLD's are so easy to use and so readily available, I'd say they're as good as off-the-shelf stuff once the code is written and the circuit published. It would be QUITE easlistic to build a minimal FDC in the same PLD with the buffer control/EPP interface circuitry, thereby allowing the circuit by itself to operate the target drive in both read and write mode. This would completely solve the problem of hard-sectored diskettes, by the way. Please see remarks embedded below. ----- Original Message ----- From: Tim Mann To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 6:51 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > Let me interject a few notes about the Catweasel here. Quoting from Tim > Shoppa's original message: > > > 1. The Catweasel uses some custom LSI parts, as far as I can figure out. > > It uses a PLD. The 1996 version, which I have, uses a MACH 211. I'm not > sure what the new 2000 version uses; probably something similar. The PLD > equations aren't released, though, so knowing this doesn't tell you much. > > > My circuit is much more "hackable", anyone with a TTL databook can figure > > out what it does and improve on it. Or you can build one yourself from > > scratch. (Other than the 128K*8 SRAM, all the other parts were literally > > purchased from the local electronics shop. Heck, most of the chips can > > be bought at Radio Shack!) Total cost for the chips in my buffer is > > about $30.00, about half of that in the SRAM chip. > > I sympathize with that, but for those of us who are much better at software > than hardware, something off-the-shelf is a big plus. You can get a Catweasel > for $85 to $95 completely assembled. > Unless it's proven that the Catweasel does everything an expanded version of Tim's sampler/buffer board potentially does, it's not a real solution. > > > 2. The Catweasel uses a proprietary, largely undocumented programming > > interface. My circuitry is entirely open, and I think it's pretty easy > > to program. (My first hack at acquiring data with the new buffer was > > dashed off in about half an hour under QBASIC.) > > You can now get the documentation for the programming interface just by > asking the designer (Jens Schoenfeld). He told me that it isn't secret > anymore. The document is in German, but I could provide a translation > if anyone needs it. (My German isn't that great, but the document is > so simple you can almost read it without knowing any German.) There is > also an open-source Linux driver, and the program I wrote for reading > FM and MFM disks to one of the TRS-80 emulator formats (cw2dmk) is also > open source. > > > 3. The Catweasel requires a bus slot inside a PC-clone. My new buffer uses > > a much more general purpose parallel interface. So you can hook it up > > to a laptop, or even to something that isn't a PC-clone at all. > > That's a real plus; on the other hand, if you do have a PC clone with an > ISA slot, it's more convenient having the board inside the computer than > hanging off the parallel port (especially if you're already using the parallel > port for something else). > > > Those are what I see as advantages over the Catweasel. There are also > > some disadvantages: > > > > 4. You can't just go out and buy my buffer, but you can buy Catweasels > > off the shelf. > > > > 5. My buffer is strictly "read-only" as I use it. I think the Catweasel > > (and Compaticard) both allow writing. > it would be dirt-simple to make it work in the other direction, though the accompanying software will not be so simple. > > Yes, the Catweasel allows writing. I haven't tried this yet, though. > > Another point to note is that the Catweasel samples at 7 or 14 MHz (software > selectable). In reading some old 8" MFM disks, I found that there had > been a lot of bit-shifting over the years (or maybe there was not enough > write precomp applied to begin with), and I had to use an extra heuristic > to make them readable at all. I'm not sure that 4 MHz would have been > a high enough sample rate for these. > I've found over the years that sampling at less than 16x seldom works out for FDC interfaces. 14x isn't much below that, but that could account for the eventual movement of bits. I wouldn't bet on that, however. > The clock used to generate precomp on the majority of the successful FDC designs I perused back in the '80's used 12x the data rate as a bit clock. They would shift an early bit about 166 ns early and a late one 166 ns late. The ones I liked best back then used a presettable (e.g. LS161) counter, always clocked with a free running 6 MHz clock. Qoutput bit 3 (Q3) was tied to the enable, such that when it was LOW, the counter idled, but when it was preset with a value >8, it would count. Terminal count out was the write data output. Early led to a preset of 0x0E, nominal led to a 0x0D, and late got a 0x0C. That made the thing into a clocked eqivalent of a one-shot. Consequently, it's handy to have a 24x clock avalable so you can extract both a 12x and an 8x clock from it. The 8x is for the sample rate, while the 12x is for the write precomp. I don't see an advantage in using the odd frequencies on the Catweasel, but there probably is one. I just don't see it today. > > Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org > Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA > > From mann at pa.dec.com Tue Jul 4 21:45:29 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <002301bfe626$cad0f1e0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <200007050245.TAA19060@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> > The truth is, there's quite a bit one could learn from the Catweasel. I'm > not particularly interested, however, since the REAL problem is inherently > solved with Tim's sample-buffer circuit, and would be completely solved, > i.e. write capable with just a bit more hardware and quite a bit of > software. > Unless it's proven that the Catweasel does everything an expanded version of > Tim's sampler/buffer board potentially does, it's not a real solution. My point was that the Catweasel hardware has identical capabilities to Tim's, plus the write capability that Tim hasn't added yet. I'm not sure what "proof" of this you're looking for. Working software? (Available, though more should be written to handle more formats.) The documentation for the programming interface? (Available.) A look at the schematic to convince yourself the design is correct? (Not available, unfortunately, but I don't really see the need for it.) > I don't see an advantage in using the odd > frequencies on the Catweasel, but there probably is one. I just don't see > it today. The only reason for the odd clock rate is that it let the designer use a cheap and readily available 28.322 MHz crystal (divided by 2 or 4). Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From richard at idcomm.com Tue Jul 4 22:05:29 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000d01bfe612$7f6fdae0$0400c0a8@winbook> <4.3.1.2.20000704183209.00cf9100@208.226.86.10> Message-ID: <003101bfe62d$e0bd91a0$0400c0a8@winbook> Please see embedded remarks below. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Chuck McManis To: Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 7:34 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > At 06:11 PM 7/4/00 -0700, someone wrote: > > > The CPLD offers a number of advantages over FPGA's. They're not the same. > > > An FPGA uses a RAM lookup table in to define the function executed by a > > > logic cell. CPLD's use EPROM/EEPROM cells to store the logic > > configuration. > > > Most FPGA's require an external configuration prom of one sort or another, > > > which it boots on reset. > > Not all FPGAs use RAM, infact it is one of the suggested advantages of > Xilinx FPGAs but it isn't a requirement. CPLDs generally have simpler > configuration blocks (or macrocells, or what ever the manufacturer wants to > call them) > Well, the majority of them are RAM based because they get faster technology out of the RAM-based setups and at lower cost. The real issue is routability. With FPGA's, be they RAM LUT types or antifuse types, it's pretty good if you get 60% utilization of the claimed available resources. It's lower if you're redesigning a pin-locked design or one in which you need to control timing very closely. CPLD's OTOH, are almost always nearly 100% useable because of their architecture. It's noticeably simpler, but that's to its credit. Manufacturers of both make misleading claims, however. A typical Xilinx part has a bunch of logic cells, normally consisting of pairs of 16-bit lookup tables, easily concatenated into a 32-bit table, and, likewise, easily useable as RAM in the later architectures. These things abound in great numbers, but they're hard to interconnect. Making a design fit in the larger arrays, at more than 50% utilization takes weeks, if not months, and would have to be done for every configuration. I agree that you can program them from a serial stream or a port as well as a prom of some sort. I just find it easier to use the prom. A ram would work, too, but why bother if you can do it from a parallel port? I think you'll find the FPGA's a mite more expensive than the CPLD's. I once looked for a small part on Avnet's site and found that only one of the four available packages was under $1k each. COnsequently it's been a long time since I used an FPGA from Xilinx. Their 5200 series is pretty inexpensive, though, but still often over $50 per device. Moreover, DigiKey doesn't carry the full line. > >Actually it's pretty easy to get an Xylinx FPGA to read a program from a > >serial or parallel line, so all you need to do to reprogram is assert reset > >and feed in the data correctly. > > This is true and the ultimate "catweasal" type board would have a nice fat > ram loaded FPGA connected to the interface logic and a high speed ram > buffer. Probably a programmable clock too. That way you could run anything > from an actual WD1793 type chip to an HP logic analyzer just by downloading > a different setup. > Making all the functions come out in the same or at least similar FPGA's on the same pins at the correct timing would be a lot of work. This function is, by comparison, quite simple and, after all, the CPLD's are in-situ-programmable. You could do the same trick, i.e. load them from your parallel port. I submit, howver, that making a design work out in FPGA with its limited routing resources, on a predetermined pinout would be a really big job, i.e. assuming you want to put it the functions in a 179x and a 765, plus the PLL and precomp logic, plus the drive selects, steering logic, I'd say you're looking at a number of man-years unless you are able to get in-house logic diagrams from Western Digital and NEC. Getting a predermined pinout to work in a CPLD isn't always easy either, but a small job like this one is a week's work. > > --Chuck > > > From louiss at gate.net Tue Jul 4 22:10:18 2000 From: louiss at gate.net (Louis Schulman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Catweasel, Tim's Ferret, etc. In-Reply-To: <200007050147.SAA19052@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: <200007050310.XAA94884@shuswap.gate.net> I am another one of the members of this list who is definitely not any kind of a techie, hardware or software. My best hardware effort was replacing a shorted capacitor on a Lisa I/O board. My best software effort was a couple of lines of 6502 Assembler to modify some program (I don't remember the details). I use an old Central Point PC Option board to read and write strange format disks. It can copy virtually anything physically readable by the drives connected. It will copy the strange TRSDOS 2.3 single-density disks, for example, and make working copies. The only format conversion software it comes with is to read and write Mac GCR disks. Otherwise, it creates a raw data image that can be saved. Someone has also written a program that converts its raw data output to Apple II format. The reason I bring this up in this discussion is that the device seems to do exactly what you are all talking about, and it is an extremely simple device. It has one large chip, a trivial amount of additional circuitry, and that's it. It goes between the floppy controller and the drives. Maybe it just provides the buffer you are all talking about, I don't know. In any event, before the wheel is reinvented, if any of you drive mavens would care to examine a PC Option board and its software, I would be glad to lend it out, to serious developers only. BTW, one of the included programs with the device is a track editor, which allows all the usually unseen data to be modified. My understanding is that Central Point was forced to remove this product from the market by lawsuits from software publishers, who alleged that its main purpose was to violate their copyright protection schemes. Just a thought. Louis From cem14 at cornell.edu Tue Jul 4 22:09:51 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: New find: HP 1000 E series In-Reply-To: <200006251905.MAA49694@daemonweed.reanimators.org> References: <3.0.2.32.20000613092456.00f1f040@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> <39468397.1C17C375@cornell.edu> <200006161450.HAA18667@daemonweed.reanimators.org> <394A8291.DBF5C0FC@cornell.edu> <3.0.2.32.20000619000605.006b9ee0@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.20000704230951.011e18e0@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> Frank: Thanks a lot for typing all this. Very interesting reading. >> Is it possible to at least run some tests >> and have it output diagnostics to one of the BACI cards? > >I suspect it depends on what loader ROMs are installed in the >computer. There is a loader ROM that supports booting from >cartridge tape drives in an attached 264X terminal. Ok, so that means that I'll have to unmount the lowest pc board in order to take a look at the ROMS. I had been avoiding that as those two boards are very dirty and I'll have to clean them up. The machine is at work, and cleaning it is a water hose/backyard sort of job; I'll have to transport it home for this; not a nice prospect, because of all the construction work currently going on at Cornell - I can't get my car close to the office, I'll have to carry the beast a good 1/4 mile, uphill :-( . carlos. From cem14 at cornell.edu Tue Jul 4 22:15:58 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: OT?: failure modes of a RAMDAC In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.2.32.20000703231135.011aaf24@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.20000704231558.011e3cfc@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> Tony: At 06:42 PM 7/4/00 +0100, you wrote: >Here's a wild guess that you might not have thought of. > >What about a fluctuating reference voltage to the RAMDAC? That would >affect all of R,G,B at the same time. If the reference is external to the >RAMDAC, maybe it's faulty. Or maybe there's a decoupling capacitor on the >reference line that's gone leaky and is pulling the line down. Sounds like a good possibility. Yes, since the failure affects all colors, it probably originates before any hold/buffer for each color, and that means either the reference or the summing amp (I assume that there is a summing amp? it would need to have a very high bandwidth, though). I'll see if I can make out anything. By the way, today, the symptoms were present for 5-6 hours and then they went away a few minutes ago. carlos. From richard at idcomm.com Tue Jul 4 22:29:54 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007050245.TAA19060@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: <003c01bfe631$5bdf2580$0400c0a8@winbook> No, I'm not even suggesting that the CatWeasel is ver close to what was called for in the earlier discussion regarding an archival format for data normally distributed or contained on FD's. What I was getting at was that, while the CatWeasel seems to work OK for some things, and, in fact, quite a few, it probably doesn't read/write hard sectored disks and it probably doesn't allow minute adjustment sector-by-sector of the data on the diskette in order to make the format and the data fields within it all clock-coherent. It was my suggestion that the device be supported with software to allow not only that data be extracted from the bitwise oversampled data recorded as in Tim's buffer, but also that software be generated to permit the data to be reduced, essentially, to just the data in the data fields with some set of information (which was TBD when I last looked) implying the nature of the format in which it was recorded. Further, it was to be able to write the data into any known format, including known formats not supported by the controller available to the user. My suggestion was that a good test would be to write an Apple][ diskette using a PDP-8. I've also suggested that a "perhaps even better" approach might be to generate FDC code for the Scenix SX to do the job of several different and increasingly scarce FDC chips. This would easily support the function I was going on about earlier. It's easy, of course, to wachs poetic about what things could or should be. I've got a first-attempt at an EPP interfaced board down on the shelf in the basement. It may, someday, have the abilities I've suggested, but I'm not interested in making a large investment in time until I have convinced myself that when the hardware's done, there will be a point in having built it. Without adequate support software to interpret and regenerate the bitstream recorded from a floppy drive, I'm not sure the hardware's worth building. I did want to demonstrate interchangeability between 5-1;4" diskettes written on my Apple-][ and my Ampro, for which I have the needed hardware (if I can find my Apple . . .). I'm quite certain that will work, though I don't know it's needed. OTOH, there are diskettes which are no longer available or for which drives are such a maintenance headache it would be easier to handle them with a different drive type, except the system doesn't support them. That's where I was headed. The Catweasel may be a good model to keep in mind, but the comment about bits moving around over time does give me pause. Have a look at my embedded remarks below, plz. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tim Mann To: Cc: Richard Erlacher Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 8:45 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > The truth is, there's quite a bit one could learn from the Catweasel. I'm > > not particularly interested, however, since the REAL problem is inherently > > solved with Tim's sample-buffer circuit, and would be completely solved, > > i.e. write capable with just a bit more hardware and quite a bit of > > software. > > > Unless it's proven that the Catweasel does everything an expanded version of > > Tim's sampler/buffer board potentially does, it's not a real solution. > I simply mean that the Catweasel and Tim's buffer/sampler board are two shots at two different targets. There's little point in comparing them unless the overlap more than they appear to do in the writing I've seen up to now. > > My point was that the Catweasel hardware has identical capabilities to > Tim's, plus the write capability that Tim hasn't added yet. I'm not sure > what "proof" of this you're looking for. Working software? (Available, > though more should be written to handle more formats.) The documentation > for the programming interface? (Available.) A look at the schematic > to convince yourself the design is correct? (Not available, unfortunately, > but I don't really see the need for it.) > Perhaps it has the capability, but as I said, it's after a different end. We're not trying to replace FDC's here, but rather simply want to read, save, and rewrite formats foreign to our systems with as little pain as possible. > > > I don't see an advantage in using the odd > > frequencies on the Catweasel, but there probably is one. I just don't see > > it today. > > The only reason for the odd clock rate is that it let the designer use > a cheap and readily available 28.322 MHz crystal (divided by 2 or 4). > I guess that's as good a reason as any. 48 MHz oscillators are cheap and available almost everywhere. Maybe those would serve in a similar device. > > Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org > Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA > > From aclark at envirolink.org Tue Jul 4 22:36:22 2000 From: aclark at envirolink.org (Arthur Clark) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: TRS items taken - Re: newbie intro In-Reply-To: <39624096.18036.810BBAE9@localhost> References: <4.3.2.7.0.20000704122551.00d02340@envirolink.org> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.0.20000704232642.00c87cf0@envirolink.org> A person in my state has expressed willingness to come to my home and pick up the TRS items. Since such an arrangement would relieve me of the time demands of packing and shipping the items, I have given that person first chance to get all of it. Once he has looked at it, I will repost to the ClassicCmp mailing list regarding what is still available. Thanks for your interest. Arthur Clark From jpero at sympatico.ca Tue Jul 4 18:56:27 2000 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero@sympatico.ca) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: OT?: failure modes of a RAMDAC In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.20000704231558.011e3cfc@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> References: Message-ID: <200007050358.XAA00432@smtp13.bellglobal.com> > Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 23:15:58 -0400 > From: Carlos Murillo > Subject: Re: OT?: failure modes of a RAMDAC > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Reply-to: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Tony: > Snip! > Sounds like a good possibility. Yes, since the failure affects all > colors, it probably originates before any hold/buffer for each color, > and that means either the reference or the summing amp (I assume that > there is a summing amp? it would need to have a very high bandwidth, > though). I'll see if I can make out anything. By the way, today, > the symptoms were present for 5-6 hours and then they went away a few > minutes ago. Hi, Do you have electronics tools and a very strong magnifying glass? Look carefully on the RAMDAC pins especially power pins for solder quality. Measure for voltages and monitor it with oscilloscope for ripples on both -.3.3V (A10) regulator and the little 8pin SMD regulator IC, this little one feeds directly to RAMDAC; (LM87L05ACM pin 1 at A2) (!!). First try these two things before pulling out the shotgun; Can't hurt to brush off the dust too and polish the PCI contacts on that millennium video card with piece of torn off paper. How did I know? That right, I've have one for bench testing motherboards and I have seen another one that come up blank and no beeps due to dirt 'n dust on chips and PCI contacts on that card itself. Matrox cards very nice and speedy, IMHO. Wizard > > carlos. From jpero at sympatico.ca Tue Jul 4 19:08:15 2000 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero@sympatico.ca) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Compaq SLT series power supply brick wanted. In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.20000704231558.011e3cfc@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> References: Message-ID: <200007050409.AAA02882@smtp13.bellglobal.com> Hi, I need a SLT series power brick model no: 2687 or any suitable SLT PSU for 286 and 386s/20 models. I'm still battling with this broken 2687 psu and no success at getting it to work again. Thanks! Wizard From donm at cts.com Tue Jul 4 23:26:57 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Catweasel, Tim's Ferret, etc. In-Reply-To: <200007050310.XAA94884@shuswap.gate.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Jul 2000, Louis Schulman wrote: > I am another one of the members of this list who is > definitely not any kind of a techie, hardware or software. > My best hardware effort was replacing a shorted capacitor > on a Lisa I/O board. My best software effort was a couple > of lines of 6502 Assembler to modify some program (I don't > remember the details). > > I use an old Central Point PC Option board to read and > write strange format disks. It can copy virtually anything > physically readable by the drives connected. It will copy > the strange TRSDOS 2.3 single-density disks, for example, > and make working copies. > > The only format conversion software it comes with is to > read and write Mac GCR disks. Otherwise, it creates a raw > data image that can be saved. Someone has also written a > program that converts its raw data output to Apple II > format. > > The reason I bring this up in this discussion is that the > device seems to do exactly what you are all talking about, > and it is an extremely simple device. It has one large > chip, a trivial amount of additional circuitry, and that's > it. It goes between the floppy controller and the drives. > Maybe it just provides the buffer you are all talking > about, I don't know. > > In any event, before the wheel is reinvented, if any of you > drive mavens would care to examine a PC Option board and > its software, I would be glad to lend it out, to serious > developers only. > > BTW, one of the included programs with the device is a > track editor, which allows all the usually unseen data to > be modified. My understanding is that Central Point was > forced to remove this product from the market by lawsuits > from software publishers, who alleged that its main purpose > was to violate their copyright protection schemes. That is always a possibility, Louis, though I never heard that expressed previously. I always figured that it was just another one of those useful things that got swallowed up by Symantec - never to see the light of day again. - don > Just a thought. > > Louis > > From mann at pa.dec.com Tue Jul 4 23:46:27 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <003c01bfe631$5bdf2580$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <200007050446.VAA08426@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> > What I was getting at was that, > while the CatWeasel seems to work OK for some things, and, in fact, quite a > few, it probably doesn't read/write hard sectored disks On reading, the Catweasel has a mode where the high order bit of each sample byte gives the state of the index/sector hole sensor. This should be great for reading hard sectored disks. On writing, you have to write a whole track at a time, but it should work OK to compute where the sector holes ought to be, construct a track of the right length, and write it out starting at the index hole. > and it probably > doesn't allow minute adjustment sector-by-sector of the data on the diskette > in order to make the format and the data fields within it all > clock-coherent. I don't see why not, but maybe I don't understand this point. Maybe you're saying that 14.161 MHz isn't a high enough sample rate...? That seems unlikely to me. > It was my suggestion that the device be supported with > software to allow not only that data be extracted from the bitwise > oversampled data recorded as in Tim's buffer, but also that software be > generated to permit the data to be reduced, essentially, to just the data in > the data fields with some set of information (which was TBD when I last > looked) implying the nature of the format in which it was recorded. > Further, it was to be able to write the data into any known format, > including known formats not supported by the controller available to the > user. This sounds great. My suggestion is that the next step should be to work on defining the necessary data formats and writing the software, using the Catweasel (or Tim's board, for that matter) as the hardware base. It doesn't seem necessary to get bogged down in designing more hardware first. > The Catweasel may be a good model to keep in mind, but the comment about > bits moving around over time does give me pause. That comment had nothing to do with the Catweasel specifically. What I've observed is that when reading old 8" disks, some look as though they were written with way too little write-precompensation. I was speculating that there was enough precomp initially, but that the bits have moved over time. I might have been completely wrong about that; maybe there was not enough precomp initially, but the original data separator circuits were good enough to read the disks anyway. In any case, you'd see the same thing with Tim's board or any sampling-based hardware. > I simply mean that the Catweasel and Tim's buffer/sampler board are two > shots at two different targets. There's little point in comparing them > unless the overlap more than they appear to do in the writing I've seen up > to now. They are exactly the same *hardware* approach, except that the Catweasel has an ISA interface and Tim's has a parallel port interface. The *software* that comes with the Catweasel is not the software you're proposing, but that software hasn't been written yet for Tim's board either. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we can make duck soup from it even if the person who raised it was more interested in duck eggs. Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Wed Jul 5 07:36:17 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000705083617.2020016b@trailing-edge.com> >> My circuit is much more "hackable", anyone with a TTL databook can figure >> out what it does and improve on it. Or you can build one yourself from >> scratch. (Other than the 128K*8 SRAM, all the other parts were literally >> purchased from the local electronics shop. Heck, most of the chips can >> be bought at Radio Shack!) Total cost for the chips in my buffer is >> about $30.00, about half of that in the SRAM chip. >I sympathize with that, but for those of us who are much better at software >than hardware, something off-the-shelf is a big plus. OTOH, something I can put together on a Sunday afternoon with parts I bought at Radio Shack is an even bigger plus for me :-). It's not like my buffer uses any complex electronics. It's all perfectly- standard TTL parts and a SRAM chip, and it's currently residing on a pretty randomly wired solderless breadboard so you don't need any fancy construction techniques. Except for the capacity of the SRAM chip, this is all quarter- century-old technology. As Chuck pointed out, maybe the fact that this is quarter-century-old technology put together with quarter-century-old construction and design techniques makes it less accessible to some of the younger members of this list. Maybe the way to make it more accessible to them is to put the circuitry on a CPLD, I dunno, I think it's fine as it is. I suppose there *are* folks who might be interested in using such a device who don't know which end of a soldering iron to pick up, but a very valid point is that I built this without even touching a soldering iron! And the fact that I built it without even drawing a schematic first would tend to implicate the design as being on the naively simplistic side, too :-). (I still gotta draw that schematic up for you guys...) >Another point to note is that the Catweasel samples at 7 or 14 MHz (software >selectable). In reading some old 8" MFM disks, I found that there had >been a lot of bit-shifting over the years (or maybe there was not enough >write precomp applied to begin with) I will admit, MFM *does* require at least twice the timing resolution of FM. I once got in a small argument with some other members of this list about AC circuit design of MFM vs FM data recovery circuits. IIRC, they were insisting that MFM did come "for free" if you had the frequency response necessary for FM at half the data rate. My point was that it wasn't the max pulse frequency which made life difficult, it was the phase response (finding where the pulse occured in the window) that was the tough point. >, and I had to use an extra heuristic >to make them readable at all. I'm not sure that 4 MHz would have been >a high enough sample rate for these. Yeah, well, with my circuit if you don't like the sample rate, you buy a different off-the-shelf oscillator in a can and plug in. If you now need more buffer RAM, you plug in a second RAM chip and wire it up. That's IMHO the beauty, but maybe a software-only hacker doesn't see that. Tim. From rigdonj at intellistar.net Wed Jul 5 08:18:18 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <200007041708.KAA26939@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> References: <001d01bfe559$f9936620$de2c67cb@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000705081818.3a77e76e@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 10:08 AM 7/4/00 -0700, Eric wrote: >> HP85s with an HPIB interface and a mass storage ROM (IIRC) can support >> floppy drives. If you have this sort of set-up, it's worth copying any >> tapes you find onto floppies. > >On a related note. I have several machines with HPIB/GPIB/IEEE-??? >type interfaces, and occasionally see disk drives with the same interface. I know HP and the Commodore Pets both used that interface. So does my Tektronix 4051. I don't know if anyone else used it. >Is the protocol such that one size fits all? Definitely not! HP had at least three protocalls that I know of (Amigo, CS-80 and SS-80). Is there a good HPIB reference >available that someone could recommend? There are several good HP-IB command references around, I have ones from both Tektronix and HP. The problem is that most HP-IB devices including disk drives rely on Device Dependent Commands and not the normal low level HP-IB commands. I haven't had much luck finding documentation on those but one of the other list members has been working on reverse engineering some of the HP disk drives and I think he has discovered and documented some of the DDCs. Of course, that needs to be done for every protocall. Could a PC with a GPIB card act >as a file server, or is there some host/slave dichotomy that prevents such >things? You can use a PC with a HP-IB to operate HP-IB disk drives under some circumstances. HP used to sell a kit that I THINK they called a Command Library (PN 82500 ?) that included a HP-IB card and software that allowed you to use some of their HP-IB tape drives and disk drives on a PC. Again the biggest problem to a DIY approach is the lack of knowledge about the DDCs. Joe > >Eric > From allisonp at world.std.com Wed Jul 5 07:59:26 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp@world.std.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000705083617.2020016b@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: > As Chuck pointed out, maybe the fact that this is quarter-century-old > technology put together with quarter-century-old construction and design > techniques makes it less accessible to some of the younger members > of this list. Maybe the way to make it more accessible to them is to put > the circuitry on a CPLD, I dunno, I think it's fine as it is. It's compatable with my 500ft deep junkbox. Likely if I built it the parts would be 25 years old too. ;) > tend to implicate the design as being on the naively simplistic side, too :-). Oh, it doesn't bust, rust or collect dust then. > I will admit, MFM *does* require at least twice the timing resolution of FM. > I once got in a small argument with some other members of this list about > AC circuit design of MFM vs FM data recovery circuits. IIRC, they were > insisting that MFM did come "for free" if you had the frequency response > necessary for FM at half the data rate. My point was that it > wasn't the max pulse frequency which made life difficult, it was the phase > response (finding where the pulse occured in the window) that was the tough > point. Also since precomp ranges from .0625uS to as long as .375uS the ability to slice a bit finer is a desireable thing. Allison From steverob at hotoffice.com Wed Jul 5 09:24:50 2000 From: steverob at hotoffice.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Great Finds Message-ID: Hey gang, With some help from Joe Rigdon, I found some really cool stuff this weekend. Located two complete HP 9000/832 minicomputers. After tinkering around for a few hours, I found one of them has a bad CPU and 3 of the 8 (total between two machines) hard drives had failed. So, between them, I managed to build a complete working system with some spares left over. What kind of tapes does the built-in drive use? The find-of-the-day however, was a HP 7980XC 9-track tape drive. Found this beauty in a dumpster at one of the junk dealers. It's god a few minor scratches on the front cover but, otherwise is in extremely good condition. The total asking price 5$. Anyone got spare DOCs for it? I hooked the tape drive up to one of the 832s but, just can't get it to work. Whenever I try to cpio or fbackup to the tape, the drive will try to work but, eventually gives a write error. The same thing happens with my other tape drive (HP7980) which I know is good. So, I suspect the problem is with the drivers, or configuration, or possibly me :-) If anyone can give pointers as to how to make it work, I'd sure appreciate it. See Ya, Steve Robertson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000705/b2e381ab/attachment.html From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Wed Jul 5 09:44:51 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Great Finds Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF04@TEGNTSERVER> All I can find out about this drive is that it's a streaming unit. Is this another repackaged Cipher F880 Microstreamer? If so, then yes I just downloaded the complete Volume 1 docs on Saturday; they're in both .TIFF and .PDF format. If the HP is a different beast, well, good luck... somebody's likely got the docs. -dq -----Original Message----- From: Steve Robertson [mailto:steverob@hotoffice.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 10:25 AM To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Subject: Great Finds Hey gang, With some help from Joe Rigdon, I found some really cool stuff this weekend. Located two complete HP 9000/832 minicomputers. After tinkering around for a few hours, I found one of them has a bad CPU and 3 of the 8 (total between two machines) hard drives had failed. So, between them, I managed to build a complete working system with some spares left over. What kind of tapes does the built-in drive use? The find-of-the-day however, was a HP 7980XC 9-track tape drive. Found this beauty in a dumpster at one of the junk dealers. It's god a few minor scratches on the front cover but, otherwise is in extremely good condition. The total asking price 5$. Anyone got spare DOCs for it? I hooked the tape drive up to one of the 832s but, just can't get it to work. Whenever I try to cpio or fbackup to the tape, the drive will try to work but, eventually gives a write error. The same thing happens with my other tape drive (HP7980) which I know is good. So, I suspect the problem is with the drivers, or configuration, or possibly me :-) If anyone can give pointers as to how to make it work, I'd sure appreciate it. See Ya, Steve Robertson From LFessen106 at aol.com Wed Jul 5 10:53:46 2000 From: LFessen106 at aol.com (LFessen106@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Looking for.... Message-ID: <200007051454.JAA42703@opal.tseinc.com> can anyone tell me where I might be able to find 1(one) ADM 5 or ADM 3 text terminal? Always wanted one, but they're hard to find and I would rather not pay the exorbident prices on ebay for one. Also, has anyone here had any luck hooking one of them up to a unix/linux box? From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Wed Jul 5 10:10:55 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff Message-ID: <20000705151055.7327.qmail@web611.mail.yahoo.com> --- Joe wrote: > At 10:08 AM 7/4/00 -0700, Eric wrote: > >On a related note. I have several machines with HPIB/GPIB/IEEE-??? > >type interfaces, and occasionally see disk drives with the same interface. > > I know HP and the Commodore Pets both used that interface. So does my > Tektronix 4051. I don't know if anyone else used it. The DEC MINC (a PDP-11 dressed up for Laboratory use) typically came with an IBV11 card - Qbus GPIB. I have one but I've never programmed anything for it. Presumably, the MINC manuals have more than enough info to get a working start under RT-11. -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites. http://invites.yahoo.com/ From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 10:22:49 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007050446.VAA08426@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: <001101bfe694$e1e08800$0400c0a8@winbook> On most of your points, I agree. There's no reason to assume the Catweasel won't work for what's wanted here, and it's possible I'm overemphasizing the harmonic series available with the "right" crystal frequency, but the very fact that you've seen bit shift over time in dealing with the same files suggests something's out of whack. The fact is that, while a crystal frequency of a more or less precise harmonic of the data has a good chance of "doing it" correctly the off-harmonic timebase the Catweasel uses has no chance at all of generating a correctly timed output under any circumstances. I don't know how important this is. It's certainly not an issue for recovering the data. There's no reason it can't read diskettes and it's software interpret the sample data correctly, but it can't, under any circumstances generate the correct timing on writes. This isn't due to the write precompensation, with which it probably doesn't deal at all, but certainly could do closely enough, depending on the drives, etc, but because of the frame-slip inherent in alignment of a bitstream sampled at one rate but having to be resolved to another. What concerns me is that in the Catweasel case, the data is sampled at a rate that allows correct recovery of the data, but there's no timebase for generating a correctly timed output bitstream. It does have to be "close enough" though, since software can correct the stream to within ~70 ns per bit. Crystal oscillators are specified to 100 ppm for commercial applications. With that level of accuracy, a "slip" won't occur very often, and even more seldom close together. OTOH, when the sample rate is at 14x the data rate, a bit will slip into the adjacent window every 128 bits, worst case or 255 on the average, as compared with a crystal that's at a harmonic of the data rate, to within 100 ppm, which will slip every 2e8 bits on the average. Consequently, it's reasonable to believe that there's some software compensation for this inherent asynchronism. Unfortunately, that suggests that there is accomodation in the software for this built in problem. Otherwise, I'd suggest simply changing the oscillator to 16 MHz to see whether that mitigates the bit shift you've observed. please see embedded comments below Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tim Mann To: Cc: Richard Erlacher Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2000 10:46 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > What I was getting at was that, > > while the CatWeasel seems to work OK for some things, and, in fact, quite a > > few, it probably doesn't read/write hard sectored disks > > On reading, the Catweasel has a mode where the high order bit of each > sample byte gives the state of the index/sector hole sensor. This should > be great for reading hard sectored disks. On writing, you have to write > a whole track at a time, but it should work OK to compute where the sector > holes ought to be, construct a track of the right length, and write it > out starting at the index hole. > You'd have to allow for mechanical variations here so the resulting diskette would have proper timing with respect to the sector hole, but that could, in fact, be achievable. I was thinking it might be a good application for a ninth bit of memory in the buffer so you can adjust the data stream to fit the occurrence of index/sector > > > and it probably > > doesn't allow minute adjustment sector-by-sector of the data on the diskette > > in order to make the format and the data fields within it all > > clock-coherent. > > I don't see why not, but maybe I don't understand this point. Maybe you're > saying that 14.161 MHz isn't a high enough sample rate...? That seems > unlikely to me. > It's absolutely adequate for sampling. I'm not sure it's corect for writing, however. > > > It was my suggestion that the device be supported with > > software to allow not only that data be extracted from the bitwise > > oversampled data recorded as in Tim's buffer, but also that software be > > generated to permit the data to be reduced, essentially, to just the data in > > the data fields with some set of information (which was TBD when I last > > looked) implying the nature of the format in which it was recorded. > > Further, it was to be able to write the data into any known format, > > including known formats not supported by the controller available to the > > user. > > This sounds great. My suggestion is that the next step should be to work > on defining the necessary data formats and writing the software, using > the Catweasel (or Tim's board, for that matter) as the hardware base. > It doesn't seem necessary to get bogged down in designing more hardware > first. > Much of that work has already been done, I hope. There was considerable discussion about it a couple of months back. > It would be nice, however, to know, not just guess, that the oscillator frequency is correct and not just adequate, for both reading and writing. > > > The Catweasel may be a good model to keep in mind, but the comment about > > bits moving around over time does give me pause. > > That comment had nothing to do with the Catweasel specifically. What > I've observed is that when reading old 8" disks, some look as though they > were written with way too little write-precompensation. I was speculating > that there was enough precomp initially, but that the bits have moved > over time. I might have been completely wrong about that; maybe there > was not enough precomp initially, but the original data separator circuits > were good enough to read the disks anyway. In any case, you'd see the > same thing with Tim's board or any sampling-based hardware. > It's precisely the write precomp and the resulting bit-shift, or, rather, lack of it, that concerns me here. In theory, 14 MHz should be adquate for sampling analog data, the highest frequency component of which is 7 MHz. However, the data that's sampled passes through shaping circuits which mask the actual events at the media/head boundary. > > > I simply mean that the Catweasel and Tim's buffer/sampler board are two > > shots at two different targets. There's little point in comparing them > > unless the overlap more than they appear to do in the writing I've seen up > > to now. > > They are exactly the same *hardware* approach, except that the Catweasel > has an ISA interface and Tim's has a parallel port interface. The *software* > that comes with the Catweasel is not the software you're proposing, but > that software hasn't been written yet for Tim's board either. If it looks > like a duck and quacks like a duck, we can make duck soup from it even > if the person who raised it was more interested in duck eggs. > Clearly, since the Catweasel has an ISA interface, it will work for those who have a free ISA slot, but it's of limited usefulness to folks who don't use ISA. Further, the two approaches, though similar, are not identical, due to the asynchronism between nominal oscillators. Tim was taking into consideration the fact that many folks in this forum don't use ISA-compatible computers, yet would like to be able to read/write foreign diskettes. Of those, perhaps 10% want to build hardware. If the Catweasel offers a solution, I'm all for using it, but there are unknowns, and a significant share of the ones who do build hardware do it so they'll KNOW what they've got, and won't have to guess what it does. A trial run with a 16 MHz oscillator in place of the 14 MHz might be a solution, though it might require a close look at the code to defeat whatever is done to adjust for the asynchronism of the rates, if necessary. It may turn out that it works just fine with that alteration. Building an ISA port isn't terribly complicated, but it's bit more of a job than making/using a parallel port. Since the job of hooking up a CPLD and a RAM is pretty minor and almost anyone who's paying attention, even those who have never built hardware before, can hand-wire one in a couple of hours and program the CPLD with a total investment of less than $20, (mitigating the risk, I'd say) I don't think one should overlook that aspect. It's likely lots of code will have to be written either way. > > Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org > Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA > > From pechter at pechter.dyndns.org Wed Jul 5 10:39:28 2000 From: pechter at pechter.dyndns.org (Bill Pechter) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: HP Tape drive In-Reply-To: from Steve Robertson at "Jul 5, 2000 10:24:50 am" Message-ID: <200007051539.LAA09179@bg-tc-ppp508.monmouth.com> > Hey gang, > > With some help from Joe Rigdon, I found some really cool stuff this weekend. > > What kind of tapes does the built-in drive use? > > The find-of-the-day however, was a HP 7980XC 9-track tape drive. Found this > beauty in a dumpster at one of the junk dealers. It's god a few minor > scratches on the front cover but, otherwise is in extremely good condition. > The total asking price 5$. Anyone got spare DOCs for it? > Great drive (If it's the same as the one they OEM'd to Pyramid). 1600/6250 bpi. It's fast and reliable. Is it the SCSI, Pertec or other version. > > See Ya, > Steve Robertson --Bill -- bpechter@monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today? | Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow? | BSD: Are you guys coming, or what? From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 10:36:40 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000705083617.2020016b@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <001701bfe696$d0e95a20$0400c0a8@winbook> Quite so, but please see my embedded comments below. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 6:36 AM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > >> My circuit is much more "hackable", anyone with a TTL databook can figure > >> out what it does and improve on it. Or you can build one yourself from > >> scratch. (Other than the 128K*8 SRAM, all the other parts were literally > >> purchased from the local electronics shop. Heck, most of the chips can > >> be bought at Radio Shack!) Total cost for the chips in my buffer is > >> about $30.00, about half of that in the SRAM chip. > > >I sympathize with that, but for those of us who are much better at software > >than hardware, something off-the-shelf is a big plus. > The choice appears to be between something that may work and something that will, though I believe the sample rate ought to be increased. > > OTOH, something I can put together on a Sunday afternoon with parts I bought > at Radio Shack is an even bigger plus for me :-). > Buying parts at Radio Shack is risky. I once bought a significant number of parts from them only to find that not one of them was in spec. I've not bought any components from them since, and that was in '77. They do have some interesting tools, but they immediately discontinue them if they're any good. > > It's not like my buffer uses any complex electronics. It's all perfectly- > standard TTL parts and a SRAM chip, and it's currently residing on a pretty > randomly wired solderless breadboard so you don't need any fancy construction > techniques. Except for the capacity of the SRAM chip, this is all quarter- > century-old technology. > > As Chuck pointed out, maybe the fact that this is quarter-century-old > technology put together with quarter-century-old construction and design > techniques makes it less accessible to some of the younger members > of this list. Maybe the way to make it more accessible to them is to put > the circuitry on a CPLD, I dunno, I think it's fine as it is. > I believe that the CPLD makes it accessible to those who otherwise might be disinclined to build any hardware. The advantage is that the file associated with the definition of the hardware is part of the package. The programming cable is, likewise. The CPLD makes using components known to be working and already in the user's possession, on an old motherboard or video card, say, workable. > > I suppose there *are* folks who might be interested in using such a device > who don't know which end of a soldering iron to pick up, but a very valid > point is that I built this without even touching a soldering iron! > > And the fact that I built it without even drawing a schematic first would > tend to implicate the design as being on the naively simplistic side, too :-). > (I still gotta draw that schematic up for you guys...) > > >Another point to note is that the Catweasel samples at 7 or 14 MHz (software > >selectable). In reading some old 8" MFM disks, I found that there had > >been a lot of bit-shifting over the years (or maybe there was not enough > >write precomp applied to begin with) > > I will admit, MFM *does* require at least twice the timing resolution of FM. > I once got in a small argument with some other members of this list about > AC circuit design of MFM vs FM data recovery circuits. IIRC, they were > insisting that MFM did come "for free" if you had the frequency response > necessary for FM at half the data rate. My point was that it > wasn't the max pulse frequency which made life difficult, it was the phase > response (finding where the pulse occured in the window) that was the tough > point. > I think you'll need to go faster than that, else missing an edge will create more phase shift than you can trivially resolve. > > >, and I had to use an extra heuristic > >to make them readable at all. I'm not sure that 4 MHz would have been > >a high enough sample rate for these. > If you want to use a single oscillator and still write with typical precomp, you'll have to use 24 MHz and divide it down into 6 and 8 MHz. > > Yeah, well, with my circuit if you don't like the sample rate, you buy > a different off-the-shelf oscillator in a can and plug in. If you > now need more buffer RAM, you plug in a second RAM chip and wire it up. > That's IMHO the beauty, but maybe a software-only hacker doesn't see that. > Agreed, though the software will have to be adjusted accordingly. There will have to be a fair amount of work to deal with the write side of the problem. (Is that a right-brain activity?) > > Tim. > > From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 10:39:44 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <002701bfe697$3ecf81e0$0400c0a8@winbook> True, but if he's only reading, the present frequency is plenty. The assumption is that the write precomp on the already-written media is sufficient. If it's not the data might never have been readable. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 6:59 AM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > I will admit, MFM *does* require at least twice the timing resolution of FM. > > I once got in a small argument with some other members of this list about > > AC circuit design of MFM vs FM data recovery circuits. IIRC, they were > > insisting that MFM did come "for free" if you had the frequency response > > necessary for FM at half the data rate. My point was that it > > wasn't the max pulse frequency which made life difficult, it was the phase > > response (finding where the pulse occured in the window) that was the tough > > point. > > Also since precomp ranges from .0625uS to as long as .375uS the ability > to slice a bit finer is a desireable thing. > > Allison > > > From John.Honniball at uwe.ac.uk Wed Jul 5 10:53:01 2000 From: John.Honniball at uwe.ac.uk (John Honniball) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <002701bfe697$3ecf81e0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: Just a thought about the CPLD vs. TTL discussion: Would it be possible to design the device such that it could be built EITHER in TTL chips OR as a CPLD? With the same interface to the host computer and software? If it could, then those who prefer CPLDs could use one, and those who'd rather rummage about in the "500ft" junk box can do that. Or am I missing an fundamental difference here? -- John Honniball Email: John.Honniball@uwe.ac.uk University of the West of England From steverob at hotoffice.com Wed Jul 5 10:59:41 2000 From: steverob at hotoffice.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: HP Tape drive Message-ID: > > Great drive (If it's the same as the one they OEM'd to Pyramid). > 1600/6250 bpi. > > It's fast and reliable. Is it the SCSI, Pertec or other version. > HPIB... I've been looking for documentation on the web but, haven't found any :-( Steve Robertson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000705/c59a68b0/attachment.html From korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Jul 5 11:26:32 2000 From: korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000705083617.2020016b@trailing-edge.com> from "CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com" at "Jul 5, 2000 08:36:17 am" Message-ID: <200007051626.JAA11484@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> > As Chuck pointed out, maybe the fact that this is quarter-century-old > technology put together with quarter-century-old construction and design > techniques makes it less accessible to some of the younger members > of this list. Maybe the way to make it more accessible to them is to put > the circuitry on a CPLD, I dunno, I think it's fine as it is. I don't think that's the reason to put it in a CPLD. The reason to put it into a CPLD is to make the circuitry modifiable on the fly. Right now the design puts all of the complexity on the software side. The CPLD gives the possibility of moving some of that into the hardware side. It also gives the possibility of using different methods to read different formats, while retaining the possibility of reading it raw. There also happen to be some of us that prefer reading schematics to reading code. :) Eric From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 11:40:57 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <005701bfe69f$cde097e0$0400c0a8@winbook> You've raised a valid point, but it hinges on the amount of effort involved, not on the details of the hardware. If you use a 44-pin CPLD programmable in-circuit by means of a parallel cable, you have to hook up the CPLD, which means 44 wires, and you have to hook up the RAM, but that's part of the 44 wires, AND you have to hook up the host interface, but that's part of the 44 wires, and you have to hook up a few of the lines to the FDD, but that's part of the 44 wires. So, aside from power and ground, you have about a dozen wires to the parallel port, a half dozen to the FDD, and two dozen to the RAM, of which,say 8 are shared with the host adapter port. Those are two levels, so that's an additional 8 wires. (now, I'm just guessing here) Given that you have the same logic in TTL SSI and MSI parts, e.g. counters, latches, gates, I'd say you'll have the same connections to the "outside" and at least twice as many for the inside. What's more, the required power will be considerably greater. If you provide sufficient capacitors on the board, the CMOS CPLD can probably run from the power it draws from the two outside sources, in fact probably from the pullup resistors on the FDD cable. The TTL won't do that. If you go with HCMOS that might work with the same source of power, but now you won't be able to dig them out of the old parts bin. If the CPLD is designed using the FREE software on the XILINX website, the schematic will be drawn in primitives, since the CPLD libraries don't contain the same features as the FPGA libraries. That will limit the ability to use the same schematic. With a little effort, the same logic could be implemented in both technologies, however. The SSI/MSI board will be considerably larger, though. A board for the CPLD version would be barely large enough to support the connectors. I guess you'll have to weigh the alternatives yourself. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: John Honniball To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 9:53 AM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > Just a thought about the CPLD vs. TTL discussion: Would it > be possible to design the device such that it could be > built EITHER in TTL chips OR as a CPLD? With the same > interface to the host computer and software? If it could, > then those who prefer CPLDs could use one, and those who'd > rather rummage about in the "500ft" junk box can do that. > > Or am I missing an fundamental difference here? > > -- > John Honniball > Email: John.Honniball@uwe.ac.uk > University of the West of England > > From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 11:44:18 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007051626.JAA11484@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <005b01bfe6a0$46307580$0400c0a8@winbook> What the CPLD allows is incorporation of rudimentary FDC functions into the CPLD so the device doesn't have to be connected in parallel with an external drive cable. That simplifies packaging and construction, and ensures that the sampler board won't disturb the system's floppy subsystem. The circuit wouldn't be modifiable on the fly, however, unless you consider the multiple minutes of reprogramming time and the associated physical effort "on the fly." So far, I've seen no reason to make this baby reconfigurable. What do you have in mind? Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric J. Korpela To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 10:26 AM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > As Chuck pointed out, maybe the fact that this is quarter-century-old > > technology put together with quarter-century-old construction and design > > techniques makes it less accessible to some of the younger members > > of this list. Maybe the way to make it more accessible to them is to put > > the circuitry on a CPLD, I dunno, I think it's fine as it is. > > I don't think that's the reason to put it in a CPLD. The reason to put > it into a CPLD is to make the circuitry modifiable on the fly. Right now > the design puts all of the complexity on the software side. The CPLD > gives the possibility of moving some of that into the hardware side. > It also gives the possibility of using different methods to read different > formats, while retaining the possibility of reading it raw. There also happen > to be some of us that prefer reading schematics to reading code. :) > > Eric > > From elmo at mminternet.com Wed Jul 5 11:56:47 2000 From: elmo at mminternet.com (Eliot Moore) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Looking for.... References: <200007051454.JAA42703@opal.tseinc.com> Message-ID: <396368CF.96EB2254@mminternet.com> LFessen106@aol.com wrote: > can anyone tell me where I might be able to find 1(one) ADM 5 or ADM 3 text terminal? Always wanted one, but they're hard to find and I would rather not pay the exorbident prices on ebay for one. IIRC ADM-5's have gone unsold on Ebay at $19-24 for some time, from more than one seller. The latest seller has quantity and includes a transport case. Exhorbitant? From whdawson at mlynk.com Wed Jul 5 12:25:17 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Looking for.... In-Reply-To: <396368CF.96EB2254@mminternet.com> Message-ID: <000401bfe6a5$fca61b80$a0e3dfd0@cobweb.net> -> LFessen106@aol.com wrote: -> -> > can anyone tell me where I might be able to find 1(one) -> ADM 5 or ADM 3 text terminal? Always wanted one, but -> they're hard to find and I would rather not pay the -> exorbident prices on ebay for one. -> Eliot Moore replied: -> -> IIRC ADM-5's have gone unsold on Ebay at $19-24 for some time, from -> more than one seller. The latest seller has quantity and -> includes a transport -> case. Exhorbitant? -> I ask: Nothing shows up on search current or search ended. Who is the seller? Bill Dawson whdawson@mlynk.com ? Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope From cem14 at cornell.edu Wed Jul 5 12:39:03 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo-Sanchez) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: microVAX-II GPX. which monitor References: <000701bfe510$7ea82750$0e0301ac@dba00802.databaseamerica.com> Message-ID: <396372B7.97B8820B@cornell.edu> John: I have a vaxstation 2000 hooked to a VRM17-AA monitor which seems to be happy with the signal. The monitor mode switch is set to "low scan", which, according to http://www.monitorexpress.com/encyclopedia/digital.html is 1024x768 @ 72Hz. I would not be surprised if this worked on the microvax too. Carlos. John Allain wrote: > > Hi, > > This weekend I was playing with a microVAX-II GPX > and had good luck using a spare console to do > Some things on it, most esp. booting it up fine. > However, It seems to be running VMUnix, and I > probably should get a monitor on to it to see what's > going on (headless right now). The console seems to > only control the low-level HW, not the O/S. > > An old Apple mono NTSC monitor sorta-almost could > display the video, but it was a pretty sad affair. > > Again, anyone out there know what monitor freq & scan > this guy wants to talk to? Mono BNC on the cable. > > John A. -- Carlos Murillo-Sanchez email: cem14@cornell.edu 428 Phillips Hall, Electrical Engineering Department Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 From korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Jul 5 12:50:59 2000 From: korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <005b01bfe6a0$46307580$0400c0a8@winbook> from Richard Erlacher at "Jul 5, 2000 10:44:18 am" Message-ID: <200007051751.KAA12467@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> > The circuit > wouldn't be modifiable on the fly, however, unless you consider the multiple > minutes of reprogramming time and the associated physical effort "on the > fly." I do consider that to be on the fly. > So far, I've seen no reason to make this baby reconfigurable. What do you > have in mind? FM, MFM, or GCR decom in the CPLD. Eric From LFessen106 at aol.com Wed Jul 5 12:52:21 2000 From: LFessen106 at aol.com (LFessen106@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Looking for.... Message-ID: In a message dated 7/5/00 1:03:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, elmo@mminternet.com writes: > > IIRC ADM-5's have gone unsold on Ebay at $19-24 for some time, from > more than one seller. The latest seller has quantity and includes a > transport > case. Exhorbitant? > > I just re-checked Ebay's past and present sales and found 1 (one) sale of ADM terminals....Currently going for $24.00. Seller has 4, HOWEVER, they are going AS IS. I would like to find a ADM 3 or 5 preferably from someone qualified enough to make that judgement. You see, $24 would be a lot of money with a $60 shipping charge for a broken dumb terminal. -Linc. From rigdonj at intellistar.net Wed Jul 5 13:47:52 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Looking for.... In-Reply-To: <200007051454.JAA42703@opal.tseinc.com> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000705134752.45bf2db4@mailhost.intellistar.net> Where are you? I know where there's a few located in central Florida. Joe At , you wrote: >can anyone tell me where I might be able to find 1(one) ADM 5 or ADM 3 text terminal? Always wanted one, but they're hard to find and I would rather not pay the exorbident prices on ebay for one. >Also, has anyone here had any luck hooking one of them up to a unix/linux box? > From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jul 5 13:01:15 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000705083617.2020016b@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: >As Chuck pointed out, maybe the fact that this is quarter-century-old >technology put together with quarter-century-old construction and design >techniques makes it less accessible to some of the younger members >of this list. Maybe the way to make it more accessible to them is to put >the circuitry on a CPLD, I dunno, I think it's fine as it is. I'm afraid I don't follow this arguement. I'm far from competent as far as electronics go. However, this sounds like something I could build with the most difficult part being digging up the parts (I don't have much faith in my local Radio Shack). Of course I'm also not one of the younger members, and I have worked as an electrician in a past life... >I suppose there *are* folks who might be interested in using such a device >who don't know which end of a soldering iron to pick up, but a very valid >point is that I built this without even touching a soldering iron! Well, considering I know a guy at work that is totally software, and just plain scares me when he starts messing with hardware, that is talking about building a couple projects for his Linux box I don't think that not knowing which end of a soldering iron is a valid point. Besides as you say, you didn't touch one to build this. Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh@holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From LFessen106 at aol.com Wed Jul 5 13:10:48 2000 From: LFessen106 at aol.com (LFessen106@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Looking for.... Message-ID: <74.d3c0af.2694d428@aol.com> In a message dated 7/5/00 2:00:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, rigdonj@intellistar.net writes: > Where are you? > > I know where there's a few located in central Florida. > > Joe > Eastern Pennsylvania. -Linc. From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Wed Jul 5 13:48:54 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: References: <000705083617.2020016b@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000705114727.00cea100@208.226.86.10> Actually my point on using the PLD was that it would simplify layout/building/retrofitting. I've checked and the CPLDs do not support "true" open collector outputs so you are stuck with the 74HCT drivers in any case. --Chuck From west at tseinc.com Wed Jul 5 14:26:01 2000 From: west at tseinc.com (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Great Finds References: Message-ID: <000c01bfe6b6$dc636100$0101a8c0@jay> Great FindsYou wrote... The find-of-the-day however, was a HP 7980XC 9-track tape drive. Found this beauty in a dumpster at one of the junk dealers. It's god a few minor scratches on the front cover but, otherwise is in extremely good condition. The total asking price 5$. Anyone got spare DOCs for it? Unless I'm mistaken, the 7980XC is a current production drive. At least it was about a year ago. You should be able to still get complete docs direct from HP. Jay From rigdonj at intellistar.net Wed Jul 5 16:05:09 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: FSOT: Perkin Elmer stuff Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000705160509.3a2f92c2@mailhost.intellistar.net> Hi, I picked up a couple of blue three ring binders with Perkin Elmer logos on them. Both have manuals in them. One is for PECESS Software Packet for a UV/VIS/NIR Spectroscopy and has some printouts with BASIC listings. The other has a manual for Command Descriptions Reference Manual for CDS-3 Application program. Does anyone want them? I'll trade for something I can use like HP manuals, Tektronix 4041 manuals or ???? Joe. From rigdonj at intellistar.net Wed Jul 5 16:07:19 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Looking for.... In-Reply-To: <74.d3c0af.2694d428@aol.com> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000705160719.31af5ddc@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 02:10 PM 7/5/00 EDT, you wrote: >In a message dated 7/5/00 2:00:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, >rigdonj@intellistar.net writes: > >> Where are you? >> >> I know where there's a few located in central Florida. >> >> Joe >> > >Eastern Pennsylvania. >-Linc. > Well let me know if you want to come down here for a shopping trip/vacation. I can take you to a lot better places than Dismal World. Joe From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Wed Jul 5 15:14:58 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Great Finds Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF0A@TEGNTSERVER> > Unless I'm mistaken, the 7980XC is a current production drive. At least it > was about a year ago. You should be able to still get complete docs direct > from HP. Apparantly, they don't want to admit it being an HP product on their web site, as I can't find it through the usual means. -dq From rigdonj at intellistar.net Wed Jul 5 16:17:41 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: paging Will Jennings Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000705161741.347ff5f2@mailhost.intellistar.net> Will, I tried to reply to your message but the message was rejected. Check your return address. Joe From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Wed Jul 5 15:35:07 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Cipher Streamer / DEC TS05 Tape Drive Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF0B@TEGNTSERVER> Hello, The TS05 I picked up last week looked to be in perfect condition. There was very little dust on or in it. However, I did notice a slight amount of rust on the shaft coming out of the take-up motor (the top of the shaft is visible through the hub). On further inspection, there is a slight amount of oxidation on the surface of the takeup hub; this can be easily removed with Scotch-Brite, I think. But what disturbs me is this... I found one particular sign that this drive may not have been used for some years. The supply hub has three short arms which emerge from their normal position tucked inside the supply hub and which press against the inside metal rim of the tape reel in order to hold it in place. Each little arm has a small rubber or latex pad which helps to provide grip against the tape reel. On my much-older and much-more-clearly-used Cipher on the Prime, the rubber pads are fine; on this nearly-new-looking TS05, they have lost all firmness and have turned almost to the consistency of tree sap. They didn't drip, they weren't that bad; but one attempt to load a tape left most of the pads on the inside of the tape reel. It seems strange for the drive to look so otherwise perfect and these items to be mush. Any thoughts? Plus, anyone been there/done that? I need to replace these pads, and they weren't listed in the Cipher manual as a replaceable part (you have to replace the entire supply hub, it would seem). tia, -doug quebbeman From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Wed Jul 5 15:42:12 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:15 2005 Subject: Cipher Streamer / DEC TS05 Tape Drive Message-ID: <000705164212.202001cb@trailing-edge.com> >On my much-older and much-more-clearly-used Cipher on the Prime, >the rubber pads are fine; on this nearly-new-looking TS05, they >have lost all firmness and have turned almost to the consistency >of tree sap. They didn't drip, they weren't that bad; but one >attempt to load a tape left most of the pads on the inside of the >tape reel. > >It seems strange for the drive to look so otherwise perfect and >these items to be mush. Any thoughts? Storage conditions, especially atmospheric ozone. I spent 6 years living in LA, and the lifetime of my natural-rubber bike tires there was measured in months. Foam would either dry up and turn brittle or go the other way and turn gooey, typically within a couple of years of manufacture. Obviously temperature and exposure to UV light/direct sunlight are factors too. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Wed Jul 5 16:11:53 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Cipher Streamer / DEC TS05 Tape Drive Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF0D@TEGNTSERVER> > >It seems strange for the drive to look so otherwise perfect and > >these items to be mush. Any thoughts? > > Storage conditions, especially atmospheric ozone. I spent 6 years > living in LA, and the lifetime of my natural-rubber bike tires there > was measured in months. Foam would either dry up and turn brittle > or go the other way and turn gooey, typically within a couple of > years of manufacture. > > Obviously temperature and exposure to UV light/direct sunlight are > factors too. Well, heat I'd buy, but other areas of the drive would have shown the effects of sun, and the hub is inside, away from light. I was wondering what storing the unit in the presence of unsealed containers of petrochemicals might do... or even worse, whatever a medical school (formaldehyde?) might have in storage... -dq From Marion.Bates at dartmouth.edu Wed Jul 5 16:22:16 2000 From: Marion.Bates at dartmouth.edu (Marion Bates) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: old Mac parts Message-ID: <32918692@dasher.Dartmouth.EDU> Hey, I have a friend who's interested in selling the following items, and he asked me to post this to the list. Reply to me if you're interested and I will put you in touch with him. -- MB ---------------------------------------- I looked at some of my junque and the only thing that is all together is one 400K external drive. I found 1 128K board, 1 128K board upgraded to 512 and one later 128/512K board set up as 512K. I haven't looked at all of the cases yet to see if I can make some 128's or not. I found some old HD20 parts that may be for the original, runs off the external drive port on a 512K (fat Mac), using a floppy to start up and recognize the hard drive. The only profile part is a controller board (I think - if I am remembering right). It's all in my basement. The three IBM PC Jr's are still in the garage and haven't been run in years. From elvey at hal.com Wed Jul 5 16:24:40 2000 From: elvey at hal.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Cipher Streamer / DEC TS05 Tape Drive In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF0D@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <200007052124.OAA07256@civic.hal.com> Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > >It seems strange for the drive to look so otherwise perfect and > > >these items to be mush. Any thoughts? > > > > Storage conditions, especially atmospheric ozone. I spent 6 years > > living in LA, and the lifetime of my natural-rubber bike tires there > > was measured in months. Foam would either dry up and turn brittle > > or go the other way and turn gooey, typically within a couple of > > years of manufacture. > > > > Obviously temperature and exposure to UV light/direct sunlight are > > factors too. > > Well, heat I'd buy, but other areas of the drive would have shown > the effects of sun, and the hub is inside, away from light. > > I was wondering what storing the unit in the presence of unsealed > containers of petrochemicals might do... or even worse, whatever > a medical school (formaldehyde?) might have in storage... > > -dq Hi The biggest factor for rubber and plastic, other than UV light, is oxone. Even a little will change rubber to a gummy mess ( chlorine gas does as well but that usually isn't an issue ). Dwight From ss at allegro.com Wed Jul 5 17:00:58 2000 From: ss at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Great Finds In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <39634DAA.7207.EF655E@localhost> Steve asks (via HTML encoded email that Pegasus always thinks is damaged) asks: > Located two complete HP 9000/832 minicomputers. After tinkering around for a > > What kind of tapes does the built-in drive use? That's probably a DDS (aka "DAT") drive ... at least, that's the only drive I've ever seen built-in to any HP 9000/8x2 or HP 3000/9x2. (It'll be a DDS-1, most likely) How much memory do you have? (The 8x2 and 9x2 could have memory plugged into just about any slots (front or back!). > The find-of-the-day however, was a HP 7980XC 9-track tape drive. Found this > beauty in a dumpster at one of the junk dealers. It's god a few minor > scratches on the front cover but, otherwise is in extremely good condition. > The total asking price 5$. Anyone got spare DOCs for it? I'll look...I may. > I hooked the tape drive up to one of the 832s but, just can't get it to Presumably via HP-IB? > work. Whenever I try to cpio or fbackup to the tape, the drive will try to What version of HP-UX? How did you configure the tape drive (ls -l /dev/...whatever...) Stan Stan Sieler sieler@allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html www.allegro.com/sieler From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 16:29:39 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <200007050051.RAA17598@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> from "Tim Mann" at Jul 4, 0 05:51:23 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 4659 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000705/2013e992/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 16:36:24 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.20000704211700.0117383c@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> from "Carlos Murillo" at Jul 4, 0 09:17:00 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 2433 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000705/160a2ea4/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 16:52:32 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000705083617.2020016b@trailing-edge.com> from "CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com" at Jul 5, 0 08:36:17 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 3160 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000705/c080b207/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 16:59:35 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <20000705151055.7327.qmail@web611.mail.yahoo.com> from "Ethan Dicks" at Jul 5, 0 08:10:55 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1174 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000705/cc51968c/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 17:04:23 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: from "John Honniball" at Jul 5, 0 04:53:01 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1100 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000705/5c0fc8fe/attachment.ksh From mann at pa.dec.com Wed Jul 5 17:17:39 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <200007052217.PAA03563@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> I can't keep track of all the directions this discussion is going in, but here are a few bits of information that might be useful. My software for reading FM and MFM with the Catweasel is available from my Web pages, so you can look at the source code for details of what it does, adapt it to work with different hardware if you prefer to build your own, dissect it and note all its shortcomings, ignore it, or whatever. See www.tim-mann.org/trs80resources.html. There's also a link there to the Linux drivers for the card, which include some writing support and have a different implementation of reading (but which uses the same idea), so you can look at that source code too. The basic idea for reading is very simple. I have two thresholds, t1 and t2. Given a sample s, if s <= t1, I classify it as short (10); if t1 < s <= t2, as medium (100); if t2 < s, as long (1000). This lets me reconstruct the MFM clock/data bit stream. I set the thresholds statically, by looking at histograms of samples from various tracks of different disks, and placing the thresholds rougly in the middle of the valleys between the three observed peaks. This technique is crude (maybe it would be better to emulate a phase locked loop in software, for instance), but it works well for 3.5" and 5.25" disks, and some 8" disks too. I'll come back to the other 8" disks in a bit. When I said something about "bit-shifting" with the Catweasel, I was *not* talking about reading the same track repeatedly and getting different results. On what I was *not* talking about: I haven't done any systematic tests to see how much the sample data read from a track varies from one attempt to another. I do know that when I fail to decode some data (getting a CRC error), rereading the track sometimes helps. I would expect some variation from one read to the next because the magnetic signal on the disk doesn't really have sharp edges; the electronics inside the drive that decide where the flux transitions are going to produce somewhat different results from one try to the next. I would expect this is worse on old disks that are fading or where tiny bits of oxide are starting to flake off. On what I *was* talking about: There is a physical effect where two flux transitions that are recorded close together tend to move apart. An Intel FDC data sheet that I have calls this effect "bit-shifting", but I don't know whether that's a standard term or not. Write precompensation approximately corrects for this effect, but not exactly. On some 8" disks that I've read, I've seen severe cases of this effect, enough that I had to put a heuristic into my program to compensate for it. On at least a few disks, the effect increased up to track 43, backed way off at track 44, and then slowly increased again; this is consistent with the disk having been written in a system that turns on write precomp using the TG43 (track greater than 43) signal, but that doesn't have enough precomp. The size of the errors I've seen is much more than one Catweasel clock, so it doesn't have anything to do with the Catweasel sample rate beating against the data rate. So, what's the heuristic? It's quite crude and oversimplified too, but seems to work pretty well. The general idea is that if an interval is a bit off from what you were expecting it to be, multiply the error by some factor around 0.5 to 0.8 (you sometimes have to tune it for each disk if they are particularly bad), and add that to the next interval before classifying it as short, medium, or long. This helped immensely, making some disks that previously had a CRC error on about half the tracks even after many retries read perfectly, with no retries. Here is some code that should make it clearer: void mfm_decode(int sample) { static float adj = 0.0; int len; if (sample + adj <= mfmthresh1) { /* Short */ len = 2; } else if (sample + adj <= mfmthresh2) { /* Medium */ len = 3; } else { /* Long */ len = 4; } adj = (sample - (len/2.0 * mfmshort)) * postcomp; if (out_fmt == OUT_SAMPLES) printf("%d%c ", sample, "--sml"[len]); mfm_bit(1); while (--len) mfm_bit(0); } Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 17:41:08 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007051751.KAA12467@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <001b01bfe6d2$1d645ae0$0400c0a8@winbook> It will require no modification at all to handle those formats. It samples the data at a harmonic of the data rate and writes it back at a harmonic suitable for adjustment for write precompensation. Dealing with the different modulations, as you've named, is a software post-processing task. Likewise, if a little extra effort is put into the design, it can record, quantitatively the location of the index/sector pulses in order to enable reading and writing of hard-sectored diskettes. There are too many mechanical variations to allow simple timing of the theoretical locations of these events. The notion of reprogramming the thing is perhaps a pregnant one, but I have reservations about the suitability of this particular device, for want of pins. A single or pair of 256Kx4 DRAMs might be manageable, but SRAMS would require 30 connections and the EPP/SPP interface would require 13. Then there are a few connections to the drive cable required. As you can see, we're past being out of pins already. A 68-pin device would be more likely to work. Perhaps a video DRAM would work with fewer connections. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric J. Korpela To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 11:50 AM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > The circuit > > wouldn't be modifiable on the fly, however, unless you consider the multiple > > minutes of reprogramming time and the associated physical effort "on the > > fly." > > I do consider that to be on the fly. > > > So far, I've seen no reason to make this baby reconfigurable. What do you > > have in mind? > > FM, MFM, or GCR decom in the CPLD. > > Eric > > From marvin at rain.org Wed Jul 5 17:52:09 2000 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Apple III Motherboard References: <200007052124.OAA07256@civic.hal.com> Message-ID: <3963BC19.197AAFCD@rain.org> A while back, someone was looking for an Apple III motherboard. I talked with a guy a couple of days ago who said he had one for sale. If whoever the person was is still looking, let me know by email and I'll send this guys email address. Thanks. From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 17:55:20 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000705083617.2020016b@trailing-edge.com> <4.3.1.2.20000705114727.00cea100@208.226.86.10> Message-ID: <002f01bfe6d4$19287400$0400c0a8@winbook> I agree that the device in question doesn't offer OC/OD outputs, a tristate driver would work as well, and the CPLD drives a bit MORE (8 mA) than the typical HC/HCT device (6 mA). I think the CPLD would provide an easy-to build alternative that would require some assembly, but which could be modified without wiring or soldering/. If you look at FDC's used in many systems, including some of the ones used in PC-clones, didn't bother with OC drivers. It's not critical unless you have more than one controller on the cable. That happens rather seldom. HCT's by the way, don't have open collectors. In fact, they don't have collectors at all. It doesn't matter, though. If you drive a line with a tristate buffer with the appropriate polarity at its input, it will behave pretty much as an OC device does, only better and faster. If you don't believe that, try plugging a 74126 with an input grounded into a circuit prevously occupied by a 7403. of course it must be wired such that the logic functions the same, but it's a valid comparison. The more common 7438 is not valid for comparison because they didn't get around to building a tristate buffer in the '126 pinout. When you hit the enable with a high, the output will go low, lickety-split, just like the OC. You'll need a pullup in either case. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Chuck McManis To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 12:48 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > Actually my point on using the PLD was that it would simplify > layout/building/retrofitting. I've checked and the CPLDs do not support > "true" open collector outputs so you are stuck with the 74HCT drivers in > any case. > > --Chuck > > From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 18:03:29 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <004301bfe6d5$3ca17520$0400c0a8@winbook> plz see embedded comments below. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Duell To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 4:04 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > > > > Just a thought about the CPLD vs. TTL discussion: Would it > > be possible to design the device such that it could be > > built EITHER in TTL chips OR as a CPLD? With the same > > I've done a significant amount of design with FPGAs (not CLPDs, though, > so this might be different), and my experience suggests that no matter > what the manufacturers claim you _can't_ take a TTL-based circuit, feed > it into the schematic capture program, and expect the result to work > properly. The fact is that you can, but it depends on a number of things including your definition of properly and the frequency. This circuit is going to be so slow it won't make a lot of difference for speed reasons. Moreover, we're talking CPLD, *NOT* FPGA. Routing delays in a sizeable FPGA will have huge effect on system performance, while those in a relatively small CPLD like this one are negligible. A CPLD is like a large PAL, AOI-gate-like architecture with programmable polarity, clock, and either registers or latches, with various types of outputs. It's not at all like a Xilinx FPGA of about the same size, e.g. XC3120, andit costs a lot less. > There are many differences between designing with TTL and with FPGAs. The > main one is that signals routed across the chip through the various > routing muxes are subject to considerable delays. Delays that can cause > race hazards and glitches where you least expect them. Since the FGPAs > generally have an excessive number of flip-flops anyway, the solution is > obvious -- make everything synchronous. Which is rather different to how > you design with TTL. > By comparison with FPGA's of various types these relatively small CPLD's are very easy and pleasant to use. My only complaint is that they never seem to have the right numbe of pins. Either the package is too big or there aren't enough pins. > > CPLDs are a rather different architecture, and probably don't suffer from > this, but it's something to be aware of. Just in case it catches you... > > -tony > > From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 18:07:19 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <004f01bfe6d5$c581bda0$0400c0a8@winbook> Plz see comment below. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Duell To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 3:52 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > I learnt about 10 years ago that it's quicker to solder up the circuit > (using verowire or something), or wire-wrap it, than to solve all the > stray capacitance problems that those darn breadboards introduce. > > I'm not saying that you can't build circuits on said breadboards, but you > need to take care. and it's better if you don't really know what you are > doing to solder the circuit up. You'll have less problems!. > That's so true! I was surprised to read in the spec's for my first ones (and last, by the way) that the capacitance between adjacent contacts is 5 pf, I don't remember much else about them. > > > techniques. Except for the capacity of the SRAM chip, this is all quarter- > > century-old technology. > > > > From mann at pa.dec.com Wed Jul 5 18:23:03 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200007052323.QAA08683@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> There must have been something wrong with my tone to prompt Tony's reply, sorry. Certainly if you're a hardware hacker, it will sometimes be faster to build your own gadget than to buy it off the shelf, and it's easier to modify. If you're a software hacker, it's a lot easier to buy the hardware off the shelf as long as it does what you need. I'm sure there are some of both types on this mailing list, and many shades of gray in between. Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 18:25:20 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007052217.PAA03563@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: <005501bfe6d8$49a15ee0$0400c0a8@winbook> You may be onto something, Tim, but I'd make one observation here. The signal on pin2 of the 8" drive cable, though often driven with the 1793's TG43 signal, does not turn write precomp on and off, but, rather, reduces the write current to the heads. This reduces the amplitude of the signal driving the heads, hence reduces the overall amplitude of the recovered signal as well. That same signal is used to enable write precompensation on some controllers, many of which use a less-than-ideal timebase to define the precompensation offsets imposed on the data stream. There are several possibilities in this case, namely that (1) there was no consideration given to the write current or write precompensation timing, (2) there was write precompensation but the controller didn't drive the RWC line (pin 2), (3) the drive ignores pin 2 and counts tracks to control write current (quite common on 8" drives) and (4) both effects are controlled correctly at the controller. I cant tell you without taking time with it, what effect each of these will have. Nevertheless, I'd say without any hesitation that it won't be easy sifting through the sampled data to see which condition causes what sort of shift. Do you think you could take a stab at swapping the timebase on your Catweasel board with a 32 MHz crystal? I think that would be VERY illuminating, particularly where these precomp/write-current-related effects are concerned, because phase noise introduced by the deviation of the Catweasel timebase from a harmonic of the data rate adds confusion. I may try to lay hands on one some day, but I have to say my interest in that product is not great, though I do like to play with disk interfaces in general. I'd be prone, some day, to look at your source code and use what I can glean from that to support a different sampling arrangement that does use the precise harmonic of the nominal data rate. Even that will take a while, and, as you can see from all the traffic, there's quite a good deal of interest in this item at the moment. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tim Mann To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 4:17 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > I can't keep track of all the directions this discussion is going in, but > here are a few bits of information that might be useful. > > My software for reading FM and MFM with the Catweasel is available from > my Web pages, so you can look at the source code for details of what it > does, adapt it to work with different hardware if you prefer to build > your own, dissect it and note all its shortcomings, ignore it, or whatever. > See www.tim-mann.org/trs80resources.html. There's also a link there to > the Linux drivers for the card, which include some writing support and > have a different implementation of reading (but which uses the same idea), > so you can look at that source code too. > > The basic idea for reading is very simple. I have two thresholds, t1 > and t2. Given a sample s, if s <= t1, I classify it as short (10); if > t1 < s <= t2, as medium (100); if t2 < s, as long (1000). This lets me > reconstruct the MFM clock/data bit stream. I set the thresholds statically, > by looking at histograms of samples from various tracks of different disks, > and placing the thresholds rougly in the middle of the valleys between > the three observed peaks. This technique is crude (maybe it would be > better to emulate a phase locked loop in software, for instance), but > it works well for 3.5" and 5.25" disks, and some 8" disks too. I'll come > back to the other 8" disks in a bit. > > When I said something about "bit-shifting" with the Catweasel, I was *not* > talking about reading the same track repeatedly and getting different results. > > On what I was *not* talking about: I haven't done any systematic tests > to see how much the sample data read from a track varies from one attempt > to another. I do know that when I fail to decode some data (getting a > CRC error), rereading the track sometimes helps. I would expect some > variation from one read to the next because the magnetic signal on the > disk doesn't really have sharp edges; the electronics inside the drive > that decide where the flux transitions are going to produce somewhat > different results from one try to the next. I would expect this is worse > on old disks that are fading or where tiny bits of oxide are starting > to flake off. > > On what I *was* talking about: There is a physical effect where two flux > transitions that are recorded close together tend to move apart. An Intel > FDC data sheet that I have calls this effect "bit-shifting", but I don't > know whether that's a standard term or not. Write precompensation > approximately corrects for this effect, but not exactly. On some 8" disks > that I've read, I've seen severe cases of this effect, enough that I had > to put a heuristic into my program to compensate for it. On at least > a few disks, the effect increased up to track 43, backed way off at track > 44, and then slowly increased again; this is consistent with the disk > having been written in a system that turns on write precomp using the > TG43 (track greater than 43) signal, but that doesn't have enough precomp. > The size of the errors I've seen is much more than one Catweasel clock, > so it doesn't have anything to do with the Catweasel sample rate beating > against the data rate. > > So, what's the heuristic? It's quite crude and oversimplified too, but > seems to work pretty well. The general idea is that if an interval is > a bit off from what you were expecting it to be, multiply the error by > some factor around 0.5 to 0.8 (you sometimes have to tune it for each > disk if they are particularly bad), and add that to the next interval > before classifying it as short, medium, or long. This helped immensely, > making some disks that previously had a CRC error on about half the tracks > even after many retries read perfectly, with no retries. Here is some > code that should make it clearer: > > void > mfm_decode(int sample) > { > static float adj = 0.0; > int len; > > if (sample + adj <= mfmthresh1) { > /* Short */ > len = 2; > } else if (sample + adj <= mfmthresh2) { > /* Medium */ > len = 3; > } else { > /* Long */ > len = 4; > } > adj = (sample - (len/2.0 * mfmshort)) * postcomp; > > if (out_fmt == OUT_SAMPLES) printf("%d%c ", sample, "--sml"[len]); > > mfm_bit(1); > while (--len) mfm_bit(0); > } > > Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org > Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 18:18:20 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <004301bfe6d5$3ca17520$0400c0a8@winbook> from "Richard Erlacher" at Jul 5, 0 05:03:29 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 2174 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/579e94da/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 18:20:38 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <004f01bfe6d5$c581bda0$0400c0a8@winbook> from "Richard Erlacher" at Jul 5, 0 05:07:19 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 855 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/36c843e7/attachment.ksh From LFessen106 at aol.com Wed Jul 5 19:39:12 2000 From: LFessen106 at aol.com (LFessen106@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Looking for.... Message-ID: <200007052339.SAA50646@opal.tseinc.com> Well let me know if you want to come down here for a shopping trip/vacation. I can take you to a lot better places than Dismal World. Joe >> You're on :-) I occasionally get down to Orlando..! -Linc. From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Wed Jul 5 18:46:23 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000705194623.20200229@trailing-edge.com> >One final point that perhaps Tim could answer. If he does provide a >schematic, would he have any objections if somebody else created a CPLD >(or FPGA, or..) version? Giving him full credit for the original idea, of >course. Because if he doesn't mind, then the whole issue goes away. You >can build whichever version suits you... The entire idea of discussing my circuit here was to get some ideas for improvements, *and* to make it clear that this was entirely an "open" hardware design and a "non-secret" programming interface. The circuit is hardly original enough for me to claim it to be my idea, especially as other manufacturers have been making proprietary interfaces that do the same thing for at least a decade. I wanted to make the design public so that it will last for longer than your typical PC-clone piece of hardware. Tim. From mikeford at socal.rr.com Wed Jul 5 18:21:59 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: References: <20000705151055.7327.qmail@web611.mail.yahoo.com> from "Ethan Dicks" at Jul 5, 0 08:10:55 am Message-ID: >> > >On a related note. I have several machines with HPIB/GPIB/IEEE-??? I know I have some Mac Nubus 488 boards, and I "think" I have one for a Apple II. From mann at pa.dec.com Wed Jul 5 18:53:18 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Catweasel, Tim's Ferret, etc. In-Reply-To: <200007050310.XAA94884@shuswap.gate.net> Message-ID: <200007052353.QAA04130@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> I'd like to know more about the Central Point board. If it can read things like Mac GCR disks I'd have to guess that it uses sampling too, but I wonder where the samples go and how they get there. (Does anyone else on the list know about this board?) Does the board plug into the ISA bus, or does it only connect to the drives and the controller? The software that comes with it sounds interesting. I wonder what those raw data images look like, and what representation the track editor works in. Maybe some ideas could be borrowed from their software to work with the hardware that's still available or homebrewable... Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Wed Jul 5 18:53:25 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000705195325.20200229@trailing-edge.com> >Since soldering is so much more reliable, and just as fast once you get >used to using the soldering iron, I don't see the point of said >breadboards. But anyway... I've been using these breadboards for about 20 years now and I still like them for a lot of things. They certainly aren't good for all possibilities, but I regularly do digital logic into the 50 MHz range with them and have few problems. Modern CMOS logic families seem to be a lot more forgiving for poor bypassing and high-impedance power sources than good old-fashioned "straight" TTL. In fact, just for fun, I've pulled out *all* the bypass capacitors around a 40 MHz HC TTL circuit and found that it operated identically to before the bypass capacitors were pulled. Compare this to old-fashioned straight 7400-series logic where if I don't put bypass capacitors everywhere all the flip flops randomly choose a new state every time the clock ticks! On the subject of breadboarding with solder and wires: are there PC-boards designed specifically for "place-and-tack" surface-mount prototyping? I'm envisioning a power grid, a bunch of SOIC pads with small fanout, a place for some surface-mount discrete parts, and maybe some way of putting a header connector on the board. That'd be really useful. Sort of like those through-hole prototyping PC boards that used to be popular. Tim. From korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Jul 5 19:02:18 2000 From: korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <001b01bfe6d2$1d645ae0$0400c0a8@winbook> from Richard Erlacher at "Jul 5, 2000 04:41:08 pm" Message-ID: <200007060002.RAA16321@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> > Dealing with the > different modulations, as you've named, is a software post-processing task. You prefer software solutions. I prefer hardware. It doesn't make either of us wrong. When you close your eyes, you see pseudocode. I see schematics. > The notion of reprogramming the thing is perhaps a pregnant one, but I have > reservations about the suitability of this particular device, for want of > pins. Yes, I would probably choose a larger CPLD than the one previously mentioned. Eric From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 19:01:45 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <001901bfe6dd$5fe27220$0400c0a8@winbook> Modern design strategy, (developed as a result of much experience like yours) demands that all the circuitry in an FPGA be synchronous, i.e. driven by the same (not derived or gated) clock. Having been raised on individual components, I find this restrictive, but that's because of my age, not my wisdom. In reality, once an FPGA is on the table you have to use techniques that will be likely to yield the lowest-risk result. You can't poke around with a 'scope, so you have to rely on a simulator. It's a pain! A lot depends on the flop-flop types you use in an FPGA, Tony, and there are more types availablel today than there were ten years back. These CPLD's have quite a variety as well, but the task is one that requires only one clock for the "main" task, i.e. SIPO/PISO from/to the RAM. Synchronization with the parallel port is driven from the PC, so its interface has to be dual-rank registered, but I doubt there's need for gating the clock. That is, as you say, an iffy practice justified only by a pipeline register to resync the output of that circuit segment. I've concluded that a 44-pin CPLD, though it might hold sufficient resources to effect some FDC functions, won't have enough ins and outs to accomodate a large SRAM. We're looking at 30 pins here just for the SRAM and half that number +1 would be needed with a DRAM. That might still not be enough . . . I've made a couple more remarks below, if you're interested. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Duell To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 5:18 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > The frequency (IMHO) is irrelevent. I've seen FPGA-based designs where > the maximum clock frequency on the board was 32kHz. The reason is that a > narrow glitch, a small faction of the clock, will still trigger a > flip-flop in the FPGA if it appears on the clock input [1]. It may well > flip the write-data flip-flop in a floppy drive. Or provide just enough > of a write pulse to the SRAM to cause you problems later. > > [1] Yes, it is a bad idea to gate clock signals to FPGA flip-flops for > _exactly_ that reason. Clock enable inputs are provided for a reason :-). > Flipflops with enables solve that problem to large extent. > > > so slow it won't make a lot of difference for speed reasons. Moreover, > > we're talking CPLD, *NOT* FPGA. Routing delays in a sizeable FPGA will have > > huge effect on system performance, while those in a relatively small CPLD > > like this one are negligible. A CPLD is like a large PAL, AOI-gate-like > The reason this will likely work is because the whole process is synchronous. It lends itself to glitch-free operation in a CPLD, because the CPLD is basically a large PAL. Think of the XC9572 as half-a dozen 26CV12's with both pin and register feedback and product-term sharing. > What might make this thing workable for everybody would be developing a schematic with fairly straighforward and well defined constructs, as one might find in a databook, and a conversion, component by component to the CPLD. Unfortunately , the XILINX software only supports the small CPLD's with a library of primitives and no MSI's. > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 18:59:19 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <200007052323.QAA08683@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> from "Tim Mann" at Jul 5, 0 04:23:03 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1644 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/7bec1844/attachment.ksh From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Wed Jul 5 19:09:35 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000705200935.20200229@trailing-edge.com> >> Dealing with the >> different modulations, as you've named, is a software post-processing task. >You prefer software solutions. I prefer hardware. It doesn't make either >of us wrong. When you close your eyes, you see pseudocode. I see schematics. I've been using variants on "raw data capture" for years, and I find it *most* flexible when the data is captured in its rawest forms. In some cases this means running the signal from the head through an A/D converter and logging. This gives the most opportunities to apply funky data recovery techniques in software in case the media is old and rotting away. Taking the data from multiple reads passes - in some cases with the head stepped a fraction of track in and out - is a very powerful technique. Not everyone has floppy drives that are capable of stepping in 1/16th track increments, I realize :-). (I use a heavily hacked up pair of Persci's for this.) Tim. From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 19:08:57 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000705195325.20200229@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <002701bfe6de$61680b40$0400c0a8@winbook> I've recently taken an interest (becauseof my aversion to work) in surface mounting through-hole components. It's easy to route and etch circuit boards, but it's a pain to drill the holes. Then, of course, you have to solder on both sides to complete the circuit... Machined-pin sockets seem to work better for this. I recently saw a board from a company that's been around about 10 years that makes .050 pitch hole matrix boards, among others. They also make 2mm boards, by the way, but I can't find their poop-sheet. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 5:53 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > >Since soldering is so much more reliable, and just as fast once you get > >used to using the soldering iron, I don't see the point of said > >breadboards. But anyway... > > I've been using these breadboards for about 20 years now and I still > like them for a lot of things. They certainly aren't good for all > possibilities, but I regularly do digital logic into the 50 MHz > range with them and have few problems. > > Modern CMOS logic families seem to be a lot more forgiving for poor bypassing > and high-impedance power sources than good old-fashioned "straight" TTL. > In fact, just for fun, I've pulled out *all* the bypass capacitors around > a 40 MHz HC TTL circuit and found that it operated identically to before > the bypass capacitors were pulled. Compare this to old-fashioned > straight 7400-series logic where if I don't put bypass capacitors everywhere > all the flip flops randomly choose a new state every time the clock > ticks! > > On the subject of breadboarding with solder and wires: are there PC-boards > designed specifically for "place-and-tack" surface-mount prototyping? > I'm envisioning a power grid, a bunch of SOIC pads with small fanout, > a place for some surface-mount discrete parts, and maybe some way of putting > a header connector on the board. That'd be really useful. Sort of like > those through-hole prototyping PC boards that used to be popular. > > Tim. > > From mann at pa.dec.com Wed Jul 5 19:14:13 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <005501bfe6d8$49a15ee0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: <200007060014.RAA27050@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> I sent a message to Dick off-list that covers a question raised on-list, so I'll forward it here in case anyone else is interested. > From: mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) > > It's definitely possible to pull the crystal oscillator on a Catweasel > and substitute another frequency. Jens (the designer) sent me an email > mentioning that he'd put a 40 MHz clock in one for a test he was doing -- he > connected it directly to the output of an Amiga's floppy disk controller > in order to find out for sure where the FDC was applying write precomp. > > I don't know when or if I'll get around to trying to change the crystal > myself, but I'll definitely let you know if I do. I might also forward > some of the mail we've been exchanging to Jens and see if that makes him > think about supplying a different crystal as standard. It would seem > that something with a factor of 3 in it would be best, since the 300 kHz > data rate used for 5" double density in a 360 RPM drive should be > accommodated too. Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 19:09:54 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <001901bfe6dd$5fe27220$0400c0a8@winbook> from "Richard Erlacher" at Jul 5, 0 06:01:45 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 2801 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/fc8676ba/attachment.ksh From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 19:17:50 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007060002.RAA16321@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <002d01bfe6df$9f4296a0$0400c0a8@winbook> I'm afraid you missed my point. This device we've been discussing has absolutely no facility for dealing with the different modulation schemes, e.g. MFM, RLL, GCR ... That would be a mite more complex than we want or need, methinks. As for me, I seldom see pseudocode, having been a hardware type for twenty-odd years. Before that I was a high-level programmer, when those guys used threetran, er,I mean FORTRAN, but they made us use FTN-II when FTN-IV was available, and COBOL, APL, etc. We didn't have these new-fangled languages like ALGOL or PASCAL ... If you want to build a controller using hardware to deal with the various modulation schemes, remember that they use lots of different timing elements, and that makes CPLD design harder. I've never seen a controller that did multiple modulations aside from FM/MFM. It might be interesting to see . . . Moreover, that's quite some distance off-target for this topic, since it's intended to sample and software/massage the data so all sorts and sources of data can be dealt with equivalently. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric J. Korpela To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 6:02 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > Dealing with the > > different modulations, as you've named, is a software post-processing task. > > You prefer software solutions. I prefer hardware. It doesn't make either > of us wrong. When you close your eyes, you see pseudocode. I see schematics. > > > The notion of reprogramming the thing is perhaps a pregnant one, but I have > > reservations about the suitability of this particular device, for want of > > pins. > > Yes, I would probably choose a larger CPLD than the one previously mentioned. > > Eric > > From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 19:36:23 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <003d01bfe6e2$36bb38a0$0400c0a8@winbook> There are a couple of things not so obvious to the casual looker-on. First, the FPGA uses a RAM lookup table to generate all its logic functions, hence, the 5-input limit on XC3000-series logic cells, (32-bit LUT). This means that a NAND output propagates just as fast (or slowly) as an XOR, since the prop-delay of the LUT is what it is regardless. I have to take exception to your suggestion of making a modified version of your FPGA to generate test points. There are lots of flops in an LCA and limited routing resources. WHERE in the array your test point is driven to an I/O cell is going to have major impact on the timing. Moreover, because the routing resource allocation is critical, which flop you use will have effects on speed and propagation of your signals. I know that's a fine difference, but at any speed over half the rated speed of the device, it's likely to affect your outcomes. Consequently, you can't rely on the timing of a specially routed signal if it's not going to be part of the final result. Another problem is that recompiling often leads to timing AND pinout changes. Few devices allow pin locking and of those it's really only effective if you are satisfied with 50% or lower utilization. I've seen boards fresh from the PCB house, no parts on them yet, which had to have a dozen or more wires placed on them in spite of the fact that all the parts on the board were programmable logic. That's why I made the remark I made about simulation, which has LONG been near and dear to my heart. I tolerate its weaknesses where they occur for the benefit and confidence the give me. I've seldom been disappointed. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Duell To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 6:09 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > Modern design strategy, (developed as a result of much experience like > >will be likely to yield the lowest-risk result. You can't poke around > > with a 'scope, so you have to rely on a simulator. It's a pain! > > Actually, you can probe with a 'scope if you have enough routing > resources and pins left over (it's worth building the prototype with 'too > big an FPGA' for this reason). You simply route internal signals to pins, > recompile, and test. > That's likely to change circuit timing and pinout. > But, of course, this 'recompile' means that the circuit is rerouted. If > your design in marginal anyway then the glitches will move around. > If they just move around, you may not see them. If your circuit is pipelined and synchronous, it will have few hazards or none at all. > > Please don't think I'm totally against FPGAs. I'm against the misuse of > FPGAs, including using them when half a dozen TTL chips would be better > (for a suitable definition of better). I'm also against just shoving an > existing circuit into them and hoping it works, because most of the time > it wont... > > > I've seen inexperienced Xilinx designers use AND gates to gate the clock > to most of the flip-flops in their circuit and then wonder why they get > false clocking... > Inexperienced designers with TTL did the same thing until they were wised up. > > > -tony > > From foo at siconic.com Wed Jul 5 19:02:16 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Catweasel, Tim's Ferret, etc. In-Reply-To: <200007052353.QAA04130@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Tim Mann wrote: > I'd like to know more about the Central Point board. If it can read things > like Mac GCR disks I'd have to guess that it uses sampling too, but I > wonder where the samples go and how they get there. (Does anyone else > on the list know about this board?) Does the board plug into the ISA > bus, or does it only connect to the drives and the controller? Yes, I have one in my collection, but like everything else it's buried. However, when I do find it (I'm moving my collection in the next week so it may turn up) it's in the original box with the original dox. I am pretty sure it's an ISA card. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 5 19:56:10 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <003d01bfe6e2$36bb38a0$0400c0a8@winbook> from "Richard Erlacher" at Jul 5, 0 06:36:23 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 4924 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/af223014/attachment.ksh From allisonp at world.std.com Wed Jul 5 20:15:34 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <004201bfe6e7$c5b153f0$7064c0d0@ajp166> From: Richard Erlacher To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Date: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 7:30 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever >You may be onto something, Tim, but I'd make one observation here. The >signal on pin2 of the 8" drive cable, though often driven with the >1793's TG43 signal, does not turn write precomp on and off, but, rather, >reduces the write current to the heads. This reduces the amplitude of the >signal In many cases it's also used to alter write precomp. Most all have some precomp (Esp DD controllers) and for the TG43 case they alter the precomp to further compensate for bit shift due to the close magnetic domains. >driving the heads, hence reduces the overall amplitude of the recovered >signal as well. That same signal is used to enable write precompensation on Bogus. the levels are dealt with in the read amps with margin as well. What's changing of the write current really impacts is the read bit shift (aka peak shift) as the bit density goes up (inner tracks are shorter than outer). >some controllers, many of which use a less-than-ideal timebase to define >the precompensation offsets imposed on the data stream. This is true, or worse used oneshots. generally the time base for the bit encoding was always a crystal with not worse than 200ppm error and less than 50ppm drift. The typical system was usually within 50ppm of exact and drifted less than 25ppm over temperature extremes. Often the actual data rate was far lower than that reference(usually 1/4 or 1/8th). >Do you think you could take a stab at swapping the timebase on your >Catweasel board with a 32 MHz crystal? I think that would be VERY >illuminating, particularly where these precomp/write-current-related >effects >are concerned, because phase noise introduced by the deviation of the >Catweasel timebase from a harmonic of the data rate adds confusion. There lies a connundrum, study the media and the magnetic domains therein or get the data? A lower clock would be adaquate for getting the data. Further, while I was studying digital PLL state machines I found a point where increasing the clock (greater resolution) produced sharply reduced improvement. Signal processing theory (analog) suggests the same. From: Tim Mann : >> So, what's the heuristic? It's quite crude and oversimplified too, >> seems to work pretty well. The general idea is that if an interval is >> a bit off from what you were expecting it to be, multiply the error by >> some factor around 0.5 to 0.8 (you sometimes have to tune it for each >> disk if they are particularly bad), and add that to the next interval I'd suggest some factor less than .5, flux shift errors on floppies rarely move a great amount unless the spindle bearings are rattling loose. Actually based on media and expected recording rate it's possible to plug in a set of expected timing windows and add/subtract a "precompenstation" window amount based on adjacent bits. For example adjacent ones or zeros (especially more than two bits) tend to spread or compress over patterns like alternating ones and zeros. Further with all the "timing image" in a memory it should be possible to look at longer strings of transistions and do simple predictive forcasting (software PLL). Add to that the encoding form (FM, MFM, M2FM, RLL or GCR), and previous bits history it should be straightforward enough to predict the likely next transistion(s) be they one or zero. It is serediptious that the code you have effectively accomplishes a tracking filter (type of PLL). Why, many of the parameters on the media like peakshift and other behavours tend to average themselves and cancle. Most of this stuff is not rocket science, it does however require seeing into the set of abstractions to make them obvious. Allison From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Wed Jul 5 21:37:52 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000705223752.20200229@trailing-edge.com> >>some controllers, many of which use a less-than-ideal timebase to define >>the precompensation offsets imposed on the data stream. >This is true, or worse used oneshots. generally the time base for the >bit encoding was always a crystal with not worse than 200ppm error >and less than 50ppm drift. The typical system was usually within >50ppm of exact and drifted less than 25ppm over temperature extremes. >Often the actual data rate was far lower than that reference(usually 1/4 >or 1/8th). IMHO it's very misleading - or even worse, foolish - to worry about errors in the ppm range when the instantaneous rotation speed of the floppy can vary a few percent. Most data recovery circuits - even the most simplistic one-shot FM decoder - can take a 25% change in data rate in stride. Sure, they don't have as much error margin if you stray that far, but my point is that we're not dealing with National Bureau of Standards platinum-iridium references here. >I'd suggest some factor less than .5, flux shift errors on floppies >rarely move a great amount unless the spindle bearings are rattling >loose. Actually based on media and expected recording rate it's >possible to plug in a set of expected timing windows and add/subtract >a "precompenstation" window amount based on adjacent bits. For >example adjacent ones or zeros (especially more than two bits) >tend to spread or compress over patterns like alternating ones >and zeros. Look up "PRML" or "Partial Response Maximum Likelihood". It's a branch of signal decoding for use in situations where adjacent pulses most definitely have measureable effects on each other. >Further with all the "timing image" in a memory it should be possible >to look at longer strings of transistions and do simple predictive >forcasting (software PLL). Add to that the encoding form (FM, >MFM, M2FM, RLL or GCR), and previous bits history it should be >straightforward enough to predict the likely next transistion(s) >be they one or zero. Most uses of PRML look both forward *and* backwards. -- Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/ 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927 From allisonp at world.std.com Wed Jul 5 20:23:16 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <006f01bfe6ec$be620b30$7064c0d0@ajp166> From: Tony Duell >> That's so true! I was surprised to read in the spec's for my first ones >> (and last, by the way) that the capacitance between adjacent contacts is 5 >> pf, I don't remember much else about them. > >And that's probably being somewhat optimistic!... > >I have certainly seen microcontrollers fail to clock properly when >they've been used on these breadboards. Hang a xtal and the 2 33pF (or >whatever) capacitors off them and the strays will mess things up. Often it's not the breadboard but the crude oscillator circuit that was used. the basic osc used in theory should never work but crystals are less deterministic and don't know that. The side effect is hard starting and a slight offset from the marked frequency. >Since soldering is so much more reliable, and just as fast once you get >used to using the soldering iron, I don't see the point of said >breadboards. But anyway... Different issue. FYI I breadboard on a peice of cheapo copper clad AKA dead bug or as the RAH calls it "ugly" construction. Works well and the groundplane is hard to beat. Either name, you lay the bugs upside down and point to point wire them (solder, programming language #1). Copper is ground and everything else aint. Goes together fast and tends to be fast logic and UHF friendly. Allison From cmcmanis at mcmanis.com Wed Jul 5 23:34:30 2000 From: cmcmanis at mcmanis.com (Chuck McManis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: VAX/VLC memory? Message-ID: <4.3.1.2.20000705213355.00ce6d10@208.226.86.10> Does the VAX 4000/VLC take "standard" 4MB 72 pin simms? What are the requirements on it. --Chuck From mikeford at socal.rr.com Wed Jul 5 23:29:15 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: CPS Option Board In-Reply-To: <200007052353.QAA04130@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> References: <200007050310.XAA94884@shuswap.gate.net> Message-ID: >I'd like to know more about the Central Point board. If it can read things Since I have one laying on my desk... Barely the length of a short ISA slot, with fingers on the end like a floppy drive edge connector, as well as a set of header pins for a floppy drive cable that goes to the "real" drive. The card is in series with the floppy drive cable. It has one main chip, about 8051 sized, maybe 60 pins: Transcopy 3 c CPS TC19GO32AP-0036 Japan 8819EA! the ! could be just a vertical line. There is a 48 mhz crystal, and a 1987 copyright. Two sets of jumpers seem to select between PC/XT and AT/Compaq, another set looks like DMA1 or DMA2. Remaining chips are a LS245 to the ISA bus, a 7406 by the PC/XT jumpers, and a 8812S UM8326B next to the crystal. ********* My guess is that knowing what the big chip is and does is the only "catch", the rest could be traced out in a few minutes. From richard at idcomm.com Wed Jul 5 23:48:40 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <000b01bfe705$756577a0$0400c0a8@winbook> How, true! It's a good thing we're looking at a CPLD rather than an FPGA. The CPLD is not without its problems, but the architecture, particularly for small ones, is straighforward enough that one can look at it simply as a number of interconnected PALs. ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Duell To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 6:56 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > > There are 2 issues here. > > Firstly, the fact that you may not have enough routing resources to feed > out the signal. This is trivially cured by using a larger FPGA for the > prototype... > > The second problem which I agree with is that re-routing the device > changes the timing. However, if you're not running the device close to > the maximum speed _and_ you've got an almost fully synchronous design, > then this shouldn't matter. If it's that critical, then you probably > should be routing the device by hand anyway (this is slow and painful, > but you can get the last few ns out of a chip that way...) > > If your circuit is _that_ critical as to timing, then any change in the > logic is going to cause a re-route, which is going to change timings all > over the circuit. Unless you really know what you are doing, and know how > to handle this (which will involve hand-routing, most likely), IMHO you > should re-think the design. I've seen designs where a 'section', compiled > and stuck in an FPGA worked, but when something totally unrelated was > added, the first part fell over due to timing changes. Since the speed of > the circuit was nowhere near the maximum speed the FPGA was capable of, > that was a bad design IMHO. > The main thing to keep in mind is that what's under study is a CPLD. They are not at all like FPGA's in many respects, including, by the way, the ones you seem to remember so well, for obvious reasons. The delay in a CPLD is always determinstic and predictable, and the timing spec's are simple and easy to understand. The I/O is straightforward and so is the "routing" though there's little of that to bother with in a small part like the XC9572. I have severe doubts about the pin count, though, and can't understand why the same die in a different package costs so much more. (the PLCC84 is just under $30 while the PLCC44 is at $5.50) Fortunately, there's a good chance another device, perhaps from another vendor, and in a 68-pin package, maybe one from ALTERA or CYPRESS might fill the bill without breaking the bank. Their software is free as well and they support a wider range of CPLD's. Of course they're not readily available form DigiKey . . . > > > > That's why I made the remark I made about simulation, which has LONG been > > near and dear to my heart. I tolerate its weaknesses where they occur for > > the benefit and confidence the give me. I've seldom been disappointed. > > Last time I used an FPGA simulator (a couple of years back, and it was > one provided by Xilinx), it was so broken as to be unusable. It showed > glitches where there were none (like on the output of D-types far from > any clock edge), it failed to show then when they most certainly did > occur, it failed to get a couple of simple test circuits 'right' (it said > signals were undefined when they certainly were not!), it couldn't handle > external memory devices or logic in any reasonable way, etc. > Ah, yes . . . good old SILOS . . . it's one of many and there are good ones and not-so-good ones. The one from MENTOR was OK but the one purchased from XILINX (SILOS) was useless. However, I bought the MAXPLUS+ software from ALTERA the same year that I learned how crappy the XILINX software was, and its simulator had problems that couldn't be worked around, too. I had a mux that simulated a 70 ns prop-delay with a one and 15 with a zero. The spec showed no difference and the FAE couldn't explain the problem either. That was not such a good investment either. > > I can assure you that bringing out signals _carefully_, noting how the > timing differed from internal signals when it mattered, was a _lot_ > easier and more reliable. It actually meant that physical circuits > started working and working reliably! > That requires more effort, (painstaking manual layout and floorplanning) than I've ever wanted to use up on an FPGA. Nowadays, when there are over a million gates in one of these babies, you either have to trust your simulator or go nuts trying to figure out how to do otherwise. > > > -tony > > From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jul 5 23:50:59 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (healyzh@aracnet.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:16 2005 Subject: VAX/VLC memory? In-Reply-To: <4.3.1.2.20000705213355.00ce6d10@208.226.86.10> from "Chuck McManis" at Jul 05, 2000 09:34:30 PM Message-ID: <200007060450.VAA15046@shell1.aracnet.com> > > Does the VAX 4000/VLC take "standard" 4MB 72 pin simms? What are the > requirements on it. > --Chuck > I believe they've got to be True Parity 72-pin SIMMs. Zane From mann at pa.dec.com Thu Jul 6 00:02:27 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <004201bfe6e7$c5b153f0$7064c0d0@ajp166> Message-ID: <200007060502.WAA30584@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> This is great, I was hoping for comments like this. > I'd suggest some factor less than .5, flux shift errors on floppies > rarely move a great amount unless the spindle bearings are rattling > loose. For the particular 8" floppies I was trying to read, a few seemed to need a factor of 0.6 or even 0.75 to be read. Many worked fine with 0.0. > Actually based on media and expected recording rate it's > possible to plug in a set of expected timing windows and add/subtract > a "precompenstation" window amount based on adjacent bits. For > example adjacent ones or zeros (especially more than two bits) > tend to spread or compress over patterns like alternating ones > and zeros. > > Further with all the "timing image" in a memory it should be possible > to look at longer strings of transistions and do simple predictive > forcasting (software PLL). Add to that the encoding form (FM, > MFM, M2FM, RLL or GCR), and previous bits history it should be > straightforward enough to predict the likely next transistion(s) > be they one or zero. This sounds like just the thing to do. Do you have any references where I could read up on this kind of algorithm? I've never studied signal processing -- I have a mathematics and computer science background, not engineering -- so I've been working by intuition up to this point. (Hmm, looking at Tim Shoppa's later response gives me the keywords "partial response maximum likelihood" to look for. That should help.) Another neat trick might be to notice when there is a CRC error and/or a clock violation, and in that case backtrack to a recent past decision where the second most likely alternative was close to the most likely, try it the other way, and see if the result looks better. Obviously one can't overdo that or you'll just generate random data with a CRC that matches by chance, but since the CRC is 16 bits, I'd think it should be OK to try a few different likely guesses to get it to match. Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From richard at idcomm.com Thu Jul 6 00:09:20 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <004201bfe6e7$c5b153f0$7064c0d0@ajp166> Message-ID: <001501bfe708$582a8740$0400c0a8@winbook> Please see comments embedded below. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: allisonp To: Classic Computers Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 7:15 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > From: Richard Erlacher > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Date: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 7:30 PM > Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > >You may be onto something, Tim, but I'd make one observation here. The > >signal on pin2 of the 8" drive cable, though often driven with the > >1793's TG43 signal, does not turn write precomp on and off, but, rather, > >reduces the write current to the heads. This reduces the amplitude of > the > >signal > > > In many cases it's also used to alter write precomp. Most all have some > precomp (Esp DD controllers) and for the TG43 case they alter the precomp > to further compensate for bit shift due to the close magnetic domains. > That's precisely what I said, isn't it? The only thing is that driving pin 2 (RWC) of the cable doesn't do anything on the controller unless you've provided circuitry to do that. I did say the TG43 flag on the 179x is used to enable precomp, right? > > >driving the heads, hence reduces the overall amplitude of the recovered > >signal as well. That same signal is used to enable write > precompensation on > > Bogus. the levels are dealt with in the read amps with margin as well. > What's changing of the write current really impacts is the read bit shift > (aka peak shift) as the bit density goes up (inner tracks are shorter > than > outer). > Gee, if reducing the write current is done to reduce the signal amplitude on the heads, I wonder why they say that . . . > > >some controllers, many of which use a less-than-ideal timebase to define > >the precompensation offsets imposed on the data stream. > > This is true, or worse used oneshots. generally the time base for the > bit encoding was always a crystal with not worse than 200ppm error Commercial standard for crystal oscillators has been 100 ppm since back in the mid '70's. There were cheap ones at 1000 ppm, though, but most floppy drives didn't have need for oscillators. That's where the one-shots lived. > and less than 50ppm drift. The typical system was usually within > 50ppm of exact and drifted less than 25ppm over temperature extremes. > Often the actual data rate was far lower than that reference(usually 1/4 > or 1/8th). > The one-shots were often timed with 5% resistors and 10% capacitors. > > >Do you think you could take a stab at swapping the timebase on your > >Catweasel board with a 32 MHz crystal? I think that would be VERY > >illuminating, particularly where these precomp/write-current-related > >effects > >are concerned, because phase noise introduced by the deviation of the > >Catweasel timebase from a harmonic of the data rate adds confusion. > > There lies a connundrum, study the media and the magnetic domains therein > or get the data? A lower clock would be adaquate for getting the data. > A clock as slow as 4 MHz would be quite adequate for reading, Allison, but if you want the optimal relationship between write data and precomp, ensuring best likelihood of recovering the data, you need to have 16x resolution as a minimum, and somewhere on the order or 12x as the interval by which you precompensate. This can vary considerably with the drive, but it's a typical value for 1980-generation heads and media. SMC and Western Digital both made parts, rather late in the game, that performed these functions digitally but used a 32x clock. > > Further, while I was studying digital PLL state machines I found a point > where increasing the clock (greater resolution) produced sharply reduced > improvement. Signal processing theory (analog) suggests the same. > That's true and the knee to which you refer lies around 6% jitter. That's 16x the data rate. The phase noise from a digital PLL is quite tolerable and the tracking accurate and reasonably continuous at that level. Below that you have capture and tracking error and above that you're squandering resources if there's no more compelling reason to have the frequency available. > > From: Tim Mann : > > >> So, what's the heuristic? It's quite crude and oversimplified too, > >> seems to work pretty well. The general idea is that if an interval is > >> a bit off from what you were expecting it to be, multiply the error by > >> some factor around 0.5 to 0.8 (you sometimes have to tune it for each > >> disk if they are particularly bad), and add that to the next interval > > I'd suggest some factor less than .5, flux shift errors on floppies > rarely move a great amount unless the spindle bearings are rattling > loose. Actually based on media and expected recording rate it's > possible to plug in a set of expected timing windows and add/subtract > a "precompenstation" window amount based on adjacent bits. For > example adjacent ones or zeros (especially more than two bits) > tend to spread or compress over patterns like alternating ones > and zeros. > > Further with all the "timing image" in a memory it should be possible > to look at longer strings of transistions and do simple predictive > forcasting (software PLL). Add to that the encoding form (FM, > MFM, M2FM, RLL or GCR), and previous bits history it should be > straightforward enough to predict the likely next transistion(s) > be they one or zero. > > It is serediptious that the code you have effectively accomplishes > a tracking filter (type of PLL). Why, many of the parameters on > the media like peakshift and other behavours tend to average > themselves and cancle. Most of this stuff is not rocket science, > it does however require seeing into the set of abstractions to > make them obvious. > > Allison > > > > > From richard at idcomm.com Thu Jul 6 00:31:51 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007060502.WAA30584@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: <001d01bfe70b$7d8e5680$0400c0a8@winbook> Please see my embedded remarks below. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tim Mann To: Cc: allisonp Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 11:02 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > This is great, I was hoping for comments like this. > > > I'd suggest some factor less than .5, flux shift errors on floppies > > rarely move a great amount unless the spindle bearings are rattling > > loose. > > For the particular 8" floppies I was trying to read, a few seemed to need > a factor of 0.6 or even 0.75 to be read. Many worked fine with 0.0. > > > Actually based on media and expected recording rate it's > > possible to plug in a set of expected timing windows and add/subtract > > a "precompenstation" window amount based on adjacent bits. For > > example adjacent ones or zeros (especially more than two bits) > > tend to spread or compress over patterns like alternating ones > > and zeros. > In reality, you should not be able to detect the precompensation windows at all, if they'r properly applied. The purpose of the precomp is to anticipate and pre-correct for peak shift due to crowding of the bits. As I wrote before, since the peaks are of opposite sign, in cases where they are "too" close together, meaning that one pulse is still decaying while the other begins to present itself, (detectable by examining the slope of the signal) the addition of the two values subtacts from the two somewhat linearly from the theoretical peaks, forcing the peaks themselves to occur farther apart than they were written. This is helped by the lower write-current, resulting in detection of the inreasing current in the head somewhat later than if it had been written at full current, and secondly by the fact that it is written earlier at the leading end of a pulse train, and later at the trailing end. The upshot of all this is that the peak detector senses these peaks at their nominal location even though they were not written that way. Though it may appear that way, I doubt that consistently readable diskettes have a great deal of error in their position in the pulse train. It's important to keep in mind, however, that it's the level and not the edges that contain the information. But for that, the FM data/clock separators using one-shots would never have worked at all, with their wide error margin. > > > Further with all the "timing image" in a memory it should be possible > > to look at longer strings of transistions and do simple predictive > > forecasting (software PLL). Add to that the encoding form (FM, > > MFM, M2FM, RLL or GCR), and previous bits history it should be > > straightforward enough to predict the likely next transistion(s) > > be they one or zero. > If you sample the data at a harmonic of the rate at which its transitions were written, ever mindful of the way in which FDC's work, you should be able to do accurate prediction/correction of the sampled data in accordance with the model. It's more difficult if you write the data at 500 KHz, precomp it at 6 MHz and then recover it at 7 MHz. It just makes sense to use a harmonic of the frequencies involved. It makes the data stream larger, perhaps, but the patterns, such as they are, with their random errors due to noise, and systematic error due to mechanical components' influence, should be much more easily detectable. What's more, if you really want to eliminate unwanted signal components, you could carefully make four readings, having rotated the spindle 90 degrees in the same direction between insertions of the diskette, and then sum the data samples, aligning to index each time for rough alignment and then to the first ID address mark once it's found. That may help correllate out the random error. It should also make the mechanically generated error easily detectable. > > This sounds like just the thing to do. Do you have any references where > I could read up on this kind of algorithm? I've never studied signal > processing -- I have a mathematics and computer science background, not > engineering -- so I've been working by intuition up to this point. > > (Hmm, looking at Tim Shoppa's later response gives me the keywords "partial > response maximum likelihood" to look for. That should help.) > > Another neat trick might be to notice when there is a CRC error and/or > a clock violation, and in that case backtrack to a recent past decision > where the second most likely alternative was close to the most likely, > try it the other way, and see if the result looks better. Obviously one > can't overdo that or you'll just generate random data with a CRC that > matches by chance, but since the CRC is 16 bits, I'd think it should be > OK to try a few different likely guesses to get it to match. > > Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org > Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA > > From richard at idcomm.com Thu Jul 6 00:35:35 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: CPS Option Board References: <200007050310.XAA94884@shuswap.gate.net> Message-ID: <002501bfe70c$0339b2c0$0400c0a8@winbook> I never owned one of these boards, but I think the 48 MHz crystal is there for reasons other than cost. All the frequencies desirable for processing FD's fall out of that one if you divide by 3 and by 4. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Ford To: Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 10:29 PM Subject: CPS Option Board > >I'd like to know more about the Central Point board. If it can read things > > Since I have one laying on my desk... > > Barely the length of a short ISA slot, with fingers on the end like a > floppy drive edge connector, as well as a set of header pins for a floppy > drive cable that goes to the "real" drive. The card is in series with the > floppy drive cable. > > It has one main chip, about 8051 sized, maybe 60 pins: > > Transcopy 3 c CPS > TC19GO32AP-0036 > Japan 8819EA! the ! could be just a vertical line. > > There is a 48 mhz crystal, and a 1987 copyright. Two sets of jumpers seem > to select between PC/XT and AT/Compaq, another set looks like DMA1 or DMA2. > > Remaining chips are a LS245 to the ISA bus, a 7406 by the PC/XT jumpers, > and a 8812S UM8326B next to the crystal. > > ********* > > My guess is that knowing what the big chip is and does is the only "catch", > the rest could be traced out in a few minutes. > > > From mrbill at mrbill.net Thu Jul 6 01:07:21 2000 From: mrbill at mrbill.net (Bill Bradford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: ODT tutorial / online docs? Message-ID: <20000706010720.Z23516@mrbill.net> Anybody know where I can find an ODT tutorial/documentation (for a PDP 11/02) online? I'm having trouble booting a system... (http://www.pdp11.org/pics/pdp1102.jpg) Bill -- +-------------------\ /-----------------+ | Bill Bradford | www.sunhelp.org | | mrbill@mrbill.net | www.decvax.org | | Austin, Texas USA | www.pdp11.org | +-------------------/ \-----------------+ From mikeford at socal.rr.com Thu Jul 6 03:53:35 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Sat SoCal Garage Sale, RoadTrip to NoCal In-Reply-To: <000b01bfe705$756577a0$0400c0a8@winbook> References: Message-ID: Saturday July 8th from 7am til 4 pm is the once a year garage sale in my condo association, and my garage door will be open with LOTS of neat computer stuff priced to move. Apollo workstations with HP 1097C color monitors, IBM model 95 servers, Quadra 950 macs, keyboards, mice, networking, old laptops, various commodore and atari items, Apple II stuff, firewall systems, Russel Hobbs electric tea kettles, pretty rocks, boxes of books, cables of many tupes. Location Old Chapman Townhomes is about 3 miles east of the 22/55 freeway junction. East on Chapman to Canyon View, right about 100 feet, then turn left into the townhome complex on Brynhurst, left again in 30 feet, then right on Cadbury and I will be at the Culdesac at the end of Cadbury. RoadTrip Next week, about July 11th, I will be packing up the car and heading up to San Jose and Sillycon valley for the rest of the week. If I have something you want, and you can meet up with me "reliably" on Wednesday or Thursday, I may be able to bring it up with me. Ditto if you have something I want, or suggestions on places to poke in interesting boxes. From anmu at mm-lab.uni-tuebingen.de Thu Jul 6 06:33:31 2000 From: anmu at mm-lab.uni-tuebingen.de (anmu@mm-lab.uni-tuebingen.de) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: who knows: Celerity [GEI Rechnersysteme] ? Message-ID: <200007061133.NAA16856@serv2.mm-lab.uni-tuebingen.de> hello ! someone offered my a Celerity computer from 'GEI Rechnersysteme'. it is mounted in a 19" rack and has a built in tape drive. unfortunately they cannot provide me further information. so I would like to ask you on the classiccmp-list: - where can I get further information about this machine ? - what hardware is in it ? [bus, cpu,...] - what operating systems run on it ? - should I take it or leave it ? thanks for help, Andreas -- ********************************************************* * Andreas Mueller * * * * Multi-Media-Labor || Uni-Tuebingen * * phone: +49 7071-2978567 or +49 7071-2977821 * ********************************************************* From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Jul 6 07:16:16 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp@world.std.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000705223752.20200229@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: > >and less than 50ppm drift. The typical system was usually within > >50ppm of exact and drifted less than 25ppm over temperature extremes. > >Often the actual data rate was far lower than that reference(usually 1/4 > >or 1/8th). > > IMHO it's very misleading - or even worse, foolish - to worry about errors in > the ppm range when the instantaneous rotation speed of the floppy can > vary a few percent. Exactly the point. ;) Whatever the clock error may be it's trivial and stable compared to the mechanical system and the magnetics. > Look up "PRML" or "Partial Response Maximum Likelihood". It's a > branch of signal decoding for use in situations where adjacent pulses > most definitely have measureable effects on each other. Understood, I was trying to stay out of the land of obscure terms and letters. > >MFM, M2FM, RLL or GCR), and previous bits history it should be > >straightforward enough to predict the likely next transistion(s) > >be they one or zero. > > Most uses of PRML look both forward *and* backwards. Very true, the 765, 1793 and their heirs select precomp on a bit level for this on the write case to make the read case easier. Allison From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Jul 6 07:22:26 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp@world.std.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <200007060502.WAA30584@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: > This sounds like just the thing to do. Do you have any references where > I could read up on this kind of algorithm? I've never studied signal > processing -- I have a mathematics and computer science background, not > engineering -- so I've been working by intuition up to this point. > > (Hmm, looking at Tim Shoppa's later response gives me the keywords "partial > response maximum likelihood" to look for. That should help.) Tim's reference is a very good one for this. It should also lead to a few others that will help directly. He's certainly knowledgable on this. > a clock violation, and in that case backtrack to a recent past decision > where the second most likely alternative was close to the most likely, > try it the other way, and see if the result looks better. Obviously one > can't overdo that or you'll just generate random data with a CRC that > matches by chance, but since the CRC is 16 bits, I'd think it should be > OK to try a few different likely guesses to get it to match. This is a possible way to approach it. Also it would allow extracting data from a floppy that was stapled to the wall! Allison From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Jul 6 07:31:20 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp@world.std.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <001501bfe708$582a8740$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: here you wade through the comments... On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote: > Please see comments embedded below. > > Dick > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: allisonp > To: Classic Computers > Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 7:15 PM > Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > > From: Richard Erlacher > > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > > Date: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 7:30 PM > > Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > > > > >You may be onto something, Tim, but I'd make one observation here. The > > >signal on pin2 of the 8" drive cable, though often driven with the > > >1793's TG43 signal, does not turn write precomp on and off, but, rather, > > >reduces the write current to the heads. This reduces the amplitude of > > the > > >signal > > > > > > In many cases it's also used to alter write precomp. Most all have some > > precomp (Esp DD controllers) and for the TG43 case they alter the precomp > > to further compensate for bit shift due to the close magnetic domains. > > > That's precisely what I said, isn't it? The only thing is that driving pin > 2 (RWC) of the cable doesn't do anything on the controller unless you've > provided circuitry to do that. I did say the TG43 flag on the 179x is used > to enable precomp, right? > > > > >driving the heads, hence reduces the overall amplitude of the recovered > > >signal as well. That same signal is used to enable write > > precompensation on > > > > Bogus. the levels are dealt with in the read amps with margin as well. > > What's changing of the write current really impacts is the read bit shift > > (aka peak shift) as the bit density goes up (inner tracks are shorter > > than > > outer). > > > Gee, if reducing the write current is done to reduce the signal amplitude on > the heads, I wonder why they say that . . . It does but the peak shift is what is of more interest and the lower read signal is less of a concern than mashed flux trasistions. > > > > >some controllers, many of which use a less-than-ideal timebase to define > > >the precompensation offsets imposed on the data stream. > > > > This is true, or worse used oneshots. generally the time base for the > > bit encoding was always a crystal with not worse than 200ppm error > > Commercial standard for crystal oscillators has been 100 ppm since back in > the mid '70's. There were cheap ones at 1000 ppm, though, but most floppy > drives didn't have need for oscillators. That's where the one-shots lived. I said crystals not complete oscilators. Many of the cheap cpu clock rocks were really low accuracy parts. Like Tim said, in the world of mechanical slop 200ppm is nothing! > > > and less than 50ppm drift. The typical system was usually within > > 50ppm of exact and drifted less than 25ppm over temperature extremes. > > Often the actual data rate was far lower than that reference(usually 1/4 > > or 1/8th). > > > The one-shots were often timed with 5% resistors and 10% capacitors. They were temperature and voltage sensitive as all hell. Most of the caps were not good quality and the resistors while within 5% of stated value said little about their thermal characteristics. > > > > >Do you think you could take a stab at swapping the timebase on your > > >Catweasel board with a 32 MHz crystal? I think that would be VERY > > >illuminating, particularly where these precomp/write-current-related > > >effects > > >are concerned, because phase noise introduced by the deviation of the > > >Catweasel timebase from a harmonic of the data rate adds confusion. > > > > There lies a connundrum, study the media and the magnetic domains therein > > or get the data? A lower clock would be adaquate for getting the data. > > > A clock as slow as 4 MHz would be quite adequate for reading, Allison, but > if you want the optimal relationship between write data and precomp, > ensuring best likelihood of recovering the data, you need to have 16x > resolution as a minimum, and somewhere on the order or 12x as the interval > by which you precompensate. This can vary considerably with the drive, but > it's a typical value for 1980-generation heads and media. SMC and Western > Digital both made parts, rather late in the game, that performed these > functions digitally but used a 32x clock. I'm quite aware of them, since the early 80s. > > > > Further, while I was studying digital PLLd state machines I found a point > > where increasing the clock (greater resolution) produced sharply reduced > > improvement. Signal processing theory (analog) suggests the same. > > > That's true and the knee to which you refer lies around 6% jitter. That's > 16x the data rate. The phase noise from a digital PLL is quite tolerable > and the tracking accurate and reasonably continuous at that level. Below > that you have capture and tracking error and above that you're squandering > resources if there's no more compelling reason to have the frequency > available. Yep. > > > > From: Tim Mann : > > > > >> So, what's the heuristic? It's quite crude and oversimplified too, > > >> seems to work pretty well. The general idea is that if an interval is > > >> a bit off from what you were expecting it to be, multiply the error by > > >> some factor around 0.5 to 0.8 (you sometimes have to tune it for each > > >> disk if they are particularly bad), and add that to the next interval > > > > I'd suggest some factor less than .5, flux shift errors on floppies > > rarely move a great amount unless the spindle bearings are rattling > > loose. Actually based on media and expected recording rate it's > > possible to plug in a set of expected timing windows and add/subtract > > a "precompenstation" window amount based on adjacent bits. For > > example adjacent ones or zeros (especially more than two bits) > > tend to spread or compress over patterns like alternating ones > > and zeros. > > > > Further with all the "timing image" in a memory it should be possible > > to look at longer strings of transistions and do simple predictive > > forcasting (software PLL). Add to that the encoding form (FM, > > MFM, M2FM, RLL or GCR), and previous bits history it should be > > straightforward enough to predict the likely next transistion(s) > > be they one or zero. > > > > It is serediptious that the code you have effectively accomplishes > > a tracking filter (type of PLL). Why, many of the parameters on > > the media like peakshift and other behavours tend to average > > themselves and cancle. Most of this stuff is not rocket science, > > it does however require seeing into the set of abstractions to > > make them obvious. > > > > Allison > > > > > > > > > > > From korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu Thu Jul 6 08:51:08 2000 From: korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000705200935.20200229@trailing-edge.com> from "CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com" at "Jul 5, 2000 08:09:35 pm" Message-ID: <200007061351.GAA24575@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> > >You prefer software solutions. I prefer hardware. It doesn't make either > >of us wrong. When you close your eyes, you see pseudocode. I see schematics. > > I've been using variants on "raw data capture" for years, and I find it > *most* flexible when the data is captured in its rawest forms. I certainly agree, and wouldn't design a board that didn't have the capability to do this. It's definitely required in the case of a totally unsupported format or a damaged disk. But in the case of a well known format that's read by a well documented FDC, having an FDC that can be thrown into a CPLD or FPGA seems attractive to me. And as a collector, I can see an advantage to having schematics of FDCs compatible with a variety of existing (and past, of course) FDCs. Some day I'll be forced to build a NEC765 in my garage out of tin cans and bailing twine. Besides, reverse engineering is fun. :) I agree that it's not buying much more than can be bought with software, apart from the satisfaction of having done it, and the value of a bunch of FDC schematics. Eric From korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu Thu Jul 6 09:19:14 2000 From: korpela at ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J. Korpela) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: from Tony Duell at "Jul 6, 2000 01:56:10 am" Message-ID: <200007061419.HAA24903@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> > I have to take exception to your suggestion of making a modified version of > your FPGA to generate test points. There are lots of flops in an LCA and > limited routing resources. I agree here. My practice has been to route the design without the test points and then use the low level editor to add what test points I could without changing the layout/routing. Of course then you can't count on the signal you wanted to test on being there and being routable to a IOB. It's definitely a different world than 74 series logic. Eric From steverob at hotoffice.com Thu Jul 6 09:45:33 2000 From: steverob at hotoffice.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Great Finds Message-ID: > That's probably a DDS (aka "DAT") drive ... at least, that's > the only drive > I've ever seen built-in to any HP 9000/8x2 or HP 3000/9x2. > (It'll be a DDS-1, most likely) That's what I suspected but, wasn't sure. I'll get some so that I'll have a system backup. Any idea how much data fits on one? > How much memory do you have? (The 8x2 and 9x2 could have > memory plugged into > just about any slots (front or back!). One of the systems is configured with 4 X 8MB of memory. The other has 1 X 32 MB. I also have 8 additional 8MB modules that were pulled from the system with the bad CPU. Haven't had a chance to check them out yet. Between the two system (and spares), I have 6 HPIB interface cards, 10 I/O MUX cards, 9 hard drives, 2 LAN cards, and 2 optical interface cards. We also found a short rack of hard drives at the junk dealers place but, I didn't get them. I noticed that they had the fibre connectors but, at the time didn't realize the computers had fibre interfaces :-( I might go back later and get the rack. If it's still there (Joe?) > > work. Whenever I try to cpio or fbackup to the tape, the > drive will try to > > What version of HP-UX? Jeesh... I'm not even sure what versions are installed. One system hadn't been booted since 1996 the other hadn't been booted since 1994 so, the OS isn't exactly current. I've got the install CDs for HP-UX 10.20 Series 800 but am having trouble with the CD-ROM. Once I get the OS reinstalled, it should be a lot easier to diagnose the tape drive problem. > How did you configure the tape drive (ls -l /dev/...whatever...) I tried using some of the existing devices (ioscan -fn) but that didn't work. It looks like the system is using the driver "tape1". Not sure if that's correct or not? I also tried creating special files (mksf -H 52.0 /dev/...whatever...) with a variety of parameters but, just haven't hit the right combo yet. When I try to write to the tape, the drive displays "Write, Read, Write, Read, blah, blah...). Then the console says something like "Write error in tape header...). I don't believe it wrote any data but, I do think the setup is pretty close. At this point, I'm suspicious of the driver. Thanks, Steve Roberson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/8b769098/attachment.html From steverob at hotoffice.com Thu Jul 6 09:51:05 2000 From: steverob at hotoffice.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Looking for.... Message-ID: Get a couple more guys/gals and we could have our own mini-VCF. Steve Robertson > -----Original Message----- > From: LFessen106@aol.com [mailto:LFessen106@aol.com] > Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 3:39 PM > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Looking for.... > > > Well let me know if you want to come down here for a shopping > trip/vacation. I can take you to a lot better places than > Dismal World. > > Joe > > >> > > You're on :-) I occasionally get down to Orlando..! > -Linc. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/668115c8/attachment.html From transit at lerctr.org Thu Jul 6 11:33:14 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: who knows: Celerity [GEI Rechnersysteme] ? In-Reply-To: <200007061133.NAA16856@serv2.mm-lab.uni-tuebingen.de> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jul 2000 anmu@mm-lab.uni-tuebingen.de wrote: > > hello ! > > someone offered my a Celerity computer from 'GEI Rechnersysteme'. > it is mounted in a 19" rack and has a built in tape drive. > unfortunately they cannot provide me further information. I did a quick net search, but didn't find too much, just a couple of 'Computerwoche' articles (in German) I vaguely remember seeing a Celerity workstation in the UCSB Engineering terminal room, all the way back in 1985. It ran some flavor of Unix. As for your particular machine: I'd at least have them turn it on and make it do something (show a prompt, let you log in etc) before taking/buying it. But that's just me... From John.Honniball at uwe.ac.uk Thu Jul 6 11:39:39 2000 From: John.Honniball at uwe.ac.uk (John Honniball) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Jul 2000 23:04:23 +0100 (BST) Tony Duell wrote: > > Just a thought about the CPLD vs. TTL discussion: Would it > > be possible to design the device such that it could be > > built EITHER in TTL chips OR as a CPLD? With the same > > I've done a significant amount of design with FPGAs (not CLPDs, though, > so this might be different), and my experience suggests that no matter > what the manufacturers claim you _can't_ take a TTL-based circuit, feed > it into the schematic capture program, and expect the result to work > properly. I wouldn't expect the two designs to be identical at that level, just to appear to function the same to the external world. That way, we'd be able to write the same software to work with either hardware implementation. > -tony > -- John Honniball Email: John.Honniball@uwe.ac.uk University of the West of England From John.Honniball at uwe.ac.uk Thu Jul 6 11:43:34 2000 From: John.Honniball at uwe.ac.uk (John Honniball) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jul 2000 00:18:20 +0100 (BST) Tony Duell wrote: > One final point that perhaps Tim could answer. If he does provide a > schematic, would he have any objections if somebody else created a CPLD > (or FPGA, or..) version? Giving him full credit for the original idea, of > course. Because if he doesn't mind, then the whole issue goes away. You > can build whichever version suits you... That sounds like a good plan to me! Build in whatever technology is appropriate at the time -- who knows how we'll build one of these things in five or ten years from now? > -tony > -- John Honniball Email: John.Honniball@uwe.ac.uk University of the West of England From mmcfadden at cmh.edu Thu Jul 6 12:01:18 2000 From: mmcfadden at cmh.edu (McFadden, Mike) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: I suggest it be named "TIMBER - Data Logger" both for the creator and function. Mike mmcfadden@cmh.edu May be intoxicated from too much screen cleaner From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 6 12:41:33 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <004201bfe6e7$c5b153f0$7064c0d0@ajp166> from "allisonp" at Jul 5, 0 09:15:34 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1079 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/d56be49a/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 6 12:45:41 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <006f01bfe6ec$be620b30$7064c0d0@ajp166> from "allisonp" at Jul 5, 0 09:23:16 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1276 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/b012d433/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 6 13:03:56 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <000b01bfe705$756577a0$0400c0a8@winbook> from "Richard Erlacher" at Jul 5, 0 10:48:40 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 4615 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/a637e718/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 6 13:13:04 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: who knows: Celerity [GEI Rechnersysteme] ? In-Reply-To: from "Charles P. Hobbs" at Jul 6, 0 11:33:14 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1287 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/78a7960c/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 6 13:14:58 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: from "John Honniball" at Jul 6, 0 05:39:39 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 653 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000706/fe5a097f/attachment.ksh From ss at allegro.com Thu Jul 6 13:57:25 2000 From: ss at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: (Fwd) [HP3000-L] Old 960 out to pasture. Message-ID: <39647425.27813.56DE2A4@localhost> For anyone out there with an HP 3000/960 (or 960 or 980), or an HP 9000/860 (or 850 or 880?): ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Subject: [HP3000-L] Old 960 out to pasture. From: Debus-David@AER.ARAMARK.COM Greetings All, I am finally decommissioning my old and trusty 960. I have gutted the chassis for of all usable boards. They are all available to anyone interested in spare parts for the cost of shipping. One hard to find item is a SCSI bootable CA. There are numerous FL cards and the usual HP-IB cards. I need to move this quickly due to floor space problems. First interested party takes all. Thanks ------- End of forwarded message ------- No...I don't know where he is! (Please don't flame him) Stan Stan Sieler sieler@allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html www.allegro.com/sieler From xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com Thu Jul 6 14:23:06 2000 From: xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com (Will Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: who knows: Celerity [GEI Rechnersysteme] ? Message-ID: <20000706192306.17092.qmail@hotmail.com> This should do it: (sent to the list for everyone's benefit) DATELINE: San Diego, CA March 3, 1986 Word Count:440 Celerity Computing 9692 Via Excelencia San Diego, CA 92126 619-271-9940 CELERITY SIGNS MAJOR OEM PACT WITH LEADING EUROPEAN DISTRIBUTOR SAN DIEGO, March 3, 1986 -- Less than a month after Celerity Computing's introduction of two new superminicomputer design systems, the company has signed a $3 million agreement to supply OEM configurations of the systems to GEI Rechnersysteme GmbH, Aachen, West Germany, a leading European systems house and distributor of of computer systems. Under terms of the two-year agreement, Celerity equipment, including its proprietary 32-bit ACCEL (TM) processor, will be incorporated into systems GEI manufactures and distributes to end-users in industrial automation, engineering design and simulation, and communications. GEI sells both customized and turnkey solutions throughout West Germany and Switzerland to customers including BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche, Ford, Philips and the German government. "This agreement with GEI represents not only a significant expansion of our presence into the European market, but also a major third- party endorsement of the performance and capabilities of our systems in the mechanical engineering arena," said Stephen Vallender, President of Celerity Computing. GEI installed more than 400 computer systems in 1985. The company is 50 percent-owned by AEG, which recently was acquired by Daimler- Benz/Mercedes. "We want to deliver the highest-quality, top-performance computer products to our customers," said Michael Emrich, President of GEI Rechnersysteme. "We ran benchmarks with all the players in the supermini and CAD/CAM markets, and Celerity clearly beat the others in performance and price." Celerity's UNIX (R) - and reducted instruction set (RISC)-based supermini design systems are the fastest and most powerful office_ environment systems in their price class for engineering and scientific applications. The Celerity C1260, introduced in January, 1986, is a dual-processor system with a benchmarked throughput of 6.15 million Whetstone instructions per second (W/MIPS). It is priced at $110,000 for a functional system configuration. The mid- range C1230, also introduced in January delivers 3.25 W/MIPS for $75,000. Both are deskside systems, allowing engineers to complete design tasks and compute-intensive analysis operations without off- loading to more expensive, remote computers. Three-year old Celerity Computing delivered its first computer system, the C1200, in November 1984. The company has installed more than 60 systems in leading corporations, research centers and universities throughout the United States. Its supermini design systems provide advanced design and analysis capabilities to professionals in a variety of fields, including automotive, manufacturing, aviation and aerospace, molecular modeling, animation, and research. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From jpdavis at gorge.net Thu Jul 6 14:58:45 2000 From: jpdavis at gorge.net (Jim Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: who knows: Celerity [GEI Rechnersysteme] ? References: Message-ID: <3964E4F5.DC4856C7@gorge.net> "Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)" wrote: > > On Thu, 6 Jul 2000 anmu@mm-lab.uni-tuebingen.de wrote: > > > > > hello ! > > > > someone offered my a Celerity computer from 'GEI Rechnersysteme'. > > it is mounted in a 19" rack and has a built in tape drive. > > unfortunately they cannot provide me further information. >From a quick google search: http://www.infocenter.telebase.com/sample/trn-smpl.htm Celerity's UNIX (R) - and reducted instruction set (RISC)-based supermini design systems are the fastest and most powerful office_ environment systems in their price class for engineering and scientific applications. The Celerity C1260, introduced in January, 1986, is a dual-processor system with a benchmarked throughput of 6.15 million Whetstone instructions per second (W/MIPS). It is priced at $110,000 for a functional system configuration. The mid- range C1230, also introduced in January delivers 3.25 W/MIPS for $75,000. Both are deskside systems, allowing engineers to complete design tasks and compute-intensive analysis operations without off- loading to more expensive, remote computers. Three-year old Celerity Computing delivered its first computer system, the C1200, in November 1984. The company has installed more than 60 systems in leading corporations, research centers and universities throughout the United States. Its supermini design systems provide advanced design and analysis capabilities to professionals in a variety of fields, including automotive, manufacturing, aviation and aerospace, molecular modeling, animation, and research. Jim Davis From transit at lerctr.org Thu Jul 6 15:19:08 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: who knows: Celerity [GEI Rechnersysteme] ? In-Reply-To: <3964E4F5.DC4856C7@gorge.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Jim Davis wrote: > From a quick google search: > http://www.infocenter.telebase.com/sample/trn-smpl.htm > Celerity's UNIX (R) - and reducted instruction set (RISC)-based > supermini > design systems are the fastest and most powerful office_ environment > systems in their price class for engineering and scientific > applications. > The Celerity C1260, introduced in January, 1986, is a dual-processor Good catch. I tried searching "Celerity Computers" and just got some outfit selling PC parts... From xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com Thu Jul 6 15:29:01 2000 From: xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com (Will Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: who knows: Celerity [GEI Rechnersysteme] ? Message-ID: <20000706202901.49594.qmail@hotmail.com> One more addition: They were bought by FPS (good ol' Floating Point Systems), in 1988, with the resulting company being called FPS Computing. The FPS 500-series machines are actually Celerity 6000-series minisupers. This company was another company like Convex, Alliant, Sequent, etc. Will J ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From richard at idcomm.com Thu Jul 6 15:45:07 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <001501bfe78b$12d543a0$0400c0a8@winbook> There's no point in confusing you withthe facts, Allison, is there . . . Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 6:31 AM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > here you wade through the comments... > > On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote: > > > Please see comments embedded below. > > > > Dick > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: allisonp > > To: Classic Computers > > Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 7:15 PM > > Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > > > > > From: Richard Erlacher > > > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > > > Date: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 7:30 PM > > > Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > > > > > > > >You may be onto something, Tim, but I'd make one observation here. The > > > >signal on pin2 of the 8" drive cable, though often driven with the > > > >1793's TG43 signal, does not turn write precomp on and off, but, rather, > > > >reduces the write current to the heads. This reduces the amplitude of > > > the > > > >signal > > > > > > > > > In many cases it's also used to alter write precomp. Most all have some > > > precomp (Esp DD controllers) and for the TG43 case they alter the precomp > > > to further compensate for bit shift due to the close magnetic domains. > > > > > That's precisely what I said, isn't it? The only thing is that driving pin > > 2 (RWC) of the cable doesn't do anything on the controller unless you've > > provided circuitry to do that. I did say the TG43 flag on the 179x is used > > to enable precomp, right? > > > > > > >driving the heads, hence reduces the overall amplitude of the recovered > > > >signal as well. That same signal is used to enable write > > > precompensation on > > > > > > Bogus. the levels are dealt with in the read amps with margin as well. > > > What's changing of the write current really impacts is the read bit shift > > > (aka peak shift) as the bit density goes up (inner tracks are shorter > > > than > > > outer). > > > > > Gee, if reducing the write current is done to reduce the signal amplitude on > > the heads, I wonder why they say that . . . > > It does but the peak shift is what is of more interest and the lower read > signal is less of a concern than mashed flux trasistions. > > > > > > > >some controllers, many of which use a less-than-ideal timebase to define > > > >the precompensation offsets imposed on the data stream. > > > > > > This is true, or worse used oneshots. generally the time base for the > > > bit encoding was always a crystal with not worse than 200ppm error > > > > Commercial standard for crystal oscillators has been 100 ppm since back in > > the mid '70's. There were cheap ones at 1000 ppm, though, but most floppy > > drives didn't have need for oscillators. That's where the one-shots lived. > > I said crystals not complete oscilators. Many of the cheap cpu clock > rocks were really low accuracy parts. Like Tim said, in the world of > mechanical slop 200ppm is nothing! > > > > > > and less than 50ppm drift. The typical system was usually within > > > 50ppm of exact and drifted less than 25ppm over temperature extremes. > > > Often the actual data rate was far lower than that reference(usually 1/4 > > > or 1/8th). > > > > > The one-shots were often timed with 5% resistors and 10% capacitors. > > They were temperature and voltage sensitive as all hell. Most of the caps > were not good quality and the resistors while within 5% of stated value > said little about their thermal characteristics. > > > > > > > >Do you think you could take a stab at swapping the timebase on your > > > >Catweasel board with a 32 MHz crystal? I think that would be VERY > > > >illuminating, particularly where these precomp/write-current-related > > > >effects > > > >are concerned, because phase noise introduced by the deviation of the > > > >Catweasel timebase from a harmonic of the data rate adds confusion. > > > > > > There lies a connundrum, study the media and the magnetic domains therein > > > or get the data? A lower clock would be adaquate for getting the data. > > > > > A clock as slow as 4 MHz would be quite adequate for reading, Allison, but > > if you want the optimal relationship between write data and precomp, > > ensuring best likelihood of recovering the data, you need to have 16x > > resolution as a minimum, and somewhere on the order or 12x as the interval > > by which you precompensate. This can vary considerably with the drive, but > > it's a typical value for 1980-generation heads and media. SMC and Western > > Digital both made parts, rather late in the game, that performed these > > functions digitally but used a 32x clock. > > I'm quite aware of them, since the early 80s. > > > > > > > Further, while I was studying digital PLLd state machines I found a > point > > > where increasing the clock (greater resolution) produced sharply reduced > > > improvement. Signal processing theory (analog) suggests the same. > > > > > That's true and the knee to which you refer lies around 6% jitter. That's > > 16x the data rate. The phase noise from a digital PLL is quite tolerable > > and the tracking accurate and reasonably continuous at that level. Below > > that you have capture and tracking error and above that you're squandering > > resources if there's no more compelling reason to have the frequency > > available. > > Yep. > > > > > > > From: Tim Mann : > > > > > > >> So, what's the heuristic? It's quite crude and oversimplified too, > > > >> seems to work pretty well. The general idea is that if an interval is > > > >> a bit off from what you were expecting it to be, multiply the error by > > > >> some factor around 0.5 to 0.8 (you sometimes have to tune it for each > > > >> disk if they are particularly bad), and add that to the next interval > > > > > > I'd suggest some factor less than .5, flux shift errors on floppies > > > rarely move a great amount unless the spindle bearings are rattling > > > loose. Actually based on media and expected recording rate it's > > > possible to plug in a set of expected timing windows and add/subtract > > > a "precompenstation" window amount based on adjacent bits. For > > > example adjacent ones or zeros (especially more than two bits) > > > tend to spread or compress over patterns like alternating ones > > > and zeros. > > > > > > Further with all the "timing image" in a memory it should be possible > > > to look at longer strings of transistions and do simple predictive > > > forcasting (software PLL). Add to that the encoding form (FM, > > > MFM, M2FM, RLL or GCR), and previous bits history it should be > > > straightforward enough to predict the likely next transistion(s) > > > be they one or zero. > > > > > > It is serediptious that the code you have effectively accomplishes > > > a tracking filter (type of PLL). Why, many of the parameters on > > > the media like peakshift and other behavours tend to average > > > themselves and cancle. Most of this stuff is not rocket science, > > > it does however require seeing into the set of abstractions to > > > make them obvious. > > > > > > Allison > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From mark_k at iname.com Thu Jul 6 16:48:53 2000 From: mark_k at iname.com (Mark) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Digest version of the classiccmp list Message-ID: Hi, Has anyone else who subscribes to the digest version of the list noticed that it seems to be limited to sending messages of 45K or less? If the total list traffic is larger than that in any given day, the list processor sends out two or three digest messages rather than a single one containing all messages for that day. Isn't the point of the digest version so that you only receive one message per day? It worked like that before the list moved server. Is there any chance of the list maintainer changing the digest behaviour to send a single message per day? -- Mark From bill_r at inetnebr.com Thu Jul 6 16:01:12 2000 From: bill_r at inetnebr.com (Bill Richman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: ROLM PhoneMail System Info? Message-ID: I have been offered an IBM/ROLM phone mail system. I'm curious if it's something standard that's been put into use as a phone mail system, or if it's some weird proprietary thing. It's about 4 feet high, and about 4' x 3' or so. It runs on 220VAC at what appears to be many amps. Inside (the parts I could see - it's still in use at the moment) were several cards in slots, a physically large hard drive, a monster power supply, a tape drive, and some other bits. What I could see was: Priam P/N 330352 hard drive ROLM 40311 Phone Mail System Voice Compression I/O Card 8 Channel Voice Card AP 4MB RAM 41508 System Processor II 41002 Unless it's to go to the junkyard, I need to let them know by Friday (tomorrow) sometime. The hard drive is making "bad bearing" noises, and the voice mail has started to "stutter". They found a newer box to replace it that's about the size of a bread box for less than a refurb hard drive would cost. I'm not sure what I'd do with it, but if it's got anything useful in it, I'd try to salvage it for someone else, if they can arrange shipping. Bill Richman From richard at idcomm.com Thu Jul 6 16:02:46 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <002b01bfe78d$89889d60$0400c0a8@winbook> Well, I'm not sure I buy the economic justification for the higher cost of the PLCC-84 vs the PLCC-44. I'll allow, however, that your supposition applies. However, in the case of the PGA vs PLCC is just the raw cost of the package. If you follow the history of prices in the various packages through the market cycle, the price offset for the PGA vs PLCC stays pretty constant though the base price of the device moves up and down. The TQFP and PQFP packages tend to be the cheapest but they're a pain to prototype. Xilinx wants over $1k in onesies for their PGA packages these days. I doubt they sell many. I remember when the Intel folks were first selling their 80186 in PLCC. They also had it in PGA and CLCC. At the time the PLCC went under $10, the PGA was still over $40. Likewise, the '286 was at $6 for the PLCC when the PGA was still over $35. I always liked the PGA for prototypes, but quickly built a board with a PLCC socket on it so I could use the PLCC in a PGA environment. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Duell To: Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 12:03 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > > How, true! It's a good thing we're looking at a CPLD rather than an FPGA. > > Yes, this part of the discussion has moved away from talking about > designing a disk controller and become a more general discussion of FPGAs. > > understand why the same die in a different package costs so much more. (the > > PLCC84 is just under $30 while the PLCC44 is at $5.50) Fortunately, there's > > Popularity, and the cost of making the package AFAIK. The silicon die is > cheap. PGA packages, in particular, are expensive (in one case with one > of the chips I was using, the 132 pin PGA was more expensive than a > package with a higher pin count that was less suitable for prototyping > (PQFP, maybe). A lot more expensive. > > > > I can assure you that bringing out signals _carefully_, noting how the > > > timing differed from internal signals when it mattered, was a _lot_ > > > easier and more reliable. It actually meant that physical circuits > > > started working and working reliably! > > > > > That requires more effort, (painstaking manual layout and floorplanning) > > than I've ever wanted to use up on an FPGA. Nowadays, when there are over a > > million gates in one of these babies, you either have to trust your > > simulator or go nuts trying to figure out how to do otherwise. > > I have come to realise that software has bugs. Often serious bugs. And > the fact that a simulator says something is no reason to necessarily > believe that the real circuit will do the same. I 'went nuts' trying to > get the simulator to do something even remotely sensible (it managed to > put a 20 ns glitch on the output of _one_ output of a synchronous counter > for no apparent reason!). Designing so that rerouting wouldn't cause > problems, then bringing out test signals most certainly 'worked for me'. > > -tony > > From thompson at mail.athenet.net Thu Jul 6 16:26:17 2000 From: thompson at mail.athenet.net (Paul Thompson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: ROLM PhoneMail System Info? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I ones I have seen/worked on have a 486 or pentium processor, and standard ISA slots. I believe the hard drive is SCSI although I have not seen one of these apart in several years. If yours is particularly ancient (Rolm/Siemens) these might not apply. I believe the ISA standardizations might have taken place after Rolm was accquired by IBM although everything was still sold under the Rolm brandname. The O/S and channel interfaces to the switch are proprietary. There is a SA login which gives access to the nuts and bolts of the operating system. Most customers do not have that password but rather one which allows them to configure voicemail accounts. Paul On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Bill Richman wrote: > I have been offered an IBM/ROLM phone mail system. I'm curious if > it's something standard that's been put into use as a phone mail > system, or if it's some weird proprietary thing. It's about 4 feet > high, and about 4' x 3' or so. It runs on 220VAC at what appears to > be many amps. Inside (the parts I could see - it's still in use at > the moment) were several cards in slots, a physically large hard > drive, a monster power supply, a tape drive, and some other bits. > What I could see was: > > Priam P/N 330352 hard drive > > ROLM 40311 Phone Mail System > > Voice Compression I/O Card > 8 Channel Voice Card > AP 4MB RAM 41508 > System Processor II 41002 > > Unless it's to go to the junkyard, I need to let them know by Friday > (tomorrow) sometime. The hard drive is making "bad bearing" noises, > and the voice mail has started to "stutter". They found a newer box > to replace it that's about the size of a bread box for less than a > refurb hard drive would cost. I'm not sure what I'd do with it, but > if it's got anything useful in it, I'd try to salvage it for someone > else, if they can arrange shipping. > > > Bill Richman > From thompson at mail.athenet.net Thu Jul 6 16:39:46 2000 From: thompson at mail.athenet.net (Paul Thompson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: ROLM PhoneMail System Info? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I believe this is backwards. The ancient ones are the IBM models.y On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Paul Thompson wrote: > If yours is particularly ancient > (Rolm/Siemens) these might not apply. I believe the ISA standardizations > might have taken place after Rolm was accquired by IBM although everything > was still sold under the Rolm brandname. From chris at mainecoon.com Thu Jul 6 16:52:39 2000 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Chris Kennedy) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: ROLM PhoneMail System Info? References: Message-ID: <3964FFA7.34325C6@mainecoon.com> Paul Thompson wrote: > > I believe this is backwards. The ancient ones are the IBM models.y > > On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Paul Thompson wrote: > > > If yours is particularly ancient > > (Rolm/Siemens) these might not apply. I believe the ISA standardizations > > might have taken place after Rolm was accquired by IBM although everything > > was still sold under the Rolm brandname. The corporate progression was: ROLM MSC (MilSpec Computers) | v ROLM Corp (ROLM MSC + CBX (telephone) division) | v ROLM Corp purchased by IBM | v ROLM MSC divested under consent decree to Loral (the only time I *ever* made money on options) | v ROLM/IBM sold to Siemens So yeah, the ROLM/IBM era stuff (which may be System/1 hardware) is decidedly older than the Siemens stuff. -- Chris Kennedy chris@mainecoon.com http://www.mainecoon.com PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 From richard at idcomm.com Thu Jul 6 17:01:13 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <004301bfe795$b430bea0$0400c0a8@winbook> My point here was that the important effect downstream of the controller is that write current is reduced in some cases. Most post 1980 drives kept track of the track on which the heads were sitting and didn't use the signal on Pin 2. I'm glad that SOMEONE caught that! Since floppy dives typically reduce the write current on the inner tracks in order to make the write precompensation done by the controller effective, the two effects are not separable. What's interesting about this is that they do reduce the write current irrespective of the modulation being used to record the data. Consequently, it's important that one KNOW whether or not a given drive uses the signal pin 2 of the cable to reduce write current or whether it's simply a spare. One can conclude from the presence of track counters on disk drives with the sole purpose of modifying the write current suggests it's important. Drive makers used to charge extra for every little option. They didn't think this feature was an option. It's important, therefore, that reduced write current be implemented on drives requiring it, whether from the controller or from the drive itself. How does this impact the current topic? Well it means that effort needs to go into the write side of the task, i.e. the computation of the bitstream going to the write head, precisely timed at as nearly the nominal rate as possible, with proper precompensation. It's difficult to compute the nominal location and duration of each pulse if your data rate is not a precise harmonic of the nominal data rate. This does not apply to reading, but it's critical for writing, unless you believe you can deal with a certain amount of of misalignment of the physical transitions with respect to the theoretical ones. That is pretty likely if your write clock is fast enough, since, as I mentioned yesterday, the typical disk controller looks for the levels at certain times rather than the edges. Consequently the pulse train can have considerable variation from the nominal transition times and still be "close enough." That will require study, however, since between every write clock frequency that's not a harrmonic of the theoretical bit rate, there can occur pattern sensitivities that will make the process break down under certain circumstances. This could be simulated in software easily enough, playing a theoretical sample rate against all possible combinations of, say 4K bits. It would take a while, but might be worth it for its educational value. Naturally it's more practical simply to use a common harmonic frequency and be done with it. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Duell To: Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 11:41 AM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > >You may be onto something, Tim, but I'd make one observation here. The > > >signal on pin2 of the 8" drive cable, though often driven with the > > >1793's TG43 signal, does not turn write precomp on and off, but, rather, > > >reduces the write current to the heads. This reduces the amplitude of > > the > > >signal > > > > > > In many cases it's also used to alter write precomp. Most all have some > > precomp (Esp DD controllers) and for the TG43 case they alter the precomp > > to further compensate for bit shift due to the close magnetic domains. > > To clarify (I hope) this somewhat. The TG43 output of the controller may > well also be used to enable write precompensation _in the controller_. > I've never seen a floppy drive that does write precompenstation internally > -- it always seems to be a controller issue. > > So in a sense, the signal on pin 2 of an 8" drive does not enable write > precompensation. It reduces the write current. The fact that the signal > that produces the signal on pin 2 also happens to enable precompenstation > in the controller is a separate issue. > > -tony > > From netsurfer_x1 at hotmail.com Thu Jul 6 17:24:06 2000 From: netsurfer_x1 at hotmail.com (David Vohs) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Computype Compuedit Revisited. Message-ID: <20000706222406.74817.qmail@hotmail.com> Some months ago I asked on this group what the Computype Compuedit computer was. I was told by someone (who is that person, by the way?) that it was the front-end machine to a photo-typesetter from the early 80's. Does anybody know where I can find pictures of this thing in operation? ____________________________________________________________ David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian. Home page: http://www.geocities.com/netsurfer_x1/ Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. "Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3, Disto 512K RAM board. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. ____________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From elvey at hal.com Thu Jul 6 17:54:22 2000 From: elvey at hal.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <200007060502.WAA30584@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: <200007062254.PAA13075@civic.hal.com> mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) wrote: > > Another neat trick might be to notice when there is a CRC error and/or > a clock violation, and in that case backtrack to a recent past decision > where the second most likely alternative was close to the most likely, > try it the other way, and see if the result looks better. Obviously one > can't overdo that or you'll just generate random data with a CRC that > matches by chance, but since the CRC is 16 bits, I'd think it should be > OK to try a few different likely guesses to get it to match. Hi CRC's are quite good at fixing a single small burst. As I recall, CRC32 can fix a single error burst up to 12 bits long. The error correcting method is based on the cycle length of the original polynomial relative to the length of the data block. What this means is that if you have a burst longer than 12 bits, it is more likely that the errors will appear to be outside the data block than within the data block. In this case, you would have what is called an uncorrectable error. No amount of fiddling will give you a correction. If there is an error in the CRC data, you have the same ratio. As an example, using CRC32 and a data block of 512, the probability of an error looking correctable that was not is 512/(2^32 -1) or 1.2X10^-7 of errors greater than 12 bits will seem correctable. All errors that happen within a 12 bit window are 100% correctable. Does this make any sense? Dwight From mac at Wireless.Com Thu Jul 6 18:25:44 2000 From: mac at Wireless.Com (Mike Cheponis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: CRC errors (was:Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever) In-Reply-To: <200007062254.PAA13075@civic.hal.com> Message-ID: No, Dwight, there is a difference between CRC and ECC. CRC will detect errors, but ECC can correct errors, too. For single bit correction, the number of extra bits required is M+1 (M is the log2(# of bits)); so if you have a 16-bit memory, 21 bits will correct single-bit errors (and will detect most multi-bit errors). There are also games that you can do to interleave your bits, so that a burst error (that you describe, 12 bits in a row) can in fact be corrected. Coding Theory is a deep subject with many advanced types of codes possible for particular error probability density functions. And I'm certainly no expert at it!. -Mike Cheponis On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Dwight Elvey wrote: > mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) wrote: > > > > Another neat trick might be to notice when there is a CRC error and/or > > a clock violation, and in that case backtrack to a recent past decision > > where the second most likely alternative was close to the most likely, > > try it the other way, and see if the result looks better. Obviously one > > can't overdo that or you'll just generate random data with a CRC that > > matches by chance, but since the CRC is 16 bits, I'd think it should be > > OK to try a few different likely guesses to get it to match. > > Hi > CRC's are quite good at fixing a single small burst. As I recall, > CRC32 can fix a single error burst up to 12 bits long. The > error correcting method is based on the cycle length of the original > polynomial relative to the length of the data block. What this > means is that if you have a burst longer than 12 bits, it is > more likely that the errors will appear to be outside the data > block than within the data block. In this case, you would have > what is called an uncorrectable error. No amount of fiddling > will give you a correction. If there is an error in the CRC > data, you have the same ratio. As an example, using CRC32 and > a data block of 512, the probability of an error looking correctable > that was not is 512/(2^32 -1) or 1.2X10^-7 of errors greater > than 12 bits will seem correctable. All errors that happen > within a 12 bit window are 100% correctable. > Does this make any sense? > Dwight > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 6 18:30:31 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:17 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <004301bfe795$b430bea0$0400c0a8@winbook> from "Richard Erlacher" at Jul 6, 0 04:01:13 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 3085 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000707/b5a88e30/attachment.ksh From mann at pa.dec.com Thu Jul 6 19:05:09 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: CRC errors In-Reply-To: <200007062254.PAA13075@civic.hal.com> Message-ID: <200007070005.RAA17363@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> The general idea makes sense, but the details don't sound quite right. Here's an oversimplified back-of-the-envelope calculation: If you allow for 12-bit burst errors in a 512-bit block (you did mean bits, not bytes, right?), it takes 9 bits of information (512 = 2**9) to say where the error is, and 12 bits of information to say what the data in the burst should have been. This uses 21 of our 32 bits of CRC information, leaving 11 bits to help us be sure this isn't a spurious correction. That is, if we do have an error that's something other than a 12-bit burst, the probability should be about 2**(-11) = 1/2048 that the CRC will be one of the 2**21 values that says the block has only a 12-bit burst error. You said 512/(2**32 - 1), which is 2**(-23). One oversimplified part of this is that someone has to show that the CRCs that indicate two different 12-bit burst errors in the same data never collide. I presume that's been done, and that's where the magic number 12 comes from. Otherwise you could safely correct errors of 13 or more bits, just with a somewhat higher probability of spurious correction when you really got some other error. Of course, with floppy disks we have sectors of 128 to 1024 *bytes*, not bits, and the CRC is only 16 bits, not 32, so I don't think we can do much correction. With a 1024 byte sector, it already takes 13 bits of information to say where a 1-bit error is. So if we use a CRC16 to correct it, we have about a 2^(-3) = 1/8 probability that if more than one bit is in error, we'll make a spurious correction. Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Jul 6 17:03:27 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <003201bfe7a5$461e3c70$7e64c0d0@ajp166> From: Tony Duell >Yes, but when the microcontroller + Xtal + caps clocks fine on a PCB and >fine on stripboard[1], but fails to work on a breadboard, then I think I am >justified in (partially) blaming the breadboard ;-). No Your not! it is a lousy oscillator and susceptable to stray and all manner of bad things. I've seen them NOT work on very well laid out 4 layer boards as well. >Deadbugging is great!. It's good to a few hundred MHz at least. I've used >if for analogue stuff many times. Yes it is, I've used it to 1GHZ with great success. While I was sick last week I even kluged a 75m phone RX on a 2x4" peice complete with 6kc bandwidth mechanical filter. Looks kinda poor but works solid. Allison From netsurfer_x1 at hotmail.com Thu Jul 6 19:54:04 2000 From: netsurfer_x1 at hotmail.com (David Vohs) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? Message-ID: <20000707005404.73017.qmail@hotmail.com> I have read something at applefritter that intrigued me: that Apple was thinking about marketing a system known as the "Johnathon" (Successor the the Mac, perhaps?). The basic design was very similar to that of an Acorn RISC PC: You bought the base "module" (What OS that run? Mac OS?) as it was called, & you could buy additional modules that would allow you to run other operating systems. Unfortunately, Apple canned this computer because they thought that everybody would just buy the MS-DOS module. My question is: Was this the original concept for the Mac II, or is this something completely diffrent. ____________________________________________________________ David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian. Home page: http://www.geocities.com/netsurfer_x1/ Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. "Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3, Disto 512K RAM board. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. ____________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From louiss at gate.net Thu Jul 6 20:15:42 2000 From: louiss at gate.net (Louis Schulman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? In-Reply-To: <20000707005404.73017.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <200007070115.VAA43354@shuswap.gate.net> The way you describe it, it sounds like the joint project that Apple had with IBM for the PowerPC. The idea was to develope a "microkernel" operating system, which provided the first layer of services, and "personality" modules that would go on top. Presumably, the Apple would have used a Mac personality, while IBM would have used an OS/2 personality. Of course, the project never went anywhere. The PowerPC became the standard Mac with the MacOS, and IBM introduced its own flop version of the PowerPC, which had a version of OS/2 that was shelved just as it was supposed to be released, and was replaced with a version of Windows NT. Another case of vaporware that went nowhere. Louis On Fri, 07 Jul 2000 00:54:04 GMT, David Vohs wrote: >I have read something at applefritter that intrigued me: that Apple was >thinking about marketing a system known as the "Johnathon" (Successor the >the Mac, perhaps?). The basic design was very similar to that of an Acorn >RISC PC: You bought the base "module" (What OS that run? Mac OS?) as it was >called, & you could buy additional modules that would allow you to run other >operating systems. Unfortunately, Apple canned this computer because they >thought that everybody would just buy the MS-DOS module. > >My question is: Was this the original concept for the Mac II, or is this >something completely diffrent. >____________________________________________________________ >David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian. >Home page: http://www.geocities.com/netsurfer_x1/ > >Computer Collection: > >"Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. >"Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II. >"Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. >"Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. >"Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3, Disto 512K RAM board. >"Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. >____________________________________________________________ >________________________________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com > > From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jul 6 21:01:11 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (healyzh@aracnet.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? In-Reply-To: <200007070115.VAA43354@shuswap.gate.net> from "Louis Schulman" at Jul 06, 2000 09:15:42 PM Message-ID: <200007070201.TAA09254@shell1.aracnet.com> What you describe below is written up in a issue of Byte somewhere between '93-95 timeframe I believe. I've got the magazine still, but it's in storage. IBM actually had a working version of this, but never released it. I saw it running on a early Thinkpad with OS/2 and AIX running at the same time. It was VERY COOL!!! You can also find mention of it in some really old NetBSD doc's (at least I think that was the BSD varient) as they'd commited to getting their varient of BSD running on top of the Microkernel. As for the PPC Version of OS/2, I've got to wonder what happened to all those systems they built to run it. They had to have lost big bucks on that. They apparently had an entire Warehouse of them ready to go around '95. ISTR reading in a Mac Magazine about a 3rd party in Europe that got MacOS running on them, but Apple wouldn't allow it. Zane > The way you describe it, it sounds like the joint project > that Apple had with IBM for the PowerPC. The idea was to > develope a "microkernel" operating system, which provided > the first layer of services, and "personality" modules that > would go on top. Presumably, the Apple would have used a > Mac personality, while IBM would have used an OS/2 > personality. > > Of course, the project never went anywhere. The PowerPC > became the standard Mac with the MacOS, and IBM introduced > its own flop version of the PowerPC, which had a version of > OS/2 that was shelved just as it was supposed to be > released, and was replaced with a version of Windows NT. > > Another case of vaporware that went nowhere. > > Louis From cbajpai at mediaone.net Thu Jul 6 20:59:12 2000 From: cbajpai at mediaone.net (Chandra Bajpai) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? In-Reply-To: <20000707005404.73017.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: I have in my posession one of the few real Mac Clones....It's called the Jonathan by Akkord Computer out of Taiwan. It's a real clone with the exception of the Mac ROMs, the hardware was all original and supposed to get around a lot of the Apple patents. It's a neat little machine, I met the Akkord guys back in 1990-91. >From AppleFritter: "Akkord's Jonathan uses a 68000 housed in a case about the size and shape of an external HD. It is sold only through European OEMs at a price 30% below European prices for a Mac Plus and includes a 14" Phillips B&W monitor, built-in AppleTalk connector, and external and internal SCSI ports. The company says it plans to enter the U.S. market initially with a $3000 kit with which purchasers can construct a 12 pound Mac portable by adding a logic board and the 128k ROMs. This system will be in stores as soon as it receives FCC certification. A future version of the system will use mac compatible ROMs that Akkord plans to develop itself. -----Original Message----- From: owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org [mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of David Vohs Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 8:54 PM To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? I have read something at applefritter that intrigued me: that Apple was thinking about marketing a system known as the "Johnathon" (Successor the the Mac, perhaps?). The basic design was very similar to that of an Acorn RISC PC: You bought the base "module" (What OS that run? Mac OS?) as it was called, & you could buy additional modules that would allow you to run other operating systems. Unfortunately, Apple canned this computer because they thought that everybody would just buy the MS-DOS module. My question is: Was this the original concept for the Mac II, or is this something completely diffrent. ____________________________________________________________ David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian. Home page: http://www.geocities.com/netsurfer_x1/ Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. "Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3, Disto 512K RAM board. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. ____________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From richard at idcomm.com Thu Jul 6 21:05:02 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: Message-ID: <001101bfe7b7$c428c1a0$0400c0a8@winbook> What you say seems to wash with what I've seen even on later model drives, Tony, but my main concern is that several of the jumper options on later (after 1981) 8" drives used pin 2 for various options having to do with overlapping seeks between two or more drives, radial head-loads, and things like that. Shugart drives and Siemens drives all seem to direct the user to Pin 2 for such options, but they all seem to have on-board track counters for their write current control logic. It's likely the Qume's have, too, since they're called out in one of my standalone FDC/FDD boxes as an option, and I know them to use those options via Pin 2. Hooking it up is necessary, but not sufficient in such cases as I've mentioned, to ensure that the signal gets through. Careful examination is called for in this case. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony Duell To: Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 5:30 PM Subject: Re: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > > > > My point here was that the important effect downstream of the controller is > > that write current is reduced in some cases. Most post 1980 drives kept > > track of the track on which the heads were sitting and didn't use the signal > > on Pin 2. I'm glad that SOMEONE caught that! > > I guess I'm used to the older 8" drives, because just about all of mine use > the Reduce Write Current (RWC) signal on pin 2. The only exception I can > think of is the Elcomatics I have on my PC/XT. Those have a second > slotted optoswitch on the head positioner which is set to operate at > cylinder 43 and all higher cylinders. It's a jumper-selectable option > whether this, or pin 2, is used for RWC. > > > -tony > > Dick From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Jul 6 19:12:49 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: CRC errors Message-ID: <004501bfe7b1$872cc8b0$7e64c0d0@ajp166> From: Tim Mann >Of course, with floppy disks we have sectors of 128 to 1024 *bytes*, not >bits, and the CRC is only 16 bits, not 32, so I don't think we can do >much correction. With a 1024 byte sector, it already takes 13 bits of >information to say where a 1-bit error is. So if we use a CRC16 to correct >it, we have about a 2^(-3) = 1/8 probability that if more than one bit >is in error, we'll make a spurious correction. Therein lies the difference, the use of CRC vs ECC, floppies have a fairly high soft error rate compared to hard errors so detecting an error and rereading is the strategy. It is also an economy of design that comes from the characteristic otherwise you can bet there would be ECC. Allison From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Jul 6 21:17:08 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? In-Reply-To: <200007070201.TAA09254@shell1.aracnet.com> Message-ID: > As for the PPC Version of OS/2, I've got to wonder what happened to all > those systems they built to run it. They had to have lost big bucks on > that. Probably less of a loss than you might think - I would not be suprised if the systems were stripped down to parts and turned into RS/6000s. Or on the other hand, the PowerPC people may have taken the design from the RS/6000 people from the start. Or perhaps the PowerPCs were really RS/6000s under the covers. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jul 6 21:48:52 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (healyzh@aracnet.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jul 06, 2000 10:17:08 PM Message-ID: <200007070248.TAA14078@shell1.aracnet.com> > > As for the PPC Version of OS/2, I've got to wonder what happened to all > > those systems they built to run it. They had to have lost big bucks on > > that. > > Probably less of a loss than you might think - I would not be suprised if > the systems were stripped down to parts and turned into RS/6000s. Or on > the other hand, the PowerPC people may have taken the design from the > RS/6000 people from the start. Or perhaps the PowerPCs were really > RS/6000s under the covers. > > William Donzelli > aw288@osfn.org IIRC, AIX wouldn't run on them. I'm pretty sure they were CHRP boxes. Does AIX run on CHRP boxes? For that matter I'm not sure, but they were probably about the only CHRP boxes that were built. Though I'm not particularly up on non-Mac PPC boxes. I do seem to remember hearing about boxes that Motorola sold that ran the PPC version of Windows NT. Zane From ernestls at home.com Thu Jul 6 21:56:46 2000 From: ernestls at home.com (Ernest) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: <200007070005.RAA17363@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: <000501bfe7be$fd419780$59a40b18@C721564-A.sttln1.wa.home.com> I was just sorting through, and attempting to organize my Apple II collection of systems, parts, manuals, and software, and I realized how much of this stuff I don't use, or really need. I like ebay but I don't have a lot of extra time to deal with cleaning, sorting, packaging, and shipping items -in fact, I'm behind on this as it is, to people that I've promised items. Still, I have these A2 items, that I would rather trade for other A2 items than sell on ebay but I don't want to deal with shipping either way. So I have a question. Are there any other Apple II users out there, who live in the Pacific NW, that might be interested in getting together some weekend (this summer) to have an informal swap meet? I'm open to it, and the way that I see it, even if there were only a few of us but we each got one really cool item, then it would be worth it to me. "Cool" is in the eye of the beholder of course, and it wouldn't have to be limited to A2 items. That's just what I'm most interested in. We could meet at some park around here, have a barbecue, hang out, and just have our swap stuff in our cars. Nothing big but still fun. Is anyone else interested in doing this? Ernest Seattle, WA From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Jul 6 22:12:12 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? In-Reply-To: <200007070248.TAA14078@shell1.aracnet.com> Message-ID: > IIRC, AIX wouldn't run on them. I'm pretty sure they were CHRP boxes. Does > AIX run on CHRP boxes? I think it will. > For that matter I'm not sure, but they were probably > about the only CHRP boxes that were built. Even if the PowerPC boxes were fairly unique (that is, not like an RS/6000), it would not be a big suprise to find that they were scrapped, with the parts being put into the RS/6000 line. IBM is very good about recycling their old parts into new machines - chips, power supplies, switches, brackets, etc.. In fact, many of the RS/6000-250s I used to deal with came with little slips of paper saying that the some of the machines were built from older parts. As a side note, IBM has been reusing some of their 4997 standard racks in some newer networking gear. These racks were originally part of S/1 systems, built in the late 1970s/early 1980s. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From nerdware at laidbak.com Thu Jul 6 22:33:42 2000 From: nerdware at laidbak.com (Paul Braun) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? In-Reply-To: <200007070248.TAA14078@shell1.aracnet.com> References: from "William Donzelli" at Jul 06, 2000 10:17:08 PM Message-ID: <200007070334.e673Y2025304@grover.winsite.com> > > IIRC, AIX wouldn't run on them. I'm pretty sure they were CHRP boxes. > Does AIX run on CHRP boxes? For that matter I'm not sure, but they were > probably about the only CHRP boxes that were built. Though I'm not > particularly up on non-Mac PPC boxes. I do seem to remember hearing about > boxes that Motorola sold that ran the PPC version of Windows NT. > > Zane > Yepper, Zane. In fact, I have one of 'em. Haven't plugged it in to see what's up, but I have one. Actually came in a skid of computers from a Mo auction after they closed down a facility. Fairly plain beige box with batwings on it. BTW, and completely OT, but I finally have the Mac/Paris rig up and running with THREE 1710AV monitors, and it's a thing of beauty. I also am installing a separate but complementary app on my 8500 that will use two monitors, both 14" Trini's, for a total of 5 plus the one on the wintel box. Paul Braun WD9GCO Cygnus Productions nerdware_nospam@laidbak.com From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jul 6 23:15:31 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (healyzh@aracnet.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? In-Reply-To: <200007070334.e673Y2025304@grover.winsite.com> from "Paul Braun" at Jul 06, 2000 10:33:42 PM Message-ID: <200007070415.VAA23030@shell1.aracnet.com> > BTW, and completely OT, but I finally have the Mac/Paris rig up > and running with THREE 1710AV monitors, and it's a thing of > beauty. I also am installing a separate but complementary app on > my 8500 that will use two monitors, both 14" Trini's, for a total of 5 > plus the one on the wintel box. I'm green with envy Paul! I've still not gotten much past getting the Darla 24 into my 8500 and loading out Bias Peak and Raygun. I *Still* need an archival Turntable, and to fix the current loop problem caused by the Cable TV. Still it works pretty good for reading in Cassettes and cleaning them up, and for spitting legal MP3's out to Minidisk (if the Cable TV is unplugged). My problem is I'm finding it hard to find time to work on any of my computer projects at home. Zane From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 7 00:31:51 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: <000501bfe7be$fd419780$59a40b18@C721564-A.sttln1.wa.home.com> References: <200007070005.RAA17363@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> Message-ID: >I was just sorting through, and attempting to organize my Apple II >collection of systems, parts, manuals, and software, and I realized how much >of this stuff I don't use, or really need. I like ebay but I don't have a >lot of extra time to deal with cleaning, sorting, packaging, and shipping >items -in fact, I'm behind on this as it is, to people that I've promised >items. Still, I have these A2 items, that I would rather trade for other A2 >items than sell on ebay but I don't want to deal with shipping either way. The only catch I really see with this is that there are only a handfull of "really" cool Apple items, with a very sharp knee in the price curve between them and everything else. Cool stuff that everybody wants: Transwarp accelerator Vulcan hard drive Focus hard drive Fast SCSI card SCSI card Workstation localtalk card for IIe Cool stuff that I want; Transwarp accelerator Vulcan hard drive Focus hard drive Eventide spectrum analyzer board McMill or any 68000 boards, maybe even a 6809, ok anything weird. ;) All the cheap stuff that most everybody has: Whole A2 units Woz IIgs floppy drives and controllers etc. etc. Makes trading very difficult with maybe half a dozen items worth more than $20, and handfull of rare items difficult to put any price on, and the rest generally $5 or so depending on the marketplace. Add to that in finding any of the "good" items, most people end up with boxes of the other stuff. How and what do you end up trading? The only reason I cut loose of a couple of my SCSI cards is that they sell for $100 and I clearly had more than I needed. From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 7 00:41:18 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > Cool stuff that everybody wants: > Transwarp accelerator > Vulcan hard drive > Focus hard drive > Fast SCSI card > SCSI card > Workstation localtalk card for IIe Add to that: Apple //c LCD portable display > Makes trading very difficult with maybe half a dozen items worth more than > $20, and handfull of rare items difficult to put any price on, and the rest > generally $5 or so depending on the marketplace. Add to that in finding any > of the "good" items, most people end up with boxes of the other stuff. How > and what do you end up trading? The only reason I cut loose of a couple of > my SCSI cards is that they sell for $100 and I clearly had more than I > needed. I collect whatever //c's I can find for cheap because I'm standardizing on them as my VCF utility terminal of choice (for taking attendee registration information, keeping books at the consignment table, etc). They're nice and self-contained, only needing a display (//c+'s would be much nicer but they're harder to come across). I have around 10 //c's and 2 //c+'s. I also take whatever free //e's I get my hands on. They'll come in handy for something someday (maybe when Hans finishes the C64 super-computer project we can do one with Apples :) Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Fri Jul 7 01:44:02 2000 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: Dwight Elvey "Re[2]: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever" (Jul 6, 15:54) References: <200007062254.PAA13075@civic.hal.com> Message-ID: <10007070744.ZM6653@indy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jul 6, 15:54, Dwight Elvey wrote: > mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) wrote: > > > > Another neat trick might be to notice when there is a CRC error and/or > > a clock violation, and in that case backtrack to a recent past decision > > where the second most likely alternative was close to the most likely, > > try it the other way, and see if the result looks better. Obviously one > > can't overdo that or you'll just generate random data with a CRC that > > matches by chance, but since the CRC is 16 bits, I'd think it should be > > OK to try a few different likely guesses to get it to match. > CRC's are quite good at fixing a single small burst. Dwight, I think you're confusing CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) with ECC (Error Correction Code). CRC is very good at detecting errors, including bursts of errors that might slip by simpler checks, but AFAIK tells you next to nothing about where they occurred. ECC tells you enough to correct small errors. I've not heard of anyone using CRCs for correction (not directly, anyway). > As I recall, > CRC32 can fix a single error burst up to 12 bits long. The > error correcting method is based on the cycle length of the original > polynomial relative to the length of the data block. What this > means is that if you have a burst longer than 12 bits, it is > more likely that the errors will appear to be outside the data > block than within the data block. Although disks use the V41 polynomial (X^16 + X^12 + X^5 + 1) not CRC32. > All errors that happen > within a 12 bit window are 100% correctable. Depends how large the data covered by the check is. For amounts of data larger than a certain size (dependant on the number of check bits and the algorithm used) there are several errors that will produce the same change in the ECC or CRC. So the window size is meaningless unless you also specify the data size and number of check bits. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York From marvin at rain.org Fri Jul 7 02:26:32 2000 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. References: Message-ID: <39658628.12D9E695@rain.org> Sellam Ismail wrote: > > I also take whatever free //e's I get my hands on. They'll come in handy > for something someday (maybe when Hans finishes the C64 super-computer > project we can do one with Apples :) I had a call a day or so about someone with about 100 //e's to get rid of. They are looking for some money, but not much (at least that is my understanding.) If you are interested, let me know and I'll pursue it a bit harder. From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 7 01:52:05 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: <39658628.12D9E695@rain.org> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Marvin wrote: > I had a call a day or so about someone with about 100 //e's to get rid of. > They are looking for some money, but not much (at least that is my > understanding.) If you are interested, let me know and I'll pursue it a bit > harder. If I had someplace to stick them I would maybe take them for $1 a unit. Even then I don't know if I'd want them all. Right now is not the right time for me though...I have enough crap I have to move in the next 10 days as it is. 100 more Apple //e's is the last thing I want at this point :) Still, it'd be interesting to get details. Namely, where the hell did they get 100 //e's from? Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 7 04:01:31 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: <39658628.12D9E695@rain.org> References: Message-ID: >Sellam Ismail wrote: >> >> I also take whatever free //e's I get my hands on. They'll come in handy >> for something someday (maybe when Hans finishes the C64 super-computer >> project we can do one with Apples :) > >I had a call a day or so about someone with about 100 //e's to get rid of. >They are looking for some money, but not much (at least that is my >understanding.) If you are interested, let me know and I'll pursue it a bit >harder. Where are they? What are they, ie a pallet of smashed from stacking too high bare bones ex school district Apple IIe's does not have a lot of value. OTOH I would be fairly interested in going through a bunch of perhaps interestingly configured ex industrial Apple II's. A quick look at the back of a few tells most of the story, If you see a; Weird little box with a couple serial ports, thats a workstation card. DB25 on a mounting plate (not end of ribbon cable) and maybe its a SCSI card. When I can I still open each one and fully strip it, but the list of what I keep is getting smaller and smaller. Last batch I paid $25 to take all I wanted from two pallets, which was a grocery sack sized box of cards and a dozen or so floppy drives. Of course add to that the 4 hours and numerous punctures getting the cards out etc. Perhaps the unfortunate thing is that I can think of nothing to do with a 100 old Apple II computers other than pull interesting cards and look for hard drives (the Vulcan is inside the powersupply). There are a couple models I would like to have in my personal collection, a plain II and a platinum II whatever it is, but thats about it. Otherwise they are just too common and too indestructible (what else could you call machines that routinely still work just fine after 20 years of elementary school use?) From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 7 03:34:51 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Many people have told me you can't network the IIc or IIc+, but I am sure I remember somebody telling me the IIc+ could be kludged to sort of work. Skipping that issue (unless somebody knows more), I wonder if a slower/dumber protocol than LocalTalk/AppleTalk might work? The idea would be to plug a PhoneNet adapter into a IIc/IIc+ serial port, and write a simple data transfer program of some sort regardless of how slow it might be. For example what would happen if you plug in the PhoneNets and just ran a normal terminal program of some sort to a host computer (mac etc.)? Now add a second IIc/IIc+ to the "network" and run a normal terminal program on it. Seems to me all you need to add is some kind of protocol for a packet with an address field and it should work. Ideas, opinions? From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 7 03:24:36 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >Add to that: > >Apple //c LCD portable display I have only seen ONE, still kicking myself for not buying it immediately, but also wondering why I would really want it (quality not good I hear). >I collect whatever //c's I can find for cheap because I'm standardizing on I agree, I have about half a dozen of each, IIc and IIc+, and they have a LOT of appeal. Looking at one for just a few minutes makes you think wow, Apple really did this one right. The form factor is perfect for kids in a way that is hard to explain, its much more appealing to me at least than something like a C64 or the later "large" keyboard designs. Its a cute little briefcase kind of looking thing. See related post for idea that just rattled out of my head. From yoda at isr.ist.utl.pt Fri Jul 7 04:08:33 2000 From: yoda at isr.ist.utl.pt (Rodrigo Ventura) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Xerox DayBreak In-Reply-To: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk's message of "Sat, 1 Jul 2000 00:34:55 +2500 (BST)" Message-ID: >>>>> "Tony" == Tony Duell writes: Tony> I'd probably use a 10125 (ECL-TTL translator) to turn the Tony> signals to TTL, then feed the syncs and video (the latter Tony> suitably reduced by a potential divider) into a multisync Tony> monitor and hope it could lock to it. I don't think many Tony> composite monitors are going to work at the sync rates of Tony> the D'break, are they? No, the D'break sync rates are usually out of the multisync monitor range. Mine can't sync to VSYNC rates below 58Hz or something, for instance. But I have not yet tried with older multisync monitors (damn, I sold my Amiga A3000 monitor...) Tony> Kevin Schoedel (?spell) lent me a Daybreak keyboard for an Tony> afternoon some months back. During that afternoon, I pulled Tony> it to bits, figured out most of the hardware details, Tony> powered it up from my bench supply and grabbed the output Tony> waveforms. Yes, Kevin did know I was doing this :-) [...] That's too great! he he I'll get busy as as I return home! And it may be fruitful to visit the junkyard this weekend for good-old multisync monitors. Cheers, -- *** Rodrigo Martins de Matos Ventura *** Web page: http://www.isr.ist.utl.pt/~yoda *** Teaching Assistant and PhD Student at ISR: *** Instituto de Sistemas e Robotica, Polo de Lisboa *** Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, PORTUGAL *** PGP fingerprint = 0119 AD13 9EEE 264A 3F10 31D3 89B3 C6C4 60C6 4585 From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 7 06:31:20 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Computype Compuedit Revisited. Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF12@TEGNTSERVER> I was told, but cannot verify, that one of our local newspapers (the Louisville Courier-Journal) had one of these systems; the guy who gave me a "printout" from a demo program (it was a bunch of words set in various fonts with various additional attributes like boldface, Italics, etc, printed on a plastic film) said the Computype system was front-ended by a DECsystem-20. hth, -doug q > -----Original Message----- > From: David Vohs [mailto:netsurfer_x1@hotmail.com] > Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 6:24 PM > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Computype Compuedit Revisited. > > > Some months ago I asked on this group what the Computype > Compuedit computer > was. I was told by someone (who is that person, by the way?) > that it was the > front-end machine to a photo-typesetter from the early 80's. > Does anybody > know where I can find pictures of this thing in operation? > ____________________________________________________________ > David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian. > Home page: http://www.geocities.com/netsurfer_x1/ > > Computer Collection: > > "Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801. > "Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II. > "Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer. > "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. > "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3, Disto 512K RAM board. > "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. > ____________________________________________________________ > ______________________________________________________________ > __________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From rigdonj at intellistar.net Fri Jul 7 08:29:25 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: References: <20000705151055.7327.qmail@web611.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000707082925.2fc780c6@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 04:21 PM 7/5/00 -0700, you wrote: >>> > >On a related note. I have several machines with HPIB/GPIB/IEEE-??? > >I know I have some Mac Nubus 488 boards, and I "think" I have one for a >Apple II. > > > Mike, FWIW, I have a card for NuBus that was made by National Instrumnents and has what looks like a HP-IB connector but I couldn't find it on NI's website so I called and asked them about it. They said that is's data aquisition card and not a HP-IB card! Joe From rigdonj at intellistar.net Fri Jul 7 08:33:36 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Great Finds In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000707083336.2fc7d4a2@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 10:45 AM 7/6/00 -0400, you wrote: >> That's probably a DDS (aka "DAT") drive ... at least, that's >> the only drive >> I've ever seen built-in to any HP 9000/8x2 or HP 3000/9x2. >> (It'll be a DDS-1, most likely) > >That's what I suspected but, wasn't sure. I'll get some so that I'll have a >system backup. Any idea how much data fits on one? > > >> How much memory do you have? (The 8x2 and 9x2 could have >> memory plugged into >> just about any slots (front or back!). > >One of the systems is configured with 4 X 8MB of memory. The other has 1 X >32 MB. I also have 8 additional 8MB modules that were pulled from the system >with the bad CPU. Haven't had a chance to check them out yet. > >Between the two system (and spares), I have 6 HPIB interface cards, 10 I/O >MUX cards, 9 hard drives, 2 LAN cards, and 2 optical interface cards. > >We also found a short rack of hard drives at the junk dealers place but, I >didn't get them. I noticed that they had the fibre connectors but, at the >time didn't realize the computers had fibre interfaces :-( > >I might go back later and get the rack. If it's still there (Joe?) Nope, he scrapped it the next day. It's on it's way to China now. :-( Art has some fiber drives but I don't know if he'll part with them. I'll probably see him today. If I do I'll ask. Sorry I haven't answered your messages soooner. We went and picked up three more loads yesterday and I didn't get back till late. I'll try to pack the CD drive and get it in the mail today. BTW we got a SGI Onyx Reality Engine2 yesterday. It's HUGE!!!!! I'm taking Bob R. out to look at it this morning. Joe > From pechter at pechter.dyndns.org Fri Jul 7 07:45:28 2000 From: pechter at pechter.dyndns.org (Bill Pechter) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Apple Johnathon & Apple Macintosh II: Seperated at birth? In-Reply-To: from William Donzelli at "Jul 6, 2000 11:12:12 pm" Message-ID: <200007071245.IAA01201@bg-tc-ppp1100.monmouth.com> > > IIRC, AIX wouldn't run on them. I'm pretty sure they were CHRP boxes. Does > > AIX run on CHRP boxes? > > I think it will. > > > For that matter I'm not sure, but they were probably > > about the only CHRP boxes that were built. > I thought AIX ran on CHRP boxes... That's what the OS/2 on Power PC was planned for. They became the RS6000 40W and 43P boxes, I believe. AIX 4.x supported them. I used a number of 43P's at work. Ran like crazy. I'd kill for the 43P. Bill From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Fri Jul 7 09:31:58 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ Message-ID: <20000707143158.4050.qmail@web618.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mike Ford wrote: > Many people have told me you can't network the IIc or IIc+ Hmm... I always thought you _could_. > but I am sure I remember somebody telling me the IIc+ could be kludged > to sort of work. Maybe that's what I'm remembering. > Skipping that issue (unless somebody knows more), I wonder if a > slower/dumber protocol than LocalTalk/AppleTalk might work? I _had_ assumed the IIc+ has a Z8530 SIO chip inside. If that is _not_ the case then it's probably some flavor of ACIA 65xx or 68xx UART. The Z8530 is a great chip, found in Suns, Macs, COMBOARDs ;-) For LocalTalk, Apple runs the chip at ~230kbps, IIRC (tangentally, I have the Byte article unveiling the 128K Mac where they describe a "slotless" architecture using virtual slots off the serial port in a manner that sounds like what USB has finally brought to the masses). I do not know if a 4Mhz 65C02 can pull data off the chip fast enough to be practical. We used to use a 4Mhz Z8530 w/an 8Mhz 68000 with plenty of cycles to go around. > The idea would be to plug a PhoneNet adapter into a IIc/IIc+ serial port, > Now add a second IIc/IIc+ to the "network" and run a normal terminal > program on it. Seems to me all you need to add is some kind of protocol for > a packet with an address field and it should work. Ideas, opinions? Kermit? That would handle a point-to-point network, any way. You might be able to start with a PPP implementation for the 6502 and retrofit some kind of ARPish protocol on top of it (since PPP lacks that sort of thing) and go from there. On a side note, I recently aquired an older IIgs. It works and I have no software for it except my 1978-1983 era stuff for my old II. Did people ever network the IIgs to a Mac? If so, how? -ethan > ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ From marvin at rain.org Fri Jul 7 09:57:48 2000 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. References: Message-ID: <3965EFEC.9621ED69@rain.org> Sellam Ismail wrote: > > On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Marvin wrote: > > > I had a call a day or so about someone with about 100 //e's to get rid of. > Still, it'd be interesting to get details. Namely, where the hell did > they get 100 //e's from? I am not sure, but I think these came or are coming from the school system. The stuff that schools/universities have in storage can be fascinating! From richard at idcomm.com Fri Jul 7 09:58:56 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <200007062254.PAA13075@civic.hal.com> <10007070744.ZM6653@indy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: <001301bfe823$e04ceb60$0400c0a8@winbook> CRC's are chosen for their immunity to pattern-sensitivity, among other things, and ECC's, likewise are chosen on the basis of their suitability for the sector-size, types of errors anticipated, etc. CRC-16, the one chosen for FDC use, was chosen because it was already an established "standard." There were, in fact, standard TTL devices commonly used to append CRC-16 to data blocks in communication and disk/tape applications. There are a few bitwise corrections that will make CRC-16 yield a zero, but there's no reason to believe that introducing a bitwise change at one place or another will yield the correct data just because CRC-16 yields a zero. The 32 and 56-bit "fire" codes used in winchester disk controllers back in the late '70's were tailored for the sector sizes and error types encountered in that industry and still were, initially, quite difficult to implement. Current technology has come quite far in terms of error recovery. In the '70's we were concerned with correcting the occasional erroneous data block on a disk drive, not recoverable with many retries. Unfortunately, popular processors were not fast enough to do on-the-fly correction at rates faster than the rotation of the disk. Conseqeuently the statistics looked bad, since it was firmly established that it was a "hard" error that couldn't be recovered by rereading. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Pete Turnbull To: Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 12:44 AM Subject: Re: Re[2]: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > On Jul 6, 15:54, Dwight Elvey wrote: > > mann@pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) wrote: > > > > > > Another neat trick might be to notice when there is a CRC error and/or > > > a clock violation, and in that case backtrack to a recent past decision > > > where the second most likely alternative was close to the most likely, > > > try it the other way, and see if the result looks better. Obviously > one > > > can't overdo that or you'll just generate random data with a CRC that > > > matches by chance, but since the CRC is 16 bits, I'd think it should be > > > OK to try a few different likely guesses to get it to match. > > > CRC's are quite good at fixing a single small burst. > > Dwight, I think you're confusing CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) with ECC > (Error Correction Code). CRC is very good at detecting errors, including > bursts of errors that might slip by simpler checks, but AFAIK tells you > next to nothing about where they occurred. ECC tells you enough to correct > small errors. I've not heard of anyone using CRCs for correction (not > directly, anyway). > > > As I recall, > > CRC32 can fix a single error burst up to 12 bits long. The > > error correcting method is based on the cycle length of the original > > polynomial relative to the length of the data block. What this > > means is that if you have a burst longer than 12 bits, it is > > more likely that the errors will appear to be outside the data > > block than within the data block. > > Although disks use the V41 polynomial (X^16 + X^12 + X^5 + 1) not CRC32. > > > All errors that happen > > within a 12 bit window are 100% correctable. > > Depends how large the data covered by the check is. For amounts of data > larger than a certain size (dependant on the number of check bits and the > algorithm used) there are several errors that will produce the same change > in the ECC or CRC. So the window size is meaningless unless you also > specify the data size and number of check bits. > > -- > > Pete Peter Turnbull > Dept. of Computer Science > University of York > > From marvin at rain.org Fri Jul 7 10:06:04 2000 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. References: Message-ID: <3965F1DC.FDF0906@rain.org> Mike Ford wrote: > > >I had a call a day or so about someone with about 100 //e's to get rid of. > > What are they, ie a pallet of smashed from stacking too high bare bones ex > school district Apple IIe's does not have a lot of value. OTOH I would be > hard drives (the Vulcan is inside the powersupply). There are a couple > models I would like to have in my personal collection, a plain II and a > platinum II whatever it is, but thats about it. Otherwise they are just too These came from a school district (I think), and I told them they were probably worth more as parts than as a complete machine. I asked for more info about a week ago, and if it goes through, will most likely strip out down the machines for parts ... and interesting cards :). There is some possibility that a computer class at one of the local schools will strip them, but I don't know at this point. I also am looking for a plain // since I *think* that is the only one (except for the Apple I) that I am missing from that line. The Platinum //e is an enhanced machine with a numeric keyboard built into the machine instead of being an add-on. From george at racsys.rt.rain.com Fri Jul 7 10:10:47 2000 From: george at racsys.rt.rain.com (George Rachor) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: <000501bfe7be$fd419780$59a40b18@C721564-A.sttln1.wa.home.com> Message-ID: Having just moved and realizing how much A][ stuff I have that is redundant I'd be interested in such a swap meet. My problem is that it will take a while to unpack and sort things out so while I'm interested in a swap meet it might be next spring before I am ready. George ========================================================= George L. Rachor Jr. george@racsys.rt.rain.com Beaverton, Oregon http://racsys.rt.rain.com United States of America Amateur Radio : KD7DCX On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Ernest wrote: > I was just sorting through, and attempting to organize my Apple II > collection of systems, parts, manuals, and software, and I realized how much > of this stuff I don't use, or really need. I like ebay but I don't have a > lot of extra time to deal with cleaning, sorting, packaging, and shipping > items -in fact, I'm behind on this as it is, to people that I've promised > items. Still, I have these A2 items, that I would rather trade for other A2 > items than sell on ebay but I don't want to deal with shipping either way. > > So I have a question. Are there any other Apple II users out there, who live > in the Pacific NW, that might be interested in getting together some weekend > (this summer) to have an informal swap meet? I'm open to it, and the way > that I see it, even if there were only a few of us but we each got one > really cool item, then it would be worth it to me. "Cool" is in the eye of > the beholder of course, and it wouldn't have to be limited to A2 items. > That's just what I'm most interested in. We could meet at some park around > here, have a barbecue, hang out, and just have our swap stuff in our cars. > Nothing big but still fun. > > Is anyone else interested in doing this? > > Ernest > Seattle, WA > > From richard at idcomm.com Fri Jul 7 10:13:33 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ References: <20000707143158.4050.qmail@web618.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <002501bfe825$eb2a11a0$0400c0a8@winbook> Since the IIc has come up again, I'm still looking for a way to get useable parallel I/O out of one of these guys. Is there a way to get parllel output AND input using a IIc? I've had one lying about for some 10 years and still haven't found a single reason to keep it, except that I'd have to carry it upstairs to dispose of it. If I could get, say, 4 bits of input and seven or eight bits of output without having to open the box, it would be useable for something. Another useful bit of information would be the memory map that's used. I could see building a PIA or some such into the thing if I could find a place ion the map that's sufficiently innoccuous. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Ethan Dicks To: Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 8:31 AM Subject: Re: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ > --- Mike Ford wrote: > > Many people have told me you can't network the IIc or IIc+ > > Hmm... I always thought you _could_. > > > but I am sure I remember somebody telling me the IIc+ could be kludged > > to sort of work. > > Maybe that's what I'm remembering. > > > Skipping that issue (unless somebody knows more), I wonder if a > > slower/dumber protocol than LocalTalk/AppleTalk might work? > > I _had_ assumed the IIc+ has a Z8530 SIO chip inside. If that is _not_ > the case then it's probably some flavor of ACIA 65xx or 68xx UART. The > Z8530 is a great chip, found in Suns, Macs, COMBOARDs ;-) > > For LocalTalk, Apple runs the chip at ~230kbps, IIRC (tangentally, I > have the Byte article unveiling the 128K Mac where they describe a > "slotless" architecture using virtual slots off the serial port in a > manner that sounds like what USB has finally brought to the masses). > I do not know if a 4Mhz 65C02 can pull data off the chip fast enough > to be practical. We used to use a 4Mhz Z8530 w/an 8Mhz 68000 with > plenty of cycles to go around. > > > The idea would be to plug a PhoneNet adapter into a IIc/IIc+ serial port, > > > Now add a second IIc/IIc+ to the "network" and run a normal terminal > > program on it. Seems to me all you need to add is some kind of protocol for > > a packet with an address field and it should work. Ideas, opinions? > > Kermit? That would handle a point-to-point network, any way. You might be > able to start with a PPP implementation for the 6502 and retrofit some kind > of ARPish protocol on top of it (since PPP lacks that sort of thing) and go > from there. > > On a side note, I recently aquired an older IIgs. It works and I have no > software for it except my 1978-1983 era stuff for my old II. Did people > ever network the IIgs to a Mac? If so, how? > > -ethan > > > > > > > ===== > Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to > vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com > > The original webpage address is still going away. The > permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ > > See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. > http://im.yahoo.com/ > > From mark.champion at am.sony.com Fri Jul 7 11:58:33 2000 From: mark.champion at am.sony.com (Mark Champion) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Free Vax Tapes Message-ID: <007601bfe834$982b9640$4721892b@stg.sel.sony.com> I have 30 small (6" dia) VAX tapes (Opus 6250) and 12 large (7" dia) VAX tapes (Scotch 700). I believe the small tapes are 600' x 1/2" and the large tapes are 700' x 1/2". I think they have all been written on once with data - no executible files. Tapes are free if you can pick them up in the Northend of Seattle. Mark Champion 206-524-0014 mark.champion@am.sony.com From mark.champion at am.sony.com Fri Jul 7 12:00:32 2000 From: mark.champion at am.sony.com (Mark Champion) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Free Tektronix 4014 manuals Message-ID: <007c01bfe834$de870fc0$4721892b@stg.sel.sony.com> I have an official Tektronix 4014 service manual and a photocopy of a 4014 user's manual. If someone wants them, they can have them for free. Mark Champion Sony Electronics 206-524-0014 mark.champion@am.sony.com From mark.champion at am.sony.com Fri Jul 7 12:02:12 2000 From: mark.champion at am.sony.com (Mark Champion) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Free Heathkit H19 manuals Message-ID: <008201bfe835$1a4e19e0$4721892b@stg.sel.sony.com> I have several Heathkit H19 and Zenith Z19 manuals if various conditions. Does anyone want them? Mark Champion Sony Electronics 206-524-0014 mark.champion@am.sony.com From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 7 12:30:12 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Free Tektronix 4014 manuals Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF17@TEGNTSERVER> If any of the people who maintaining archives of these kind of docs ask first, go with them, but if not, rather than see them in the dump, I'll take 'em. let me know... -dq > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Champion [mailto:mark.champion@am.sony.com] > Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 1:01 PM > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Free Tektronix 4014 manuals > > > I have an official Tektronix 4014 service manual and a > photocopy of a 4014 user's manual. > If someone wants them, they can have them for free. > > Mark Champion > Sony Electronics > 206-524-0014 > mark.champion@am.sony.com > > From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 7 11:42:24 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > Perhaps the unfortunate thing is that I can think of nothing to do with a > 100 old Apple II computers other than pull interesting cards and look for > hard drives (the Vulcan is inside the powersupply). There are a couple > models I would like to have in my personal collection, a plain II and a > platinum II whatever it is, but thats about it. Otherwise they are just too A Platinum //e is an enhanced Apple //e with a built-in numeric keypad on the right hand side. It's also got the "platinum" covering. Nothing special. There was also a Platinum //c. It had an extremely nice keyboard (a major improvement over the //c's crap keyboard). > common and too indestructible (what else could you call machines that > routinely still work just fine after 20 years of elementary school use?) They are definitely work horses. I've never met an Apple //e that was so fargone it wouldn't work anymore. I even have Apple ][+'s that have sat in horrible conditions still work 20 years later, with just a few faulty keys on the keyboard. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 7 11:47:52 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > Now add a second IIc/IIc+ to the "network" and run a normal terminal > program on it. Seems to me all you need to add is some kind of protocol for > a packet with an address field and it should work. Ideas, opinions? I was working on a loose internet-based "team", started by a K-12 teacher in Michigan (I think), a couple years back on developing a lightweight network protocol for the Apple to connect it to a Linux server to give it internet access. The teacher wanted to make the Apple //e's in his computer lab accessible to the internet. One idea was just to create a simple dumb terminal program that allowed e-mail access (no-brainer). But I went about designing a protocol that would install under ProDOS and make a virtual ProDOS volume on the Apple that actually sat on the Linux server. It was going to be serial-based (we determined the workstation cards were too hard to come across but super serial cards are plentiful) and there would be a server application sitting on the Linux side handling the Apple's over a multi-port serial card. Anyway, simplicity (and lack of time) won out over my complex scheming. I dropped out and eventually some 18 year old kid came up with a pretty nice system that worked for them. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Fri Jul 7 12:49:22 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000707134922.20200366@trailing-edge.com> >CRC's are chosen for their immunity to pattern-sensitivity, among other >things, and ECC's, likewise are chosen on the basis of their suitability for >the sector-size, types of errors anticipated, etc. CRC-16, the one chosen >for FDC use, was chosen because it was already an established "standard." >There were, in fact, standard TTL devices commonly used to append CRC-16 to >data blocks in communication and disk/tape applications. There are a few >bitwise corrections that will make CRC-16 yield a zero, but there's no >reason to believe that introducing a bitwise change at one place or another >will yield the correct data just because CRC-16 yields a zero. True, the CRC-16 wasn't chosen for correctibility, but if you make multiple read passes over the data and spot a couple of "flaky" bits (changing from read to read) and find a combination of 1's and 0's that matches the CRC, you're far ahead of someone with a hardware-only controller that doesn't allow access to the raw data for such "human judgement" error correction. Remember, you have to know how to do it yourself before you can do it on a computer! Schematic and code this afternoon folks! Tim. From mark.champion at am.sony.com Fri Jul 7 13:17:07 2000 From: mark.champion at am.sony.com (Mark Champion) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Free Tektronix 4014 manuals References: <007c01bfe834$de870fc0$4721892b@stg.sel.sony.com> Message-ID: <00a001bfe83f$91c2a720$4721892b@stg.sel.sony.com> The Tektronix manuals have been claimed. Mark Champion Sony Electronics 206-524-0014 mark.champion@am.sony.com From SUPRDAVE at aol.com Fri Jul 7 14:33:56 2000 From: SUPRDAVE at aol.com (SUPRDAVE@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. Message-ID: <200007071834.NAA76770@opal.tseinc.com> In a message dated Fri, 7 Jul 2000 1:51:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Sellam Ismail writes: << On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: >> Perhaps the unfortunate thing is that I can think of >>nothing to do with a >> 100 old Apple II computers other than pull >>interesting cards and look for >> hard drives (the Vulcan is inside the powersupply). >>There are a couple >> models I would like to have in my personal >>collection, a plain II and a >> platinum II whatever it is, but thats about it. Otherwise they are just too >>A Platinum //e is an enhanced Apple //e with a >>built-in numeric keypad on >>the right hand side. It's also got the "platinum" >>covering. Nothing >>special. >There was also a Platinum //c. It had an extremely >nice keyboard (a major >improvement over the //c's crap keyboard). >> common and too indestructible (what else could you >>call machines that >> routinely still work just fine after 20 years of >>elementary school use?) >They are definitely work horses. I've never met an >Apple //e that was so >fargone it wouldn't work anymore. I even have Apple >][+'s that have sat >in horrible conditions still work 20 years later, with >just a few faulty >keys on the keyboard. >Sellam the platinum //e does have some differences from the regular enhanced //e besides the keyboard. for one, the extended 80 column card was now built into the planar so you didnt have to install a card in slot 3 anymore. I believe also the power switch was a little better than before. I remember our computer science teacher tell us to use the apple's power switch as little as possible since it would eventually quit working. From richard at idcomm.com Fri Jul 7 13:56:23 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000707134922.20200366@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <001501bfe845$0c7a6ac0$0400c0a8@winbook> A few things come to mind ... First of all, what, in the sampled bitstream tells you that a bit is "flaky" or in any sense questionable? Since your sampler is working at a harmonic of the theoretical data rate, you should be able to find anomalies easier than one who's sampling at some other frequency, but these frequencies aren't terribly precise because of mechanical variations and the general fact that even closely specified crystals still aren't identical in frequency. How can you tell that your error correction is of the bit that caused the error? There are, in every sample, some bits that will fix the CRC that weren't necessarily wrong in the first place. Since you're looking for read errors not necessarily written incorrectly, I assume you have some means for making a decision? Do you simply plow through the file, inverting every bit and retesting the CRC? How do you decide where the bit boundaries really are? How do you interpret the chaos in the write-splices? (I imagine these all are handled as part of the same problem, else they wouldn't be listed together.) Do you operate your sampler in parallel with an FDC in order to ensure that you've gotten a sample that's readable by the FDC? Have you tried picking your sample clock off the FDC's PLL (if there is one) as opposed to plowing in with your independently generated 4 MHz clock? You may find that operating the two in parallel give you more information than either of them would give you separately. Have you, in general, considered using a PLL e.g. 4046 or some similar device for generating a precise multiple of the detected data rate and "tracking-out" the mechanical influences of your drive on speed? That may not help in the long run, but I'll bet it would be educational at the least, and potentially useful in making some of the bit-boundary-related problems I mentioned. I thought it would be a week, but it may be two before I'm able to revive my tangible interests in this problem. I do happen to have a couple of modular PLL's built up that I can hook into a circuit without much trouble and thereby observe the difference between the digitally generated and independently clocked bitstream versus the phase-locked version. I've to to contemplate, in the meantime, what effects I might have to look for. Any inputs based on your experience might be helpful. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 11:49 AM Subject: Re: Re[2]: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > >CRC's are chosen for their immunity to pattern-sensitivity, among other > >things, and ECC's, likewise are chosen on the basis of their suitability for > >the sector-size, types of errors anticipated, etc. CRC-16, the one chosen > >for FDC use, was chosen because it was already an established "standard." > >There were, in fact, standard TTL devices commonly used to append CRC-16 to > >data blocks in communication and disk/tape applications. There are a few > >bitwise corrections that will make CRC-16 yield a zero, but there's no > >reason to believe that introducing a bitwise change at one place or another > >will yield the correct data just because CRC-16 yields a zero. > > True, the CRC-16 wasn't chosen for correctibility, but if you make multiple > read passes over the data and spot a couple of "flaky" bits (changing > from read to read) and find a combination of 1's and 0's that matches > the CRC, you're far ahead of someone with a hardware-only controller > that doesn't allow access to the raw data for such "human judgement" > error correction. > > Remember, you have to know how to do it yourself before you can do it > on a computer! > > Schematic and code this afternoon folks! > > Tim. > > From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Fri Jul 7 14:10:46 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Free Heathkit H19 manuals Message-ID: <20000707191046.2336.qmail@web613.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mark Champion wrote: > I have several Heathkit H19 and Zenith Z19 manuals if various conditions. > > Does anyone want them? > > Mark Champion > Sony Electronics > 206-524-0014 > mark.champion@am.sony.com I've got an H19 terminal and no docs. Is this an all-or-nothing, or do you have multiple people clamoring for these? -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ From west at tseinc.com Fri Jul 7 14:02:21 2000 From: west at tseinc.com (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: classiccmp list maintenance References: Message-ID: <005101bfe845$e1db5b20$0101a8c0@jay> Someone wrote.... > Has anyone else who subscribes to the digest version of the list noticed that > it seems to be limited to sending messages of 45K or less? Over the past few months I've gotten a slightly more than non-trivial amount of list maintenance questions from various list members. I dealt with most of them but wanted to point something out... When the classiccmp list was moved to my server for no-charge hosting, the previous list maintainer (Derek, I believe) seemed to drop off the face of the earth. I was left to finish setting up the list and maintained it by myself, as well as handle the great "reply-to" address debate on my own. I made a fair number of public and private requests for Derek to appear and take care of it, but he didn't for several months. Some people on the list said for me to just take over the daily maintenance of the list for good - which is no problem, I was and am still happy to do it. Then Derek suddendly re-appeared months later and wanted to handle all the list maintenance. I told him I'd be happy to continue to do it but he wanted it back. So - long story short - please direct all questions pertaining to the setup, configuration, and maintenance of the classiccmp mailing list to Derek, the list maintainer. Of course, if a stray request comes in my mailbox, I'll be happy to deal with it myself, but I reserve the right to just forward the request to Derek if I so choose. Jay West From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Fri Jul 7 14:15:08 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:18 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000707151508.20200366@trailing-edge.com> >First of all, what, in the sampled bitstream tells you that a bit is "flaky" >or in any sense questionable? If it's different on multiple read passes, then it's flaky. If it's different when read on different drives, then it's flaky. But since this particular circuit samples the data after it's gone through the AGC and discriminator section in the drive, you can't look at an individual pulse and say that it's flaky. A circuit which recorded the analog signal from the head (or one of the preamp stages) would be far better for spotting flaky bits. > Since your sampler is working at a harmonic >of the theoretical data rate, you should be able to find anomalies easier >than one who's sampling at some other frequency, but these frequencies >aren't terribly precise because of mechanical variations and the general >fact that even closely specified crystals still aren't identical in >frequency. I don't think there's any magic that results from me working at a harmonic of the nominal data frequency. I could be sampling at 14.353773 or 3.5798 or 4.00 MHz and it's all the same, because none of them are "locked" in any way to the actual data rate. >How can you tell that your error correction is of the bit that caused the >error? There are, in every sample, some bits that will fix the CRC that >weren't necessarily wrong in the first place. True, but if there's a flaky bit then it's more likely to be causing the CRC error. If I go to the two flaky bits in a sector and fiddle them by hand, and all of a sudden I match the CRC, then we're doing pretty well. Keep in mind that even with more-bits ECC's there are also multiple ways you can fiddle bits in the data section and still match up with the error correcting codes. > Since you're looking for read >errors not necessarily written incorrectly, I assume you have some means for >making a decision? Do you simply plow through the file, inverting every bit >and retesting the CRC? Again, I look for bits that read differently on different read passes, and fiddle those by hand. > How do you decide where the bit boundaries really >are? I've got a "software PLL". It synchronizes on both data and clock pulses, and when it senses that it's seriously out of whack it can adjust more rapidly than a traditional one-time-constant hardware PLL. > How do you interpret the chaos in the write-splices? I pretty much ignore the chaos. I've developed some graphing techniques that help me decide where the write-splices are for a particular low-level data format. (Remember, I'm mainly concerned with hard-sectored formats which vary a lot from one controller to the next. Many have *no* address information recorded magnetically.) >Do you operate your sampler in parallel with an FDC in order to ensure that >you've gotten a sample that's readable by the FDC? No, mostly I'm looking at oddball hard-sectored formats that a normal IBM3740-derived FDC chip can't handle. And if I had the real hard-sectored random-logic controller, I wouldn't need my analyzer circuit :-). >Have you, in general, considered using a PLL e.g. 4046 or some similar >device for generating a precise multiple of the detected data rate and >"tracking-out" the mechanical influences of your drive on speed? I thought about it, but I don't think it's necessary. My 8x oversampling seems to be just fine for both FM and MFM data formats. When I start making the descriptive web pages this weekend, I'll show some graphs that indicate how I find write splice areas and track data rate frequency from my analysis software. (I do no analysis in real-time, it's all done post-acquisition.) Tim. From donm at cts.com Fri Jul 7 14:16:25 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Free Tektronix 4014 manuals In-Reply-To: <007c01bfe834$de870fc0$4721892b@stg.sel.sony.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Mark Champion wrote: > I have an official Tektronix 4014 service manual and a photocopy of a 4014 user's manual. > If someone wants them, they can have them for free. I would be interested if there are no other takers, Mark. I'm guessing that the differences betwixt a 4014 and my 4012 are small. - don > Mark Champion > Sony Electronics > 206-524-0014 > mark.champion@am.sony.com > > > From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 7 14:34:46 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ In-Reply-To: <002501bfe825$eb2a11a0$0400c0a8@winbook> References: <20000707143158.4050.qmail@web618.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >Since the IIc has come up again, I'm still looking for a way to get useable >parallel I/O out of one of these guys. Is there a way to get parllel output >AND input using a IIc? I've had one lying about for some 10 years and still I was looking at the floppy port last night and kind of wondering what the possibilities might be. It has power, data, and control lines, what more could anybody want? From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 7 14:30:24 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ In-Reply-To: <20000707143158.4050.qmail@web618.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >On a side note, I recently aquired an older IIgs. It works and I have no >software for it except my 1978-1983 era stuff for my old II. Did people >ever network the IIgs to a Mac? If so, how? The IIgs is a full localtalk ready Appleshare client machine, might be a rom version issue, but you can boot them over the net from a mac. I think the mac might need to be running AppleShare Server, but I haven't "done" it yet. Its a BIG item on my list of things to do. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 7 13:04:21 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Xerox DayBreak In-Reply-To: from "Rodrigo Ventura" at Jul 7, 0 10:08:33 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1291 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000707/3524faa8/attachment.ksh From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 7 14:28:27 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: <200007071834.NAA76770@opal.tseinc.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Jul 2000 SUPRDAVE@aol.com wrote: > the platinum //e does have some differences from the regular enhanced > //e besides the keyboard. for one, the extended 80 column card was now > built into the planar so you didnt have to install a card in slot 3 Well, that's true. But the 80-column card always went into the auxiliary slot on the //e, thus freeing up slot 3 for special cards such as accelerators. The Platinum //e came with a smaller 64K card that plugged into the auxiliary slot for a total of 128K RAM standard. > anymore. I believe also the power switch was a little better than > before. I remember our computer science teacher tell us to use the > apple's power switch as little as possible since it would eventually > quit working. Never heard of this. I used mine quite a bit and never had a problem. Maybe there was some technical bulletin about it but I never got it. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From mark.champion at am.sony.com Fri Jul 7 15:30:52 2000 From: mark.champion at am.sony.com (Mark Champion) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Free Heathkit H19 manuals References: <008201bfe835$1a4e19e0$4721892b@stg.sel.sony.com> Message-ID: <013201bfe852$4131ac80$4721892b@stg.sel.sony.com> All manuals have been spoken for. Thanks for the inquirys. Mark Champion Sony Electronics 206-524-0014 mark.champion@am.sony.com From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 7 15:31:50 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Xerox DayBreak In-Reply-To: References: from "Rodrigo Ventura" at Jul 7, 0 10:08:33 am Message-ID: >Some of the older ones went down to TV rates, which can be very useful >when using them on older computers.... I am thinking the NEC 2A or 2C was very flexible, but don't really remember. Maybe it was the model with a J in it. From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Fri Jul 7 15:52:30 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ Message-ID: <20000707205230.11797.qmail@web612.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mike Ford wrote: > >On a side note, I recently aquired an older IIgs. It works and I have no > >software for it except my 1978-1983 era stuff for my old II. Did people > >ever network the IIgs to a Mac? If so, how? > > The IIgs is a full localtalk ready Appleshare client machine, might be a > rom version issue... As mentioned previously on this list, I have a version 1.0 ROM in my IIgs. What is the "best" version? Are they for sale or for download to burn my own? -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ From elvey at hal.com Fri Jul 7 16:12:32 2000 From: elvey at hal.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <10007070744.ZM6653@indy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: <200007072112.OAA18502@civic.hal.com> pete@dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) wrote: > > > CRC's are quite good at fixing a single small burst. > > Dwight, I think you're confusing CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) with ECC > (Error Correction Code). CRC is very good at detecting errors, including > bursts of errors that might slip by simpler checks, but AFAIK tells you > next to nothing about where they occurred. ECC tells you enough to correct > small errors. I've not heard of anyone using CRCs for correction (not > directly, anyway). > Hi ECC can use CRC's. ECC can also use other types of generating signitures that can be used. I hope someone on this group will code this up to try because it is an interesting demonstration of error correction. I don't recall the burst size that a CRC16 can correct but like other CRC's, it can correct some size, without aliasing. To demonstrate it for youself, you can flip one bit in a data set. After combining the final CRC with the data's CRC, you usually have all zero or 1's, depending on the seed. How you find the bad bit in the data is tricky but not all that hard. There are three ways that I know of but for a program, #1 is the most straight forward. 1. You play the CRC backwards with zeros replacing the data. when you get to the point that there is only one bit as a 1 entering the CRC and the rest is zero's, you have found the count backwards that the error was at in the data. 2. You can play the CRC forward until is wraps around ( only 2^16-1 maximum for CRC16 ), feeding zero's in as data. As you get to 2^16 -1 -DataSize, you watch for the single bit being one again, as you did before. That count into the data will be the error location. 3. If the polymonial you use is not prime, you can divide it into it's prime factors and find the playing forward each factor and watching for the 1 and all zero's pattern. ( The largest factor needs to have a cycle length longer that the data size or this doesn't work. ) You then multiply the counts by large prime numbers and divide by the least common denominator. This is called the Chinese Remaindor method. I also recall that one of the factors must be X+1 but I don't recall why. Anyway, the reason these all work it that you can take a pattern of all 0's and set one bit to a 1 and the CRC sum with the check CRC sum will be the same as the CRC done with the data and the correct CRC. In otherwords, the bit location is encoded in the CRC result since only one bit location will cause that sum. Dwight ---snip--- > > Although disks use the V41 polynomial (X^16 + X^12 + X^5 + 1) not CRC32. True, I was just using it as an example. From louiss at gate.net Fri Jul 7 16:42:56 2000 From: louiss at gate.net (Louis Schulman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Xerox DayBreak In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200007072142.RAA67146@cocopah.gate.net> On Fri, 7 Jul 2000 13:31:50 -0700, Mike Ford wrote: >>Some of the older ones went down to TV rates, which can be very useful >>when using them on older computers.... > >I am thinking the NEC 2A or 2C was very flexible, but don't really >remember. Maybe it was the model with a J in it. > Actually you are thinking of the NEC Multisync II, model JC-1402HMA. It can do CGA, EGA, VGA, and virtually any other digital or analog RGB. I use one all the time, and it has a beautiful picture to boot. Louis From richard at idcomm.com Fri Jul 7 17:13:34 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000707151508.20200366@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <001901bfe860$9867b0e0$0400c0a8@winbook> You write about this experiment with considerable confidence in your result, considering that you haven't any conventional hardware for dealing with this stuff. There must be something about your results that gives you the confidence to proceed. What might that be? Are you getting verifiable results, i.e. data that makes sense like ascii files, etc? Sampling and recording the analog signal might prove disappointing. The data will be much harder to recognize in its analog form, particularly on the inner tracks on a noisy diskette or drive. The AGC amp is normally a simple one just compensating for the varying levels as the speed of the media changes with respect to the head. That's why a stepwise change at track 43 is tolerable. The AGC makes it average around the signal, regardless of its level. Since the signal is subsequently differentiated in order to detect the peaks, its the AC processing that yields the data. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 1:15 PM Subject: Re: Re[2]: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > >First of all, what, in the sampled bitstream tells you that a bit is "flaky" > >or in any sense questionable? > > If it's different on multiple read passes, then it's flaky. If it's different > when read on different drives, then it's flaky. But since this particular > circuit samples the data after it's gone through the AGC and discriminator > section in the drive, you can't look at an individual pulse and say that > it's flaky. A circuit which recorded the analog signal from the head > (or one of the preamp stages) would be far better for spotting flaky bits. > Yes, but difficult to make sense of unless you stick in a software AGC to equalize the levels and amplitudes. You're probably looking at it at the right place. > > > Since your sampler is working at a harmonic > >of the theoretical data rate, you should be able to find anomalies easier > >than one who's sampling at some other frequency, but these frequencies > >aren't terribly precise because of mechanical variations and the general > >fact that even closely specified crystals still aren't identical in > >frequency. > > I don't think there's any magic that results from me working at a harmonic > of the nominal data frequency. I could be sampling at 14.353773 or > 3.5798 or 4.00 MHz and it's all the same, because none of them are "locked" > in any way to the actual data rate. > I don't know how much time you've spent with a logic analyzer, but I've found that the closer your sample rate is to a harmonic of the master clock in a mainly synchronous, the easier it is to make sense of the transitions. If you sample at 1% deviation between the two clocks, there will be occasional frame slips, but they will be obvious because of their size. If you sample at 5 MHz and the events were derived from an 8 MHz clock, there will be lots of variation in puses that ought to be the same. You can get accustomed to it, but it isn't fun. I mentioned I have a modular PLL circuit. Well, it's for synchronizing my logic analyzer with the system clock that I use that. My Tek 1240 has only 512 samples at its highest rate, and therefore I sample at the coarsest granularity that gives me meaningful results. The PLL helps make the otherwise strange pulse trains look reasonable. It makes odd-width pulses stand out, which, I'd think would be helpful in your FD analyzer. > > >How can you tell that your error correction is of the bit that caused the > >error? There are, in every sample, some bits that will fix the CRC that > >weren't necessarily wrong in the first place. > > True, but if there's a flaky bit then it's more likely to be causing the > CRC error. If I go to the two flaky bits in a sector and fiddle them > by hand, and all of a sudden I match the CRC, then we're doing pretty well. > Have you tried stopping the drive and repositioning the diskette, rotating it, say, 90 degrees to see if there's a systematic factor to some of the wierdness you see? If you take four samples, each one at a fairly precise phase shift, you should be able to correlate out the random (mechanically generated?) features. To do that you simply add the four bitstreams together and divide by four. That will attenuate the random signal in an analog system. The averaging effect of the circuitry might just do the same thing with the "flaky" bits. Dick > > Keep in mind that even with more-bits ECC's there are also multiple ways you can > fiddle bits in the data section and still match up with the error correcting > codes. > > > Since you're looking for read > >errors not necessarily written incorrectly, I assume you have some means for > >making a decision? Do you simply plow through the file, inverting every bit > >and retesting the CRC? > > Again, I look for bits that read differently on different read passes, and > fiddle those by hand. > > > How do you decide where the bit boundaries really > >are? > > I've got a "software PLL". It synchronizes on both data and clock pulses, > and when it senses that it's seriously out of whack it can adjust more > rapidly than a traditional one-time-constant hardware PLL. > > > How do you interpret the chaos in the write-splices? > > I pretty much ignore the chaos. I've developed some graphing techniques > that help me decide where the write-splices are for a particular low-level > data format. (Remember, I'm mainly concerned with hard-sectored formats > which vary a lot from one controller to the next. Many have *no* address > information recorded magnetically.) > > >Do you operate your sampler in parallel with an FDC in order to ensure that > >you've gotten a sample that's readable by the FDC? > > No, mostly I'm looking at oddball hard-sectored formats that a normal > IBM3740-derived FDC chip can't handle. And if I had the real hard-sectored > random-logic controller, I wouldn't need my analyzer circuit :-). > > >Have you, in general, considered using a PLL e.g. 4046 or some similar > >device for generating a precise multiple of the detected data rate and > >"tracking-out" the mechanical influences of your drive on speed? > > I thought about it, but I don't think it's necessary. My 8x oversampling > seems to be just fine for both FM and MFM data formats. > > When I start making the descriptive web pages this weekend, I'll show some > graphs that indicate how I find write splice areas and track data rate > frequency from my analysis software. (I do no analysis in real-time, it's > all done post-acquisition.) > > Tim. > > From richard at idcomm.com Fri Jul 7 17:18:09 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ References: <20000707143158.4050.qmail@web618.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001f01bfe861$3c3a7900$0400c0a8@winbook> One thing one might want is signal definitions, along with some way of characterizing the behavior of the port with respect to software. Is it completely bit-by-bit controllable? ( You do mean that odd-sized sub-d connector, right?) I want to talk to an external device on a bitwise basis and don't need too many bits. 8 each way would be OK. fewer would be better thanwhat I know of right now. Is there any sort of data on this and other features that I might snag over the www? Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Ford To: Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 1:34 PM Subject: Re: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ > >Since the IIc has come up again, I'm still looking for a way to get useable > >parallel I/O out of one of these guys. Is there a way to get parllel output > >AND input using a IIc? I've had one lying about for some 10 years and still > > I was looking at the floppy port last night and kind of wondering what the > possibilities might be. It has power, data, and control lines, what more > could anybody want? > > > From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Fri Jul 7 17:25:14 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever Message-ID: <000707182514.202003a7@trailing-edge.com> >You write about this experiment with considerable confidence in your result, >considering that you haven't any conventional hardware for dealing with this >stuff. There must be something about your results that gives you the >confidence to proceed. What might that be? Are you getting verifiable >results, i.e. data that makes sense like ascii files, etc? Yes, ASCII (and EBCDIC, remember I'm recovering floppies originally written in the early 70's) files that make sense. I think, Dick, that sometimes you make this seem harder than it is. Many of the data formats are readable (in hardware) with something as simple as a one-shot and a UART. >Sampling and recording the analog signal might prove disappointing. The >data will be much harder to recognize in its analog form, particularly on >the inner tracks on a noisy diskette or drive. True, but the analog circuit would also be easy to simulate electronically. Just a few coupled linear and nonlinear differential equations! Tim. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 18:11:54 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <4.3.0.20000702102650.00b73610@pacbell.net> (message from Jim Battle on Sun, 02 Jul 2000 10:46:52 -0700) References: <200007012138.OAA14657@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <001a01bfe403$bad32da0$0400c0a8@winbook> <4.3.0.20000702102650.00b73610@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <20000707231154.3334.qmail@brouhaha.com> Jim Battle wrote: [ ... about the HP custom 8-bit microprocessor of the HP-85 ... ] > I believe that the HP 75 uses this same processor, A CMOS version. I'm not sure if it's pin compatible. They probably added at least one instruction, and also probably integrated some additional > as of course the > HP 86 and HP 87 do too. The HP 83 most likely uses exactly the same processor, as the system is fully compatible with the HP-85. The HP-86 and -87 use different memory management, but the processor might be the same. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 18:21:55 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: microVAX-II GPX. which monitor In-Reply-To: <000701bfe510$7ea82750$0e0301ac@dba00802.databaseamerica.com> (John.Allain@donnelley.infousa.com) References: <000701bfe510$7ea82750$0e0301ac@dba00802.databaseamerica.com> Message-ID: <20000707232155.3442.qmail@brouhaha.com> > This weekend I was playing with a microVAX-II GPX Is there such a thing? I've only seen the VAXstation II/GPX. > Again, anyone out there know what monitor freq & scan > this guy wants to talk to? Mono BNC on the cable. Dunno the rate, but it works fine on my old Sony GDM-2036 multiscan. I think the supported DEC monitor was the VR290; perhaps you can find scan rate specs for that online somewhere. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 18:31:19 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <200007041708.KAA26939@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> (korpela@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu) References: <200007041708.KAA26939@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <20000707233119.3561.qmail@brouhaha.com> "Eric J. Korpela" wrote: > On a related note. I have several machines with HPIB/GPIB/IEEE-??? > type interfaces, and occasionally see disk drives with the same interface. > Is the protocol such that one size fits all? HP has used at least three protocols for HP-IB disk drives: Amigo, CS/80, and SS/80. Some models of disk drives, such as the HP 9134, have variants to support different protocols. I think the HP-8x computers need SS/80. > Is there a good HPIB reference > available that someone could recommend? IEEE-488.1-1987 is the definitive reference. Print copy is $60 for non-members, PDF is $90 for non-members. http://standards.ieee.org/ > Could a PC with a GPIB card act > as a file server, Yes, if you wrote suitable software. > or is there some host/slave dichotomy that prevents such > things? Most (all?) IEEE-488 cards for PCs support acting as a controller or a device, but software support for acting as a device tends to be pretty minimal. It's theoretically possible to have multiple controllers on a bus, with only one as an active controller at any given time, through the use of the TCT (Take ConTrol) message. However, I've never seen this done. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 7 18:24:16 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <20000707231154.3334.qmail@brouhaha.com> from "Eric Smith" at Jul 7, 0 11:11:54 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 606 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000708/fa88365c/attachment.ksh From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 18:38:59 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Great Finds In-Reply-To: (message from Steve Robertson on Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:24:50 -0400) References: Message-ID: <20000707233859.3642.qmail@brouhaha.com> Steve Robertson wrote: > The find-of-the-day however, was a HP 7980XC 9-track tape drive. Found this > beauty in a dumpster at one of the junk dealers. It's god a few minor > scratches on the front cover but, otherwise is in extremely good condition. > The total asking price 5$. Anyone got spare DOCs for it? The service manual is still available from HP, and well worth the money. The 7980 and 88780 are basically the same drive, and the manual covers both. The 88780 is the OEM version, and is available with SCSI (single-ended or differential) or Pertec interfaces, while the 7980 has an HP-IB interface. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 18:40:05 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Great Finds In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF04@TEGNTSERVER> (message from Douglas Quebbeman on Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:44:51 -0400) References: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF04@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <20000707234005.3656.qmail@brouhaha.com> Douglas Quebbeman wrote: [about the HP 7980] > Is this another repackaged Cipher F880 Microstreamer? No. It's designed and manufactured by HP. It's been OEM'd to many other companies, including AT&T, Sun, and even IBM. (The IBM one has a much different front panel.) From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 18:42:11 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever In-Reply-To: <200007051751.KAA12467@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> (korpela@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu) References: <200007051751.KAA12467@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <20000707234211.3689.qmail@brouhaha.com> >> So far, I've seen no reason to make this baby reconfigurable. What do you >> have in mind? > > FM, MFM, or GCR decom in the CPLD. Much better to do the demodulation (and modulation for write) in software. One can implement a much better data separator algorithm in software than can easily be done in a small amount of hardware. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 18:44:16 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Great Finds In-Reply-To: <39634DAA.7207.EF655E@localhost> (ss@allegro.com) References: <39634DAA.7207.EF655E@localhost> Message-ID: <20000707234416.3723.qmail@brouhaha.com> steverob@hotoffice.com asks: > Located two complete HP 9000/832 minicomputers. After tinkering around for a > What kind of tapes does the built-in drive use? "Stan Sieler" wrote: > That's probably a DDS (aka "DAT") drive ... at least, that's the only drive > I've ever seen built-in to any HP 9000/8x2 or HP 3000/9x2. > (It'll be a DDS-1, most likely) DDS-1, and supports 60-meter tapes *ONLY*. The drive predates 90-meter tapes, and will not work reliably with them. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 18:51:54 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: ROLM PhoneMail System Info? In-Reply-To: (message from Bill Richman on Thu, 06 Jul 2000 16:01:12 -0500) References: Message-ID: <20000707235154.3790.qmail@brouhaha.com> > I have been offered an IBM/ROLM phone mail system. I'm curious if > it's something standard that's been put into use as a phone mail > system, or if it's some weird proprietary thing. AFAIK, *ALL* phone switches are weird proprietary things. Some of the latest small ones happen to be based on PCs, but their still weird proprietary things. The ROLM ones definitely are NOT PC-based, though, if that's what you're asking. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 18:56:16 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: <3965F1DC.FDF0906@rain.org> (message from Marvin on Fri, 07 Jul 2000 08:06:04 -0700) References: <3965F1DC.FDF0906@rain.org> Message-ID: <20000707235616.3847.qmail@brouhaha.com> Marvin wrote: > I also am looking for a plain // since I *think* that is the only one Presumably you mean a plain ][. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 7 19:00:57 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Xerox DayBreak In-Reply-To: <200007072142.RAA67146@cocopah.gate.net> (louiss@gate.net) References: <200007072142.RAA67146@cocopah.gate.net> Message-ID: <20000708000057.3916.qmail@brouhaha.com> > Actually you are thinking of the NEC Multisync II, model > JC-1402HMA. It can do CGA, EGA, VGA, and virtually any > other digital or analog RGB. I use one all the time, and > it has a beautiful picture to boot. Can't do uninterlaced scan of much above 1024x768, and that only at about 60 Hz vertical. But they are good monitors for things that don't need extremely high resolution. Almost all later multiscan-type monitors can't handle horizontal rates *lower* than 31.5 KHz (VGA). :-( From west at tseinc.com Fri Jul 7 20:09:14 2000 From: west at tseinc.com (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Great Finds (7980) References: <20000707233859.3642.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <001f01bfe879$227bf8a0$0101a8c0@jay> You wrote... > The 7980 and 88780 are basically the same drive, and the manual covers > both. The 88780 is the OEM version, and is available with SCSI (single-ended > or differential) or Pertec interfaces, while the 7980 has an HP-IB interface. 7980 normally an HP-IB animal? Hum.... I've sold hundreds of 7980 tape drives direct from HP. Eric is right, they're made by HP, and pricebook has them at $19,600.00. 99% of them were SCSI, and that was the factory default config. There are additional options to change interfaces, the presence of 800bpi, etc. But without options, the default standard 7980 is always SCSI. Jay West From richard at idcomm.com Fri Jul 7 20:42:47 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever References: <000707182514.202003a7@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <004d01bfe87d$d27b1160$0400c0a8@winbook> ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 4:25 PM Subject: Re: Re[2]: Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever > >You write about this experiment with considerable confidence in your result, > >considering that you haven't any conventional hardware for dealing with this > >stuff. There must be something about your results that gives you the > >confidence to proceed. What might that be? Are you getting verifiable > >results, i.e. data that makes sense like ascii files, etc? > > Yes, ASCII (and EBCDIC, remember I'm recovering floppies originally written > in the early 70's) files that make sense. > > I think, Dick, that sometimes you make this seem harder than it is. Many > of the data formats are readable (in hardware) with something as simple as > a one-shot and a UART. > I remember some of those, and some actually worked at least some of the time. OTOH, I'm not too familiar with the problem of unreadable diskettes. In fact, I still have and (can) use the first floppies I ever owned. Aside from the couple of truckloads of 8" diskettes I hauled to the dumpster because they'd been wet, I believe I've still got every one I owned in 1985 when I quit using CP/M. The 8" diskettes I used with the APEX OS on a homebrew 6502 are all still readable, and the I can't remember the last time I had one I couldn't read once I figured out which machine wrote it. Moreover, I've never had to attack the problem of reading floppies for a machine that isn't in the lab or available somewhere. I'd never go to the trouble you've gone to in order to read old files unless someone was footing the bill. To me it's a daunting problem because of the time and efforr that would have to be invested in developing a tool. I had to get an Apple][ and a PC in order to find out about diskette problems. Fortunately there were hard disks available. I once had an NBI word processor that used those old MEMOREX drives that used hard sectored floppies with the sector holes around the outside. When there were sectors with error flags set, you just had to look at the text file and could see which word had the wrong character in it. > > >Sampling and recording the analog signal might prove disappointing. The > >data will be much harder to recognize in its analog form, particularly on > >the inner tracks on a noisy diskette or drive. > > True, but the analog circuit would also be easy to simulate electronically. > Just a few coupled linear and nonlinear differential equations! > yes, but the you still have to make sense of it. It depends on what your goal is. > > Tim. > > From paulrsm at ameritech.net Fri Jul 7 21:13:10 2000 From: paulrsm at ameritech.net (Paul R. Santa-Maria) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ Message-ID: <20000708021521.NXCI7121.mailhost.kal.ameritech.net@paulrsm> ---------- > From: Ethan Dicks > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ > Date: Friday, July 07, 2000 04:52 PM > > As mentioned previously on this list, I have a version 1.0 ROM in my IIgs. > What is the "best" version? Are they for sale or for download to burn my > own? There were three versions of the Apple IIgs: ROM 00, ROM 01, and ROM 03. ROM 00 and ROM 01 have the same hardware with a different ROM. The ROM 03 had different hardware (more memory on the motherboard, for example) and you cannot convert an earlier version to a ROM 03. A ROM 03 is considered the best if you are going to run GS/OS, the Apple IIgs 16-bit native operating system. I am happy with my ROM 01 since I use it like an 8-bit Apple IIe. Paul R. Santa-Maria Ann Arbor, Michigan USA paulrsm@ameritech.net From jrkeys at concentric.net Fri Jul 7 21:33:04 2000 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (John R. Keys Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. References: Message-ID: <01b801bfe884$d8df4060$f7711fd1@default> I wish you guys would list want you are looking for more often as I had to just trash over 50 Apple II, IIe, and related items like ext. floppy drive, printers, and monitors. Some times I come across a shit load of stuff that I can not use or save for the trash. If I see your want/wish list I can email you when something comes up. I see the IIc+ around here and in St. Louis, MO all the time but I already have three working units. They sell for around $2 to $10 without a monitor. John Keys ----- Original Message ----- From: Sellam Ismail To: Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 12:41 AM Subject: Re: Question for NW Apple II users. > On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > > > Cool stuff that everybody wants: > > Transwarp accelerator > > Vulcan hard drive > > Focus hard drive > > Fast SCSI card > > SCSI card > > Workstation localtalk card for IIe > > Add to that: > > Apple file://c LCD portable display > > > Makes trading very difficult with maybe half a dozen items worth more than > > $20, and handfull of rare items difficult to put any price on, and the rest > > generally $5 or so depending on the marketplace. Add to that in finding any > > of the "good" items, most people end up with boxes of the other stuff. How > > and what do you end up trading? The only reason I cut loose of a couple of > > my SCSI cards is that they sell for $100 and I clearly had more than I > > needed. > > I collect whatever file://c's I can find for cheap because I'm standardizing on > them as my VCF utility terminal of choice (for taking attendee > registration information, keeping books at the consignment table, etc). > They're nice and self-contained, only needing a display (//c+'s would be > much nicer but they're harder to come across). I have around 10 file://c's and > 2 file://c+'s. > > I also take whatever free file://e's I get my hands on. They'll come in handy > for something someday (maybe when Hans finishes the C64 super-computer > project we can do one with Apples :) > > Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- > Looking for a six in a pile of nines... > > VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 > San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California > See http://www.vintage.org for details! > > > From ss at allegro.com Fri Jul 7 21:31:52 2000 From: ss at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Great Finds (7980) In-Reply-To: <001f01bfe879$227bf8a0$0101a8c0@jay> Message-ID: <39663028.18644.4391FA@localhost> Re: > > 7980 normally an HP-IB animal? Hum.... I've sold hundreds of 7980 tape > drives direct from HP. Eric is right, they're made by HP, and pricebook has > them at $19,600.00. 99% of them were SCSI, and that was the factory default > config. There are additional options to change interfaces, the presence of > 800bpi, etc. But without options, the default standard 7980 is always SCSI. Interesting...I'd go along with Eric...the only SCSI ones I've ever seen are the 88780's at a surplus place. I've heard of HP 3000 users trying to find/buy the HPIB to SCSI conversion kit (because HP-IB is not supported on MPE/iX as of release 6.5), and was told that HP had made all the kits they'd ever make, and that they were just about out of them. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that sales of 7980 tape drives in the last couple of years were predominantly SCSI, however. Stan Sieler sieler@allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html www.allegro.com/sieler From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 7 21:32:41 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: ROLM PhoneMail System Info? In-Reply-To: <20000707235154.3790.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On 7 Jul 2000, Eric Smith wrote: > AFAIK, *ALL* phone switches are weird proprietary things. Some of the > latest small ones happen to be based on PCs, but their still weird > proprietary things. Actually, the PC-based ones generally use standard off-the-shelf pc-telephony hardware from either Dialogic or Natural Microsystems. There are other manfacturers such as Pika and Brooktrout (formerly Rhetorex). Their drivers and APIs are usually available for free download from their FTP sites (if you know where to look) and the boards are relatively easy to program (if you know what you're doing). Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 7 21:34:48 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: <01b801bfe884$d8df4060$f7711fd1@default> Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, John R. Keys Jr. wrote: > I wish you guys would list want you are looking for more often as I had > to just trash over 50 Apple II, IIe, and related items like ext. floppy > drive, printers, and monitors. Some times I come across a shit load of Why did you trash them before posting to the list? It would be inconvient for everyone to post their wants to the list (who would remember it all? who would keep track of this? certainly not I...) so posting what you are about to trash to the list is basic classic computer etiquette :) > stuff that I can not use or save for the trash. If I see your want/wish > list I can email you when something comes up. I see the IIc+ around > here and in St. Louis, MO all the time but I already have three working > units. They sell for around $2 to $10 without a monitor. Cool. The next time one comes up at that price buy it for me. I'll be happy to pay that amount. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From mikeford at socal.rr.com Sat Jul 8 01:00:18 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: <01b801bfe884$d8df4060$f7711fd1@default> References: Message-ID: >I wish you guys would list want you are looking for more often as I had >to just trash over 50 Apple II, IIe, and related items like ext. floppy Take some heart in that in a random lot of 50 machines, there may not have been ANY of the good cards. But now you have at least a short list of the "good" stuff. ;) From mac at Wireless.Com Sat Jul 8 02:24:31 2000 From: mac at Wireless.Com (Mike Cheponis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Free Heathkit H19 manuals In-Reply-To: <013201bfe852$4131ac80$4721892b@stg.sel.sony.com> Message-ID: Bummmer. Well, thanks for offering them, and I trust they're going to good homes! -Mike On Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Mark Champion wrote: > All manuals have been spoken for. > > Thanks for the inquirys. > > Mark Champion > Sony Electronics > 206-524-0014 > mark.champion@am.sony.com From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Sat Jul 8 02:33:23 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. Message-ID: <20000708073323.15130.qmail@web614.mail.yahoo.com> --- "John R. Keys Jr." wrote: > ...I see the IIc+ around here and in St. Louis, MO all the time but I > already have three working units. They sell for around $2 to $10 > without a monitor. That sounds about right. I only have one IIc+, but it was $15 with an external 5.25" Laser-brand floppy drive, two Imagewriter Is and a smallish (9"?) mono monitor and stand, docs but no software. I'd wanted a IIc since I wrote kiddie-software under the Software Productions/Reader's Digest label in high school ("Micro Habitats", "Micro Mother Goose" and "Alphabet Beasts and Company" were our big titles). That's why I only have DOS 3.3 disks and the odd Infocom title; I haven't used an Apple on a regular basis since 1984. Now that the hardware is ultra-cheap, I can make up for all those lost years. -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From mikeford at socal.rr.com Sat Jul 8 04:26:47 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: References: <01b801bfe884$d8df4060$f7711fd1@default> Message-ID: Mikes generalized Apple II keep list, kindly correct me for dumb stuff. Systems They have to be pretty nice looking, systems with school ID engraved an inch high on the front are not desirable. Apple II, the orginal machine Apple II+, still not too common Not the IIe, sorry parts only, too many of them. IIgs, not rare, but people still actively use them more than any other II. Look for Woz editions and rom 3. IIc, cute and complete systems with monitor still sell for $35 or so. IIc+, more powerfull than the IIc, but in some ways less collectible (no idea why), still $45 for a complete system is fairly common. Drives (mostly I mean external) Any external hard drive, or even case. DuoDisk floppy drives (two drives in a box) with cable. Unidisk floppy drives White IIc drives 400k floppy drives 1.44 MB floppy drives Keyboards A9M0330 is the IIgs original keyboard, and VERY popular because it is the smallest mac keyboard (and its the original. Any mac keyboard, I even pile broken ones in a box for parts. This comes from actually paying $169 for one once. Mice Early DB9 mice, M0100 with the black ball retaining ring is the original. All the mice too. Misc IIc LCD display IIc 9" green monitor AND matching stand. Kensington system saver fans. Cards and other innerds Accelerator boards, Applied Engineering Transwarp about the most desired. Fast SCSI cards, much faster, only card that supports removable media. Apple Rev C SCSI cards, but much less so than Fast SCSI. Workstation cards Vulcan hard drive inside power supply Focus IDE drive on a card Anything curious I/O controller cards (for later floppy drives) Mouse cards for IIe From transit at lerctr.org Sat Jul 8 05:59:01 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Around 1985 or so, a couple of manufacturers developed "sprite boards" for the Apple II series (except the IIc, for obvious reasons) These boards featured a video chip (probably a TMS 9918, same as used in the TI home computer) that allowed for up to 32 sprites to be displayed on the screen. One of these boards may have had a sound chip on it as well. (A veritable TI 99/4 on an Apple card, almost!) Of course, the sprites, and any other graphics from the 9918 could be superimposed over regular Apple graphics, due to the external video input on the 9918. Did anyone ever play with one of these? I recall them being rather expensive, not well supported by third party software makers, and (of course) different brands of sprite card were incompatible with each other. From foo at siconic.com Sat Jul 8 07:34:52 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > IIc+, more powerfull than the IIc, but in some ways less collectible (no > idea why), still $45 for a complete system is fairly common. I don't know where you get that impression from. How so? They're just not as common as the //c, which makes them more scarce. Non-Apple people might not know the difference between a //c and a //c+ and realize the //c+ is a way cool machine. > Fast SCSI cards, much faster, only card that supports removable media. > Apple Rev C SCSI cards, but much less so than Fast SCSI. > Workstation cards I'd like a SCSI and Workstation card too (make that two so I can at least connect two machines together). Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From paulrsm at ameritech.net Sat Jul 8 09:15:27 2000 From: paulrsm at ameritech.net (Paul R. Santa-Maria) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards Message-ID: <20000708141722.ROHV7121.mailhost.kal.ameritech.net@paulrsm> ---------- > From: Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) > > Around 1985 or so, a couple of manufacturers developed "sprite boards" > for the Apple II series (except the IIc, for obvious reasons) Picked one from eBay in November for $5. No docs or software, but I think I have the Byte magazine where Ciarcia presented plans and software for the original. I have not even plugged it in yet. Paul R. Santa-Maria Ann Arbor, Michigan USA paulrsm@ameritech.net From technoid at cheta.net Sat Jul 8 09:53:43 2000 From: technoid at cheta.net (Jeffrey S. Worley) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: OpenBSD 2.6 on Sparc Message-ID: <39674075.DCC6EB8F@cheta.net> I have a SparcStation 4/330 (sun4 architecture) running OpenBSD 2.6 on a 540mb drive. I have a few questions relating to fleshing out the original install: Where do I find descriptions for each package/port? How do I get PKG_ADD to resolve it's own dependencies? (goes to above question). I would like to install KDE or Enlightenment or some better Gui than X11R6..... I have Solaris 2.4 (sparc) installed on another drive (triple boot system - netbsd, openbsd, solaris) and so have the libraries the Compat_sunos manpage says it requires except for LIB5. Do I need a later version of solaris in order to get the libraries I need to run solaris dynamicaly linked applications? The mans are not specific enough for me to get there from here. The goal is to run Netscape for Solaris 2.4 under OpenBSD 2.6. I've cp'd the libs to the correct dirs according to the manpage but netscape fails to load with a trap almost instantly. I have updated my solaris 2.4 for the bind issues relating to netscape and other apps and those new libs are in place on my obsd drive in the right place but to no avail. In particular I would like to know why following the directions in the manpage results in my solaris 2.4 partition being no longer bootable. Solaris dies with several errors regarding Lib.so suchandsuch not being readable and dies. I only mounted the solaris drive for read to copy the files and each time I do that the solaris partition won't boot anymore. My guess is permissions being changed because the solaris partition is mountable under OpenBSD even after it will no longer boot, all files are there in the right place and OBSD reports the solaris partition as clean. What is happening here? Some equipment info: sd0 is at 0,0 540mb Openbsd Sd1 is at 1,0 540mb NetBsd 1.4.2 (gotta use 1.4.1`s miniroot to install on Sun4! Sd2 is at 3,0 1004mb Solaris 2.4 (can't boot from cd so I use TomsRTBT on my klone and dd an image then install from the image'd hard disk..... Hey, it works. Video is a CG6 daughtercard on my sparc's mainboard. X runs fine. I do have a cdrom drive that is not bootable but otherwise runs fine for all three operating systems. Thanks for your support. Please reply in e-mail as well as to the group. -- Jeffrey S. Worley President Complete Computer Services Inc. 30 Greenwood Rd. Asheville, NC 28803 828-277-5959 From transit at lerctr.org Sat Jul 8 10:27:42 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: <20000708141722.ROHV7121.mailhost.kal.ameritech.net@paulrsm> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Paul R. Santa-Maria wrote: > ---------- > > From: Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) > > > > Around 1985 or so, a couple of manufacturers developed "sprite boards" > > for the Apple II series (except the IIc, for obvious reasons) > > Picked one from eBay in November for $5. Whoo-hoo. Good catch. (What's the name on the board so I can try fishing for one too?) > No docs or software, but I think > I have the Byte magazine where Ciarcia presented plans and software for the > original. I have not even plugged it in yet. Does it have a TMS 9918 chip on it? From mikeford at socal.rr.com Sat Jul 8 12:42:09 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > >> IIc+, more powerfull than the IIc, but in some ways less collectible (no >> idea why), still $45 for a complete system is fairly common. > >I don't know where you get that impression from. How so? > >They're just not as common as the //c, which makes them more scarce. >Non-Apple people might not know the difference between a //c and a //c+ >and realize the //c+ is a way cool machine. The biggest collectors of the IIc are in Japan, and for reasons I don't follow, the IIc seems prefered to the IIc+. US buyers prefer the IIc+, but the number of buyers is a fraction of the machines being sold in Japan. From dlw at trailingedge.com Sat Jul 8 13:15:37 2000 From: dlw at trailingedge.com (David Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: (Fwd) Kaypro II Message-ID: <39672979.362.37A4A4@localhost> Some one here maintains a collection of boot disks don't they? Can you help him out? ------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: Boing48@cs.com Hi, I have a Kaypro II but no docs or software. I would like to get a boot disk, can you help? Thanks, Allan ------- End of forwarded message ------- ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From netsurfer_x1 at hotmail.com Sat Jul 8 15:19:15 2000 From: netsurfer_x1 at hotmail.com (David Vohs) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <20000708201915.24070.qmail@hotmail.com> I have another tech legend to be dicussed: It is generally believed that the Apple Lisa is what spurred Bill Gates to create Windows. But recently I have read something that says it was *not* the Lisa that inspired Bill Gates, but that it was VisiCorp's VisiOn software (remember that, yeah, me neither!). So my question is: Which one was it? Was it Lisa or VisiOn? ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jul 8 16:59:57 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: from "Charles P. Hobbs" at Jul 8, 0 05:59:01 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 558 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000708/afbd86bc/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jul 8 16:53:19 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. In-Reply-To: from "Sellam Ismail" at Jul 7, 0 07:34:48 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 837 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000708/0f922efc/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jul 8 16:58:29 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: from "Mike Ford" at Jul 8, 0 02:26:47 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 833 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000708/6a10f372/attachment.ksh From jrkeys at concentric.net Sat Jul 8 19:23:47 2000 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (John R. Keys Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:19 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list References: <01b801bfe884$d8df4060$f7711fd1@default> Message-ID: <003901bfe93b$f71d5460$12701fd1@default> I have printed off your list and will carry it with me in the van on my hunting trips. John Keys ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Ford To: Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 4:26 AM Subject: Apple II keep list > Mikes generalized Apple II keep list, kindly correct me for dumb stuff. > > Systems > They have to be pretty nice looking, systems with school ID engraved an > inch high on the front are not desirable. > Apple II, the orginal machine > Apple II+, still not too common > Not the IIe, sorry parts only, too many of them. > IIgs, not rare, but people still actively use them more than any other II. > Look for Woz editions and rom 3. > IIc, cute and complete systems with monitor still sell for $35 or so. > IIc+, more powerfull than the IIc, but in some ways less collectible (no > idea why), still $45 for a complete system is fairly common. > > Drives (mostly I mean external) > Any external hard drive, or even case. > DuoDisk floppy drives (two drives in a box) with cable. > Unidisk floppy drives > White IIc drives > 400k floppy drives > 1.44 MB floppy drives > > Keyboards > A9M0330 is the IIgs original keyboard, and VERY popular because it is the > smallest mac keyboard (and its the original. > Any mac keyboard, I even pile broken ones in a box for parts. This comes > from actually paying $169 for one once. > > Mice > Early DB9 mice, M0100 with the black ball retaining ring is the original. > All the mice too. > > Misc > IIc LCD display > IIc 9" green monitor AND matching stand. > Kensington system saver fans. > > Cards and other innerds > Accelerator boards, Applied Engineering Transwarp about the most desired. > Fast SCSI cards, much faster, only card that supports removable media. > Apple Rev C SCSI cards, but much less so than Fast SCSI. > Workstation cards > Vulcan hard drive inside power supply > Focus IDE drive on a card > Anything curious > I/O controller cards (for later floppy drives) > Mouse cards for IIe > > > From cbajpai at mediaone.net Sat Jul 8 19:34:11 2000 From: cbajpai at mediaone.net (Chandra Bajpai) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <20000708201915.24070.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: VisiOn...Wow, haven't thought about that software for a while. Anybody ever use it??....I remember it was a pig, requiring lots of memory+CPU (8088 @ 4.77Mhz weren't going to cut it) and it was the first package that required a mouse! Back in 1985 I did get a chance to evaluate/use Microsoft Windows 1.0 and Digital Research GEM (GEM was so much better!) A even better package for multitasking was the original QuarterDeck DesQ (they later bastardized down to a more popular lite version called DesQView). DesQ multitasked well esp. on the original PC architecture. Any know where I can find disk images for the software mentioned above? Thanks, Chandra -----Original Message----- From: owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org [mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of David Vohs Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 4:19 PM To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! I have another tech legend to be dicussed: It is generally believed that the Apple Lisa is what spurred Bill Gates to create Windows. But recently I have read something that says it was *not* the Lisa that inspired Bill Gates, but that it was VisiCorp's VisiOn software (remember that, yeah, me neither!). So my question is: Which one was it? Was it Lisa or VisiOn? ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From foo at siconic.com Sat Jul 8 18:54:20 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > The biggest collectors of the IIc are in Japan, and for reasons I don't > follow, the IIc seems prefered to the IIc+. US buyers prefer the IIc+, but > the number of buyers is a fraction of the machines being sold in Japan. I can't think of any logical reason why the //c ould be more popular than the //c+ anywhere. The //c+ is so much better than the //c on so many levels. Any idea what the deal is? Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From foo at siconic.com Sat Jul 8 18:56:04 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <20000708201915.24070.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, David Vohs wrote: > It is generally believed that the Apple Lisa is what spurred Bill Gates to > create Windows. But recently I have read something that says it was *not* > the Lisa that inspired Bill Gates, but that it was VisiCorp's VisiOn > software (remember that, yeah, me neither!). So my question is: Which one > was it? Was it Lisa or VisiOn? VisiOn just lit a fire under his ass and made him worry that someone else was going to capture the PC window OS market. However, from what I've read, VisiOn did themselves in with a buggy product (I guess that only works out if you're Microsoft, eh?) Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From foo at siconic.com Sat Jul 8 18:59:25 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Chandra Bajpai wrote: > VisiOn...Wow, haven't thought about that software for a while. > Anybody ever use it??....I remember it was a pig, requiring lots > of memory+CPU (8088 @ 4.77Mhz weren't going to cut it) and it > was the first package that required a mouse! Never used it but I have the original package in my archive. I also have, in the original packaging, the MousePaint system from VisiCorp that came with the Mouse Systems mouse. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From jrice at texoma.net Sat Jul 8 20:37:37 2000 From: jrice at texoma.net (James L. Rice) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! References: Message-ID: <3967D761.213CBB81@texoma.net> To download GEM, http://www.deltasoft.com http://deltasoft.fife.wa.us/cpm/archive/unofficial/gemworld.html http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Screen/1184/ http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Gem/gengem.html . I agree, in 1986 I bought GEM and Windows 1.1 (Tandy Version) for my wife (at that time) to use on our Tandy 1000 based network at our office. Because the girl couldn't remember a text command for longer than 2 minutes, it was a lot easier to give her icons to pint and click than to answer phone calls constantly. Win 1.x was a joke, but GEM performed flawlessly until 1993 when we retired the old systems and moved to 486's and Win3.11. James Chandra Bajpai wrote: > > VisiOn...Wow, haven't thought about that software for a while. > Anybody ever use it??....I remember it was a pig, requiring lots > of memory+CPU (8088 @ 4.77Mhz weren't going to cut it) and it > was the first package that required a mouse! > > Back in 1985 I did get a chance to evaluate/use Microsoft Windows 1.0 and > Digital Research GEM (GEM was so much better!) A even better package for > multitasking was the original QuarterDeck DesQ (they later bastardized > down to a more popular lite version called DesQView). DesQ multitasked well > esp. on the original PC architecture. > > Any know where I can find disk images for the software mentioned above? > > Thanks, > Chandra > > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org > [mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of David Vohs > Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 4:19 PM > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! > > I have another tech legend to be dicussed: > > It is generally believed that the Apple Lisa is what spurred Bill Gates to > create Windows. But recently I have read something that says it was *not* > the Lisa that inspired Bill Gates, but that it was VisiCorp's VisiOn > software (remember that, yeah, me neither!). So my question is: Which one > was it? Was it Lisa or VisiOn? > ________________________________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com -- ICQ 2286850 Home Page http://home.texoma.net/~jrice Classic Comp Page at http://home.texoma.net/~jrice/classiccomp.html Robotics Page at http://home.texoma.net/~jrice/hobbies.html All pages under construction! From Marion.Bates at dartmouth.edu Sat Jul 8 20:47:24 2000 From: Marion.Bates at dartmouth.edu (Marion Bates) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Never mind! Message-ID: <32994196@dasher.Dartmouth.EDU> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 256 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000708/f22229e9/attachment.bin From whdawson at mlynk.com Sat Jul 8 21:26:38 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Need U.S. source for belt for Amstrad PCW8256 3" drive Message-ID: <000101bfe94d$1c1428a0$91e3dfd0@cobweb.net> Hello all, Here's the dimensions of the needed belt: 72mm x 3mm x 0.5mm also acceptable: 71.0mm x 2.8mm x 0.6mm or 69-72mm x 3-4mm x 0.5-0.6mm The rest of the story: I picked up an Amstrad PCW8256 today complete with printer, original disks (LocaScript and CP/M Plus), 2 game disks with instructions, 5 spare disks with LocaScript files from the previous owner, the Start Up Guide and the User Guide. All for $10.00. It is in great condition and appears to have had little use. However, this is the first Amstrad I've ever owned (or seen for that matter), and also my first experience with these strange 3" floppy disks and drive. I was told it worked, but upon getting it home I found it wouldn't boot. After some poking around I decided to take the floppy drive out and check for head movement. This is when I discovered that the floppy only spun when I pulled up on the pressure pad. At this time it started seeking, so seeing that the spindle is belt driven, I knew where the problem was. I removed enough screws and connectors to get to the old belt out and replaced it with an appropriately sized rubber band. After reassembly, everything now works great. It boots LocaScript, CP/M, and runs the games. But..... I'd like to replace the rubber band with real belt. Can anyone help? Bill Dawson whdawson@mlynk.com ? Your computer will do far more than you ever expected it to, and that won't be enough. Pournelle's First Law From mrdos at swbell.net Sat Jul 8 21:38:11 2000 From: mrdos at swbell.net (Owen Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Never mind! Message-ID: <002701bfe94e$b9f7aa00$2d713ed8@compaq> How much was the Atari 800XE? If shipping isn't too mush for the SE/30, then sure. Got any estimate on shipping costs? Thanks, Owen -----Original Message----- From: Marion Bates To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Date: Saturday, July 08, 2000 8:53 PM Subject: Never mind! Hey! Found a TI99 power supply in a new thrift store tonight. But thank you anyway! I also saw an Atari 800XE and an assortment of old PC clones, plus some old videogame stuff if you're interested. Do you still want the SE/30? Thanks again, -- MB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000708/97000b4f/attachment.html From rdd at smart.net Sat Jul 8 22:13:29 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote: > > IIc+, more powerfull than the IIc, but in some ways less collectible (no > > idea why), still $45 for a complete system is fairly common. For some odd reason, I saw a IIe system in a thrift shop that was priced even higher: US$75 for a IIe with Apple composite monitor (monochrome, I think) and three floppy drives. I thougt it seemed a bit too high and didn't buy it, buying nearly 20 vinyl LPs at 75-cents apiece instead. There was also a beautiful 1950s (I think) GE console TV with a wooden cabinet that was in excellent condition, like it just came from someone's living roomq - beautiful! Alas, I have no space for it and had to pass it up. :-( -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From transit at lerctr.org Sat Jul 8 22:24:19 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote: > On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, David Vohs wrote: > > > It is generally believed that the Apple Lisa is what spurred Bill Gates to > > create Windows. But recently I have read something that says it was *not* > > the Lisa that inspired Bill Gates, but that it was VisiCorp's VisiOn > > software (remember that, yeah, me neither!). So my question is: Which one > > was it? Was it Lisa or VisiOn? > > VisiOn just lit a fire under his ass and made him worry that someone else > was going to capture the PC window OS market. However, from what I've > read, VisiOn did themselves in with a buggy product (I guess that only > works out if you're Microsoft, eh?) There were a bunch of those software products (Desqview, TopView, etc.) that came out about that time, too. As I recall, only Desqview was considered particularly good, at least until Windows 3.1 came out... From donm at cts.com Sat Jul 8 22:58:24 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Need U.S. source for belt for Amstrad PCW8256 3" drive In-Reply-To: <000101bfe94d$1c1428a0$91e3dfd0@cobweb.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Bill Dawson wrote: > Hello all, > > Here's the dimensions of the needed belt: > > 72mm x 3mm x 0.5mm > > also acceptable: > > 71.0mm x 2.8mm x 0.6mm or 69-72mm x 3-4mm x 0.5-0.6mm Any significant electronic parts house or VCR repair shop should be able to supply one that will do the job for you. - don > The rest of the story: > > I picked up an Amstrad PCW8256 today complete with printer, original > disks (LocaScript and CP/M Plus), 2 game disks with instructions, 5 > spare disks with LocaScript files from the previous owner, the Start Up > Guide and the User Guide. All for $10.00. > > It is in great condition and appears to have had little use. However, > this is the first Amstrad I've ever owned (or seen for that matter), and > also my first experience with these strange 3" floppy disks and drive. > I was told it worked, but upon getting it home I found it wouldn't boot. > After some poking around I decided to take the floppy drive out and > check for head movement. This is when I discovered that the floppy only > spun when I pulled up on the pressure pad. At this time it started > seeking, so seeing that the spindle is belt driven, I knew where the > problem was. I removed enough screws and connectors to get to the old > belt out and replaced it with an appropriately sized rubber band. After > reassembly, everything now works great. It boots LocaScript, CP/M, and > runs the games. > > But..... > > I'd like to replace the rubber band with real belt. > > Can anyone help? > > Bill Dawson > whdawson@mlynk.com >   > Your computer will do far more than you ever expected it to, > and that won't be enough. > > Pournelle's First Law > > From at258 at osfn.org Sun Jul 9 00:47:18 2000 From: at258 at osfn.org (Merle K. Peirce) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Need U.S. source for belt for Amstrad PCW8256 3" drive In-Reply-To: <000101bfe94d$1c1428a0$91e3dfd0@cobweb.net> Message-ID: Elliam Associates, Atascadero, CA probably has it. On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Bill Dawson wrote: > Hello all, > > Here's the dimensions of the needed belt: > > 72mm x 3mm x 0.5mm > > also acceptable: > > 71.0mm x 2.8mm x 0.6mm or 69-72mm x 3-4mm x 0.5-0.6mm > > > The rest of the story: > > I picked up an Amstrad PCW8256 today complete with printer, original > disks (LocaScript and CP/M Plus), 2 game disks with instructions, 5 > spare disks with LocaScript files from the previous owner, the Start Up > Guide and the User Guide. All for $10.00. > > It is in great condition and appears to have had little use. However, > this is the first Amstrad I've ever owned (or seen for that matter), and > also my first experience with these strange 3" floppy disks and drive. > I was told it worked, but upon getting it home I found it wouldn't boot. > After some poking around I decided to take the floppy drive out and > check for head movement. This is when I discovered that the floppy only > spun when I pulled up on the pressure pad. At this time it started > seeking, so seeing that the spindle is belt driven, I knew where the > problem was. I removed enough screws and connectors to get to the old > belt out and replaced it with an appropriately sized rubber band. After > reassembly, everything now works great. It boots LocaScript, CP/M, and > runs the games. > > But..... > > I'd like to replace the rubber band with real belt. > > Can anyone help? > > Bill Dawson > whdawson@mlynk.com >   > Your computer will do far more than you ever expected it to, > and that won't be enough. > > Pournelle's First Law > > M. K. Peirce Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc. 215 Shady Lea Road, North Kingstown, RI 02852 "Casta est qui nemo rogavit." - Ovid From transit at lerctr.org Sun Jul 9 01:16:14 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Barcode readers: Cauzin Softstrip and Oscar Databar In-Reply-To: Message-ID: These came out in the mid-80's to provide an alternative to typing in program listings (say, from a magazine), As far as I can tell, neither system really caught on... From mikeford at socal.rr.com Sun Jul 9 02:57:57 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Barcode readers: Cauzin Softstrip and Oscar Databar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >These came out in the mid-80's to provide an alternative to >typing in program listings (say, from a magazine), As far >as I can tell, neither system really caught on... Cauzin is still around and supplies systems used at many trade shows for encoding and reading 2d data patches on badges. I found a Cauzin reader for my Apple II, but haven't played with it. Years ago I wrote a couple letters to Cauzin asking about using the technology minus the reader, but they had no interest. From mikeford at socal.rr.com Sun Jul 9 02:41:34 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > >> The biggest collectors of the IIc are in Japan, and for reasons I don't >> follow, the IIc seems prefered to the IIc+. US buyers prefer the IIc+, but >> the number of buyers is a fraction of the machines being sold in Japan. > >I can't think of any logical reason why the //c ould be more popular than >the //c+ anywhere. The //c+ is so much better than the //c on so many >levels. > >Any idea what the deal is? Well the hard core collectors seem to know "where" many Apple items were manufactured, and those made in Japan are prized above some others. Not saying this is the case with the IIc/IIc+. but its something I have had buyers mention to me. From whdawson at mlynk.com Sun Jul 9 03:35:07 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001bfe980$96229e00$2ee3dfd0@cobweb.net> -> On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote: -> > > IIc+, more powerfull than the IIc, but in some ways less -> collectible (no -> > > idea why), still $45 for a complete system is fairly common. -> -> For some odd reason, I saw a IIe system in a thrift shop that was -> priced even higher: US$75 for a IIe with Apple composite monitor -> (monochrome, I think) and three floppy drives. I thougt it seemed a -> bit too high and didn't buy it, buying nearly 20 vinyl LPs -> at 75-cents -> apiece instead. Today in a local thrift shop I picked up a //e, 3 floppy drives, a IIe color monitor and some Apple software for $8.00. Haven't gotten around to checking it all out yet, though. Having too much fun playing with the Amstrad PCW d8^) Bill whdawson@mlynk.com ? Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope From paulrsm at ameritech.net Sun Jul 9 10:43:01 2000 From: paulrsm at ameritech.net (Paul R. Santa-Maria) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards Message-ID: <20000709155509.ZYEU7121.mailhost.kal.ameritech.net@paulrsm> ---------- > From: Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) > On Sat, 8 Jul 2000, Paul R. Santa-Maria wrote: > > > From: Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) > > > Around 1985 or so, a couple of manufacturers developed "sprite boards" > > > for the Apple II series (except the IIc, for obvious reasons) > > Picked one from eBay in November for $5. > Whoo-hoo. Good catch. (What's the name on the board so I can > try fishing for one too?) > > No docs or software, but I think > > I have the Byte magazine where Ciarcia presented plans and software for the > > original. I have not even plugged it in yet. > Does it have a TMS 9918 chip on it? It is a "SPRITE 1" by Synetix Systems, Inc., 1983, with a TMS9918A, eight memory chips (8328GVP AM9016FPC), four 74LS chips, one other chip, video input and output RCA jacks, and the usual assortment of descrete components. I also have a manual called "apple-seed II" which has parts lists, component layouts, and instructions for assembling Apple II compatible cards. Page 3-3 lists a Sprite Graphics Card which also uses a TMS9918A chip but has a different layout and only one chip (74LS00) besides the 9918 and memory (TMS4116) chips. It lists a reference: High-Resolution Sprite-Oriented Colour Graphics by Steven A. Ciarcia; page 57; August 1982; BYTE Publications, Inc. Paul R. Santa-Maria Ann Arbor, Michigan USA paulrsm@ameritech.net From paulrsm at ameritech.net Sun Jul 9 10:51:05 2000 From: paulrsm at ameritech.net (Paul R. Santa-Maria) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list Message-ID: <20000709155516.ZYFF7121.mailhost.kal.ameritech.net@paulrsm> ---------- > From: John R. Keys Jr. > > Look for Woz editions and rom 3. You can take the Woz cover off of any IIgs and put it on any other IIgs. This is important for collectors who desire absolutely factory original equipment. Add to the list any non-Apple brand IIgs memory card. The Apple card can only hold a maximum of one megabyte, but other brands can hold more, some up to a maximum of eight megabytes. Some IIgs cards use weird memory (i.e., SIP) so you may be able to use the chips in another same card that is not filled. From paulrsm at ameritech.net Sun Jul 9 09:01:27 2000 From: paulrsm at ameritech.net (Paul R. Santa-Maria) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list Message-ID: <20000709155503.ZYEH7121.mailhost.kal.ameritech.net@paulrsm> ---------- > From: Sellam Ismail > I can't think of any logical reason why the //c ould be more popular than > the //c+ anywhere. The //c+ is so much better than the //c on so many > levels. > > Any idea what the deal is? The IIc+ had no international version (USA power spec only) and was not available outside the continental USA--not even Alaska, Hawaii, or Canada (or so says another post I just read elsewhere on the Internet). Paul R. Santa-Maria Ann Arbor, Michigan USA paulrsm@ameritech.net From foo at siconic.com Sun Jul 9 10:28:33 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: <20000709155503.ZYEH7121.mailhost.kal.ameritech.net@paulrsm> Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Jul 2000, Paul R. Santa-Maria wrote: > The IIc+ had no international version (USA power spec only) and was not > available outside the continental USA--not even Alaska, Hawaii, or Canada > (or so says another post I just read elsewhere on the Internet). Ah, so they just don't know about them. If that's the case then I think I'll round up a bunch of //c+'s to take to Japan and cause a stampede. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From transit at lerctr.org Sun Jul 9 12:58:06 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: <20000709155509.ZYEU7121.mailhost.kal.ameritech.net@paulrsm> Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Jul 2000, Paul R. Santa-Maria wrote: > > It is a "SPRITE 1" by Synetix Systems, Inc., 1983, with a TMS9918A, eight > memory chips (8328GVP AM9016FPC), four 74LS chips, one other chip, video > input and output RCA jacks, and the usual assortment of descrete > components. There's a little blurb about the SuperSprite and StarSprite boards over at http://www.hypermall.com/History/ah12.html They were very expensive (about $400), so they really didn't catch on with most users. Pity... From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 9 14:24:45 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Need U.S. source for belt for Amstrad PCW8256 3" drive In-Reply-To: <000101bfe94d$1c1428a0$91e3dfd0@cobweb.net> from "Bill Dawson" at Jul 8, 0 10:26:38 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 2967 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000709/00ffff90/attachment.ksh From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jul 9 16:59:44 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: ROLM PhoneMail System Info? In-Reply-To: (message from Sellam Ismail on Fri, 7 Jul 2000 19:32:41 -0700 (PDT)) References: Message-ID: <20000709215944.11467.qmail@brouhaha.com> I wrote: > AFAIK, *ALL* phone switches are weird proprietary things. Some of the > latest small ones happen to be based on PCs, but their still weird > proprietary things. Sellam Ismail replies: > Actually, the PC-based ones generally use standard off-the-shelf > pc-telephony hardware from either Dialogic or Natural Microsystems. There > are other manfacturers such as Pika and Brooktrout (formerly Rhetorex). > Their drivers and APIs are usually available for free download from their > FTP sites (if you know where to look) and the boards are relatively easy > to program (if you know what you're doing). I've seen PC-based voicemail and other voice response systems that work as you've described. But all of the PC-based PBXes (switches) that I've seen contain huge amounts of proprietary crap. From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jul 9 17:01:45 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <20000708201915.24070.qmail@hotmail.com> (netsurfer_x1@hotmail.com) References: <20000708201915.24070.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: <20000709220145.11504.qmail@brouhaha.com> "David Vohs" wrote: > It is generally believed that the Apple Lisa is what spurred Bill Gates to > create Windows. But recently I have read something that says it was *not* > the Lisa that inspired Bill Gates, but that it was VisiCorp's VisiOn > software (remember that, yeah, me neither!). So my question is: Which one > was it? Was it Lisa or VisiOn? What makes you think that it had to be one or the other exclusively? As with most things, it probably was a combination of those factors and several others. From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jul 9 17:03:16 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list In-Reply-To: (message from Sellam Ismail on Sat, 8 Jul 2000 16:54:20 -0700 (PDT)) References: Message-ID: <20000709220316.11518.qmail@brouhaha.com> Sellam wrote: > I can't think of any logical reason why the //c ould be more popular than > the //c+ anywhere. The //c+ is so much better than the //c on so many > levels. > > Any idea what the deal is? The //c+ would be less useful to someone that only wants to use software on 5.25 inch diskettes. From dlw at trailingedge.com Sun Jul 9 18:12:44 2000 From: dlw at trailingedge.com (David Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Tandy DMP 430 Wide Printer Available Message-ID: <3968C09C.26854.591F66@localhost> I'm sorting through and clearing out a few things but first I have a Tandy DMP 430 printer. It's one of the 132 col printers. It also has one of those noise-reducing printer cabinets. It's pretty big and heavy so free to anyone in the Houston, TX area that would like to pick it up. I guess I could ship it if someone really, really wanted it but it would be costly I think and a pain. I picked it up with a bunch of other stuff and have never tried it out so it's as is. ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From whdawson at mlynk.com Sun Jul 9 19:12:32 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Need U.S. source for belt for Amstrad PCW8256 3" drive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001bfea03$8ae92580$a9e3dfd0@cobweb.net> -> > Hello all, -> > -> > Here's the dimensions of the needed belt: -> > -> > 72mm x 3mm x 0.5mm -> > -> > also acceptable: -> > -> > 71.0mm x 2.8mm x 0.6mm or 69-72mm x 3-4mm x 0.5-0.6mm -> -> Have you tried a VCR spares company, or a TV/VCR repair shop? Most such -> places have an assortment of belts and might be able to provide something -> that's suitable. Buy a number of belts around (particularly smaller than) -> the size you think you want so as to get one that will fit. This is what I'm going to try first. Thanks to all that suggested it. -> > The rest of the story: -> > -> > I picked up an Amstrad PCW8256 today complete with -> printer, original -> -> Strange machine.... Yes, it is. But it runs rock solid. -> Oddest thing is that there's no ROM/EPROM chip on the CPU board. I noticed this. -> There's a tiny bootstrap program (just enough to pull in the boot -> sector of the floppy) in the gate array (the 80 pin surface mount -> chip. IC101). Yes, I had noticed this IC. Right in the center of the board. -> I assume you know that the printer port will drive the original printer -> only, and that that printer only works with the PCW. I figured there wasn't much in it, and the fact that all the options could be set from the main unit clued me in, especially the bail open sensor detect. -> The printer -> controller chip is an 8041/8042 on the main CPU board. The electronics in -> the printer is just the stepper motor drivers and head solenoid drivers. -> The signals on the ribbon cable from the computer to the printer are -> basically the TTL-level drive signals for the motors and solenoids. Thanks for the info. My unit doesn't have a ribbon cable, though. Just a round multi-conductor one. -> You can increase the memory to 512K. Stick 8 256K*1 DRAMs (200ns or -> better) in sockets IC112-IC119. Then move the like LK1 from position A to -> position B. This may be the first 2 positions of a DIP switch on later -> CPU boards -- turn off section 1 and turn on section 2. Thanks for the tip. BTW,, this unit has a four position dip switch. Right now, left to right it is up-down-down-up. -> When it came out in 1985(ish), it was already old-fashioned. A 4MHz Z80A -> and 256K of RAM, running CP/M. Quite. -> It sold very well though -- because it was -> marketed as a word processor rather than a computer. Everything you -> needed to do word processing was included (machine, printer, software, -> etc). So for people who didn't know what to buy, this was a machine they -> could take home, plug into the mains, and start typing on. >From what I've read, it gave AMSTRAD quite a boost. -> > After some poking around I decided to take the floppy drive out and -> > check for head movement. This is when I discovered that the floppy only -> > spun when I pulled up on the pressure pad. At this time it started -> > seeking, so seeing that the spindle is belt driven, I knew where the -> > problem was. I removed enough screws and connectors to get to the old -> -> This is a very common problem... -> -> One word of warning. In one version of the drive (not the version shown -> in the service manual FWIW) there are mechanical sensor pins for disk -> inserted and write protect. These love to fall out when you take the -> PCB off the drive. And then you spend hours looking for them. So do watch -> out when you take it apart to put the real belt in. I discovered the pin issue yesterday, when it fell out. It was no problem figuring out where it went. It just fits in a hole in the frame casting and activates a leaf switch on the PCB. -> -tony Thanks, Tony, for the info. I understand a 3.5' drive can be put on this unit. Do you have any information on this? Anyone have an expansion interface or at least some info on the I/F connector pins? 'til later, Bill From bill_r at inetnebr.com Sun Jul 9 20:28:19 2000 From: bill_r at inetnebr.com (Bill Richman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: ROLM PhoneMail System Info? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Jul 2000 16:26:17 -0500 (CDT), Paul Thompson wrote: > > >I ones I have seen/worked on have a 486 or pentium processor, and standard >ISA slots. I believe the hard drive is SCSI although I have not seen one >of these apart in several years. If yours is particularly ancient >(Rolm/Siemens) these might not apply. I believe the ISA standardizations >might have taken place after Rolm was accquired by IBM although everything >was still sold under the Rolm brandname. > >The O/S and channel interfaces to the switch are proprietary. There is a >SA login which gives access to the nuts and bolts of the operating system. >Most customers do not have that password but rather one which allows them >to configure voicemail accounts. > >Paul Actually, our "new" one (which is apparently a pretty old design, and a used box) is a bunch of PC hardware (386 motherboard, PS/2 style floppy, SCSI hard drive, and some ISA cards, all in a custom cabinet about the size of a large microwave oven). The phone tech showed me around inside it and told me that the current models are built around a completely standard tower PC chassis. As for the old box... I pulled out several large (~24" square) cards full of Z-80's, PIOs, EPROMS, A/D & D/A converters, and piles of TTL chips, six large 110VAC muffin fans, and several large diodes and a 63,000 ufd, 75v capacitor from the power supply. I kept the hard drive too, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. The rest went to the metal scrappers. -Bill Richman (bill_r@inetnebr.com) Web Page: http://incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r Home of the COSMAC Elf Microcomputer Simulator, Fun with Molten Metal, Orphaned Robots, and Technological Oddities. From foo at siconic.com Sun Jul 9 22:46:56 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: ROLM PhoneMail System Info? In-Reply-To: <20000709215944.11467.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On 9 Jul 2000, Eric Smith wrote: > I've seen PC-based voicemail and other voice response systems that work > as you've described. But all of the PC-based PBXes (switches) that I've > seen contain huge amounts of proprietary crap. That's not absolutely true either. I haven't seen many, but of the ones I have seen (Altigen in particular) they use NMS stuff as well. NMS, Dialogic, Rhetorex and Pika all make pc-based switch boards. Anything from 4 to 24 ports, as well as dual T1/E1 and even quad-T1/E1. I've worked on a pc-based switch for an automated collect call system using analog trunk and station boards as well as dual-E1 (yes, E1) cards. It's pretty sweet what you can do with that stuff. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jul 10 00:01:01 2000 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Barcode readers: Cauzin Softstrip and Oscar Databar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4.3.0.20000709235936.01bde890@pc> At 01:16 AM 7/9/00 -0500, Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) wrote: >These came out in the mid-80's to provide an alternative to >typing in program listings (say, from a magazine), As far >as I can tell, neither system really caught on... There's a really groovy new video-cam based system for transmitting data via a printed page, at http://www.digimarc.com/ . - John From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Mon Jul 10 00:06:37 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ Message-ID: <20000710050637.19675.qmail@web612.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Paul R. Santa-Maria" wrote: > ---------- > > From: Ethan Dicks > > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > > Subject: Re: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ > > Date: Friday, July 07, 2000 04:52 PM > > > There were three versions of the Apple IIgs: ROM 00, ROM 01, and ROM 03. > ROM 00 and ROM 01 have the same hardware with a different ROM. The ROM 03 > had different hardware (more memory on the motherboard, for example) and > you cannot convert an earlier version to a ROM 03. Looking around on the motherboard - my IIgs has 128K of "Standard Ram", 64K "Sound RAM", 128K "Fast RAM" an Apple-brand memory card 1/4 full of 256Kx1 chips (256Kb out of 1Mb) and the following stenciled on the ROM - "342-0077B / M231001-243P 743100 / (C) Apple 78, 81, 83, 86, 87 / (C) Microsoft 77" Presumably from your comments, the ROM-03 motherboard has more RAM than _that_. There are two jumpers on the Apple RAM card - J1 and J2; and a jumper on the motherboard under the power supply - W1. Oh... per our recent discussions here, the IIgs _does_ have a Z8530 SCC onboard > A ROM 03 is considered the best if you are going to run GS/OS, the Apple > IIgs 16-bit native operating system. I am happy with my ROM 01 since I use > it like an 8-bit Apple IIe. But what's the difference between ROM 01 and ROM 02? Is it possible to get either an authentic replacement chip or to locate an image file and burn my own? Thanks, -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From SUPRDAVE at aol.com Mon Jul 10 06:57:10 2000 From: SUPRDAVE at aol.com (SUPRDAVE@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ Message-ID: In a message dated 7/10/00 1:09:53 AM Eastern Daylight Time, ethan_dicks@yahoo.com writes: > --- "Paul R. Santa-Maria" wrote: > > ---------- > > > From: Ethan Dicks > > > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > > > Subject: Re: Networking Apple IIc or IIc+ > > > Date: Friday, July 07, 2000 04:52 PM > > > > > There were three versions of the Apple IIgs: ROM 00, ROM 01, and ROM 03. > > ROM 00 and ROM 01 have the same hardware with a different ROM. The ROM 03 > > had different hardware (more memory on the motherboard, for example) and > > you cannot convert an earlier version to a ROM 03. > > Looking around on the motherboard - my IIgs has 128K of "Standard Ram", 64K > "Sound RAM", 128K "Fast RAM" an Apple-brand memory card 1/4 full of 256Kx1 > chips (256Kb out of 1Mb) and the following stenciled on the ROM - "342-0077B > / > M231001-243P 743100 / (C) Apple 78, 81, 83, 86, 87 / (C) Microsoft 77" > > Presumably from your comments, the ROM-03 motherboard has more RAM than _ > that_. > > There are two jumpers on the Apple RAM card - J1 and J2; and a jumper on the > motherboard under the power supply - W1. > > Oh... per our recent discussions here, the IIgs _does_ have a Z8530 SCC > onboard > > > > A ROM 03 is considered the best if you are going to run GS/OS, the Apple > > IIgs 16-bit native operating system. I am happy with my ROM 01 since I > use > > it like an 8-bit Apple IIe. > > But what's the difference between ROM 01 and ROM 02? Is it possible to get > either an authentic replacement chip or to locate an image file and burn my > own? > > Thanks, > > -ethan > I remember there being a ROM upgrade for the GS models. Presumably it was just a chip swap. I have no more info about it though. DB Young ICQ: 29427634 hurry, hurry, step right up! see the computers you used as a kid! -> www.nothingtodo.org From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Mon Jul 10 08:17:10 2000 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B. DiGriz) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data In-Reply-To: <000f01bfac7f$181c5fc0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Apr 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote: > Can anyone suggest a good URL for finding data on OLD Pentium Motherboard? > I've got this old FIC PA2002 mobo, the user guide for which seems to be > hiding. I've used this for so long in one place, I've no recollection of > what's what. > > If anyone has the user guide or knows where I can find it, please share this > info with me. > > thanx > > Dick > I recall downloading the PA-2002 manual off the FIC website several months ago. As far as I've been able to find, there is no central database of motherboard info on the web. A company in Florida sells a CD subscription (for like $800 or so.) but I can't recall the name just now. The PA-2002 is, oh, what, 5 yrs. old now? What was that about a 10-year rule? j/k, of course. jbdigriz From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Mon Jul 10 08:23:42 2000 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B. DiGriz) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data In-Reply-To: <000f01bfac7f$181c5fc0$0400c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: Whups. Just noticed the message I just replied to was from 3 mo. ago. Cobwebs in the old Pine INBOX. Beg pardon. jbdigriz From richard at idcomm.com Mon Jul 10 11:15:10 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data References: Message-ID: <000b01bfea8a$06879b00$0500c0a8@winbook> Gee, that was a long time ago. I got the necessary data the same day that I posted this plea. I've now got the manual physically taped to the inside of the box where this board lives. You're right in that it was OT, but I don't know a way to ask for information that someone might have on products in this category without running the risk of violating the 10-year rule. I do believe it was marked OT. I was under the impression that this thing was 10-years old, however. It's a really old and primitive board. I use it as a Netware server, and it works fine. The previous motherboard was needed to replace one identical to it that had stopped working for a friend of mine. It seemed easier to let him have the other board since it would help with his confidence. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: James B. DiGriz To: Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 7:17 AM Subject: Re: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data > On Sat, 22 Apr 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote: > > > > Can anyone suggest a good URL for finding data on OLD Pentium Motherboard? > > I've got this old FIC PA2002 mobo, the user guide for which seems to be > > hiding. I've used this for so long in one place, I've no recollection of > > what's what. > > > > If anyone has the user guide or knows where I can find it, please share this > > info with me. > > > > thanx > > > > Dick > > > > I recall downloading the PA-2002 manual off the FIC website several > months ago. As far as I've been able to find, there is no central database of > motherboard info on the web. A company in Florida sells a CD subscription > (for like $800 or so.) but I can't recall the name just now. > > The PA-2002 is, oh, what, 5 yrs. old now? What was that about a 10-year > rule? > > j/k, of course. > > jbdigriz > > > > > > > From richard at idcomm.com Mon Jul 10 11:17:02 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data References: Message-ID: <002101bfea8a$48a93b60$0500c0a8@winbook> BTW, I did find several sites claiming to be motherboard data sites, but they were each so full of gaps that I didn't even bookkmark them. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: James B. DiGriz To: Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 7:23 AM Subject: Re: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data > > Whups. Just noticed the message I just replied to was from 3 > mo. ago. Cobwebs in the old Pine INBOX. Beg pardon. > > jbdigriz > > From jeff.kaneko at juno.com Mon Jul 10 10:22:38 2000 From: jeff.kaneko at juno.com (Jeffrey l Kaneko) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: RT-11 reference "cards" available Message-ID: <20000710.111932.-510479.3.jeff.kaneko@juno.com> Aaron: I received the "card", awhile ago. Thanks! Jeff On Thu, 22 Jun 2000 00:55:49 -0700 (PDT) Aaron Nabil writes: > > 2 of the shorter RT-11 pocket reference guides. > > Free. Email me directly. Include mailing address. > > -- > Aaron Nabil > ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Mon Jul 10 12:00:46 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Pertec Interface Cable Fun Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF21@TEGNTSERVER> Help! I just received the controller to hook my Cipher streamer up to my Prime. Usually, there are little colored stick-on dots affixed to the edge connectors and the corresponding cable connectors for easy matching. Not this time. I've briefly looked at the Pertect pinout as per a short document on John Wilson's web site. However, I didn't study it enough to have a feel for what happens if the cables are hooked up backwards (ie simple non-function versus a smoke-releasing exercise). Does anyone know what happens under these conditions? tia, -doug q From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Mon Jul 10 12:01:13 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: RT-11 reference "cards" available Message-ID: <20000710170113.21716.qmail@web615.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jeffrey l Kaneko wrote: > Aaron: > > I received the "card", awhile ago. > Thanks! Got mine a little while back, too. Many thanks. I've been moving piles of PDP-11 stuff from one side of the room to the other and I'm just about ready to reassemble a working system. Cheers, -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Mon Jul 10 12:06:01 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Pertec Interface Cable Fun Message-ID: <000710130601.2020051a@trailing-edge.com> >I've briefly looked at the Pertect pinout as per a short >document on John Wilson's web site. However, I didn't >study it enough to have a feel for what happens if the >cables are hooked up backwards (ie simple non-function >versus a smoke-releasing exercise). > >Does anyone know what happens under these conditions? "Nothing happens". i.e. no magic smoke comes out. I've done it many, many, many times. Tim. From jbmcb at hotmail.com Mon Jul 10 13:13:13 2000 From: jbmcb at hotmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: New Finds References: <200007041708.KAA26939@ellie.ssl.berkeley.edu> <20000707233119.3561.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <20000710180815.31696.qmail@hotmail.com> Picked up an IBM EduQuest 40 from Goodwill. Freaky machine, it's a mutant IBM PS/2 Model 25, more expansion slots and it looks like it has a larger monitor. It's got great support on IBM's web site, if you can find it. IBM seems to like the K-12 crowd. Also picked up a DEC VT-420 terminal for $1. Seems to work but I don't have the video cable for it. Happy Hunting! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 10 13:25:15 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Need U.S. source for belt for Amstrad PCW8256 3" drive In-Reply-To: <000001bfea03$8ae92580$a9e3dfd0@cobweb.net> from "Bill Dawson" at Jul 9, 0 08:12:32 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 3360 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000710/1c43f771/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 10 13:27:44 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: Pertec Interface Cable Fun In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF21@TEGNTSERVER> from "Douglas Quebbeman" at Jul 10, 0 01:00:46 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 763 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000710/343480e0/attachment.ksh From allisonp at world.std.com Mon Jul 10 14:40:40 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp@world.std.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: New Finds In-Reply-To: <20000710180815.31696.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: > Also picked up a DEC VT-420 terminal for $1. Seems to work but I don't have > the video cable for it. Que? Video cable, what video cable>??? It's an integrated terminal with detached keyboard. Allison From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Mon Jul 10 15:08:14 2000 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B. DiGriz) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data In-Reply-To: <000b01bfea8a$06879b00$0500c0a8@winbook> Message-ID: On Mon, 10 Jul 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote: > Gee, that was a long time ago. I got the necessary data the same day that I > posted this plea. I've now got the manual physically taped to the inside of > the box where this board lives. You're right in that it was OT, but I don't > know a way to ask for information that someone might have on products in > this category without running the risk of violating the 10-year rule. I do > believe it was marked OT. Wasn't griping. Just foolin' with you. That's why the "j/k". > > I was under the impression that this thing was 10-years old, however. It's > a really old and primitive board. I use it as a Netware server, and it > works fine. The previous motherboard was needed to replace one identical to > it that had stopped working for a friend of mine. It seemed easier to let > him have the other board since it would help with his confidence. > 'bout the same age as the PCChips M550 in the machine I'm typing this on, and it was first sold in '95, I think. I'm running an MII-300 in it right now. Works fine for what I need it to do, but of course it's totally obsolete now. You have to do some real digging on Hsing Tech's .tw ftp site (not the .com) to find just the bios. No manual, though. If it wasn't reasonably well marked and similiar to the M558 and M559 boards for which the manuals ARE available, I'd have been up the creek. Somebody really does need to be archiving, not just linking, motherboard techinfo. Hang the copyrights, too. From richard at idcomm.com Mon Jul 10 16:53:22 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:20 2005 Subject: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data References: Message-ID: <001101bfeab9$452eaf40$0500c0a8@winbook> My problem originally was that I didn't recognize it as being an FIC board. Once I hit their site. to which I got a link via a guy in a newsgroup, it was dirt simple pulling up the databook. A couple of days later Will Jennings dropped by to go spelunking in my basement, and had the user manual with him. I had already used the info from the web to set up to board for use as a server on a small LAN. If I'd needed to squeeze the most performance out of it, I might have had a problem, but it's using a 75 MHz single-supply Pentium, which is easy to set up. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: James B. DiGriz To: Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 2:08 PM Subject: Re: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data > On Mon, 10 Jul 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote: > > > > Gee, that was a long time ago. I got the necessary data the same day that I > > posted this plea. I've now got the manual physically taped to the inside of > > the box where this board lives. You're right in that it was OT, but I don't > > know a way to ask for information that someone might have on products in > > this category without running the risk of violating the 10-year rule. I do > > believe it was marked OT. > > Wasn't griping. Just foolin' with you. That's why the "j/k". > > > > I was under the impression that this thing was 10-years old, however. It's > > a really old and primitive board. I use it as a Netware server, and it > > works fine. The previous motherboard was needed to replace one identical to > > it that had stopped working for a friend of mine. It seemed easier to let > > him have the other board since it would help with his confidence. > > > > 'bout the same age as the PCChips M550 in the machine I'm typing this on, > and it was first sold in '95, I think. I'm running an MII-300 in it right > now. Works fine for what I need it to do, but of course it's totally > obsolete now. You have to do some real digging on Hsing Tech's .tw ftp > site (not the .com) to find just the bios. No manual, though. If it wasn't > reasonably well marked and similiar to the M558 and M559 boards for > which the manuals ARE available, I'd have been up the creek. > > Somebody really does need to be archiving, not just linking, motherboard > techinfo. Hang the copyrights, too. > > > > > > From cem14 at cornell.edu Mon Jul 10 17:19:56 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.20000710181956.01094b34@postoffice3.mail.cornell.edu> "Tony Duell " wrote: > > A word of caution: the 16K RAM module intended for the HP85A can > > damage the HP85B. This is clearly stated in one of the manuals. > > Interesting... Do you happen to know what damage it actually does? I > assume a bus contention between the controller in the RAM drawer and one > of the memory controllers in the 85B. > -tony No, I don't know what it is that happens. By the way, this weekend my I/O ROM started to go flaky; on power up, it reports an error 112, which is a checksum failure. I remember that this happened before and reseating fixed it, but I haven't had luck this time. I tried other slots in the ROM drawer too. Guess I need to pry open the ROM capsule and have a look. This is weird, because both the pin and the through-hole that make the contacts are gold-plated; they were made to last. I am afraid that this is a case of bit rot :-( . carlos. -- Carlos Murillo-Sanchez email: cem14@cornell.edu 428 Phillips Hall, Electrical Engineering Department Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 From vaxman at uswest.net Mon Jul 10 17:27:33 2000 From: vaxman at uswest.net (Clint Wolff (VAX collector)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Pertec Interface Cable Fun In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF21@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: Empirically, I'd say nothing happens. IIRC I've connected my Pertec drive backwarks, crosswise, reversed, and every other way at one time or another. For reference, I have the following cables, any of which could be connected wrong: QBUS card to I/O panel, I/O panel to tape rack I/O panel, tape rack I/O panel to A-B switch (for two computers), A-B switch to tape drive... I plug the cables in, power up, if I don't see the online light blink, I power down and cable it different... clint PS Not my fault if you kill your tape drive, board, computer, wife, etc... On Mon, 10 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > Help! > > I just received the controller to hook my Cipher streamer > up to my Prime. Usually, there are little colored stick-on > dots affixed to the edge connectors and the corresponding > cable connectors for easy matching. Not this time. > > I've briefly looked at the Pertect pinout as per a short > document on John Wilson's web site. However, I didn't > study it enough to have a feel for what happens if the > cables are hooked up backwards (ie simple non-function > versus a smoke-releasing exercise). > > Does anyone know what happens under these conditions? > > tia, > -doug q > > From lemay at cs.umn.edu Mon Jul 10 19:04:37 2000 From: lemay at cs.umn.edu (Lawrence LeMay) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 Message-ID: <200007110004.TAA17290@caesar.cs.umn.edu> What is an IBM system/1 ? There is quite the pile of manuals for a IBM System/1 sitting in the hallway. My main interest is in all those nice looking IBM folders, most of which are the type that can hold large greenbar paper, ie, paper with that sort of tractor feed hole pattern. dark navy with IBM in white, with navy lines interruping the graphic, you know, standard old fashioned IBM logo... -Lawrence LeMay From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jul 10 19:35:26 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: <200007110004.TAA17290@caesar.cs.umn.edu> (message from Lawrence LeMay on Mon, 10 Jul 2000 19:04:37 -0500 (CDT)) References: <200007110004.TAA17290@caesar.cs.umn.edu> Message-ID: <20000711003526.8172.qmail@brouhaha.com> > What is an IBM system/1 ? A minicomputer. In some sense an incompatible followon to the IBM 1130 & 1800. Please save the docs! If noone who actually has a System/1 needs them, I'd like to have them, and would be happy to pay postage. From aw288 at osfn.org Mon Jul 10 20:16:15 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: <20000711003526.8172.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > A minicomputer. In some sense an incompatible followon to the > IBM 1130 & 1800. And a real dud, at that. It was to be a family of PDP-11 killers. IBM started to figure out what DEC was all about in the early 1970s, and the S/1 (actually its a "Series", not a "System" - nit) was born. I think they started being deployed in 1976 or so. They were big on intelligent I/O (many of the I/O cards look about as complex as the processor!). In terms of architecture, they were roughly CISCy, like a PDP-11 or 16 bit "S/360". The S/1s turned out to be a huge flop. The PDP-11 didn't die. In the S/1s defense, they were well built. Comparing an S/1 to a PDP-11 shows just how much ahead of DEC IBM was in the field of packaging and integration. > Please save the docs! If noone who actually has a System/1 needs them, > I'd like to have them, and would be happy to pay postage. Yes, please save the docs. I think a few of us have S/1 hardware (I do, anyway) that may need docs. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From jrice at texoma.net Mon Jul 10 20:21:20 2000 From: jrice at texoma.net (James L. Rice) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: OT: Old Pentium Motherboard data References: Message-ID: <396A7690.5B1D3560@texoma.net> Go to http://www.motherboards.org James "James B. DiGriz" wrote: > > On Sat, 22 Apr 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote: > > > > Can anyone suggest a good URL for finding data on OLD Pentium Motherboard? > > I've got this old FIC PA2002 mobo, the user guide for which seems to be > > hiding. I've used this for so long in one place, I've no recollection of > > what's what. > > > > If anyone has the user guide or knows where I can find it, please share this > > info with me. > > > > thanx > > > > Dick > > > > I recall downloading the PA-2002 manual off the FIC website several > months ago. As far as I've been able to find, there is no central database of > motherboard info on the web. A company in Florida sells a CD subscription > (for like $800 or so.) but I can't recall the name just now. > > The PA-2002 is, oh, what, 5 yrs. old now? What was that about a 10-year > rule? > > j/k, of course. > > jbdigriz -- ICQ 2286850 Home Page http://home.texoma.net/~jrice Classic Comp Page at http://home.texoma.net/~jrice/classiccomp.html Robotics Page at http://home.texoma.net/~jrice/hobbies.html All pages under construction! From west at tseinc.com Mon Jul 10 21:26:14 2000 From: west at tseinc.com (Jay West) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 References: Message-ID: <001101bfeadf$63b0c900$0101a8c0@jay> Someone wrote... > > A minicomputer. In some sense an incompatible followon to the > > IBM 1130 & 1800. Is the IBM System/1 the same as an IBM Series1 ? As I recall from my Pick days, in the Pick environment at least this system was configured as a FEP for Pick/370 on a 4331 or could run a standalone system running a different version of Pick from CDI. If this is the system I'm thinking of, it had a rather large programmers front panel that was a square pressure sensitive membrane keypad. I remember it made a totally obnoxious dull "bleep" each time a key on the keypad was pressed.... Jay West From rexstout at uswest.net Mon Jul 10 23:35:20 2000 From: rexstout at uswest.net (John Rollins) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: <001101bfeadf$63b0c900$0101a8c0@jay> References: <001101bfeadf$63b0c900$0101a8c0@jay> Message-ID: >rather large programmers front panel that was a square pressure sensitive >membrane keypad. I remember it made a totally obnoxious dull "bleep" each >time a key on the keypad was pressed.... Sounds like mine! Hmm, haven't played around with it in a while... A 4956-K00 if I remember correctly. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Wish I had a 120v hard drive and software for it, it's kinda useless sitting there with just the CPU and a tape drive :-( To the person with the manuals, could you go through and post the model numbers for the items that the manuals go with? -- /-----------------------------------------------\ | http://jrollins.tripod.com/ rexstout@uswest.net | | http://www.geocities.com/jrollins.geo/ | | List admin for orham and ham-mac at www.qth.net | | KD7BCY pdxham at www.egroups.com | \-----------------------------------------------/ From aw288 at osfn.org Mon Jul 10 22:38:05 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Sounds like mine! Hmm, haven't played around with it in a while... A > 4956-K00 if I remember correctly. I feel so cheated - mine has the featureless panel. IPL, and...thats about it... William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From rexstout at uswest.net Tue Jul 11 00:08:05 2000 From: rexstout at uswest.net (John Rollins) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >I feel so cheated - mine has the featureless panel. IPL, and...thats >about it... LOL! Well, since mine isn't operational right now, all it does is make it looks nice. Nice to know it's there though. All it does is plug into the CPU card. I'll have to check my documentation - all I seem to have is service manuals, maybe there's a schematic in there of the panel. Which model do you have? Is it running? -- /-----------------------------------------------\ | http://jrollins.tripod.com/ rexstout@uswest.net | | http://www.geocities.com/jrollins.geo/ | | List admin for orham and ham-mac at www.qth.net | | KD7BCY pdxham at www.egroups.com | \-----------------------------------------------/ From mikeford at socal.rr.com Tue Jul 11 00:24:24 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need to snoop in boxes in Silicon Valley In-Reply-To: References: <20000711003526.8172.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: I am going to be in Palo Alto and San Jose Wednesday and Thursday, and need to look in some nice boxes of junk (Apple/Mac/PS-2 etc. type junk). Since I am missing all the local swapmeets and two auctions at home I really need some kind of substitute junk fix. ;) From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Tue Jul 11 07:35:30 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Reading Old 9-Track Tapes (RE: Pertec Interface Cable Fun) Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF2B@TEGNTSERVER> Good Morning all, Thanks to all who replied to my post re: the Pertec cables. The drive is operational, and I was able to restore files from my MAGSAV-formatted tapes. Some interesting data points: the two tapes from which I recovered data had sat mostly unused since 1983. One of them I'd handed to a friend in 1988 who was working on a Prime system, for the express purpose of getting everything on disk again and then copying it to floppy disks. I never did figure out if we miscommunicated or if it was unfeasible to do so, but all I got was paper listings... but I digress. These ancient tapes had not been well-taken-care of the last few years. In fact, they were in the basement, a basement which flooded perhaps 6 times since 1996, and they had not only been under water, but had lots of nasty growth on them (mold &/or mildew). In spite of this, I was able to read all but (I think) one or two files from the source tree I'd been hanging on to. The other tape had my custom Primos command environment, Donald Slutz's custom command environment (with QED!), and my Prime-ports of Intel's MAC80, INTERP80, and PLM80. These were the items I most of all wanted from the tape. Now, the tape also (IIRC) held lots of 8080 source code that appears to be unreadable. Fortunately, I have copies of all those files on a 9-track CDC-formatted tape (actually I think it's an ANSI labeled tape, but all the files are in CDC BCD). At any rate, while I may have to write a Fortran program to read the CDC tape, I most likely can get those files. They are, however, older tapes, dating from around 1980 (I also have two 7-track tapes from about 1978). Also, I have a trick or two yet to try on the nasty Prime tape before I give up. The upshot of all this is that, if you stored the tape in a reasonable fashion (i.e. not underwater) and didn't use high density (mine were 800bpi and 1600bpi), your tapes should still be readable. It helps, of course, that this Cipher streamer was under service contract until last Dec, so YMMV. This post brings me to another question, but I'll post it separately. -doug q From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Tue Jul 11 07:37:42 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF2C@TEGNTSERVER> Hello again, The Cipher manual calls for using Freon TF as the head- cleaning solution. IIRC, this is a banned substance. I looked through the Allied Electronics catalog, and they don't carry any products that contain it. The manual specifically states I'll get read errors if I use anything containing alcohol. What cleaning substance can be safely used as a substitute for Freon TF? tia, -doug q From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Tue Jul 11 07:53:25 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning Message-ID: <000711085325.202005ca@trailing-edge.com> >The Cipher manual calls for using Freon TF as the head- >cleaning solution. IIRC, this is a banned substance. I >looked through the Allied Electronics catalog, and they >don't carry any products that contain it. It may be banned for manufacture and sale to "consumers", but existing stock does exist (at a hefty price) at many local electronics stores. >The manual specifically states I'll get read errors if >I use anything containing alcohol. I've been cleaning heads for decades using reagent-grade isopropyl alcohol. Be wary of the "rubbing alcohol" you get at a local drugstore - the 80% or 93% stuff may very well contain some oils. >What cleaning substance can be safely used as a substitute >for Freon TF? There *are* some parts on tape drives that aren't supposed to be cleaned with alcohol. Some rollers and vacuum column sensors fall into this category. (Actually some of the vacuum column sensors aren't supposed to be cleaned with anything ever...) Tim. From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Tue Jul 11 08:05:55 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Tim Shoppa Personal Note: FW: Pertec Interface Fun (Was: RE: HP 9 7548D Hard Drives) Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF2D@TEGNTSERVER> Tim- Thanks for peace-of-mind re the Pertec. I was hoping to hear back from you about mode-page editing... if you've got a pointer to a good resource on the subject, no need for you to play teacher to my student... regards, -doug quebbeman P.S. Tim- is there a way for me to send mail directly to you? The stuff I'm sending to CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com is going un-answered. > -----Original Message----- > From: Douglas Quebbeman > Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 8:48 AM > To: 'CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com' > Subject: RE: HP 97548D Hard Drives > > > > >Subj: HP 97548D Hard Drives > > >I'm looking for a small number (two or three) of these drives; > > >they're 5 1/4 inch full-height differential SCSI drives; they > > >tend to be found in Sun boxen. > > > > > >Anybody have any they'd be willing to part with via sale/trade? > > > > Do you need these exact HP drives? If it's a capacity issue, there's > > a very valuable technique called "mode page editing" that will let > > you adjust drive capacities downward so that you can use large-capacity > > recent-manufacture SCSI drives in place of older low-capacity SCSI > > drives. It's a very valuable technique when the hardware or OS don't > > support large-capacity drives, a very common situation with > > older hardware. > > Tell me more... I've actually been trying to do exactly that, substituting > a Seagate 11200ND, but the unit I'm trying may have a badspot in one of > the low sectors. > > Additionally, I need a sector size of 2080 bytes; that's for a 2048-byte > Primos record plus 32 bytes of system overhead. The controller claims > to be able to do this by combining 5 sectors of the usual 512-bytes each > into each Primos sector. This is using a 1st Solutions 7110DX controller. > > The controller is able to do low-level formatting; you set the # of heads > and the # of sectors-per-track on DIP switches; then you set one switch on > (FMT EN) and issue a Primos command to add the drive; the controller than > initiates the format. I get an error code on a set of LEDs on the controller > pretty quickly, and it corresponds to one I see Primos issue sometimes. > > So my failure to get this to work currently, may be due to a bad drive. > I've got another 11200ND on the way, so I can compare results. > > -doug q > From rigdonj at intellistar.net Tue Jul 11 09:56:44 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.20000710181956.01094b34@postoffice3.mail.cornell. edu> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000711095644.3107682e@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 06:19 PM 7/10/00 -0400, Carlos wrote: > > By the way, this weekend >my I/O ROM started to go flaky; on power up, it reports an error 112, >which is a checksum failure. I remember that this happened before and >reseating fixed it, but I haven't had luck this time. I tried other >slots in the ROM drawer too. Guess I need to pry open the ROM capsule >and have a look. This is weird, because both the pin and the through-hole >that make the contacts are gold-plated; they were made to last. I am >afraid that this is a case of bit rot :-( . > > Carlos, Keep me posted about what you find. I've only seen bit rot in the HP 41 plus in ROMs. I've never seen it in other HP machines. Joe From xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com Tue Jul 11 09:10:15 2000 From: xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com (Will Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning Message-ID: <20000711141015.74646.qmail@hotmail.com> Interestingly enough, my "IBM Tape Unit Cleaner" (the real offical stuff!) says it contains Trichlorotrifluoroethane AND isopropyl alcohol. This is stuff that I use on an 8809 drive, which is a top-loading, lift-the-cover sort of a drive, much like a CDC (nee DEC) TU80... if it works for IBM, I wouldn't be too concerned. Will J ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Tue Jul 11 09:19:51 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning Message-ID: <000711101951.202005d3@trailing-edge.com> >Interestingly enough, my "IBM Tape Unit Cleaner" (the real offical stuff!) >says it contains Trichlorotrifluoroethane AND isopropyl alcohol. This is >stuff that I use on an 8809 drive, which is a top-loading, lift-the-cover >sort of a drive, much like a CDC (nee DEC) TU80... if it works for IBM, I >wouldn't be too concerned. Stupid chemistry question from someone who took too many physics classes and not enough chemistry: What's the difference between trichlorotrifluoroethane and 1,1,2-trichloro-1,2,2,trifluoroethane? Are they different names for the same stuff, or two different stuffs? I have some of the 1,1,2-trichloro-1,2,2,trifluoroethane stuff (in the form of Kodak film cleaner) and it has (from experience) different chemical properties than alcohol. Isopropyl alcohol seems to loosen up laquer-based paints; the 1,1,2-trichloro-1,2,2,trifluoroethane doesn't seem to touch paint at all. So the difference may be important if you're cleaning an assembly held together with a laquer-based adhesive. Tim. From rhudson at ix.netcom.com Tue Jul 11 09:24:30 2000 From: rhudson at ix.netcom.com (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need to snoop in boxes in Silicon Valley References: <20000711003526.8172.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <396B2E1E.26CD2332@ix.netcom.com> Wierd Stuff (Sunnyvale) Mike Ford wrote: > I am going to be in Palo Alto and San Jose Wednesday and Thursday, and need > to look in some nice boxes of junk (Apple/Mac/PS-2 etc. type junk). Since I > am missing all the local swapmeets and two auctions at home I really need > some kind of substitute junk fix. ;) From cem14 at cornell.edu Tue Jul 11 10:11:16 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo-Sanchez) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff References: <3.0.1.16.20000711095644.3107682e@mailhost.intellistar.net> Message-ID: <396B3914.539CBC1E@cornell.edu> Ok, here's a preliminary inspection. The ROM tray and the ROM modules use the pin-and-through hole connection scheme that was used by HP at the time; this type of interconnection between boards can be seen in other HP machines such as the HP97 and the HP75. While the pins are somewhat delicate, this system seems to provide a good connection, especially since surfaces are gold-plated. Now enter the HP85 ROM modules. The pc board that they are mounted on is of the laminated-fiberglass-looking variety. Looking inside the through-hole, it seems that the miriad layers in the pc board induce some rugosity in the walls of the through-hole, and these imperfections can be seen also in the gold plating of the walls. Indeed, it doesn't seem like the surface of the walls is very appropriate for plating; I bet that chunks of plating can be scraped off easily with just a little friction. I think that I need to look inside the holes with a microscope and a good light; proper illumination is going to be a problem, though. If I had a tin through-hole riveter I would try sleeving the holes, but I don't have one. Anyway, the goal right now is to rule out bad contacts. carlos. Joe wrote: > > At 06:19 PM 7/10/00 -0400, Carlos wrote: > > > > By the way, this weekend > >my I/O ROM started to go flaky; on power up, it reports an error 112, > >which is a checksum failure. I remember that this happened before and > >reseating fixed it, but I haven't had luck this time. I tried other > >slots in the ROM drawer too. Guess I need to pry open the ROM capsule > >and have a look. This is weird, because both the pin and the through-hole > >that make the contacts are gold-plated; they were made to last. I am > >afraid that this is a case of bit rot :-( . > > Keep me posted about what you find. I've only seen bit rot in the HP > 41 plus in ROMs. I've never seen it in other HP machines. > > Joe -- Carlos Murillo-Sanchez email: cem14@cornell.edu 428 Phillips Hall, Electrical Engineering Department Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 From fmc at reanimators.org Tue Jul 11 10:27:25 2000 From: fmc at reanimators.org (Frank McConnell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com's message of "Tue, 11 Jul 2000 8:53:25 -0400" References: <000711085325.202005ca@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <200007111527.IAA04157@daemonweed.reanimators.org> CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com wrote: > There *are* some parts on tape drives that aren't supposed to be > cleaned with alcohol. Some rollers and vacuum column sensors fall > into this category. Maybe some vacuum columns too. HP OEM'd an STC drive (to get a 6250bpi drive to market in a hurry) and called it the HP7976. The HP CE-supplied rumor back in the day was that alcohol would loosen the glue that held all those tiny glass beads to the walls of the vacuum columns! -Frank McConnell From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jul 11 11:31:28 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: <20000711141015.74646.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: >Interestingly enough, my "IBM Tape Unit Cleaner" (the real offical stuff!) >says it contains Trichlorotrifluoroethane AND isopropyl alcohol. This is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Can you still get Trich? If so where do you look for it? Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh@holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From mikeford at socal.rr.com Tue Jul 11 11:22:36 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Reading Old 9-Track Tapes (RE: Pertec Interface Cable Fun) In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF2B@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: >The upshot of all this is that, if you stored the tape in >a reasonable fashion (i.e. not underwater) and didn't use Murphy's law will no doubt show that certain types of tape must be soaked in water periodically. ;) From mikeford at socal.rr.com Tue Jul 11 11:43:22 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need to snoop in boxes in Silicon Valley In-Reply-To: <396B2E1E.26CD2332@ix.netcom.com> References: <20000711003526.8172.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: >Wierd Stuff (Sunnyvale) a retail store. ;) I need pallets and gaylords to poke in. ;) From John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com Tue Jul 11 12:13:57 2000 From: John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need to snoop in boxes in Silicon Valley In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000601bfeb5b$66cbd950$0e0301ac@databaseamerica.com> IIRC get to know Alltronics and go in on a good sunny Saturday and they might let you look behind the counters, at the other half of the store where they haul in the fresh carcasses. Got to do that at 'Wierd' too, but waay back when they were in Milpitas or thereabouts. John A. From foo at siconic.com Tue Jul 11 12:09:07 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need to snoop in boxes in Silicon Valley In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > >Wierd Stuff (Sunnyvale) > > a retail store. ;) > > I need pallets and gaylords to poke in. ;) They've got pallets. I don't even know what a "gaylord" is but I don't think I'd want to go poking around in one of those ;) But seriously, you'll like WeirdStuff. It's a retail junk store. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From mmcfadden at cmh.edu Tue Jul 11 13:14:06 2000 From: mmcfadden at cmh.edu (McFadden, Mike) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Unknown type of Data General Terminal in Kansas City Message-ID: I just came across a Data General Terminal which is off-white colored about 12" diagonal and says model 6283 on the back. It has two dip switch packs on the back of it to set the baud rate. Very round appearance with an integrated base. Anybody know any more about these terminals? I did altavista and google searches without success. mike mmcfadden@cmh.edu From mikeford at socal.rr.com Tue Jul 11 13:40:54 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need to snoop in boxes in Silicon Valley In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > >> >Wierd Stuff (Sunnyvale) >> >> a retail store. ;) >> >> I need pallets and gaylords to poke in. ;) > >They've got pallets. I don't even know what a "gaylord" is but I don't >think I'd want to go poking around in one of those ;) > >But seriously, you'll like WeirdStuff. It's a retail junk store. A "gaylord" is the big cardboard box that fits on top of a standard pallet. Origin of the name is I think from shipping apples, most I see these days vary between apple and plastic pellet shipping prior to there final usage. They are fairly standard in bulk material handling. I always try to stop at WeirdStuff, but it seems more like Fry's each trip. I like to find the smaller "feeder" outfits that typically supply the retail stores with the better goods, and scrap the rest. Takes time though, dig through the boxes one place, meet another digger and swap sites. Some of my best tips come from talking (arm twisting) people I meet at various junk spots. Lots of the time you have to be REALLY patient, and learn to fill in the gaps like in a game of clue. From nabil at spiritone.com Tue Jul 11 14:29:33 2000 From: nabil at spiritone.com (Aaron Nabil) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF2C@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > What cleaning substance can be safely used as a substitute > for Freon TF? HFE-7100 is what I use. -- Aaron Nabil From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 11 13:26:53 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <396B3914.539CBC1E@cornell.edu> from "Carlos Murillo-Sanchez" at Jul 11, 0 11:11:16 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 946 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000711/e422d004/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 11 13:23:30 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: <000711101951.202005d3@trailing-edge.com> from "CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com" at Jul 11, 0 10:19:51 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1069 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000711/3e8e4021/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 11 13:16:21 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: <000711085325.202005ca@trailing-edge.com> from "CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com" at Jul 11, 0 08:53:25 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 597 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000711/76eec33f/attachment.ksh From whdawson at mlynk.com Tue Jul 11 15:08:33 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000101bfeb73$ca550880$91e3dfd0@cobweb.net> Bill Dawson whdawson@mlynk.com ? Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope -> >Interestingly enough, my "IBM Tape Unit Cleaner" (the real -> offical stuff!) -> >says it contains Trichlorotrifluoroethane AND isopropyl -> alcohol. This is -> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -> -> Can you still get Trich? If so where do you look for it? -> -> Zane Are you referring to 1,1,1, Trichlo-triflourorethane ? Heavy stuff, compared to water, quick evaporating, unique odor? If so, I have a 7 gallon can, mostly full. I bought it about 10 years ago when it was still readily available. If you want a small amount, about 1 pint, send me a Nalgene bottle, or a quality plastic bottle that won't be attacked by the Trichlor, or a steel can, etc., and I'll send you some back for the cost of postage. Of course, I wouldn't turn down a small donation for my time. I use it mainly for defluxing boards or degreasing/cleaning. Bill Bill Dawson whdawson@mlynk.com ? Your computer will do far more than you ever expected it to, and that won't be enough. Pournelle's First Law From whdawson at mlynk.com Tue Jul 11 15:13:39 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need to snoop in boxes in Silicon Valley In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000201bfeb74$80744360$91e3dfd0@cobweb.net> -> A "gaylord" is the big cardboard box that fits on top of a standard pallet. -> Origin of the name is I think from shipping apples, most I see these days -> vary between apple and plastic pellet shipping prior to there final usage. -> They are fairly standard in bulk material handling. Gaylord is the name of the first company that made them, located in Gaylord, MI, IIRC. Bill Bill Dawson whdawson*at*mlynk.com ? Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope From mikeford at socal.rr.com Tue Jul 11 15:36:04 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: References: <000711085325.202005ca@trailing-edge.com> from "CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com" at Jul 11, 0 08:53:25 am Message-ID: >> I've been cleaning heads for decades using reagent-grade isopropyl alcohol. I can think of one reason they might warn against alcohol, improperly stored alcohol absorbs water doesn't it? From whdawson at mlynk.com Tue Jul 11 15:40:14 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need U.S. source for belt for Amstrad PCW8256 3" drive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000301bfeb78$3702da80$91e3dfd0@cobweb.net> Here's the dimensions of the needed belt: 72mm (diameter) x 3mm x 0.5mm also acceptable: 71.0mm (diameter) x 2.8mm x 0.6mm or 69-72mm x 3-4mm x 0.5-0.6mm And here is an acceptable substitute, which is now installed: Projector-Recorder Belt Corp. PRB Line part # FRW 9.1 (which is 9.1 inch _circumference_)or FRW 231mm (the same belt with the circumference in mm). It does fit tight enough to work well, and yes, I got this at the local VCR repair shop. Thanks to all for this suggestion. -> > Anyone have an expansion interface or at least some info on the I/F connector pins? -> -> I have an interface, but not a _spare_ interface, if you see what I mean :-). Yes, I see. If you do come across another one, since I understand that these units were more popular on your side of the pond, please keep me in mind. -> I don't have a schematic of it, though (although from what I -> remember, it was all standard chips -- a Z80-SIO, etc). -> -> The pinout of the 50 pin connector is : Thanks for the info, Tony. Bill Bill Dawson whdawson*at*mlynk.com <- Anti-spamming defense d8^) ? Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope From foo at siconic.com Tue Jul 11 14:51:52 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: <000101bfeb73$ca550880$91e3dfd0@cobweb.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Bill Dawson wrote: > still readily available. If you want a small amount, about 1 pint, > send me a Nalgene bottle, or a quality plastic bottle that won't be > attacked by the Trichlor, or a steel can, etc., and I'll send you some > back for the cost of postage. Of course, I wouldn't turn down a small > donation for my time. I use it mainly for defluxing boards or > degreasing/cleaning. Um, before you do that, please know that is is most probably illegal to send such a substance through the mail. I'd check with the post office and different carriers before you just sent a bottle of that stuff off. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From morrison at t-iii.com Tue Jul 11 16:48:48 2000 From: morrison at t-iii.com (Neil Morrison) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: origin of gates quote on 640k memory... Message-ID: FWIW, I believe his opinion was that 128K was enough. My recollection is that he wanted that amount to run Multiplan, and that is why he talked IBM into using the 8088 instead of the intended 8080 for the IBM PC. I believe this because Radio Shack sold add on cards for various Z80 boxes they made so as to provide 128K for Multiplan (mainly). Neil Morrison morrison@t-iii.com "If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed.... Oh, wait, he does!" From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jul 11 17:09:58 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: HP part number cross reference? Message-ID: <20000711220958.22190.qmail@brouhaha.com> Does anyone know of an online HP part number cross reference? I'm almost postive that I've seen one somewhere, but I can't find it now. I need to find the industry equivalents of the parts listed below. The 1810 prefix parts are probably just resistor packs (although the 16-pin ones could be RC networks or the like), the 1820 prefix parts are probably all 4000-series CMOS, and I'm guessing that the 1858 prefix part is an analog circuit. The T-28751 has a Motorola logo, but no other part number, not even an HP 4x4. I've occasionally seen other T-prefix parts in HP gear, but they seem fairly rare, and I'm not sure what the T signifies. I've tried HP PartSurfer, but it only listed one of the parts and didn't give any detail other than "MOS": http://outfield.external.hp.com/spi/ Thanks! Eric part # pins --------- ---- 1810-0252 9 SIP 1810-0316 16 1810-0319 16 1820-0927 16 1820-0936 14 1820-0938 16 1820-0939 14 1820-0941 16 1820-0946 14 1820-0949 14 1820-0970 16 1820-1114 16 1820-1145 16 1820-1241 16 1820-1408 14 1820-1466 16 1820-1485 16 1820-1514 16 1820-1578 16 1820-1665 16 1820-2037 14 1820-2080 16 1858-0038 14 T-28751 16 From CordaAJ at nswc.navy.mil Tue Jul 11 17:12:05 2000 From: CordaAJ at nswc.navy.mil (Corda Albert J DLVA) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Cubix System... Anyone know the pinout of the Video/Keyboard/Mous e Connector? Message-ID: <7B4C28C84831D211BFA200805F9F34561A8E64@NSWCDLVAEX04> Hi Guys! I just came across a Cubix ERS FTII System... I realize that this may not fit under the "10-year" rule, but it is a rather unique system, and I'd like to try to get it going (possibly with NetBSD or Linux). The Cubix site has most if the Info I need, but apparently this system used a single DB25 connector/cable to route the video, keyboard and mouse signals to a small breakout box (which I don't have, and the Cubix site doesn't document) Does anyone happen to know what the pinout of that connector is? Also, if anyone has any experience with setting linux up on this critter, I'd love to know about it. The current configuration of the box is: 3 BC5055 60 Mhz Pentium processors 1 BC3035 (486?) -Thanks in advance... -al- -acorda@geocities.com From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Tue Jul 11 17:21:12 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: origin of gates quote on 640k memory... Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF35@TEGNTSERVER> > FWIW, I believe his opinion was that 128K was enough. My recollection is > that he wanted that amount to run Multiplan, and that is why he talked IBM > into using the 8088 instead of the intended 8080 for the IBM PC. > I believe this because Radio Shack sold add on cards for various Z80 boxes > they made so as to provide 128K for Multiplan (mainly). An article in Byte magazine years ago on the development of the IBM PC said that IBM took an unsanctioned R&D project being worked on by a couple of guys in Boca Raton and it, with all its shortcomings, became the IBM PC. But the engineers deliberately chose the 8088 for its ease of interfacing (8-bit) over the 8086, which required more support logic. I suppose it was possible that IBM chose the Boca Raton project over some other (unknown to me) 8080-based project due to the requirement you mention. But I don't think they retargeted their design from 8080 => 8088. regards, -doug q From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jul 11 17:34:39 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: origin of gates quote on 640k memory... In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF35@TEGNTSERVER> (message from Douglas Quebbeman on Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:21:12 -0400) References: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF35@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <20000711223439.22476.qmail@brouhaha.com> > I suppose it was possible that IBM chose the Boca Raton project > over some other (unknown to me) 8080-based project due to the > requirement you mention. But I don't think they retargeted their > design from 8080 => 8088. The IBM System/23 Datamaster was already in production and was based on the 8085. There are some similarities in the design, suggesting that the Boca Raton folks were at least partially inspired by it. From RCini at congressfinancial.com Tue Jul 11 17:42:51 2000 From: RCini at congressfinancial.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Cubix System... Anyone know the pinout of the Video/Keyboard/ Mous e Connector? Message-ID: <497A9E0467D2D2119B760090271EB8E53E3055@MAIL10> Al: I had this issue on a Cubix 486-based SBC that I'm using for a firewall. I wound-up ordering the breakout cable from Cubix for $35. It is a small PCB on an ISA bracket and it has a video connector, mouse, and keyboard connector. It appears that there are coils or something on the board, probably for noise rejection and the like. Cubix was fairly helpful, giving me the part number to use when I called the parts line to order it. Rich -----Original Message----- From: Corda Albert J DLVA [mailto:CordaAJ@nswc.navy.mil] Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 6:12 PM To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' Subject: Cubix System... Anyone know the pinout of the Video/Keyboard/Mous e Connector? Hi Guys! I just came across a Cubix ERS FTII System... I realize that this may not fit under the "10-year" rule, but it is a rather unique system, and I'd like to try to get it going (possibly with NetBSD or Linux). The Cubix site has most if the Info I need, but apparently this system used a single DB25 connector/cable to route the video, keyboard and mouse signals to a small breakout box (which I don't have, and the Cubix site doesn't document) Does anyone happen to know what the pinout of that connector is? Also, if anyone has any experience with setting linux up on this critter, I'd love to know about it. The current configuration of the box is: 3 BC5055 60 Mhz Pentium processors 1 BC3035 (486?) -Thanks in advance... -al- -acorda@geocities.com From stan at netcom.com Tue Jul 11 17:52:40 2000 From: stan at netcom.com (Stan Perkins) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: HP part number cross reference? References: <20000711220958.22190.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <396BA538.F791C327@netcom.com> Eric Smith wrote: > > Does anyone know of an online HP part number cross reference? I'm almost > postive that I've seen one somewhere, but I can't find it now. > > I need to find the industry equivalents of the parts listed below. The > 1810 prefix parts are probably just resistor packs (although the 16-pin > ones could be RC networks or the like), the 1820 prefix parts are > probably all 4000-series CMOS, and I'm guessing that the 1858 prefix > part is an analog circuit. The T-28751 has a Motorola logo, but no > other part number, not even an HP 4x4. I've occasionally seen other > T-prefix parts in HP gear, but they seem fairly rare, and I'm not sure > what the T signifies. > > I've tried HP PartSurfer, but it only listed one of the parts and didn't > give any detail other than "MOS": > http://outfield.external.hp.com/spi/ > > Thanks! > Eric > Eric, This is the best I could come up with (I have no idea what the T-28751 is, though). Hope this helps! Stan > part # pins > --------- ---- > 1810-0252 9 SIP \ > 1810-0316 16 > Probably resistor or capacitor arrays > 1810-0319 16 / > > 1820-0927 16 CD4028AF > 1820-0936 14 CD4024BE > 1820-0938 16 CD4027BE > 1820-0939 14 CD4013BE > 1820-0941 16 CD4043BE > 1820-0946 14 CD4001UBE > 1820-0949 14 CD4011UBE > 1820-0970 16 CD4014AE > 1820-1114 16 MC14516BCP > 1820-1145 16 CD4049UBE > 1820-1241 16 MC14512BCP > 1820-1408 14 CD4073BE > 1820-1466 16 MM74C174N > 1820-1485 16 MM74C221N > 1820-1514 16 MC14014BCP > 1820-1578 16 CD4076BE > 1820-1665 16 CD4099BE > 1820-2037 14 MC14081BCP > 1820-2080 16 MC14035BCP > > 1858-0038 14 Possibly a transistor array??? > > T-28751 16 ??? From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Tue Jul 11 18:02:39 2000 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com "RE: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning" (Jul 11, 10:19) References: <000711101951.202005d3@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <10007120002.ZM10544@indy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jul 11, 10:19, CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com wrote: > Stupid chemistry question from someone who took too many physics classes > and not enough chemistry: > > What's the difference between trichlorotrifluoroethane and > 1,1,2-trichloro-1,2,2,trifluoroethane? Are they different names > for the same stuff, or two different stuffs? Just the positions of the various halogen atoms relative to each other. The 1,1,2 form specifies a particular arrangement, the other is non-specific. Schematically, this is 1,1,2-trichloro-1,2,2,trifluoroethane: Cl F | | F--C---C--Cl | | Cl F In other words each carbon atom has one halogen of one type and two of the other. There's one other possible arrangement[1]; where all the chlorine is on one carbon, and all the fluorine is on another, which would be 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2,2-trifluoroethane. I've no idea if that makes any significant difference to any of the properties you and I would be interested in, but I suspect not, and that most trichlorotrifluoroethane is a mixture of the two. [1] From my 2-D ASCII art, you might think there are other arrangements, eg swapping the position of the fluorine for one of the chlorines on the first carbon atom. However, if you think 3-D, and imagine the carbon as one apex of a triangular pyramid (meeting the second carbon at the apex of another pyramid) and also realise that the carbons can rotate relative to each other, you'll see that all the other permutations are equivalent. BTW, this is iso-propyl alcohol: H / H O H | | | H--C---C---C--H | | | H H H You could also call it 2-hydroxy-propane, or propan-2-ol. The O-H group is what makes it water miscible (in fact, it's mildly hygroscopic), and of course it's also highly flammable, unlike the chloroflurocarbons. To get ordinary ethyl alcohol, chop off one of the carbons and two corresponding hydrogens. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York From rigdonj at intellistar.net Tue Jul 11 19:00:59 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: References: <396B3914.539CBC1E@cornell.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000711190059.483f04ae@mailhost.intellistar.net> At 07:26 PM 7/11/00 +0100, Tony wrote: >> >> >> Ok, here's a preliminary inspection. The ROM tray and the ROM >> modules use the pin-and-through hole connection scheme that was >> used by HP at the time; this type of interconnection between boards >> can be seen in other HP machines such as the HP97 and the HP75. > >I know them well. Always struck me that they shouldn't work well, but >they do. They seem to have fewer bad contact problems than many other >inter-board connectors (is there an HP41 that's _not_ suffered from bad >contacts at the CPU board-keyboard 'connector'??) Not many! The problem with them in that the plastic used for the body of the "zebra-strip" connector flattens out and takes a set after a period of time. If you look at the ends you'll see that they're oblong and no longer round. FWIW I meet the guy that invented these things and the guy that sold them to HP. They still have a few left and I managed to talk them out of them. I also got the blue print for the things. Joe From donm at cts.com Tue Jul 11 18:23:50 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: <10007120002.ZM10544@indy.dunnington.u-net.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Pete Turnbull wrote: > On Jul 11, 10:19, CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com wrote: > > > Stupid chemistry question from someone who took too many physics classes > > and not enough chemistry: > > > > What's the difference between trichlorotrifluoroethane and > > 1,1,2-trichloro-1,2,2,trifluoroethane? Are they different names > > for the same stuff, or two different stuffs? > > Just the positions of the various halogen atoms relative to each other. > The 1,1,2 form specifies a particular arrangement, the other is > non-specific. > > Schematically, this is 1,1,2-trichloro-1,2,2,trifluoroethane: > > > Cl F > | | > F--C---C--Cl > | | > Cl F > > In other words each carbon atom has one halogen of one type and two of the > other. There's one other possible arrangement[1]; where all the chlorine > is on one carbon, and all the fluorine is on another, which would be > 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2,2-trifluoroethane. I've no idea if that makes any > significant difference to any of the properties you and I would be > interested in, but I suspect not, and that most trichlorotrifluoroethane is > a mixture of the two. > > [1] From my 2-D ASCII art, you might think there are other arrangements, eg > swapping the position of the fluorine for one of the chlorines on the first > carbon atom. However, if you think 3-D, and imagine the carbon as one apex > of a triangular pyramid (meeting the second carbon at the apex of another > pyramid) and also realise that the carbons can rotate relative to each > other, you'll see that all the other permutations are equivalent. > > BTW, this is iso-propyl alcohol: > > H > / > H O H > | | | > H--C---C---C--H > | | | > H H H > > You could also call it 2-hydroxy-propane, or propan-2-ol. The O-H group is > what makes it water miscible (in fact, it's mildly hygroscopic), and of > course it's also highly flammable, unlike the chloroflurocarbons. To get > ordinary ethyl alcohol, chop off one of the carbons and two corresponding > hydrogens. Then add essence of juniper berry and other botanicals, perhaps a swish of vermouth, and a twist of lemon, shaken not stirred with ice, and... - don > -- > > Pete Peter Turnbull > Dept. of Computer Science > University of York > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 11 18:15:12 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: HP 85 stuff In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.20000711190059.483f04ae@mailhost.intellistar.net> from "Joe" at Jul 11, 0 07:00:59 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1577 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000712/3dfc25ea/attachment.ksh From whdawson at mlynk.com Tue Jul 11 18:33:01 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:21 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000701bfeb90$5a768d00$48e3dfd0@cobweb.net> -> On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Bill Dawson wrote: -> -> > still readily available. If you want a small amount, about 1 pint, -> > send me a Nalgene bottle, or a quality plastic bottle that won't be -> > attacked by the Trichlor, or a steel can, etc., and I'll -> send you some -> > back for the cost of postage. Of course, I wouldn't turn -> down a small -> > donation for my time. I use it mainly for defluxing boards or -> > degreasing/cleaning. -> -> Um, before you do that, please know that is is most probably -> illegal to -> send such a substance through the mail. I'd check with the -> post office -> and different carriers before you just sent a bottle of that -> stuff off. -> -> Sellam I'd considered that before making the offer, but AFIK there is no problem. It is not flammable or explosive and if it would happen to leak it will just rapidly evaporate. Besides, in a small quantity it is classified ORM-D. Safest shipping is via UPS Ground in an approved box. Bill Bill Dawson whdawson*at*mlynk.com ? Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope From donm at cts.com Tue Jul 11 18:41:22 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Two Epson QX-10s free to good home Message-ID: I received the following e-mails offering two QX-10s to (a) good home(s). Please respond directly to their sender if of interest to you, though I am willing to play a minor intermediary role if that seems productive. - don ==================================================== From ASquires at idecpharm.com Mon Jul 10 14:04:07 2000 From: ASquires at idecpharm.com (ASquires@idecpharm.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Two Epsom QX-10 free to good home Message-ID: I would be happy to give these machines and video monitors to anyone who want them (one was refurbished by Star Technology in Colorado; "newer" software too). Would you know of someone who might be interested? Aimee M. Squires, MPH, RN Clinical Communications IDEC Pharmaceuticals 3030 Callan Road San Diego, CA 92121 From ASquires at idecpharm.com Tue Jul 11 17:44:34 2000 From: ASquires at idecpharm.com (ASquires@idecpharm.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Two Epsom QX-10 free to good home Message-ID: Hi Don I am not averse to shipping them, but I would not wish to incur the cost of boxing and shipping (although I do have the shipping box for one cpu). So, letting someone pick them up here in San Diego would be easiest for me (I live in Bonita). Aimee M. Squires, MPH, RN Clinical Communications IDEC Pharmaceuticals 3030 Callan Road San Diego, CA 92121 From mcruse at acm.org Tue Jul 11 18:54:08 2000 From: mcruse at acm.org (Mike Cruse) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff References: <396B3914.539CBC1E@cornell.edu> <3.0.1.16.20000711190059.483f04ae@mailhost.intellistar.net> Message-ID: <396BB3A0.2B29EE73@acm.org> Hi everyone, I finally take delivery of my PDP 8/I next week. It comes with a couple of tape drives and a high speed paper tape reader. I'm am now looking for anything PDP 8/I related including books, paper tapes, peripherals (especially an ASR33 teletype), mag tapes (TU58 I think), engineering documents and internal cards. If anyone has any of this stuff they would like to see preserved in a working system let me know. I will pay resonable prices for this stuff. Please though, no pointers to things on ebay. I'm tired of the contrived frenzy, bloated prices and constant disassembly of machines to generate more cash for flipchip or core memory wall art. Mike From rigdonj at intellistar.net Tue Jul 11 19:56:39 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: HP part number cross reference? In-Reply-To: <20000711220958.22190.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000711195639.3647b716@mailhost.intellistar.net> Erik, There's one at "http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/". I have a cross reference here but it's not were I can get to it at the moment. If you can't find matches for any of these let me know and I'll try to match them up. Joe At 10:09 PM 7/11/00 -0000, you wrote: >Does anyone know of an online HP part number cross reference? I'm almost >postive that I've seen one somewhere, but I can't find it now. > >I need to find the industry equivalents of the parts listed below. The >1810 prefix parts are probably just resistor packs (although the 16-pin >ones could be RC networks or the like), the 1820 prefix parts are >probably all 4000-series CMOS, and I'm guessing that the 1858 prefix >part is an analog circuit. The T-28751 has a Motorola logo, but no >other part number, not even an HP 4x4. I've occasionally seen other >T-prefix parts in HP gear, but they seem fairly rare, and I'm not sure >what the T signifies. > >I've tried HP PartSurfer, but it only listed one of the parts and didn't >give any detail other than "MOS": > http://outfield.external.hp.com/spi/ > >Thanks! >Eric > > >part # pins >--------- ---- >1810-0252 9 SIP >1810-0316 16 >1810-0319 16 > >1820-0927 16 >1820-0936 14 >1820-0938 16 >1820-0939 14 >1820-0941 16 >1820-0946 14 >1820-0949 14 >1820-0970 16 >1820-1114 16 >1820-1145 16 >1820-1241 16 >1820-1408 14 >1820-1466 16 >1820-1485 16 >1820-1514 16 >1820-1578 16 >1820-1665 16 >1820-2037 14 >1820-2080 16 > >1858-0038 14 > >T-28751 16 > From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jul 11 19:29:22 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (healyzh@aracnet.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff In-Reply-To: <396BB3A0.2B29EE73@acm.org> from "Mike Cruse" at Jul 11, 2000 04:54:08 PM Message-ID: <200007120029.RAA19946@shell1.aracnet.com> > I'm am now looking for anything PDP 8/I related including books, paper tapes, > peripherals (especially an ASR33 teletype), mag tapes (TU58 I think), > engineering > documents and internal cards. You don't want TU58 tapes, those are DECtape II's like you'd find on a PDP-11 or VAX. They're about the size of a cassette tape, but different and a little thicker. I believe the right name is TU55/56. Congrats on the -8/I BTW. Zane From pechter at pechter.dyndns.org Tue Jul 11 19:49:21 2000 From: pechter at pechter.dyndns.org (Bill Pechter) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Alcohol and tape drive cleaning In-Reply-To: <200007111527.IAA04157@daemonweed.reanimators.org> from Frank McConnell at "Jul 11, 2000 08:27:25 am" Message-ID: <200007120049.UAA14538@bg-tc-ppp152.monmouth.com> > CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com wrote: > > There *are* some parts on tape drives that aren't supposed to be > > cleaned with alcohol. Some rollers and vacuum column sensors fall > > into this category. > > Maybe some vacuum columns too. HP OEM'd an STC drive (to get a > 6250bpi drive to market in a hurry) and called it the HP7976. The HP > CE-supplied rumor back in the day was that alcohol would loosen the > glue that held all those tiny glass beads to the walls of the vacuum > columns! > > -Frank McConnell > > This was true on the DEC drives as well. The glass bead tape used an alcohol soluble glue... A little iso occasionally was supposed to be ok... but be really careful with the stuff. Replacing the glass-bead tape was quite fun... Bill -- bpechter@monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today? | Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow? | BSD: Are you guys coming, or what? From allisonp at world.std.com Tue Jul 11 19:28:53 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: origin of gates quote on 640k memory... Message-ID: <003201bfeb99$6a894d50$6f64c0d0@ajp166> From: Neil Morrison >FWIW, I believe his opinion was that 128K was enough. My recollection is >that he wanted that amount to run Multiplan, and that is why he talked >IBM into using the 8088 instead of the intended 8080 for the IBM PC. >I believe this because Radio Shack sold add on cards for various Z80 >boxes they made so as to provide 128K for Multiplan (mainly). Thats so far out left field that I can say there is little basis for it. RS was not a significant vendor for memory cards or extensions. As to the choice of 8088 vs 8080, nobrainer. Everyone knew by 1980 that while the z80 was a great cpu there were an emerging class of apps that really needed 16 (or more) bit wide ALUs and memory to perform well. Graphics was one of the emerging apps and the other was programs like multiplan (math intensive). These and others were the push for the 16bit world. Additionally 8080 was quite passe` by 1980, 8085 maybe as it was available as a 5mhz part (vs 8080 at 3!) and Z80 at 4mhz. There was also Z8000 and other promised parts for the 16bit world to come. I suspect 8088 won as it was quite easy to interface and use. Another point, Multiplan ran under CP/M with 48-60k of available memory and most 8080 class (include z80) didn't have a MMU to manage more nor did the OS (CPM2) have management. I have several systems that still run multiplan (8080 and z80), they used overlays and on disk storage very intensly to get around memory shortfalls. Additionally PC even early on were rift with code bloat (8080 lofted code tended to expand) and it was deemed a requirement to have more than 64k mostly due to the OS eating most of it. At the time 256k was enough and it was felt (just like a few years before when z80 64k was plenty) that was enough and if not 640k would insure enough space. This is true also due to the segmented addressing the 8088 used, it was still largely a 8/16bit cpu with 16bit basic addressing. Apps didn't grow well until the 286 memory style and more aptly the 32bit 386 appeared. An aside, non PC 8088/86 systems used to permit a full 1 MB of ram via rom shadowing or added a mmu to extend beyond 1mb. So Billy boy was really refering to those system that were promoting the full 1mb or larger memory maps. Allison From allisonp at world.std.com Tue Jul 11 19:37:17 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: origin of gates quote on 640k memory... Message-ID: <003301bfeb99$6b886dd0$6f64c0d0@ajp166> From: Eric Smith >> I suppose it was possible that IBM chose the Boca Raton project >> over some other (unknown to me) 8080-based project due to the >> requirement you mention. But I don't think they retargeted their >> design from 8080 => 8088. > >The IBM System/23 Datamaster was already in production and was based >on the 8085. There are some similarities in the design, suggesting >that the Boca Raton folks were at least partially inspired by it. Exactly, Anyone with 8085 experience could easily loft the design to an 8088. Intel even had an ap-note to put an 8088 in an SDK-85 board (I did it too) and it was pretty easy with the big difference being the monitor rom. Keep in mind the design window was in 1980 and by then the 8080 was a non contender as the 8085 and Z80 had replaced it. If you look at the late '79 and early 1980 mags (Byte, KB, IA etal) you would see there was an emerging push for more cpu, more bits to do math and more bits for addressing. If they used an 8085 (or z80) they were an also ran to tandy, Apple softcard, NS and a raft or other already known 8bit systems. The only place there was room to make a point was the 16bit front and the 8088 was a well known (it had been around for about two years) relatively cheap way to get there. Allison From rdd at smart.net Tue Jul 11 22:00:15 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote: > Um, before you do that, please know that is is most probably illegal to > send such a substance through the mail. I'd check with the post office > and different carriers before you just sent a bottle of that stuff off. Excellent suggestion... not to mention the possible illegality of shipping it. One never know's what it's illegal to to transport between states; just the other day, I learned that it's a federal crime to send or sell someone, in certain states, water hyacinths for a pond, for example. -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From mcruse at acm.org Tue Jul 11 22:16:45 2000 From: mcruse at acm.org (Mike Cruse) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff References: <200007120029.RAA19946@shell1.aracnet.com> Message-ID: <396BE31D.3EFA49D2@acm.org> healyzh@aracnet.com wrote: > > I'm am now looking for anything PDP 8/I related including books, paper tapes, > > peripherals (especially an ASR33 teletype), mag tapes (TU58 I think), > > engineering > > documents and internal cards. > > You don't want TU58 tapes, those are DECtape II's like you'd find on a > PDP-11 or VAX. They're about the size of a cassette tape, but different and > a little thicker. > > I believe the right name is TU55/56. > > Congrats on the -8/I BTW. > > Zane > Thanks. Your are right about the tape drives, they are the reel to reel variety and it come with two of them. I can't wait until it gets here and to see the neighbors faces as I try to get the thing upstairs at my little townhouse. If anybody ever has to move stuff like this from the Carolinas I found an excellent company that will pickup, crate, shrink wrap and ship for a pretty good price. Anybody else out there with and 8/i? Mike From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Jul 11 22:27:58 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff In-Reply-To: <396BE31D.3EFA49D2@acm.org> Message-ID: > Anybody else out there with and 8/i? I had three at one point, but traded one off for an Interdata. Of the two I have left, one is in need of the silkscreened front panel (just the panel, not the switches and lights). That's going to be a "fun" and costly thing to find. I will likely consolidate the systems at some point, if I can find some proper racks (the tubular aluminum ones, pre-H960). The machines now are so hacked up and fooled with its impossible to tell just what goes with what. Interestingly, the TU56 controller on one of the systems is made of System Building Blocks, not Flip-Chips. It looks like it may have been a production build, not just a hobby or academic hack job. No one seems to know what that is all about. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From whdawson at mlynk.com Tue Jul 11 22:26:29 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000301bfebb0$f7ef74a0$a2e3dfd0@cobweb.net> -> On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote: -> > Um, before you do that, please know that is is most -> probably illegal to -> > send such a substance through the mail. I'd check with -> the post office -> > and different carriers before you just sent a bottle of -> that stuff off. -> -> Excellent suggestion... not to mention the possible illegality of -> shipping it. One never know's what it's illegal to to transport -> between states; just the other day, I learned that it's a federal -> crime to send or sell someone, in certain states, water hyacinths for -> a pond, for example. -> -> -- -> R. D. Davis Like I posted earlier, ORM-D. This stuff can be shipped UPS as long as the package is labeled properly. It is not corrosive, it is not flammable, it is not explosive. Hell, they ship a lot worse all the time. What do you consider to be the _big_ danger of shipping Trichlor? I have a Class-A CDL with Hazmat endorsement. I know what I am talking about. I sure wouldn't have offered it if I didn't. Bill Bill Dawson <- Anti-spam protection ? Your computer will do far more than you ever expected it to, and that won't be enough. Pournelle's First Law From whdawson at mlynk.com Tue Jul 11 22:39:50 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Abandonware Petition Message-ID: <000401bfebb2$d55b4de0$a2e3dfd0@cobweb.net> This is something worthwhile to support. Petition is at: http://mivox.com/essays/index.html Bill Dawson <- Anti-spam protection ? Your computer will do far more than you ever expected it to, and that won't be enough. Pournelle's First Law From donm at cts.com Tue Jul 11 22:47:46 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Two Epson QX-10s free to good home Message-ID: (Hopefully I got it right this time!) I received the following e-mails offering two QX-10s to (a) good home(s). Please respond directly to their sender if of interest to you, though I am willing to play a minor intermediary role if that seems productive. - don ==================================================== From ASquires at idecpharm.com Mon Jul 10 14:04:07 2000 From: ASquires at idecpharm.com (ASquires@idecpharm.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Two Epsom QX-10 free to good home Message-ID: I would be happy to give these machines and video monitors to anyone who want them (one was refurbished by Star Technology in Colorado; "newer" software too). Would you know of someone who might be interested? Aimee M. Squires, MPH, RN Clinical Communications IDEC Pharmaceuticals 3030 Callan Road San Diego, CA 92121 >From ASquires@idecpharm.com Tue Jul 11 16:12:31 2000 Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 15:44:34 -0700 From: ASquires@idecpharm.com To: Don Maslin Subject: Re: Two Epsom QX-10 free to good home Hi Don I am not averse to shipping them, but I would not wish to incur the cost of boxing and shipping (although I do have the shipping box for one cpu). So, letting someone pick them up here in San Diego would be easiest for me (I live in Bonita). Aimee M. Squires, MPH, RN Clinical Communications IDEC Pharmaceuticals 3030 Callan Road San Diego, CA 92121 From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jul 11 23:38:53 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff In-Reply-To: (message from William Donzelli on Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:27:58 -0400 (EDT)) References: Message-ID: <20000712043853.25527.qmail@brouhaha.com> William Donzelli wrote: > Interestingly, the TU56 controller on one of the systems is made of > System Building Blocks, not Flip-Chips. It looks like it may have been a > production build, not just a hobby or academic hack job. No one seems to > know what that is all about. Possibly a TC01 DECtape control, as opposed to the more common flip-chip-based TC08? I've never seen one, but I imagine that the TC01 was originally designed for the PDP-5, so it would have been made with System modules. The TC01 was designed not for the TU56, or even the TU55, but for the Type 555 DECtape transports, which used relay control rather than solid state. So if there are TU56 transports on it, they've probably been configured for relay control. From frustum at pacbell.net Tue Jul 11 23:45:55 2000 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Solace: Sol Anachronistic Computer Emulation Message-ID: <4.3.0.20000711213438.00ad4730@pacbell.net> Like the subject line says -- I've written an emulator for the Sol computer. It is a Win32 application and should run fine on any pentium-class machine. It currently doesn't support any disk drives, the cassette port, the serial or parallel ports. Still, you can do a surprising number of things, especially since you can "download" programs via a menu (much faster than the cassette interface!) Yes, you can run TARG, although I haven't yet tried placing an AM radio next to my computer to listen for the sound effects. :-) Solace is a work in progress, but it has already seen a fair amount of beta testing, including some by the list's own Bob Stek (Saver of Lost Sols). The emulator is quite simple to run, and it doesn't require any nasty installation procedures, modifications of the registry, etc. Just unzip it and run. If you are interested, go check it out (including a screen shot) here: http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/solace.html If you get tired of the programs that come with the ZIP file, download some more from the Sol archive: http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/solpgms.html And as long as I'm here, if you have any Sol docs or programs that you could share with the Sol archive, let me know about it. Thanks. ----- Jim Battle == frustum@pacbell.net From mcruse at acm.org Wed Jul 12 00:53:34 2000 From: mcruse at acm.org (Mike Cruse) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff References: Message-ID: <396C07DE.2E854B91@acm.org> William Donzelli wrote: > > Anybody else out there with and 8/i? > > I had three at one point, but traded one off for an Interdata. Of the two > I have left, one is in need of the silkscreened front panel (just the > panel, not the switches and lights). That's going to be a "fun" and > costly thing to find. > > I will likely consolidate the systems at some point, if I can find some > proper racks (the tubular aluminum ones, pre-H960). The machines now are > so hacked up and fooled with its impossible to tell just what goes with > what. > > Interestingly, the TU56 controller on one of the systems is made of > System Building Blocks, not Flip-Chips. It looks like it may have been a > production build, not just a hobby or academic hack job. No one seems to > know what that is all about. > The machine I am getting is pretty complete I believe. It come mounted in two 70 inch high racks and is in pretty good condition. I have no idea exactly what version of the peripherals I'm getting. It will be like christmas for me. I will document the details of my system next week. There may be parts we could swap and both end up with more complete systems. Mike From vcf at siconic.com Wed Jul 12 02:07:51 2000 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: VCF Link Library Improved! Message-ID: In my continuing quest to make the VCF Link Library ever more useful, I've split up sections into sub-sections where applicable. For instance, the DEC section is now split into PDP-8, PDP-11, VAX, etc. The Apple section is split into Apple ][, Macintosh, Lisa, etc. You get the idea. Also, specialty sites for each section have been split out, such as Software (for sites that have software resources for computers in that section), Documentation, Emulators, etc. Check it out at: http://www.vintage.org/cgi-bin/links.pl There are currently over 700 links total in the database! If your site is not listed, add it now! http://www.vintage.org/addlink.html Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From mike at delos.rain.com Wed Jul 12 03:27:26 2000 From: mike at delos.rain.com (Mike Newman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: OT: Tektronix 531 oscilloscope available Message-ID: <396BC97E.2078.3A0823@localhost> Includes "Scope-Mobile" cart, some plug-in modules, and even a few spare parts. It worked when I got it but developed what I believed was a high voltage power supply problem that I never got around to repairing. Now I need the room more than the 'scope, so I'd like to find someone who can use it. Shipping is probably not too practical because of the size and weight, but if you live within reasonable driving distance of the Portland Oregon area and are able to come and get it, contact me for directions... ----------------------------------------------------- Mike Newman INTERNET: mike@delos.rain.com Aloha, Oregon USA -or- mike.w.newman@gte.net http://home1.gte.net/res003ki/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------- Velleity (vuh-LEE-ity), n. A mere wish, unaccompanied by an effort to obtain it. From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jul 12 03:45:14 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: VCF Link Library Improved! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >In my continuing quest to make the VCF Link Library ever more useful, I've >split up sections into sub-sections where applicable. I think you've got some sort of problem... On Netscape 4.72/Mac the page shows up as gibberish, but when you scroll down far enough you see the real page... The wierd thing is the info all appears to be in the gibberish, then in the real page. Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh@holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From mike at delos.rain.com Wed Jul 12 04:23:40 2000 From: mike at delos.rain.com (Mike Newman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Tektronix terminal available Message-ID: <396BD6AC.1987.6D84CD@localhost> I looked but didn't see a model number in any obvious place. I bought it a long time ago because I was fascinated by the Tektronix displays used in the "Battlestar Galactica" TV show. Unfortunately I never got my hands on the documentation for the graphics display commands. I would have loved to get copies of the programs they used for the show (even now that might persuade me to keep this terminal). The terminal itself isn't very large, but it does have an integrated floor stand and is rather heavy (shipping might not be very practical). I live in the Portland Oregon area; if you're within reasonable driving distance. I wasn't planning to ask for money, but I do have a wish list that includes a Kaypro, Osborne, Zorba, or some other interesting portable CP/M computer. If you're interested, feel free to contact me (even if you don't have anything to trade). I'm trying to free up some space to make my wife happy... ----------------------------------------------------- Mike Newman INTERNET: mike@delos.rain.com Aloha, Oregon USA -or- mike.w.newman@gte.net http://home1.gte.net/res003ki/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------- High-resolution - If you stand more than four meters away, you can't see the dots. From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Wed Jul 12 06:59:01 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF36@TEGNTSERVER> > On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote: > > Um, before you do that, please know that is is most probably illegal to > > send such a substance through the mail. I'd check with the post office > > and different carriers before you just sent a bottle of that stuff off. > > Excellent suggestion... not to mention the possible illegality of > shipping it. One never know's what it's illegal to to transport > between states; just the other day, I learned that it's a federal > crime to send or sell someone, in certain states, water hyacinths for > a pond, for example. Uh.... a thing which is illegal in one state but legal in another cannot, by definition, be a federal crime. There are grey areas, like the Mann Act, which deal with transporting minors across state lines, but each state can define "minor" differently. Did you mean "felony"? Or were you referring to how the establishment acts about it when you commit it? That, I *do* understand... -dq From zmerch at 30below.com Wed Jul 12 07:01:26 2000 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Repairing PDD Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.20000712080126.009a5100@mail.30below.com> I run a Tandy Model 100/102/200 mailing list (the NEC, Olivetti & other Kyocera-OEM'd laptops are also very welcome there! ;-) and this person posed a question about repairing her Portable Disk Drive. Can anyone here help her? You can reply directly to the poster, or you can reply to the mailing list (m100@list.30below.com) as it's an open list - you need not be subscribed to post to it. Thanks a lot! Roger "Merch" Merchberger >Mailing-List: contact m100-help@list.30below.com; run by ezmlm >List-Unsubscribe: >List-Subscribe: >Reply-To: m100@list.30below.com >Subject: Repairing PDD >From: Manz@online.life.de (Marianne Manz) >Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 09:27:35 +0200 > >Hello! >I'm new here, gut I have to start with a problem right away. > >After not having used my PDD for about three years, I wanted to use it >again the other day. But it didn't work. After unscrewing it, I >discovered, that the fuse was burst. After removing it, it still didn't >work, because the disk wouldn't rotate properly. I managed to find that >little wheel on the back of the motor and turned it round a bit. After >that, the PDD worked properly for a minute or so, then the fuse burst >again. >Can anybody help me to get that motor working properly again? I fear, >that I may damage something, if I go on like I did. Is there any >instruction, how to disassamble that device and to put it together again >without doing any harm? >Bye, Marianne > > -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig. If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead disarmament should *not* be your first career choice. From foo at siconic.com Wed Jul 12 10:08:22 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: VCF Link Library Improved! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Zane H. Healy wrote: > >In my continuing quest to make the VCF Link Library ever more useful, I've > >split up sections into sub-sections where applicable. > > I think you've got some sort of problem... On Netscape 4.72/Mac the page > shows up as gibberish, but when you scroll down far enough you see the real > page... The wierd thing is the info all appears to be in the gibberish, > then in the real page. Not that this helps your situation, but I checked it with NS 4.7 under Win98 and it worked OK on my end. But I'd really like to see what you're seeing. Is there someway you can save the HTML code once the page loads on your end and then e-mail it to me? Anyone else having problems? Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jul 12 11:37:26 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff In-Reply-To: <20000712043853.25527.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > I've never seen one, but I imagine that the TC01 was originally designed > for the PDP-5, so it would have been made with System modules. > > The TC01 was designed not for the TU56, or even the TU55, but for the > Type 555 DECtape transports, which used relay control rather than solid > state. So if there are TU56 transports on it, they've probably been > configured for relay control. The transport is actually a TU55. I can't find anything that says TC01. Is there a MUL (Module Utilization List) floating around on the net I could compare the machine with? It does look like the main parts of the controller may be factory done, but at soon as it gets to interfacing to the transport, things start looking bad. I would buy that this was upgaded in its lifetime, as you suggest. I can shoot some pictures if you like. You will then see what kind of a mess these machines are! One thing - there are three rather large sockets, somewhat rectangular, about 2" by 3", on the backplane. They appear to be unused, but wired in. They look like the serious type of connectors that IBM and the aerospace industry sometimes used. Where these originally to interface to a PDP-5? William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From ncherry at home.net Wed Jul 12 12:27:14 2000 From: ncherry at home.net (Neil Cherry) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Z80 Starter kit plus ... Message-ID: <396CAA72.AE998052@home.net> I have a Z80 starter kit which I've torn apart and reassembled. This one is rather nice in that it came with a power supply, connectors and a wire wrapped section already added. It was probably used at a local community college (Mercer?). The wire wrap job is very pretty (hey it's art work :-). I also picked up an Applied Microsystems Corp. EM-180B (Z80 diagnostics emulator). Soes anyone have any docs on any of this? I've had experience with the emulator (I worked with the 6802 and 6809 emulators). So I've been able to use it, I just want to know what the rest of the bells and whistles do. Thanks -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@home.net http://members.home.net/ncherry (Text only) http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/lightsey/52 (Graphics) http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/ (SourceForge) From pete at dunnington.u-net.com Wed Jul 12 12:44:44 2000 From: pete at dunnington.u-net.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: VCF Link Library Improved! In-Reply-To: Sellam Ismail "Re: VCF Link Library Improved!" (Jul 12, 8:08) References: Message-ID: <10007121844.ZM11178@indy.dunnington.u-net.com> On Jul 12, 8:08, Sellam Ismail wrote: > On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > I think you've got some sort of problem... On Netscape 4.72/Mac the page > > shows up as gibberish, but when you scroll down far enough you see the real > > page... The wierd thing is the info all appears to be in the gibberish, > > then in the real page. > > Not that this helps your situation, but I checked it with NS 4.7 under > Win98 and it worked OK on my end. > Anyone else having problems? FWIW, it looks fine to me, using Netscape Communicator 4.07/SGI/IRIX 5.3 -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York From John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com Wed Jul 12 12:45:24 2000 From: John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: VCF Link Library Improved! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001bfec28$f5cd9080$0e0301ac@databaseamerica.com> > Anyone else having problems? The DEC modules database has problems with msql_connect(). at www.neurotica.com/dec-info/ All my browser tests NS4.6, IE5.0 were fine. BTW Great Content so far as I've seen. John A. From jott at saturn.ee.nd.edu Wed Jul 12 12:55:06 2000 From: jott at saturn.ee.nd.edu (John Ott) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: origin of gates quote on 640k memory... In-Reply-To: <003301bfeb99$6b886dd0$6f64c0d0@ajp166>; from allisonp@world.std.com on Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 08:37:17PM -0400 References: <003301bfeb99$6b886dd0$6f64c0d0@ajp166> Message-ID: <20000712125506.A5623@saturn> Hello - I have some SKD-85s. Do you remember what the app note number was? john On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 08:37:17PM -0400, allisonp wrote: > From: Eric Smith > > > >> I suppose it was possible that IBM chose the Boca Raton project > >> over some other (unknown to me) 8080-based project due to the > >> requirement you mention. But I don't think they retargeted their > >> design from 8080 => 8088. > > > >The IBM System/23 Datamaster was already in production and was based > >on the 8085. There are some similarities in the design, suggesting > >that the Boca Raton folks were at least partially inspired by it. > > > Exactly, Anyone with 8085 experience could easily loft the design to > an 8088. Intel even had an ap-note to put an 8088 in an SDK-85 board > (I did it too) and it was pretty easy with the big difference being the > monitor rom. > > Keep in mind the design window was in 1980 and by then the 8080 > was a non contender as the 8085 and Z80 had replaced it. If you > look at the late '79 and early 1980 mags (Byte, KB, IA etal) you > would see there was an emerging push for more cpu, more bits > to do math and more bits for addressing. If they used an 8085 > (or z80) they were an also ran to tandy, Apple softcard, NS and > a raft or other already known 8bit systems. The only place > there was room to make a point was the 16bit front and the 8088 > was a well known (it had been around for about two years) > relatively cheap way to get there. > > Allison > > -- ************************************************************************ * * * * John Ott * Email: jott@saturn.ee.nd.edu * * Dept. Electrical Engineering * * * 275 Fitzpatrick Hall * * * University of Notre Dame * Phone: (219) 631-7752 * * Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA * * * * * ************************************************************************ From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jul 12 13:13:51 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: VCF Link Library Improved! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >Not that this helps your situation, but I checked it with NS 4.7 under >Win98 and it worked OK on my end. But I'd really like to see what you're >seeing. Is there someway you can save the HTML code once the page loads >on your end and then e-mail it to me? > >Anyone else having problems? > >Sellam International Man of Intrigue and It must have been a fluke. I just tried again with no problem. Wierd. So I guess ignore my previous comment. Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh@holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From donm at cts.com Wed Jul 12 13:34:45 2000 From: donm at cts.com (Don Maslin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Two Epson QX-10s free to good home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: [I have tried sending this twice previously, but have not seen it show up on the list. If it has and I missed it, I apologize.] I received the following e-mails offering two QX-10s to (a) good home(s). Please respond directly to their sender if of interest to you, though I am willing to play a minor intermediary role if that seems productive. - don ==================================================== From ASquires at idecpharm.com Mon Jul 10 14:04:07 2000 From: ASquires at idecpharm.com (ASquires@idecpharm.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Two Epsom QX-10 free to good home Message-ID: I would be happy to give these machines and video monitors to anyone who want them (one was refurbished by Star Technology in Colorado; "newer" software too). Would you know of someone who might be interested? Aimee M. Squires, MPH, RN Clinical Communications IDEC Pharmaceuticals 3030 Callan Road San Diego, CA 92121 >From ASquires@idecpharm.com Tue Jul 11 16:12:31 2000 Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 15:44:34 -0700 From: ASquires@idecpharm.com To: Don Maslin Subject: Re: Two Epsom QX-10 free to good home Hi Don I am not averse to shipping them, but I would not wish to incur the cost of boxing and shipping (although I do have the shipping box for one cpu). So, letting someone pick them up here in San Diego would be easiest for me (I live in Bonita). Aimee M. Squires, MPH, RN Clinical Communications IDEC Pharmaceuticals 3030 Callan Road San Diego, CA 92121 From allisonp at world.std.com Wed Jul 12 14:54:24 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp@world.std.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: origin of gates quote on 640k memory... In-Reply-To: <20000712125506.A5623@saturn> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, John Ott wrote: > Hello - > > I have some SKD-85s. Do you remember what the app note number was? > > john Memory refresh fail... it was 20 years or so. ;) The hardware hookup was the easy part (nearly obvious) but the 8755 eprom with the right stuff in it is required. NOTE: 8088 will NOT run 8080/8085 code. Allison From xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com Wed Jul 12 15:31:44 2000 From: xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com (Will Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff Message-ID: <20000712203144.46597.qmail@hotmail.com> Ummm, I have most of an 8/i, not enough for it to work though.. no docs, software, tty, etc. though. Will J ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Wed Jul 12 15:40:33 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff Message-ID: <20000712204033.24081.qmail@web618.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mike Cruse wrote: > Anybody else out there with an 8/i? > > Mike I've had an -8/i since high school. I rescued it from a public school locally (I already had an -8/L, so I knew what I was looking at). Mine came with 4K, a DF-32 master and two slave disks. I have no expectations that the media are any good at this point, but the last time I fired it up, the controller was working enough that I could read the status register and watch the rotation sensor on the console via a tiny toggle-in program I wrote to check it (I had to rebuild the rotation sensor on one drive because it caught fire in the housing!) There are some docs on Highgate and you might be able to find the DEC 1970 Small Computer Handbook for the basics. If you care to try out any papertape or DECtape programming systems, you'll want the Programming Handbooks. There's good info in those on how to load and start FOCAL, etc. Have fun with it; I wish I had reasonable peripherals on mine. The best I can do is move my PC8 to it and load paper tapes faster. I have a TD8E and a TU56, but nothing for an older machine. I suppose I could always wrap one up - I do have enough spare parts, just not enough spare time. -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Wed Jul 12 16:19:35 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Z80 Starter kit plus ... Message-ID: <20000712211935.20795.qmail@web613.mail.yahoo.com> --- Neil Cherry wrote: > I have a Z80 starter kit... which I've torn apart and reassembled. Just to clean it? > This one is rather nice in that it came with a power supply, connectors > and a wire wrapped section already added. Fancy. I picked one up at a junk store in L.A. a couple of years ago for $10. It just had wires dangling from the end that originally went to some PSU somewhere. I was especially interested in this because it had a built-in EPROM programmer and a couple of S-100 slots (unpopulated in mine, and needing +8V unreg) If I still had any S-100 boards, I'd have probably done more with it by now (I gave away all my S-100 goodies to a friend a number of years ago - all 68000-based, lots of serial ports from a project from work) Do you have any plans for your Starter Kit? -ethan It was probably used at a local > community college (Mercer?). The wire wrap job is very pretty (hey it's > art work :-). I also picked up an Applied Microsystems Corp. EM-180B (Z80 > diagnostics emulator). Soes anyone have any docs on any of this? > > I've had experience with the emulator (I worked with the 6802 and 6809 > emulators). So I've been able to use it, I just want to know what the > rest of the bells and whistles do. > > Thanks > > -- > Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@home.net > http://members.home.net/ncherry (Text only) > http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/lightsey/52 (Graphics) > http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/ (SourceForge) ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From djg at drs-esg.com Wed Jul 12 17:52:00 2000 From: djg at drs-esg.com (David Gesswein) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I Message-ID: <200007122252.SAA21302@drs-esg.com> I assume you have seen the stuff on highgate and my website. I am working on a search for the documents, Highgate doesn't have all the scanned documents online, the search will have them all. I will also have the search have the option of converting to PDF. I will post to the list when it works. I also have more 8/I stuff not yet scanned if you need something in particular. I have put a no longer accurate list of manuals I have at http://www.pdp8.net/document.txt I also have spare boards if you find you need them. I normally try to trade for something (extra hardware/docs or copies). A lot of paper tape images are available on the net. With the right adapters you can hook it up to a PC to download. I have done this with my 8/I. See http://pdp-8.org/papertape/. You should also be able to punch physical copies with your punch and a little software. If you have TC01 with a TU55 or TU56 I have 4K disk monitor system which says it works off of a DECtape also. I only ran it from DF32's. The manual is already scanned, I will get the tape on my site and send to pdp-8.org. Email me if you can't find it when you need it. David Gesswein http://www.pdp8.net/ -- Old computers with blinkenlights From ncherry at home.net Wed Jul 12 20:26:20 2000 From: ncherry at home.net (Neil Cherry) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Z80 Starter kit plus ... References: <20000712211935.20795.qmail@web613.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <396D1ABC.BAF6937D@home.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > > --- Neil Cherry wrote: > > I have a Z80 starter kit... which I've torn apart and reassembled. > > Just to clean it? > > > This one is rather nice in that it came with a power supply, connectors > > and a wire wrapped section already added. > > Fancy. I picked one up at a junk store in L.A. a couple of years ago for $10. > It just had wires dangling from the end that originally went to some PSU > somewhere. > > I was especially interested in this because it had a built-in EPROM programmer > and a couple of S-100 slots (unpopulated in mine, and needing +8V unreg) > If I still had any S-100 boards, I'd have probably done more with it by now > (I gave away all my S-100 goodies to a friend a number of years ago - all > 68000-based, lots of serial ports from a project from work) > > Do you have any plans for your Starter Kit? So far I plan to at least get it to do something with the display. I work in a lab at a major company and most of the tech folks have no idea that almost everything that they use today was based on yesterday's technology. So I plan to set it up as working art work. I have a Small C compiler for it. I may do more with it. So far I've made sure that I have the correct source code for the ROMs (backup of course) and that they compile properly. I've also commented the source as much as possible. I've been looking for some S100 boards and so far the only ones I've found are from Digikey (prototype, expensive). I'm also working with a Rabbit 2000 development kit which is Z80 based. So I may use the Z80SK for experiments. The EM-180B make it unnecessary to burn EPROMs as it can d/l the code into RAM and run it as if it was ROM. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@home.net http://members.home.net/ncherry (Text only) http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/lightsey/52 (Graphics) http://linuxha.sourceforge.net/ (SourceForge) From rdd at smart.net Wed Jul 12 21:16:15 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF36@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > Uh.... a thing which is illegal in one state but legal in another > cannot, by definition, be a federal crime. There are grey areas, > like the Mann Act, which deal with transporting minors across > state lines, but each state can define "minor" differently. Looking back at what I wrote, I see that I wasn't clear in stating what I meant to write. I didn't mean that it's against the law in certain states, but that it's against the law to ship water hyacinths to certain, or was it all - I forget - states, as they can grow uncontrollably if they get into the wild. Anyone in Maryland want a few? A few days ago, I had to pull a bunch out, but I'm sure there will be plenty more extras in a couple of weeks or so. I'd ask those in Virginia as well, but to even advertise them to someone in VA, where they're illegal, would be breaking that law as well. Hence, my reason for mentioning a bit of caution with some things computer related as well, as one never knows what law one may be breaking unintentionally, like the federal law about water hyacinths. I didn't want to see any preservationists get in trouble for getting caught doing something illegal, although basically harmless and the right th ing to do, something which also happens to be beneficial to society due to the preservation of history... but try explaining that to a bureaucrat or politician (ok, same thing). Hmmm... perhaps a pond-control system of some sort would be a good use for one of my classic computers. :-) -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Wed Jul 12 21:38:12 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: "Vintage" IC's: this is outta control Message-ID: <000712223812.20200751@trailing-edge.com> I was looking for a source for some Fairchild uL914's (DTL NOR gate) and came across this: The Fairchild UL914; DUAL NOR GATE was the ONLY MEMORY and REGISTER UNIT used in the ENTIRE construction of the ON-BOARD Navigational Computer. Redundancy and Failure Rates of a NEW Integrated Circuit family (RTL) dictated the SAFEST possible Design for such an Incredible Mission. Round 8pin EPOXY package. 4 pieces available $ 99.95 each Other obscene prices, such as $35 2732's, are to be found at: http://www.cybertoix.com/page0002.htm (I can remember when the local Radio Shack had blister-packs of uL914's for probably $.79 each. I believe they sold a "stack-it-yourself" binary counter kit that used two uL914's for each bit. Anyone got a Radio Shack catalog from 1976 or so to check my memory here?) Tim. From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jul 12 22:30:42 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: "Vintage" IC's: this is outta control In-Reply-To: <000712223812.20200751@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: > The Fairchild UL914; DUAL NOR GATE was the ONLY MEMORY and REGISTER > UNIT used in the ENTIRE construction of the ON-BOARD Navigational Computer. > Redundancy and Failure Rates of a NEW Integrated Circuit family (RTL) > dictated the SAFEST possible Design for such an Incredible Mission. > Round 8pin EPOXY package. > 4 pieces available $ 99.95 each Well, it is only out of control is people buy them, and then keep buying them, and then everyone has them for $99.95. I would not work about it right now. Even the "hot" chips like 4004s have dropped down quite a bit, now that every week Ebay has one up for auction. Do you need a uL914? I have been saving obsolete family chips for years, and may have a few. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jul 12 22:31:59 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff In-Reply-To: <20000712203144.46597.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: > Ummm, I have most of an 8/i, not enough for it to work though.. What do you need to get it to work? I know, I gotta get those docs found... William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jul 12 23:10:42 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: RCS/RI Open House Message-ID: I suppose I ought to start advertising on the list. Anyway, the Retrocomputing Society of Rhode Island will be holding this month's open house on the 15th of the month, next Saturday, at our Millspace in Providence, Rhode Island. Directions can be found on our websight at . This month's topic is the machines of MAI/Basic Four. Essentially, we will be examining just what we have in this line, as we have really done little with the machines since we obtained them. We will also be discussing a possible move to another room in the building, our recently arrived Symbolics machines, the electrical upgrade, future open house topics, and so on. There will also be a great deal of general computer geek talk. Please email me (or the list) with any questions. All are invited. No charge! William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From mcruse at acm.org Wed Jul 12 23:56:28 2000 From: mcruse at acm.org (Mike Cruse) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: VAX 8600's References: Message-ID: <396D4BFC.84DC4532@acm.org> Hi, I have a lead on a couple of VAX 8600 machines. Are these machines ones that people here consider worth preserving? I'm tempted but I will have to ship them from NC to CA, which I will do if they are worth it. There is no cost for the machines themselves. They just need to be picked up. Mike From retro at retrobits.com Thu Jul 13 01:17:19 2000 From: retro at retrobits.com (Earl Evans) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: CBM Plus/4 malfunctioning...can anyone help? Message-ID: <001b01bfec92$0097ec40$6501640a@easystreet.com> Greetings, I've got a Commodore Plus/4 that's not working quite right. When I turn it on, it does power up, but doesn't boot to BASIC. Instead, it "breaks" into the machine language monitor. The following is displayed: BREAK PC SR AC XR YR SP ;8008 B5 08 00 00 FF Looks like one of the chips is fried, but which? My initial guess is either the Kernal ROM or BASIC interpreter is shot. Any guesses? And does anyone know where I can find some Plus/4 spare parts? :-) Thanks and best regards, Earl Evans retro@retrobits.com From foo at siconic.com Thu Jul 13 00:32:10 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: VAX 8600's In-Reply-To: <396D4BFC.84DC4532@acm.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Mike Cruse wrote: > I have a lead on a couple of VAX 8600 machines. Are these machines > ones that people here consider worth preserving? I'm tempted but I will > have to ship them from NC to CA, which I will do if they are worth it. Certainly worth it but man, that's quite a load to ship across country. Your sanity may be questioned. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From mrdos at swbell.net Thu Jul 13 01:59:54 2000 From: mrdos at swbell.net (Owen Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: CBM Plus/4 malfunctioning...can anyone help? Message-ID: <000601bfec97$f402bc20$a0713ed8@compaq> I believe I have a Plus/4 I'm not using. I'll check. OK? From mrdos at swbell.net Thu Jul 13 02:03:24 2000 From: mrdos at swbell.net (Owen Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs Message-ID: <000801bfec98$70834b20$a0713ed8@compaq> I have been trying very hard to get GS/OS running on my Apple IIgs ROM 1. I downloaded the disk images from Apple, and the disk seems to duplicate OK on a 3.5" 720K DOS Disk, but I get an UNABLE TO LOAD PRODOS message on the Apple IIgs. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks, Owen From jim at calico.litterbox.com Thu Jul 13 02:15:36 2000 From: jim at calico.litterbox.com (Jim Strickland) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:22 2005 Subject: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs In-Reply-To: <000801bfec98$70834b20$a0713ed8@compaq> from "Owen Robertson" at Jul 13, 2000 02:03:24 AM Message-ID: <200007130715.BAA28216@calico.litterbox.com> When I did this I had to expand the files on an elderly macintosh to get usable disks. They each write out a disk image. > > I have been trying very hard to get GS/OS running on my Apple IIgs ROM 1. I > downloaded the disk images from Apple, and the disk seems to duplicate OK on > a 3.5" 720K DOS Disk, but I get an UNABLE TO LOAD PRODOS message on the > Apple IIgs. Does anyone have any ideas? > > Thanks, > Owen > > -- Jim Strickland jim@DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BeOS Powered! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From mrdos at swbell.net Thu Jul 13 02:44:23 2000 From: mrdos at swbell.net (Owen Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs Message-ID: <000c01bfec9e$2a2ad020$f6703ed8@compaq> How elderly is "elderly"? I tried a Mac SE, but it didn't have enough memory. Would a Mac II work? I've been using a PowerMac. Is it OK to use 720K disks? Disk storage and capacity makes NO since to me. Thanks, Owen -----Original Message----- From: Jim Strickland To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Date: Thursday, July 13, 2000 2:28 AM Subject: Re: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs >When I did this I had to expand the files on an elderly macintosh to get >usable disks. They each write out a disk image. > > >> >> I have been trying very hard to get GS/OS running on my Apple IIgs ROM 1. I >> downloaded the disk images from Apple, and the disk seems to duplicate OK on >> a 3.5" 720K DOS Disk, but I get an UNABLE TO LOAD PRODOS message on the >> Apple IIgs. Does anyone have any ideas? >> >> Thanks, >> Owen >> >> > > >-- >Jim Strickland >jim@DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com >----------------------------------------------------------------------- > BeOS Powered! >----------------------------------------------------------------------- From pechter at pechter.dyndns.org Thu Jul 13 06:29:24 2000 From: pechter at pechter.dyndns.org (Bill Pechter) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: VAX 8600's In-Reply-To: from Sellam Ismail at "Jul 12, 2000 10:32:10 pm" Message-ID: <200007131129.HAA17918@bg-tc-ppp830.monmouth.com> > On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Mike Cruse wrote: > > > I have a lead on a couple of VAX 8600 machines. Are these machines > > ones that people here consider worth preserving? I'm tempted but I will > > have to ship them from NC to CA, which I will do if they are worth it. > > Certainly worth it but man, that's quite a load to ship across country. > Your sanity may be questioned. > > Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger Not to mention they used 440 volt power. Anyway, I used to be a tech on these (although I haven't seen one since 1986...) and they're a really slick piece of packaging and design. I consider them one of the most successful Vaxes, despite the delay in the 11/790 um 8600's production. The rumor is the 8650 is what the 8600 was supposed to be, but they couldn't get the speed up originally. Bill -- bpechter@monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today? | Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow? | BSD: Are you guys coming, or what? From r.stek at snet.net Thu Jul 13 06:27:26 2000 From: r.stek at snet.net (Bob Stek) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Jim Battle's SolACE: The next steps Message-ID: I am glad that Jim has released his Sol emulator (if you didn't see his message look at http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/solace.html) He has done a fantastic job - Sol owners and Sol-wanna-be owners owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for making the Sol live again. His web site already has a very good collection of both usable software and documentation (much of generously shared by many list members). I propose to make it even better. I have begun OCR'ing and pdf'ing the paper documentation I have. And I have just compiled a tape to send Jim (including such goodies as Microsoft BASIC for the Sol, MSA BASIC, 8080 Checkers, Computer Mart of NJ Dynamic Debugging System, Electric Pencil, and others). (okay, okay, so there may be some copyright issues here! But putting those aside....) I can OCR and PDF documentation. I can repair (some) cassette tapes (the pressure pad often comes unglued, but Radio Shack has repair kits) and make backup copies on new cassettes. But I can't do what Jim can do. Jim has already designed and hosted the website I only dreamed of. I would prefer that he spent his time on improving and extending SolACE. So here's the deal ... With Jim's approval I am willing to act as a clearinghouse for any and all donations of programs and documentation to be made available on Jim's website. I would prefer originals (with the understanding that I will VERY carefully copy and return them) or good, clean copies of any ProcTech Sol programs and documentation which are not already available on his site. I will catalog, research, annotate, OCR, PDF, convert, etc. whatever I can and transfer same to Jim for inclusion on his site. I will try to track down copyright holders and even make this stuff legit (if necessary). Obviously I am an extreme example of a Sol nut. But I do think that the Sol played a pivotal role in the evolution of personal computers, and it deserves a chance to shine again nearly 25 years later. This is an example of a little project that the classiccmp list is in a unique position to help along. So how about it? Go out to that storage shed, dig deep in that cellar, see what you can find. Check out Jim's website, and if he doesn't have what you have, then drop me a line. I'll let you know if it is something I am already working on or not. Note to Sellam: might make a nice freebie for the VCF - I bet Jim could provide SolACE and program or two, and I'd be willing to do a little write-up about ProcTech and Sol. I can see the advertising now: Attend the VCF and receive your very own 8080 Sol computer! From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Thu Jul 13 06:53:02 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Jim Battle's SolACE: The next steps Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF3E@TEGNTSERVER> > I am glad that Jim has released his Sol emulator (if you didn't see his > message look at http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/solace.html) He has done a > fantastic job - Sol owners and Sol-wanna-be owners owe him a tremendous debt > of gratitude for making the Sol live again. His web site already has a very > good collection of both usable software and documentation (much of > generously shared by many list members). I was quite blown away by what I found. Sounds like what you've mentioned below, when added to it, will improve it another step, and I suppose I'll have to match your hand and fill in the remaining gaps with my moldy old stuff. > I propose to make it even better. I have begun OCR'ing and pdf'ing the > paper documentation I have. And I have just compiled a tape to send Jim > (including such goodies as Microsoft BASIC for the Sol, MSA BASIC, 8080 > Checkers, Computer Mart of NJ Dynamic Debugging System, Electric Pencil, and ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Ooo, I remember wanting to get that, I guess it'll be easier now! > With Jim's approval I am willing to act as a clearinghouse for any and all > donations of programs and documentation to be made available on Jim's > website. I would prefer originals (with the understanding that I will VERY > carefully copy and return them) or good, clean copies of any ProcTech Sol > programs and documentation which are not already available on his site. I > will catalog, research, annotate, OCR, PDF, convert, etc. whatever I can and > transfer same to Jim for inclusion on his site. I will try to track down > copyright holders and even make this stuff legit (if necessary). Either this weekend, or one two weeks hence, I'll see if I can find my tapes and dust off the SOL and get copies made of each and get them to you. Bob, did you add the zero-crossing fix to your casette interface? Do you have the SOL manual scanned and converted to PDF? I'll be making five photocopies of the one I'll be selling on E-Bay in a few days, and I can scan any pages I might have that you might not have, and forward them to you. Wow, I wish there was this much interest in Primes! -doug q From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Thu Jul 13 07:13:39 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF40@TEGNTSERVER> > Hmmm... perhaps a pond-control system of some sort would be a good use > for one of my classic computers. :-) ROFL!! 8D From allisonp at world.std.com Thu Jul 13 07:26:10 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp@world.std.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: "Vintage" IC's: this is outta control In-Reply-To: <000712223812.20200751@trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 12 Jul 2000 CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com wrote: > I was looking for a source for some Fairchild uL914's (DTL NOR gate) > and came across this: First off it's an RTL dual NOR gate. When it was about 1.95 in 1969. since it's 4 transistors and 6 resistors fabricating one using common silicon transistors and resistors is not a problem. > dictated the SAFEST possible Design for such an Incredible Mission. > Round 8pin EPOXY package. Worst reliability of any package I've ever seen. > (I can remember when the local Radio Shack had blister-packs of uL914's > for probably $.79 each. I believe they sold a "stack-it-yourself" binary > counter kit that used two uL914's for each bit. Anyone got a Radio Shack > catalog from 1976 or so to check my memory here?) Don't remember the counter but one using RTL used 790p (dual JK FF). Doing it with 914s was the hard way. Part of the 9xx family included a buffer/driver(900), JK-FF (923), half adder (903), and several otehr functions all very cheap in 1970. Moto offered mWRTL aka MC7xx in 14 pin DIL Package and that included hexinverter, dual jk FF (790p), quad NOR and an assortment of other building blocks. FYI these RTL were nominally 3.0 or 3.6V and not low power for the amount of logic offered. I still have a large assortment of these as they were good as linear up to about 3-8mhz and cheap. Allison From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jul 13 07:26:30 2000 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Jim Battle's SolACE: The next steps In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4.3.0.20000713072339.01cd9dd0@pc> At 07:27 AM 7/13/00 -0400, Bob Stek wrote: >Note to Sellam: might make a nice freebie for the VCF - I bet Jim could >provide SolACE and program or two, and I'd be willing to do a little >write-up about ProcTech and Sol. I can see the advertising now: Attend the >VCF and receive your very own 8080 Sol computer! You mean VCF has a "proceedings" CD-ROM, with snapshots of web sites, collections of software, PDF'd manuals, emulators, audio and video interviews, Quicktime VR of historic sites, etc.? Sounds like a nice product. - John From ghldbrd at ccp.com Thu Jul 13 13:54:58 2000 From: ghldbrd at ccp.com (Gary Hildebrand) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: CBM Plus/4 malfunctioning...can anyone help? In-Reply-To: <001b01bfec92$0097ec40$6501640a@easystreet.com> Message-ID: Hello Earl On 13-Jul-00, you wrote: > Greetings, > > I've got a Commodore Plus/4 that's not working quite right. > > When I turn it on, it does power up, but doesn't boot to BASIC. Instead, it > "breaks" into the machine language monitor. The following is displayed: > > BREAK > PC SR AC XR YR SP > ;8008 B5 08 00 00 FF > > Looks like one of the chips is fried, but which? My initial guess is either > the Kernal ROM or BASIC interpreter is shot. > > Any guesses? And does anyone know where I can find some Plus/4 spare parts? > :-) > > Thanks and best regards, > > Earl Evans > retro@retrobits.com Im trying to remember if there is a combination of keyboard strokes toat allows it to boot up into the monitor. I'd check to see if the keyboard might or might not have a short across two of the lines, or if the CIA scanning the keyboard is shot. > > > > Regards -- Gary Hildebrand Box 6184 St. Joseph, MO 64506-0184 816-662-2612 or ghldbrd@ccp.com From frustum at pacbell.net Thu Jul 13 11:06:48 2000 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Jim Battle's SolACE: The next steps In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF3E@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <4.3.0.20000713090034.00b1d770@pacbell.net> At 07:53 AM 7/13/00 -0400, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: >... >Do you have the SOL manual scanned and converted to PDF? I'll be making >five photocopies of the one I'll be selling on E-Bay in a few days, and >I can scan any pages I might have that you might not have, and forward >them to you. If you go to http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/soldocu.html you'll find chapters 7, 8, and 9 are already OCR'd and PDF'd. Most of the other chapters are less immediately useful (construction). The main thing missing are the scans of the schematics. I have all the missing sections as originals, but the thing that has kept me from scanning the schematics is that they are large format: 11" tall by 25.5" wide. I know large format scanners exist (and I may have a line on one that I could use), and I didn't want to try and stitch together two or three 8.5"x11" scans. Actually, it isn't quite that bad as most of those pages only have information on 2/3 of the width of the page. Still, it is effectively 11"x17", bigger than my scanner. I'll happily accept any scans of the schematics or PDF's of the missing chapters. I'm a bit reluctant to put on 10's of MB of bitmaps of the other chapters as I don't want to overtax the free website that I'm using. OCR'd versions are typically 1/10th the size (or less) for straight text. ----- Jim Battle == frustum@pacbell.net From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Thu Jul 13 12:19:16 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Jim Battle's SolACE: The next steps Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF46@TEGNTSERVER> > If you go to > > http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/soldocu.html > > you'll find chapters 7, 8, and 9 are already OCR'd and PDF'd. Well, I missed that when I first checked out your site. How cool, you've got the Access newsletter I used to have (don't know what happened to them), the BASIC/5 manual (ditto). What I see you don't have is the Trek-80 manual; you have a space for the Popular Electronics article; do you need me to scan that for you (I do have it)? I also have the smaller document package that came with what I initially bought, the Sol-PCB, for $40. However, its location on the basement floor was a bad place to be during a flood, and the individual pages are glued together by mold or lordknows. Some carefull soaking may allow me to separate them. I'll try to inventory everything tonight, and compare it to what you've listed. Great work, Jim! -dq From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Thu Jul 13 12:29:38 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Helios Source (Was: RE: Jim Battle's SolACE: The next steps) Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF47@TEGNTSERVER> In all this talk of Sols, I recall that Stan Sokolow had finally managed to wrestle the source code to the Helios disk OS away from whomever it was who ended up with the PTC IP rights. Altough it was proprietary in lots of ways (hard sectored 8" drives, IIRC), it was a decent design. Anyone got it? From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Thu Jul 13 13:15:45 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Coming Soon: Intel Mac-80, Interp-80, PLM-80 Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF4B@TEGNTSERVER> Some of you may have seen my recent post about being able to restore data from very old 9-track magtape. Although I seem to have lost some 8080 assembly code I wrote (and some I didn't write but did laboriously type in), I was successful in getting the old Intel cross-development software back. The three programs are the Mac-80 Cross [Macro] Assembler, the Interp-80 software simulation of the MCS-80 8080 CPU, and the PLM-80 compiler (a two-pass monster). Now, the PLM80 compiler Fortran source has been available on the Digital Research archive and its mirrors for some time now. But I spent quite a bit of time with these three programs, fixing bugs and providing some minimal extensions. I am assuming I migrated the fixes and extensions to the Prime ports of this code. If so, then what I've got should be preferred over other copies (I'd ported these to the DEC-10 and the CDC6600 as well). So, as soon as I have a way to get stuff off the Prime and onto a PC, I'll upload them to my web storage area, and provide links so anyone interested can download them. I hope I didn't waste my time doing this; I searched high and low on the web for Mac80 and Interp80, to no avail. regards, -doug quebbeman From r.stek at snet.net Thu Jul 13 14:00:57 2000 From: r.stek at snet.net (Bob Stek) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Helios Source (Was: RE: Jim Battle's SolACE: The next steps) Message-ID: >Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 13:29:38 -0400 >From: Douglas Quebbeman >Subject: Helios Source (Was: RE: Jim Battle's SolACE: The next steps) > >In all this talk of Sols, I recall that Stan Sokolow had finally >managed to wrestle the source code to the Helios disk OS away from >whomever it was who ended up with the PTC IP rights. I have the source for the resident portion, and am sending it to Jim soon. I do have the Helios Owner's manual and Repair Manual, as well as a (supposedly) working Helios and lots of 8" disks and software for it. (Why don't I have it up and running? A l-o-n-g story.... But perhaps this fall...) And, yup, I have the zero-crossing fix. Thanks. Bob Stek Saver of Lost SOLs From jim at calico.litterbox.com Thu Jul 13 14:09:20 2000 From: jim at calico.litterbox.com (Jim Strickland) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs In-Reply-To: <000c01bfec9e$2a2ad020$f6703ed8@compaq> from "Owen Robertson" at Jul 13, 2000 02:44:23 AM Message-ID: <200007131909.NAA30208@calico.litterbox.com> I used an SE30 with expanded memory. 720k double density disks are exactly the right kind. I would expect any mac that can still read and write 800k mac disks to be able to do the job, so the Mac II probably would work. You can also get gsos either preloaded on a hard disk (from allelec.com) or on floppies from http://www.shrevesystems.com/apple2.html You'll want a hard disk for gsos. You *can* boot from floppy, but it's not very useful. The hard disks allelec.com sells are called focus hard cards, and they're quite nice. And at 69 bucks US it's hard to beat. You'll also need at least 2 megs of RAM to run GSOS. If you seriously want to get into this stuff, I have a GS with a 4 meg memory board and lots of other useful stuff (no OS though, unfortunately) I'm looking to get rid of, and will sell for very little money. E-mail me privately and we can work something out. > > How elderly is "elderly"? I tried a Mac SE, but it didn't have enough > memory. Would a Mac II work? I've been using a PowerMac. Is it OK to use > 720K disks? Disk storage and capacity makes NO since to me. > > Thanks, > Owen -- Jim Strickland jim@DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BeOS Powered! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From Marion.Bates at dartmouth.edu Thu Jul 13 14:45:36 2000 From: Marion.Bates at dartmouth.edu (Marion Bates) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: IIGS hardware issue? help? Message-ID: <33122242@dasher.Dartmouth.EDU> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 869 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000713/a77f53c9/attachment.bin From celt at chisp.net Thu Jul 13 14:50:37 2000 From: celt at chisp.net (Michael Maginnis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs References: <000c01bfec9e$2a2ad020$f6703ed8@compaq> Message-ID: <396E1D8D.8D631294@chisp.net> Any images written by a PowerMac (or "newer" Mac) will not load on a IIgs. The versions of MacOS that run on these machines overwrite several bytes of the GS/OS code as the images are expanded to floppy, causing the UNABLE TO LOAD PRODOS errors. I ran into this problem several years ago, and this was the explanation I was given on comp.sys.apple2. An SE/30 worked flawlessly. Mike Owen Robertson wrote: > > How elderly is "elderly"? I tried a Mac SE, but it didn't have enough > memory. Would a Mac II work? I've been using a PowerMac. Is it OK to use > 720K disks? Disk storage and capacity makes NO since to me. > > Thanks, > Owen > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jim Strickland > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Date: Thursday, July 13, 2000 2:28 AM > Subject: Re: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs > > >When I did this I had to expand the files on an elderly macintosh to get > >usable disks. They each write out a disk image. > > > > > >> > >> I have been trying very hard to get GS/OS running on my Apple IIgs ROM 1. > I > >> downloaded the disk images from Apple, and the disk seems to duplicate OK > on > >> a 3.5" 720K DOS Disk, but I get an UNABLE TO LOAD PRODOS message on the > >> Apple IIgs. Does anyone have any ideas? > >> > >> Thanks, > >> Owen > >> > >> > > > > > >-- > >Jim Strickland > >jim@DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > BeOS Powered! > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- From jim at calico.litterbox.com Thu Jul 13 14:55:32 2000 From: jim at calico.litterbox.com (Jim Strickland) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: IIGS hardware issue? help? In-Reply-To: <33122242@dasher.Dartmouth.EDU> from "Marion Bates" at Jul 13, 2000 03:45:36 PM Message-ID: <200007131955.NAA30397@calico.litterbox.com> > Anyone know what's wrong? I'm guessing 08FF is a memory address that's bad, so > probably the logic board is toast, right? No idea, but you might check the apple 2 faq. Among other things it's got error lists. http://members.xoom.com/apple_II/faqs.html -- Jim Strickland jim@DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BeOS Powered! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From celt at chisp.net Thu Jul 13 14:59:07 2000 From: celt at chisp.net (Michael Maginnis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards References: Message-ID: <396E1F8B.1DD90EAE@chisp.net> "Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)" wrote: > > On Sun, 9 Jul 2000, Paul R. Santa-Maria wrote: > > > > It is a "SPRITE 1" by Synetix Systems, Inc., 1983, with a TMS9918A, eight > > memory chips (8328GVP AM9016FPC), four 74LS chips, one other chip, video > > input and output RCA jacks, and the usual assortment of descrete > > components. > > There's a little blurb about the SuperSprite and StarSprite boards over > at http://www.hypermall.com/History/ah12.html > > They were very expensive (about $400), so they really didn't catch > on with most users. Pity... The TMS9918A was the TI/994A graphics controller chip, IIRC. Mike From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 13 13:07:50 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: CBM Plus/4 malfunctioning...can anyone help? In-Reply-To: <001b01bfec92$0097ec40$6501640a@easystreet.com> from "Earl Evans" at Jul 12, 0 11:17:19 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1718 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000713/b330c2b5/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 13 13:08:45 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Need Freon TF Substitute for Head Cleaning In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF40@TEGNTSERVER> from "Douglas Quebbeman" at Jul 13, 0 08:13:39 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 279 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000713/5fdb150b/attachment.ksh From mrdos at swbell.net Thu Jul 13 15:19:58 2000 From: mrdos at swbell.net (Owen Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs Message-ID: <000a01bfed07$b7e8bb20$f3703ed8@compaq> Thanks for the info! I was just about ready to throw my GS out the window. How much do you want for your GS, and what kind of stuff comes with it? Do I really need 2 megs of RAM to run GSOS? I have a manual for an Apple IIGS with 1 meg, and it shows lots of happy people using GSOS. Thanks, Owen -----Original Message----- From: Jim Strickland To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Date: Thursday, July 13, 2000 2:24 PM Subject: Re: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs >I used an SE30 with expanded memory. 720k double density disks are exactly >the right kind. I would expect any mac that can still read and write 800k >mac disks to be able to do the job, so the Mac II probably would work. > >You can also get gsos either preloaded on a hard disk (from allelec.com) >or on floppies from http://www.shrevesystems.com/apple2.html > >You'll want a hard disk for gsos. You *can* boot from floppy, but it's not >very useful. The hard disks allelec.com sells are called focus hard cards, >and they're quite nice. And at 69 bucks US it's hard to beat. > >You'll also need at least 2 megs of RAM to run GSOS. If you seriously want >to get into this stuff, I have a GS with a 4 meg memory board and lots of other >useful stuff (no OS though, unfortunately) I'm looking to get rid of, and will >sell for very little money. E-mail me privately and we can work something out. > > >> >> How elderly is "elderly"? I tried a Mac SE, but it didn't have enough >> memory. Would a Mac II work? I've been using a PowerMac. Is it OK to use >> 720K disks? Disk storage and capacity makes NO since to me. >> >> Thanks, >> Owen > >-- >Jim Strickland >jim@DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com >----------------------------------------------------------------------- > BeOS Powered! >----------------------------------------------------------------------- From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jul 13 15:27:44 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: VAX 8600's In-Reply-To: <396D4BFC.84DC4532@acm.org> (message from Mike Cruse on Wed, 12 Jul 2000 21:56:28 -0700) References: <396D4BFC.84DC4532@acm.org> Message-ID: <20000713202744.31377.qmail@brouhaha.com> Mike wrote: > I have a lead on a couple of VAX 8600 machines. Are these machines > ones that people here consider worth preserving? I'm tempted but I will > have to ship them from NC to CA, which I will do if they are worth it. The 8600 was originally going to be called the VAX-11/790. The 8650 is an improved-performance version. These are the last VAXen to use SBI (two of them!) and the last to have PDP-11 compatability more. They're nice machines, but big and power-hungry. And probably much harder to fix than a 780 or 785. It would be nice to see some of these preserved, but for my own part I'm going to draw the line at 785s. Cheers, Eric From jim at calico.litterbox.com Thu Jul 13 15:34:40 2000 From: jim at calico.litterbox.com (Jim Strickland) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs In-Reply-To: <000a01bfed07$b7e8bb20$f3703ed8@compaq> from "Owen Robertson" at Jul 13, 2000 03:19:58 PM Message-ID: <200007132034.OAA30556@calico.litterbox.com> > > Thanks for the info! I was just about ready to throw my GS out the window. > How much do you want for your GS, and what kind of stuff comes with it? Do I > really need 2 megs of RAM to run GSOS? I have a manual for an Apple IIGS > with 1 meg, and it shows lots of happy people using GSOS. > > Thanks, > Owen GSOS 6.0.1, the last version, and the one most recently developed software assumes you have, really wants 2. More to be really useful. And if you want to run LemminGS, you really want an accelerator (which are rare as hen's teeth). I have a ROM01 GS (it's been dropped and not tested, so I'd use it for parts) 2 3.5 inch floppy drives. 1 5.25 inch floppy drive. 1 4mb ram board 1 sequential systems printer board. 1 monitor (also been dropped, so it's probably junk). Make me an offer. I'm looking to get this junk off my shelves. -- Jim Strickland jim@DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BeOS Powered! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From foo at siconic.com Thu Jul 13 14:38:09 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Running GS/OS On an Apple IIgs In-Reply-To: <200007131909.NAA30208@calico.litterbox.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jul 2000, Jim Strickland wrote: > You'll want a hard disk for gsos. You *can* boot from floppy, but it's not > very useful. The hard disks allelec.com sells are called focus hard cards, > and they're quite nice. And at 69 bucks US it's hard to beat. Wow, allelec.com is pretty cool. They're prices are pretty high on most of their Apple ][ items, but it's neat to know you can still buy from them an Apple //e, //c, //c+ and even Apple /// motherboards. The price for the hardcard is not bad at all. I think I may buy one so I don't have to lug a Sider along to the VCF (I use an Apple //e with a 10meg Sider as the cashier terminal). Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Thu Jul 13 15:42:15 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: PDP 8/I stuff Message-ID: <20000713204215.27505.qmail@web611.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mike Cruse wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I finally take delivery of my PDP 8/I next week. It comes with a couple of > tape drives and a high speed paper tape reader. > > I'm am now looking for anything PDP 8/I related including books, paper tapes, > peripherals (especially an ASR33 teletype) I may have mentioned this already, but since you have a high-speed paper tape reader, you can get by with a VT220 as a 20mA terminal. I swap one off of my PDP-8/L to save paper when playing around. 95% of the tapes I have are fan-fold. One of the ones that isn't is a floating point package for 8K paper tape BASIC that I need to load Star Trek, and at the moment, my 8K expander box is not attached. It's not authentic, but it _is_ convenient. BTW, is there a good modern source for the Mate-n-Lok connectors that wre in common usage for 20mA cables? I'd like to make a switchbox. -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From elvey at hal.com Thu Jul 13 15:55:57 2000 From: elvey at hal.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Using CRC's for error correction In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200007132055.NAA22520@civic.hal.com> Hi I finally broke down and wrote a program to look at using CRC16 to fix errors. Here is what I have found. 1. If the error is only a single bit, one can fix the error 100% of the time for data of 1K bytes and less ( I didn't look at larger data sizes but expect it to be all the way up to (2^16)-1. ) 2. If two bits in a row are in error, you can still fix 100% for data sizes up to 1K bytes. 3. For errors that span 3 bits in a row: If all three bits are in error, 100% for 1K bytes If two bits separated by a correct bit ( Still 3 bits wide but center bit correct ), there is an ambiguity between that and a 2 bit bit error next to each other. If the data set is 128 bytes, it is still 100% correctable. If the error shows as a mask of 101b and it is within 7140 bits of the end of data, it is still correctable. If the error shows as a mask of 011b and it is within 7140 bits of the beginning of the data ( for 1K bytes ), it is also unambiguously corrected. This is still most of the errors of this type but leave a window for two separate error locations. At least, you know where it works and where it doesn't. Things get messier when one opens the window to 4 and 5 bits. Still, depending on the location, one can restrict the possibilities to only a pair of possible error locations and for some locations and errors, it is unambiguous. This is because of the cyclic nature of the CRC. Knowing the span between these alias fixes, one can still do corrections for errors in particular location ranges. If one knows where the burst is located, such as when one finds flaky bits ( like the way Tim does it ), one can also set a window around the bits to find close bits that are also failing. Hopefully, the error is located closely around the flaky bits. If so, one can get a map of the bits that are the only ones that can cause the specific sum. One could expand this to 16 bits but then you wouldn't know the how to center the window. It could be anywhere from the burst being centered on the flaky bit of offset so that the flaky bit was on one side or the other. Still, given this information it will give one a lot more than just using one method or the other. Of course, if the errors are in two burst separated by a distance greater than 16 bits, the information in the CRC will be of little use since it no longer holds information that pinpoints the error. If you know what one of those errors is, the other can be located. An error in the CRC is also a total loss. One last trick that can be thrown in is that if the data was ASCII, the MSB can help to decide how well the error fit did. Even for some code sequences, there are certain codes that are either illegal or rarely used. These can also help to evaluate the correctness of an error patch. If anyone is interested I'll compile a list of the spacings between different small burst up to 5 bits. One can look at their first error position and decide what other errors could have caused the same error syndrome in CRC16. I think this is a lot better than doing it by experimentation. Dwight From mann at pa.dec.com Thu Jul 13 20:03:48 2000 From: mann at pa.dec.com (Tim Mann) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Using CRC's for error correction In-Reply-To: <200007132055.NAA22520@civic.hal.com> Message-ID: <200007140103.SAA07502@pachyderm.pa.dec.com> > An error in the CRC is also a total loss. If you have n bits of data and a c-bit CRC, you can just as well view this as n+c bits of data whose CRC is known to be 0. So your techniques should work just as well for errors in the CRC, as long is you're not right at a boundary where things work for n bits but not for n+c bits. Tim Mann tim.mann@compaq.com http://www.tim-mann.org Compaq Computer Corporation, Systems Research Center, Palo Alto, CA From jrkeys at concentric.net Thu Jul 13 21:17:36 2000 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (John R. Keys Jr.) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Fw: NEC APCIII Message-ID: <013201bfed39$aeb3c900$d2711fd1@default> Here some more stuff that needs saving. Please the gentleman directly. Thanks John John Keys ----- Original Message ----- From: bill57 To: Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2000 4:16 PM Subject: NEC APCIII > Hi John. Sorry that I have not been in touch for a while. > Here is a list of all the stuff I have laying around. > > NEC APCIII with monitor, keyboard, and NEC Pinwriter P7. > With this I have 4 extra printer ribbons, 1 large box of 5 > 1/2" floppys with assorted software. 1 box of manuals for > the printer, keyboard, and computer. NEC APCIII manuals, > MS-DOS Macro Assembler, GW-Basic Users Guide still in > wrappers. Gw-Basic Guide for the Software Library Expander, > MS-DOS Programers Reference Manual, MS-DOS Guide for the > Software Library Expander, MS-DOS Users Guide/GSX-86 Users > Guide, IBM DOS 2.10 Users Manual. Some software that is with > the computer is Lotus 1-2-3 release 1a, RBASE 5000, D5 > Backup version 2.4 1985 in case with manual,Chessmaster > 2100, at least 80 floppys. Other software that has never > been opened are, Lotus 1-2-3 release 2.2 Server > edition,lotus 1-2-3 release 4 Spreadsheet for DOS, Lotus > Freelance Graphics for DOS with Outliner from Symantec > Server Edition, Lotus Symphony release 3 Server edition. > Other items that I have are, 1 dead Lexmark Execjet IIc 4076 > printer, 1 Teac 5 1/2" floppy drive FD-55GFR, 1 Seagate > ST-238R hard drive, 1 Sony 2MB model#MP-F75W-11G floppy > drive, 1 286 Motherboard from Datatech, 1 Cetrum Systems > West Serial port card P/N 10322 rev.D 1985, 1 WDC 1985 > WD1003-WA2 IDE card, 1 Data Tech Co. P/N 10-00345 IDE card, > 1 Seagate ST-225 hard drive, 1 old modem card ISA 1988, 1 > Foxcomm ISA card MG-180 rev.A with 1 serial & 1 parralel > port, ! unknown card dated 1991 with 1 IDE connection & 1 > floppy drive connection with printer port, 1 Matsushita 5 > 1/2" floppy drive 1987, 1 Toshiba 5 1/2" floppy drive, 1 > Winchester drive card 1987, 1 dirty old 386 motherboard 1987 > american Megatrends, 1 Mitsumi D503 5 1/2" floppy drive, and > some other unknown cards. I also have an Irwin 120/250mb > external tape backup in original box with some tapes, 3 old > computers that are either 286 or 386's. 1 is a Cyclone that > is basically intact, and 2 Express' that are somewhat > cannibalized, 1 Sony 3 1/2" floppy drive MP-F51W-23, 1 > Trident video card ISA 1993, 1 USR modem 1989, and 3 1meg 30 > pin memory from L.A. Components, a small assortment of books > from Unisys. > > I hope this is helpful to you. I did the best that I could > to be thorough. Please let me know if you are interested in > all of this and/or what it may be worth to you. To be > totally honest with you, my wife wants me to get rid of some > of this stuff. I am not a greedy person, but I do know I > want something for it all. > > Looking forward to hearing from you, > > Bill Jungbauer > > From transit at lerctr.org Thu Jul 13 23:01:11 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: <396E1F8B.1DD90EAE@chisp.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Jul 2000, Michael Maginnis wrote: > > > "Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)" wrote: > > > > There's a little blurb about the SuperSprite and StarSprite boards over > > at http://www.hypermall.com/History/ah12.html > > > > They were very expensive (about $400), so they really didn't catch > > on with most users. Pity... > > The TMS9918A was the TI/994A graphics controller chip, IIRC. The sprite board was almost a whole TI home computer on a board, at least graphics wise. I never got to play around with one, but I did read about it in magazines...seems like it would liven up the otherwise somewhat limited Apple color graphics scheme... From frustum at pacbell.net Fri Jul 14 00:21:56 2000 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Jim Battle's SolACE: The next steps In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF46@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <4.3.0.20000713221756.00ad5f00@pacbell.net> At 01:19 PM 7/13/00 -0400, you wrote: >... >What I see you don't have is the Trek-80 manual; you have a space >for the Popular Electronics article; do you need me to scan that >for you (I do have it)? I don't have the trek-80 manual. I have the P.E. article, but so does Bob Stek, and he said he had already scanned it and was about to send it to me. >I also have the smaller document package that came with what >I initially bought, the Sol-PCB, for $40. >However, its location on the basement floor was a bad place >to be during a flood, and the individual pages are glued >together by mold or lordknows. Some carefull soaking may >allow me to separate them. > >I'll try to inventory everything tonight, and compare it >to what you've listed. > >Great work, Jim! Thanks! I'm looking forward to anything you have to share. ----- Jim Battle == frustum@pacbell.net From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 14 02:42:46 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Perkin Elmer "cartridge" In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF47@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: Perkin Elmer "cartridge", size of a paperback, but otherwise a typical looking plug in cartridge. Big red lables: Perkin-Elmer Computer Aided Chemistry Lambda 4A Operating Software Enhanced Scan C688-0200 Rev C Date 5-17-88 I thought somebody on the list might want it, so I brought it. ;) I am thinking $5 and shipping, but may just add it to my list of "things" I am working on. From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 14 03:33:37 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: SoCal VT220/420 In-Reply-To: <20000713204215.27505.qmail@web611.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Pokin through a local scrap yard (UC Irvine) I noticed a dozen or so VT220 (thinking also vt420) terminals came in, looks like just tubes, no keyboards, but I didn't look too close since I was on the run back to an auction. Next viewing day is Tuesday. Any interest? From yoda at isr.ist.utl.pt Fri Jul 14 04:24:52 2000 From: yoda at isr.ist.utl.pt (Rodrigo Ventura) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Xerox DayBreak In-Reply-To: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk's message of "Fri, 7 Jul 2000 19:04:21 +0100 (BST)" Message-ID: >>>>> "Tony" == Tony Duell writes: Tony> It's normally not too hard to modify the vertical scan rate Tony> of a monitor (at least compared with doing a similar mod to Tony> the horizontal side, which can be _very_ complex). Having a Tony> schematic of the monitor helps a lot, though. Tony> What monitor have you been using on your D'break? I've been using a PAL mono monitor that I used with ZX spectrum like machines. And modifying the scan rate was exactly what I tried to do. I had a schematic of the monitor, all transistor, and with careful twiddling of some resistors and capacitors I was able to change both sync rates (HSYNC is more dangerous since it is coupled with the fly-back converter that generates all those high voltages needed to make electrons move). Cheers, -- *** Rodrigo Martins de Matos Ventura *** Web page: http://www.isr.ist.utl.pt/~yoda *** Teaching Assistant and PhD Student at ISR: *** Instituto de Sistemas e Robotica, Polo de Lisboa *** Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, PORTUGAL *** PGP fingerprint = 0119 AD13 9EEE 264A 3F10 31D3 89B3 C6C4 60C6 4585 From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 05:40:53 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <00Jul14.114053bst.46094@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> >From what I've been reading in the last couple of months it was neither - both Steve Jobs and Gates toured Xerox PARC in the late 70s; Lisa at this point was already in development but needed a front end so the Lisa team took some of the ideas from Smalltalk running on the Xerox STAR and improved on them to develop the QuickDraw primitives found in Lisa. Gates apparently got more ideas from when Microsoft were at Apple while Apple were helping them develop software for the Mac that was being worked on at the same time. 2 of the main developers of the Mac platform were Bruce Horn and Jef Raskin, their side of things can be found here: http://www.apple-history.com/quickgallery.html?where=lisa.html Follow the link at the bottom of the screen. Makes for interesting reading IMO! > -----Original Message----- > From: David Vohs [mailto:netsurfer_x1@hotmail.com] > Sent: 08 July 2000 21:37 > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > I have another tech legend to be dicussed: > > It is generally believed that the Apple Lisa is what spurred > Bill Gates to > create Windows. But recently I have read something that says > it was *not* > the Lisa that inspired Bill Gates, but that it was VisiCorp's VisiOn > software (remember that, yeah, me neither!). So my question > is: Which one > was it? Was it Lisa or VisiOn? > ______________________________________________________________ > __________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 05:47:33 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Apple II keep list Message-ID: <00Jul14.114733bst.46099@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> I've just got a load of boards etc from the bloke who runs the Apple Retrospective website; I know there's CoPro boards/serial boards/80 column cards/drive boards etc but haven't inventoried it all yet. That's a handy list to have.... Machines in the same haul: ][+, ][ Europlus, ][c (US version with 3.5" floppy), ][gs actually signed AND dedicated by Woz, a pair of ///s, boxed RANA external floppy, external floppy ///, ICE HD unit, ProFile and more books/floppies/original software/cards than I've been able to count yet. Imagine my horror when I was hit by another car bringing it all home! It all survived though, except the keyboard on one of the ///s, but it's repairable I hope. Pix on the museum site at www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk if anyone's interested, plus some Lisa bumf since I'm not obsessed with that machine at all, oh no. :o) > -----Original Message----- > From: John R. Keys Jr. [mailto:jrkeys@concentric.net] > Sent: 09 July 2000 01:42 > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Apple II keep list > > > I have printed off your list and will carry it with me in the > van on my > hunting trips. > John Keys > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Mike Ford > To: > Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 4:26 AM > Subject: Apple II keep list > > > > Mikes generalized Apple II keep list, kindly correct me for dumb > stuff. > > > > Systems > > They have to be pretty nice looking, systems with school ID engraved > an > > inch high on the front are not desirable. > > Apple II, the orginal machine > > Apple II+, still not too common > > Not the IIe, sorry parts only, too many of them. > > IIgs, not rare, but people still actively use them more > than any other > II. > > Look for Woz editions and rom 3. > > IIc, cute and complete systems with monitor still sell for > $35 or so. > > IIc+, more powerfull than the IIc, but in some ways less collectible > (no > > idea why), still $45 for a complete system is fairly common. > > > > Drives (mostly I mean external) > > Any external hard drive, or even case. > > DuoDisk floppy drives (two drives in a box) with cable. > > Unidisk floppy drives > > White IIc drives > > 400k floppy drives > > 1.44 MB floppy drives > > > > Keyboards > > A9M0330 is the IIgs original keyboard, and VERY popular > because it is > the > > smallest mac keyboard (and its the original. > > Any mac keyboard, I even pile broken ones in a box for parts. This > comes > > from actually paying $169 for one once. > > > > Mice > > Early DB9 mice, M0100 with the black ball retaining ring is the > original. > > All the mice too. > > > > Misc > > IIc LCD display > > IIc 9" green monitor AND matching stand. > > Kensington system saver fans. > > > > Cards and other innerds > > Accelerator boards, Applied Engineering Transwarp about the most > desired. > > Fast SCSI cards, much faster, only card that supports > removable media. > > Apple Rev C SCSI cards, but much less so than Fast SCSI. > > Workstation cards > > Vulcan hard drive inside power supply > > Focus IDE drive on a card > > Anything curious > > I/O controller cards (for later floppy drives) > > Mouse cards for IIe > > > > > > > From vcf at siconic.com Fri Jul 14 05:35:25 2000 From: vcf at siconic.com (Vintage Computer Festival) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: More Links Added to the VCF Link Library! Message-ID: Over 150 links have been newly added to the VCF Link Library. The Apple and Amstrad sections have been beefed up considerably. Cool site of the night: Beagle Bros Online Museum http://www.panic.com/~stevenf/beagle The VCF Link Library is at: http://www.vintage.org/cgi-bin/links.pl Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com Fri Jul 14 06:46:50 2000 From: xds_sigma7 at hotmail.com (Will Jennings) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment Message-ID: Actually, why not use the politicians/beaurecrats as lovely cement-weighted pond ornaments? Will J ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com From pechter at pechter.dyndns.org Fri Jul 14 07:31:01 2000 From: pechter at pechter.dyndns.org (Bill Pechter) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: VAX 8600's In-Reply-To: <20000713202744.31377.qmail@brouhaha.com> from Eric Smith at "Jul 13, 2000 08:27:44 pm" Message-ID: <200007141231.IAA20211@bg-tc-ppp522.monmouth.com> > Mike wrote: > > I have a lead on a couple of VAX 8600 machines. Are these machines > > ones that people here consider worth preserving? I'm tempted but I will > > have to ship them from NC to CA, which I will do if they are worth it. > They're nice machines, but big and power-hungry. And probably much harder > to fix than a 780 or 785. The machine was partly ECL with custom gate arrays (IIRC). The 8600/8650, was in my opinion, the best VAX -- since it's fairly quick and has all the PDP11 compatibility and supports both Massbus and Unibus (and has the QBUS front end -- in a custom T11 board with RT11 and an RL02). > > It would be nice to see some of these preserved, but for my own part I'm > going to draw the line at 785s. At least those were Schottky TTL reimplementation of the 11/780 (IIRC). Rumor says it was done because the 8600/8650 was running late in design. > > Cheers, > Eric > > Bill -- bpechter@monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today? | Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow? | BSD: Are you guys coming, or what? From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 14 07:44:51 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF50@TEGNTSERVER> > From what I've been reading in the last couple of months it was neither - > both Steve Jobs and Gates toured Xerox PARC in the late 70s; Lisa at this > point was already in development but needed a front end so the Lisa team > took some of the ideas from Smalltalk running on the Xerox STAR and improved > on them to develop the QuickDraw primitives found in Lisa. Gates apparently > got more ideas from when Microsoft were at Apple while Apple were helping > them develop software for the Mac that was being worked on at the same time. I have it on good authority that Smalltalk-80 was not ported to the Star. It was running on the Alto and the Dolphin at the time, as well as another Xerox workstation whose name I can't recall. Larry Teslar was working at PARC at the time, and ended up following Jobs back to Apple, because Xerox couldn't get their asses in gear and Apple looked like it knew what it was doing (w/r/t getting new technology out the door). For those interested in what Smalltalk-80 feels like to play with, you should try Squeak, a successor developed by some of Smalltalk-80's authors, Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls, at Disney. Squeak is everything ST80 was and more. You can find info about Squeak at: http://www.create.ucsb.edu/squeak/ > 2 of the main developers of the Mac platform were Bruce Horn > and Jef Raskin, their side of things can be found here: Bruce Horn also "did time" at PARC, working on Smalltalk-80. -doug q > http://www.apple-history.com/quickgallery.html?where=lisa.html > > Follow the link at the bottom of the screen. Makes for > interesting reading > IMO! > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: David Vohs [mailto:netsurfer_x1@hotmail.com] > > Sent: 08 July 2000 21:37 > > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > > Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > > > > I have another tech legend to be dicussed: > > > > It is generally believed that the Apple Lisa is what spurred > > Bill Gates to > > create Windows. But recently I have read something that says > > it was *not* > > the Lisa that inspired Bill Gates, but that it was > VisiCorp's VisiOn > > software (remember that, yeah, me neither!). So my question > > is: Which one > > was it? Was it Lisa or VisiOn? > > ______________________________________________________________ > > __________ > > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at > http://www.hotmail.com > From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 08:05:08 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <00Jul14.140512bst.46096@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> I've seen a document that described SmallTalk and thought it still looks better than anything I've seen up to now; I think you're right about the Star though, from what I remember of the Horn/Raskin discussion. I knew Bruce Horn he was one of the SmallTalk developers though, dunno why I didn't mention it. cheers > -----Original Message----- > From: Douglas Quebbeman [mailto:dhquebbeman@theestopinalgroup.com] > Sent: 14 July 2000 13:58 > To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' > Subject: RE: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > I have it on good authority that Smalltalk-80 was not ported > to the Star. > It was running on the Alto and the Dolphin at the time, as > well as another > Xerox workstation whose name I can't recall. Larry Teslar was > working at > PARC at the time, and ended up following Jobs back to Apple, because > Xerox couldn't get their asses in gear and Apple looked like it knew > what it was doing (w/r/t getting new technology out the door). > > For those interested in what Smalltalk-80 feels like to play with, you > should try Squeak, a successor developed by some of Smalltalk-80's > authors, Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls, at Disney. Squeak is everything > ST80 was and more. > > You can find info about Squeak at: http://www.create.ucsb.edu/squeak/ From rdd at smart.net Fri Jul 14 08:25:41 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Will Jennings wrote: > Actually, why not use the politicians/beaurecrats as lovely cement-weighted > pond ornaments? There's just one thing wrong with that idea: it would be extremely cruel to the plants and creatures living in the pond. Would you want to be a plant, fish or frog and have a politician plopped into your pond? -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 08:34:24 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: While we're talking about Lisas Message-ID: <00Jul14.143425bst.46099@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> My Lisa 2 (vanilla one, 1.2A PSU) has developed a habit of turning the screen off while she's running. In fact it's now permanently off which is annoying to say the least. Some of you may have experienced this before so here are the symptoms; System working fine (at the time running MacWorks 1.0), screen goes dim as per screensaver then blinks off like I'd hit the power button. It eventually comes back on after leaving it powered down for a couple of hours. James at Sigma Seven Systems said he thought he remembered there was a serial port bug in MW1.0 that caused the screen to go off sometimes so I left it at that. I've now got myself a ProFile so I was intending on installing LisaOS 3.1, but when she was powered up for the first time since maybe mid-may the screen came on briefly then blinked off again as it did before; since then it's only come back on once for around 10 minutes. While all this is going on the machine keeps running normally. If I power up I hear the self test passing, if I've got the first OS disk in (or MacWorks boot disk) it will actually boot, if I've got a standard composite monitor connected I can see things happening so I know the machine itself is fine....... Anyone else seen this? I've got another video card and screen coming over but it won't be here till the end of august; to say I'm champing at the bit would be an understatement :) cheers! From rickb at bensene.com Fri Jul 14 08:38:38 2000 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > > On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Will Jennings wrote: > > Actually, why not use the politicians/beaurecrats as lovely > cement-weighted > > pond ornaments? > > There's just one thing wrong with that idea: it would be extremely > cruel to the plants and creatures living in the pond. Would you want > to be a plant, fish or frog and have a politician plopped into your > pond? > The only time I think this would be a truly good idea is when the pond happened to be stocked with Pirahna. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Web Museum http://www.geocities.com/oldcalculators From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 14 08:35:48 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Intel MCS-80 Cross Development Software Available Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF53@TEGNTSERVER> Ok, I have placed the Intel 8080 Macro [Cross] Assembler, the Interp-80 Simulator, and the PLM-80 Compiler in my web storage area. I've placed a tiny page at: http://members.iglou.com/dougq/8080/xmcs80.html from which you can download the source files. As these filename extensions imply, these programs are Fortran-IV (some call it Fortran 66) source code. The files are in ASCII with CR & LF line termination. The MAC80 source still includes its program sequence numbers in columns 72-80; the other files no longer have the sequence numbers; I'm not sure how that came to be, whether I never had copies with sequence numbers, or if I stripped them to make them wasier to work with on slow serial connections. They may display incorrectly in your browser unless you add a MIME filetype for .FTN files that's otherwise identical to .TXT files. For IE user, just right-click on each link on the page and select "Save target as..." and save to your favorite location. After examining them, these do not appear to have the extensions I recall adding (although there are some non-standard changes to MAC80), so they may well not have the bugfixes either. The copies I worked most closely with were the CDC6600 and DEC-10 ports. I should have those, but they're trapped on CDC 9-track tapes, and I haven't yet remembered how to use Prime's MAGNET program to read them successfully. Feel free to download the code. It's copyrighted by Intel, but I intend on asking Teresa Knezek to add them to the Abandonware list, and to contact Intel for permission to make them freely available under hobbyist license. Grab now, if I get a cease- and-desist letter, I'll have to pull them off immediately. regards, -doug quebbeman From John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com Fri Jul 14 08:53:03 2000 From: John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: MIT Rescue Note In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000301bfed9a$d58baaf0$0e0301ac@databaseamerica.com> Some things going to the MIT Electronics Flea Market this Sunday. One of the "smaller" SMD drives. A Bunch of ~1991 Informix manuals. Two Sony MP-F73W-50 FDD's A "JetFax" w/o power wart. A 'Dataprobe' Serial A-B auto switch. ???? These will be in the parkinglot in a "Free Stuff" pile. John A. From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 14 08:57:32 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:23 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF54@TEGNTSERVER> > I've seen a document that described SmallTalk and thought it still looks > better than anything I've seen up to now; I think you're right about the > Star though, from what I remember of the Horn/Raskin discussion. I knew > Bruce Horn he was one of the SmallTalk developers though, dunno why I didn't > mention it. Although I run Squeak under Windows and on a Power Mac, I still prefer running the original Xerox Smalltalk-80 VI2.2 under System 6 on a Mac. I have it on a IIci, but the IIci has a Radius Rocket in it, and the virtual machine doesn't like its 68040. I have a Mac IIfx I'll be running it on in the near future, at almost twice the speed of the IIci's '030. I'll have to run the benchmarks, but I think it runs at 0.5 Dolphin. -dq > > cheers > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Douglas Quebbeman [mailto:dhquebbeman@theestopinalgroup.com] > > Sent: 14 July 2000 13:58 > > To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' > > Subject: RE: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > > > > I have it on good authority that Smalltalk-80 was not ported > > to the Star. > > It was running on the Alto and the Dolphin at the time, as > > well as another > > Xerox workstation whose name I can't recall. Larry Teslar was > > working at > > PARC at the time, and ended up following Jobs back to Apple, because > > Xerox couldn't get their asses in gear and Apple looked like it knew > > what it was doing (w/r/t getting new technology out the door). > > > > For those interested in what Smalltalk-80 feels like to > play with, you > > should try Squeak, a successor developed by some of Smalltalk-80's > > authors, Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls, at Disney. Squeak is everything > > ST80 was and more. > > > > You can find info about Squeak at: http://www.create.ucsb.edu/squeak/ From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 14 09:07:53 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: MIT Rescue Note Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF57@TEGNTSERVER> > Some things going to the MIT Electronics > Flea Market this Sunday. > > One of the "smaller" SMD drives. Is this one of the old CDC removable-pack units? -dq From steverob at hotoffice.com Fri Jul 14 09:16:12 2000 From: steverob at hotoffice.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment Message-ID: > > There's just one thing wrong with that idea: it would be extremely > > cruel to the plants and creatures living in the pond. > Would you want > > to be a plant, fish or frog and have a politician plopped into your > > pond? > > > The only time I think this would be a truly good idea is when the > pond happened to be stocked with Pirahna. > Or... 14 feet deep :-) To keep this on topic, perhaps we should use an old mini instead of concrete. Any nominations? Steve Robertson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000714/1371b9ee/attachment.html From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 09:19:08 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question Message-ID: <00Jul14.151909bst.46094@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> Hi folks, I forgot to mention, in the crash I had last week that damaged the Apple /// etc I also had an HP Apollo 9000/600 workstation with 19" monitor. Whilst I'm assuming the front passenger airbag caught the monitor since it was unrestrained on the front seat (but the seat was pushed right up to the dash) it is now however refusing to display blue. If I remove the B plug on the RGB cable the display doesn't alter......since if I remove the green the sync goes and they're from a similar era could I substitute a spare DEC VRT21 I've got lying around here in the office? That monitor is a 60hz 1280x1024 RGB sync-on-green Trinitron. Of course, I'd like to repair the HP's monitor, but my knowledge of repairing monitors begins at the glass fuse and ends on the high voltage bit :) Oh, and anyone know why the PSU fuse in the Apple ][c is soldered in rather than being in a carrier? I blew my ][c when I forgot it was a US one.....doh.....I can solder in a replacement fuse but I just thought I'd ask if there was a reason why it was soldered....if I can get a carrier to fit I'd rather do that! cheers -- Adrian Graham MCSE/ASE/MCP C CAT Limited Gubbins: http://www.ccat.co.uk (work) (home) (80's computer collection) "Missing you already" - Mark Radcliffe From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 09:23:01 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <00Jul14.152302bst.46094@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> Dammit - I was offered a Mac IIfx last week but didn't get to it fast enough - he only wanted ukp25 for it which was fine by me. To run it on a IIci would I need to get a proper video card in order to free up some system RAM? The other Macs I've got are Plus, Classic, Classic II, Colour Classic, II, IIci, and LC2. Next week I might be getting a Performa 475 but aren't they the same machine as the LC2? > -----Original Message----- > From: Douglas Quebbeman [mailto:dhquebbeman@theestopinalgroup.com] > Sent: 14 July 2000 15:15 > To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' > Subject: RE: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > > I've seen a document that described SmallTalk and thought > it still looks > > better than anything I've seen up to now; I think you're > right about the > > Star though, from what I remember of the Horn/Raskin > discussion. I knew > > Bruce Horn he was one of the SmallTalk developers though, > dunno why I > didn't > > mention it. > > Although I run Squeak under Windows and on a Power Mac, I still prefer > running the original Xerox Smalltalk-80 VI2.2 under System 6 on a Mac. > I have it on a IIci, but the IIci has a Radius Rocket in it, and the > virtual machine doesn't like its 68040. I have a Mac IIfx > I'll be running > it on in the near future, at almost twice the speed of the > IIci's '030. > > I'll have to run the benchmarks, but I think it runs at 0.5 Dolphin. > > -dq > > > > > cheers > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Douglas Quebbeman [mailto:dhquebbeman@theestopinalgroup.com] > > > Sent: 14 July 2000 13:58 > > > To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' > > > Subject: RE: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > > > > > > > I have it on good authority that Smalltalk-80 was not ported > > > to the Star. > > > It was running on the Alto and the Dolphin at the time, as > > > well as another > > > Xerox workstation whose name I can't recall. Larry Teslar was > > > working at > > > PARC at the time, and ended up following Jobs back to > Apple, because > > > Xerox couldn't get their asses in gear and Apple looked > like it knew > > > what it was doing (w/r/t getting new technology out the door). > > > > > > For those interested in what Smalltalk-80 feels like to > > play with, you > > > should try Squeak, a successor developed by some of Smalltalk-80's > > > authors, Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls, at Disney. Squeak is everything > > > ST80 was and more. > > > > > > You can find info about Squeak at: > http://www.create.ucsb.edu/squeak/ > From John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com Fri Jul 14 09:22:22 2000 From: John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: MIT Rescue Note In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF57@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <000401bfed9e$ed557680$0e0301ac@databaseamerica.com> > Is this one of the old CDC removable-pack units? Fixed. As per a list thread on June-19. > PA5G1M-20 (8.5x10x30", 9" platters) > "97150-340 FSD-340" > Seagate (guess they bought out CDC SMD's), here: > http://www.mm.mtu.edu/drives/seagate/smd/st6344j.txt John A. From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 14 09:33:34 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF59@TEGNTSERVER> Sure.... how about an MAI/Basic Four system... or were they mainframes? -dq -----Original Message----- From: Steve Robertson [mailto:steverob@hotoffice.com] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 10:16 AM To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Subject: RE: Unresistable pond comment > > There's just one thing wrong with that idea: it would be extremely > > cruel to the plants and creatures living in the pond. > Would you want > > to be a plant, fish or frog and have a politician plopped into your > > pond? > > > The only time I think this would be a truly good idea is when the > pond happened to be stocked with Pirahna. > Or... 14 feet deep :-) To keep this on topic, perhaps we should use an old mini instead of concrete. Any nominations? Steve Robertson From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 09:42:02 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment Message-ID: <00Jul14.154202bst.46093@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> I assume you mean something like a VAX 11/730 rather than the ol' Austin Morris car of the same name? :) Actually, I would't tarnish a VAX by roping a politician to one, so how about an AS/400 instead? -----Original Message----- From: Steve Robertson [mailto:steverob@hotoffice.com] Sent: 14 July 2000 15:33 To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org Subject: RE: Unresistable pond comment > > There's just one thing wrong with that idea: it would be extremely > > cruel to the plants and creatures living in the pond. > Would you want > > to be a plant, fish or frog and have a politician plopped into your > > pond? > > > The only time I think this would be a truly good idea is when the > pond happened to be stocked with Pirahna. > Or... 14 feet deep :-) To keep this on topic, perhaps we should use an old mini instead of concrete. Any nominations? Steve Robertson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000714/cda7a1c9/attachment.html From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 14 10:05:09 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF5A@TEGNTSERVER> > Dammit - I was offered a Mac IIfx last week but didn't get to it fast enough > - he only wanted ukp25 for it which was fine by me. To run it on a IIci > would I need to get a proper video card in order to free up some system RAM? > The other Macs I've got are Plus, Classic, Classic II, Colour Classic, II, > IIci, and LC2. Next week I might be getting a Performa 475 but aren't they > the same machine as the LC2? AKAIK, yes, they are basically the same. As to requirements, I'm not sure what Squeak needs. I do also have it on the IIci, and it's happy with ther Radius Rocket. I just don't run the IIci without the rocket very often. Dangerous upgrade device, the Radius Rocket. It draws power thru the NuBus connector, and IIRC, out of the NuBus spec. They shoulda added a separate power connector... I full expect my IIci to go up in smoke some day. -dq > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Douglas Quebbeman [mailto:dhquebbeman@theestopinalgroup.com] > > Sent: 14 July 2000 15:15 > > To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' > > Subject: RE: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > > > > > I've seen a document that described SmallTalk and thought > > it still looks > > > better than anything I've seen up to now; I think you're > > right about the > > > Star though, from what I remember of the Horn/Raskin > > discussion. I knew > > > Bruce Horn he was one of the SmallTalk developers though, > > dunno why I > > didn't > > > mention it. > > > > Although I run Squeak under Windows and on a Power Mac, I > still prefer > > running the original Xerox Smalltalk-80 VI2.2 under System > 6 on a Mac. > > I have it on a IIci, but the IIci has a Radius Rocket in it, and the > > virtual machine doesn't like its 68040. I have a Mac IIfx > > I'll be running > > it on in the near future, at almost twice the speed of the > > IIci's '030. > > > > I'll have to run the benchmarks, but I think it runs at 0.5 Dolphin. > > > > -dq > > > > > > > > cheers > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: Douglas Quebbeman > [mailto:dhquebbeman@theestopinalgroup.com] > > > > Sent: 14 > July 2000 13:58 > > > > To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' > > > > Subject: RE: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > > > > > > > > > > I have it on good authority that Smalltalk-80 was not ported > > > > to the Star. > > > > It was running on the Alto and the Dolphin at the time, as > > > > well as another > > > > Xerox workstation whose name I can't recall. Larry Teslar was > > > > working at > > > > PARC at the time, and ended up following Jobs back to > > Apple, because > > > > Xerox couldn't get their asses in gear and Apple looked > > like it knew > > > > what it was doing (w/r/t getting new technology out the door). > > > > > > > > For those interested in what Smalltalk-80 feels like to > > > play with, you > > > > should try Squeak, a successor developed by some of > Smalltalk-80's > > > > authors, Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls, at Disney. Squeak is > everything > > > > ST80 was and more. > > > > > > > > You can find info about Squeak at: > > http://www.create.ucsb.edu/squeak/ > > > From cem14 at cornell.edu Fri Jul 14 10:00:31 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo-Sanchez) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question References: <00Jul14.151909bst.46094@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> Message-ID: <396F2B0F.393B0F40@cornell.edu> Hi Adrian; Somewhere in time between the higher-end series 300 and the lower-end series 400, HP switched from 60Hz to 72Hz framebuffers and fixed frequency monitors to go along with them. The 98752A (one of the heaviest suckers I have ever lifted!) and the 98789A are examples of 60Hz tubes. The A1097 and A2094 are two of the most common 72Hz monitors. If you tell me the monitor model (framebuffer model would help too) I might be able to find out more for you. carlos. Adrian Graham wrote: > > Hi folks, > > I forgot to mention, in the crash I had last week that damaged the Apple /// > etc I also had an HP Apollo 9000/600 workstation with 19" monitor. Whilst > I'm assuming the front passenger airbag caught the monitor since it was > unrestrained on the front seat (but the seat was pushed right up to the > dash) it is now however refusing to display blue. If I remove the B plug on > the RGB cable the display doesn't alter......since if I remove the green the > sync goes and they're from a similar era could I substitute a spare DEC > VRT21 I've got lying around here in the office? That monitor is a 60hz > 1280x1024 RGB sync-on-green Trinitron. > Of course, I'd like to repair the HP's monitor, but my knowledge of > repairing monitors begins at the glass fuse and ends on the high voltage bit > > cheers -- Carlos Murillo-Sanchez email: cem14@cornell.edu 428 Phillips Hall, Electrical Engineering Department Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 10:30:10 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <00Jul14.163014bst.46093@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > As to requirements, I'm not sure what Squeak needs. I do also have > it on the IIci, and it's happy with ther Radius Rocket. I just don't > run the IIci without the rocket very often. Ah - OK then! > Dangerous upgrade device, the Radius Rocket. It draws power thru > the NuBus connector, and IIRC, out of the NuBus spec. They shoulda > added a separate power connector... I full expect my IIci to go > up in smoke some day. *grin*. If I get one for the museum I'll not power it up too often then.... From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 10:35:03 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question Message-ID: <00Jul14.163505bst.46093@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> Hi Carlos, It's the A1097 I think.....it definitely begins with 'A' though and I'm fairly sure its not the 2094. And it wasn't that heavy :) thanks! > -----Original Message----- > From: Carlos Murillo-Sanchez [mailto:cem14@cornell.edu] > Sent: 14 July 2000 16:20 > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: ...and here's another - HP9000 question > > > Hi Adrian; > > Somewhere in time between the higher-end series 300 and the > lower-end series 400, HP switched from 60Hz to 72Hz framebuffers > and fixed frequency monitors to go along with them. The 98752A > (one of the heaviest suckers I have ever lifted!) > and the 98789A are examples of 60Hz tubes. The A1097 and A2094 > are two of the most common 72Hz monitors. If you tell me the > monitor model (framebuffer model would help too) I might be > able to find out more for you. > > carlos. > > Adrian Graham wrote: > > > > Hi folks, > > > > I forgot to mention, in the crash I had last week that > damaged the Apple /// > > etc I also had an HP Apollo 9000/600 workstation with 19" > monitor. Whilst > > I'm assuming the front passenger airbag caught the monitor > since it was > > unrestrained on the front seat (but the seat was pushed > right up to the > > dash) it is now however refusing to display blue. If I > remove the B plug on > > the RGB cable the display doesn't alter......since if I > remove the green the > > sync goes and they're from a similar era could I substitute > a spare DEC > > VRT21 I've got lying around here in the office? That > monitor is a 60hz > > 1280x1024 RGB sync-on-green Trinitron. > > Of course, I'd like to repair the HP's monitor, but my knowledge of > > repairing monitors begins at the glass fuse and ends on the > high voltage bit > > > > cheers > -- > Carlos Murillo-Sanchez email: cem14@cornell.edu > 428 Phillips Hall, Electrical Engineering Department > Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 > From celt at chisp.net Fri Jul 14 10:34:26 2000 From: celt at chisp.net (Michael Maginnis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards References: Message-ID: <396F3302.E6677C88@chisp.net> "Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)" wrote: > > On Thu, 13 Jul 2000, Michael Maginnis wrote: > > > > > > > "Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)" wrote: > > > > > > There's a little blurb about the SuperSprite and StarSprite boards over > > > at http://www.hypermall.com/History/ah12.html > > > > > > They were very expensive (about $400), so they really didn't catch > > > on with most users. Pity... > > > > The TMS9918A was the TI/994A graphics controller chip, IIRC. > > The sprite board was almost a whole TI home computer on a board, > at least graphics wise. I never got to play around with one, but I > did read about it in magazines...seems like it would liven up the > otherwise somewhat limited Apple color graphics scheme... Thanks for the info. It's a shame those boards never gained more than minimal acceptance. Too expensive, I suppose. The graphics (and sound for that matter) of the II series were among the worst in the industry... Mike From celt at chisp.net Fri Jul 14 10:37:55 2000 From: celt at chisp.net (Michael Maginnis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: IIGS hardware issue? help? References: <200007131955.NAA30397@calico.litterbox.com> Message-ID: <396F33D3.B93BE6AC@chisp.net> Jim Strickland wrote: > > > Anyone know what's wrong? I'm guessing 08FF is a memory address that's bad, so > > probably the logic board is toast, right? > > No idea, but you might check the apple 2 faq. Among other things it's got > error lists. http://members.xoom.com/apple_II/faqs.html > -- > Jim Strickland > jim@DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > BeOS Powered! > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- You might also ask on comp.sys.apple2 - they seem to be pretty good at solving those kind of problems... If you can stomach sorting through all the flames and piracy/anti-piracy rants, name-calling, etc. Mike From celt at chisp.net Fri Jul 14 11:24:23 2000 From: celt at chisp.net (Michael Maginnis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Question for NW Apple II users. References: Message-ID: <396F3EB7.37CD897C@chisp.net> Sellam Ismail wrote: > > On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > > > Cool stuff that everybody wants: > > Transwarp accelerator > > Vulcan hard drive > > Focus hard drive > > Fast SCSI card > > SCSI card > > Workstation localtalk card for IIe > > Add to that: > > Apple //c LCD portable display > > > Makes trading very difficult with maybe half a dozen items worth more than > > $20, and handfull of rare items difficult to put any price on, and the rest > > generally $5 or so depending on the marketplace. Add to that in finding any > > of the "good" items, most people end up with boxes of the other stuff. How > > and what do you end up trading? The only reason I cut loose of a couple of > > my SCSI cards is that they sell for $100 and I clearly had more than I > > needed. > > I collect whatever //c's I can find for cheap because I'm standardizing on > them as my VCF utility terminal of choice (for taking attendee > registration information, keeping books at the consignment table, etc). > They're nice and self-contained, only needing a display (//c+'s would be > much nicer but they're harder to come across). I have around 10 //c's and > 2 //c+'s. > > I also take whatever free //e's I get my hands on. They'll come in handy > for something someday (maybe when Hans finishes the C64 super-computer > project we can do one with Apples :) > > Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger Also add to that the ZipChip - similar to the Transwarp accelerator, but (according to some), faster. Lately, they seem to harder to find, as well. Mike From dlw at trailingedge.com Fri Jul 14 11:27:47 2000 From: dlw at trailingedge.com (David Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Apple IIgs Find! Message-ID: <396EF933.11467.80892B@localhost> I just received an Apple IIgs with some cool cards and I'm looking to see if anyone has doc or software for these. The machine is a: Apple IIgs Rom 3 (But with a Woz signed case) Apple IIgs Memory Expansion (1 meg) Transwarp GS Apple II Video Overlay Card (This was the main card I wanted!!) Applied Engineering RamKeeper Battery which seems to go to a small card attached between the PSU and slot 1. I think this keeps power to the Ram. 2 3.5" drives 2 5.25" drives Keyboard & mouse ImageWriter II Printer But no doc or software for any of it. I'm interested in anything people can tell/send me on the Video Overlay Card mainly but also the Transwarp GS and the RamKeeper. Thanks in advance. ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From jbmcb at hotmail.com Fri Jul 14 11:52:28 2000 From: jbmcb at hotmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: New Finds Part II References: Message-ID: <20000714164719.19631.qmail@hotmail.com> Went on the grand tour of the area, came up with the following: (2) DEC VT-240 Terminals. No video cable though. DEC DECMate II, doesn't seem to want to boot DEC RZ-23 Hard Drive Atari 2600 mint condition in-box IBM PC-Server 320 (List price 1996, $18,000. My price, $75 THATS depreciation.) IBM 3274 Establishment Controller Manual & OS disks Apple DuoDisk Drive Various and sundry cables Happy hunting! From agraham at ccat.co.uk Fri Jul 14 11:51:59 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Apple IIgs Find! Message-ID: <00Jul14.175204bst.46093@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > I just received an Apple IIgs with some cool cards and I'm looking Nice one.... > Battery which seems to go to a small card attached between the > PSU and slot 1. I think this keeps power to the Ram. It does - I got one with my hoard of Apple stuff but left it in the damaged car since the contacts etc had all but rotted away. Future restoration job there I think. From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Fri Jul 14 12:09:44 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: New Finds Part II Message-ID: <20000714170944.3969.qmail@web613.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jason McBrien wrote: > Went on the grand tour of the area, came up with the following: > > Apple DuoDisk Drive > Various and sundry cables If you have a DuoDisk drive, can you check for a spare DuoDisk cable? I think I have one that was modified for another use later (inconvenient pin snipped off). I keep meaning to post the molded-in part number, and now that I've opened my mouth, I guess I'll have to. -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From jimoaks at one.net Fri Jul 14 13:19:54 2000 From: jimoaks at one.net (Jim Oaks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Classic Mac Find In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I picked up a couple of macs at a Goodwill store a couple of days ago and found a connector with them that im not sure what it is and wanted to see if anyone on here might know what it is. The items I picked up were Performa 637cd Quadra 660av 15" Multiscan Monitor Modem 2 Keyboards 1 mouse and this connector has the following config at the open end it has 5 rows of very small female connectors at the other end it has 4 wires, one is a video connector, one is a keyboard/mouse and a speaker and mic connector. Can anyone tell me what this is? Also I was able to get this all for 25$ The 637cd works great but haven't been able to test the 660av since I need a special connector to get it to work with this monitor. Also if anyone has a connector to hook this monitor up to the 660av please let me know. Thanks Jim From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 14 12:50:39 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment In-Reply-To: <00Jul14.154202bst.46093@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> from "Adrian Graham" at Jul 14, 0 03:42:02 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1039 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000714/e5d149a8/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 14 12:33:19 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: from "Charles P. Hobbs" at Jul 13, 0 11:01:11 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 599 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000714/bc8ca05a/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 14 12:41:33 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Xerox DayBreak In-Reply-To: from "Rodrigo Ventura" at Jul 14, 0 10:24:52 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 2004 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000714/c4626206/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 14 12:48:47 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question In-Reply-To: <00Jul14.151909bst.46094@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> from "Adrian Graham" at Jul 14, 0 03:19:08 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1388 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000714/6c9ee3a2/attachment.ksh From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 14 13:25:27 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> > Actually, why not use the politicians/beaurecrats as lovely >> cement-weighted >> > pond ornaments? >> >> There's just one thing wrong with that idea: it would be extremely >> cruel to the plants and creatures living in the pond. Would you want >> to be a plant, fish or frog and have a politician plopped into your >> pond? >> > >The only time I think this would be a truly good idea is when the >pond happened to be stocked with Pirahna. Doesn't work, pirahna won't eat politicians, professional curtesy. From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 14 13:21:55 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Will Jennings wrote: >> Actually, why not use the politicians/beaurecrats as lovely cement-weighted >> pond ornaments? > >There's just one thing wrong with that idea: it would be extremely >cruel to the plants and creatures living in the pond. Would you want >to be a plant, fish or frog and have a politician plopped into your >pond? Put em deep enough and they quiet down pretty quick. ;) From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 14 13:52:23 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Classic Mac Find In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >Performa 637cd >Quadra 660av >15" Multiscan Monitor >Modem >2 Keyboards >1 mouse > >and this connector has the following config at the open end it has 5 rows of >very small female connectors >at the other end it has 4 wires, one is a video connector, one is a >keyboard/mouse and a speaker and mic connector. > >Can anyone tell me what this is? >Also I was able to get this all for 25$ The 637cd works great but haven't >been able to test the >660av since I need a special connector to get it to work with this monitor. >Also if anyone has a connector to hook this monitor up to the 660av please The weird thing is a HDI45 AudioVision monitor adapter. The AudioVision monitors have the matching connector and plug directly into the onboard video of the 61/71/8100 nubus powermacs, but nothing else without this adapter. The 637 and 660av should both have regular mac DB15 video ports, the 660av also has some "tv" video ports, but unless those configured to be used I think the default is the normal DB15. From transit at lerctr.org Fri Jul 14 14:06:31 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Tony Duell wrote: > > > The TMS9918A was the TI/994A graphics controller chip, IIRC. > > > > The sprite board was almost a whole TI home computer on a board, > > at least graphics wise. I never got to play around with one, but I > > Apart from the 9918 and some RAM, what else was there in the 99/4A > graphics system? The 9918 did all the sprite stuff internally IIRC. It had a sound chip (TMS9919, I think) as well as a proprietary form of memory called G-ROM (for Graphics Rom). N.B. stock TI 99/4A's had very little RAM directly accessible from the CPU (about 256 bytes!) All programs were stored in either G-ROM or the 16 K of RAM accessed via the 9918 VDP. From lgwalker at look.ca Fri Jul 14 14:30:45 2000 From: lgwalker at look.ca (Lawrence Walker) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Micom Message-ID: <396F3225.4175.2B4225@localhost> I've been a lurker and sometimes participant in classiccom for some time but other than a couple of instances (one-my own query and the other from Charley Fox, who has/had a 2001 (IIRC) ,there has been no mention of a machine contemporary with the Altair and that precedes the Apple One. While it was peddled as a word processor it was indeed an 8080 box. It has a passive backplane with 30 pin sockets and looks similiar to a PET (including the fold- up monitor to expose the inner-workings) with a separate keyboard connected by ribbon cable and in my case a Shugart m.802 8'' FDD. Unfortunately I don't have a com program for it (they were available- one was called Miconet) but I keep hoping things will pop up. It also had a language program for it-"Micom 80"- a modified MS Basic80 . I picked it up in the late 80's It came with a Qume Daisy-wheel printer whose separate power- supply weighs about 50 lbs. itself (I even have a garbage-found spare). :^) Below are time-line references for some perspective : FROM TIMELINE OF MICROCOMPUTER HISTORY................Poulsson March (75) Fred Moore and Gordon French hold the first meeting of a new microcomputer hobbyist's club in French's garage, in Menlo Park, California. 32 people meet, including Bob Albrect, Steve Dompier, Lee Felsenstein, Bob Marsh, Tom Pittman, Marty Spergel, Alan Baum, and Steven Wozniak. Bob Albrect shows off an Altair, and Steve Dompier reports on MITS, and how they had 4000 orders for the Altair. [185.110] [266.104] [301.55] [346.18] [353.200] [346.257] (April [208.67] 266.39) Stephen Dorsey, founder of Automatic Electronic Systems, sells his 25% of the company for $135,000. [615.98] Stephen Dorsey and Louis Miller found Micom Data Systems, in Canada. [615.90] July (75) Bill Gates and Paul Allen sign a licensing agreement with MITS, for their implementation of the BASIC language. [299.8] Bill Gates and Paul Allen ship 4K and 8K version of BASIC v2.0. [123] Dick Heiser opens Arrow Head Computer Company, subtitled "The Computer Store", in Los Angeles, selling assembled Altairs, boards, peripherals, and magazines. This is the first retail computer store in the USA. [266.185] [684.41] Micom Data Systems ships its first product, the Micom 2000 word processing computer. [615.99] September (75) IBM's Entry Level Systems unit unveils "Project Mercury", the IBM 5100 Portable Computer. It is a briefcase-size minicomputer with BASIC, 16KB RAM, tape storage, and built-in 5-inch screen. Price: US$9000. Weight: 55 pounds. [9] [197.xi] (Price over US$10,000 [203.10]) The first issue of Byte magazine is published. [9] [266.159] March (76) Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs finish work on a computer circuit board, that they call the Apple I computer. [46] By the end of its first year in business, Micom Data Systems ships 180 Micom 2000 computers, worth $2 million. [615.99] May (78) Stephen Dorsey signs an agreement with Philips to sell them 80% ownership of Micom Data Systems. [615.103] May (83) Philips buys out Stephen Dorsey's remaining 20% ownership of Micom Data Systems. [615.103] [615] Knights of the New Technology - The Inside Story of Canada's Computer Elite, by David Thomas, 1983. ** A whois search 3 years ago found Stephan Dorsey still active at: Voice & Data Systems is the world leader in real-time, packetized fax (TERRA FaxPAD) technology. The president of VDS is Stephen Dorsey, one of the first entrepreneurs to use integrated circuits in commercial applications. Stephen has led his two previous start-ups to $200 million in annual sales. His previous company, which was sold to Phillips NV of Holland, had 1100 employees. http://www.lisco.com/terra_globe/vdsdescrip.html The 2 companies they mention are Micom and AES (an early Canadian electronics company who also made computers) It makes me wonder whether he might have had anything to do with the Hyperion start-up since he was so integral to the Canadian electronic industry. One of their brochures(June,1981) brags about the 50 Micoms used by NASA which were their primary word/data processors, and were linked to the NASA's central mainframe. Has anyone any info on this machine ? I have a copied software manual and some brochures and Phillips Micom newsletters. ciao larry lgwalker@look.ca walkers@altavista.net bigwalk@xoommail.com From John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com Fri Jul 14 14:50:01 2000 From: John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Micom In-Reply-To: <396F3225.4175.2B4225@localhost> Message-ID: <000001bfedcc$b44b2c80$0e0301ac@databaseamerica.com> Is that the same Micom that made all the neat datacom (E.G. Statistical Multiplexers) hardware and got bought out by Black Box company? John A. From whdawson at mlynk.com Fri Jul 14 14:45:28 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: SY/LINK Network Interface, Square-D PLC Network I/F card, ISA Message-ID: <001301bfedcc$101535c0$59e3dfd0@cobweb.net> I found this type SFI-534 card in an IBM 5155 I recently bought. No software for it was on the 5155's hard drive (21mb Seagate). What is intriguing is what is on this board: MC6809P (socketed) MC6850P MC6840P MC6854P HY6264P-10 (x2) HD46504P/HD6844P AM2130-12PC (socketed) 27264-25 EPROM (socketed) DB9M and DB9F The board is switch selectable to be addressed anywhere from CA000-CA3FF through D3000-D33FF. It looks like it can be a lot of fun to play with if I can find any information (I.E. Schematics, etc.). From what I've found out so far, this board uses RS-422 for communication. All the receivers/drivers and protection circuitry is under the metal cover. Anyone know anything about this board? There's one very similar to it on eBay now: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=381126929 ,with photo. I put a $0.01 bid on it just so I can easily track the action, so if anyone else wants one of these boards, feel free to bid on it also. I have no desire, yet, to own another one. Bill ************************************************************** Bill Dawson <- Anti-spam protection ? Your computer will do far more than you ever expected it to, and that won't be enough. Pournelle's First Law From transit at lerctr.org Fri Jul 14 14:59:33 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) wrote: > On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > Apart from the 9918 and some RAM, what else was there in the 99/4A > > graphics system? The 9918 did all the sprite stuff internally IIRC. > > It had a sound chip (TMS9919, I think) as well as a proprietary form > of memory called G-ROM (for Graphics Rom). > Actually, I think the sound chip (at least in machines for the N. American market) was a SN76489 ... From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 14 14:12:34 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: <396F3302.E6677C88@chisp.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Michael Maginnis wrote: > Thanks for the info. It's a shame those boards never gained more than > minimal acceptance. Too expensive, I suppose. The graphics (and sound > for that matter) of the II series were among the worst in the > industry... The fun was in making it do what it was never equipped to. Two-voice sound generation with the ability to control timber was made possible through some clever programming. And while the graphics could not rival the other machines of the day equipped with specialized graphics chips, some pretty damn good games were still developed on it. Apple ][ users were challenged from the get go by choosing the Apple ][ as their machine of choice, which is why we make better programmers today ;) Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 14 15:18:32 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Micom Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF62@TEGNTSERVER> > Has anyone any info on this machine ? I have a copied software > manual and some brochures and Phillips Micom newsletters. > Yikes, sounds like something I gutted a few years back. I kept some pieces, most notably the 8-inch Tandon floppies and the daisywheel printer. Gave one Tandon away. It was 8080a based, IIRC. Have never tried the printer, strangely enough. Could be what I had was somrthing else, tho... -dq From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 14 14:22:46 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Tony Duell wrote: > > Oh, and anyone know why the PSU fuse in the Apple ][c is soldered in rather > > than being in a carrier? I blew my ][c when I forgot it was a US > > one.....doh.....I can solder in a replacement fuse but I just thought I'd > > ask if there was a reason why it was soldered....if I can get a carrier to > > fit I'd rather do that! > > Normally when a fuse blows there are other faults -- fuses do not blow > for no good reason. So when the fuse blows you're going to need a > soldering iron anyway to put the other problem right. Unless you happened to plug a 120v PS into a 220 supply, being the case here, in which case you can leave the soldering iron in the tool cupboard and look for your misplaced brain cells ;) Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 14 15:32:14 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: VAX 8600's In-Reply-To: <200007141231.IAA20211@bg-tc-ppp522.monmouth.com> (message from Bill Pechter on Fri, 14 Jul 2000 08:31:01 -0400 (EDT)) References: <200007141231.IAA20211@bg-tc-ppp522.monmouth.com> Message-ID: <20000714203214.10219.qmail@brouhaha.com> I wrote: > It would be nice to see some of these preserved, but for my own part I'm > going to draw the line at 785s. Bill wrote: > At least those were Schottky TTL reimplementation of the 11/780 (IIRC). > Rumor says it was done because the 8600/8650 was running late in design. One of the things I like about the 785 is that the entire control store (8 Kwords of 99 bits) is WCS (RAM). On the 780 the main control store was PROM, although there was 1 or 2 Kwords of WCS for diagnostics, and an optional 1 or 2 Kwords for user WCS or G format floating point. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 14 15:34:13 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF50@TEGNTSERVER> (message from Douglas Quebbeman on Fri, 14 Jul 2000 08:44:51 -0400) References: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF50@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <20000714203413.10287.qmail@brouhaha.com> Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > I have it on good authority that Smalltalk-80 was not ported to the Star. I have it on good authority that there *was* a port. However, it was probably done by ParcPlace rather than PARC. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 14 15:41:15 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF54@TEGNTSERVER> (message from Douglas Quebbeman on Fri, 14 Jul 2000 09:57:32 -0400) References: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF54@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <20000714204115.10555.qmail@brouhaha.com> Douglas Quebbeman [mailto:dhquebbeman@theestopinalgroup.com] wrote: > Although I run Squeak under Windows and on a Power Mac, I still prefer > running the original Xerox Smalltalk-80 VI2.2 under System 6 on a Mac. > I have it on a IIci, but the IIci has a Radius Rocket in it, and the > virtual machine doesn't like its 68040. I have a Mac IIfx I'll be running > it on in the near future, at almost twice the speed of the IIci's '030. I've been trying to find anyone who might have the early Xerox release images that were provided to their licensees, Apple, HP, Tektronix, etc., as described in _Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice_. I've asked several people who worked on it at PARC, and the responses I get are mostly "use Squeak instead". They don't seem to understand that someone might have a historical interest in the early released images. The Apple version for the Macintosh is reportedly not very much different from the Xerox image, though without seeing the latter I obviously can't confirm that. I'd also like to get the Lisa version. It either ran on the bare metal or on Monitor, I'm not sure which. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 14 15:44:52 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question In-Reply-To: <00Jul14.151909bst.46094@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> (message from Adrian Graham on Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:19:08 +0100) References: <00Jul14.151909bst.46094@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> Message-ID: <20000714204452.10644.qmail@brouhaha.com> Adrian Graham wrote: > Oh, and anyone know why the PSU fuse in the Apple ][c is soldered in rather > than being in a carrier? If the power supply is anything like the one in the Apple ][, the theory is that the most common class of faults (shorted outputs) will cause the power supply to shut down, delay, and restart (repeatedly if the fault is not cleared), so it doesn't blow the fuse. The fuse is required for safety but not expected to blow under any reasonably expected conditions, so it was not judged to need to be user-replaceable. In my experience other components of the Apple ][ power suppy are much more likely to fail than the fuse, but on the other hand I never plugged a 120V A][ into 240V mains. Too bad they didn't do autoranging back then. :-( From dlw at trailingedge.com Fri Jul 14 15:50:26 2000 From: dlw at trailingedge.com (David Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: RamKeeper fires? Message-ID: <396F36C2.15705.1710C03@localhost> Asking for info on the cards in my new IIgs, I'm getting stories that the Applied Engineering RAMKeeper was reportedly the cause of a couple of houses burning down. Anyone have anything on this or is it just another UL? I hadn't planned on really using the card and someone wants to trade me for it but maybe I should hold on to it just for the "history". :-) ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jul 14 15:51:28 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Apple II sprite boards In-Reply-To: <396F3302.E6677C88@chisp.net> (message from Michael Maginnis on Fri, 14 Jul 2000 09:34:26 -0600) References: <396F3302.E6677C88@chisp.net> Message-ID: <20000714205128.10871.qmail@brouhaha.com> Mike wrote: > Thanks for the info. It's a shame those boards never gained more than > minimal acceptance. Too expensive, I suppose. The graphics (and sound > for that matter) of the II series were among the worst in the > industry... They were the *best* in the industry for the price. (In 1977.) If they hadn't kept selling so darn well on their own (despite several attempts by Apple to kill them in the early 80s), Apple might have been forced to design better video into later models. The //e double-hires mode was too little too late. I used to have a neat product from Video Associate Labs (in Texas) called a VB3 Microkeyer. It was a pair of large boards, one of which plugged into an Apple ][ slot, and the other of which sat over the power supply. You had to remove about a dozen chips from the Apple ][ logic board, and run DIP jumper cables between the vacated sockets and corresponding sockets on the VB3 boards. It was a combination genlock, proc amp, and keyer. Unlike many of the later inexpensive genlocks, this one was engineered to produce high-quality output that was fully suitable for broadcast use. It also added a new hires mode in which the memory map was linear, rather than the strange interleave of the normal Apple video modes. From foxvideo at wincom.net Fri Jul 14 15:52:02 2000 From: foxvideo at wincom.net (Charles E. Fox) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Classic Mac Find In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.0.20000714164247.00a96950@mail.wincom.net> At 02:19 PM 7/14/2000 -0400, you wrote: >Also I was able to get this all for 25$ The 637cd works great but haven't >been able to test the >660av since I need a special connector to get it to work with this monitor. >Also if anyone has a connector to hook this monitor up to the 660av please >let me know. > >Thanks > >Jim I recently bought a " Mac/VGA Adapter block DB15M to HDDB15F w/dipswitch" ( Belkin F3H1381) from Onvia.com. It is supposed to work with a wide variety of Macs. Regards Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Chas E. Fox Video Productions 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada email foxvideo@wincom.net Check out "The Old Walkerville Virtual Museum" at http://www.skyboom.com/foxvideo and Camcorder Kindergarten at http://www.chasfoxvideo.com From SUPRDAVE at aol.com Fri Jul 14 15:51:27 2000 From: SUPRDAVE at aol.com (SUPRDAVE@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Classic Mac Find Message-ID: <200007142052.PAA72542@opal.tseinc.com> In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 2:35:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Jim Oaks" writes: << I picked up a couple of macs at a Goodwill store a couple of days ago and found a connector with them that im not sure what it is and wanted to see if anyone on here might know what it is. The items I picked up were Performa 637cd Quadra 660av 15" Multiscan Monitor Modem 2 Keyboards 1 mouse and this connector has the following config at the open end it has 5 rows of very small female connectors at the other end it has 4 wires, one is a video connector, one is a keyboard/mouse and a speaker and mic connector. Can anyone tell me what this is? Also I was able to get this all for 25$ The 637cd works great but haven't been able to test the 660av since I need a special connector to get it to work with this monitor. Also if anyone has a connector to hook this monitor up to the 660av please let me know. Thanks Jim >> that 660av is a nice machine! I got one for $25 in a 24/1G configuration and got the matching applevision display with it. There is a special adaptor that connected the applevision and 660av together because the applevision display has speakers, mic and ADB plugs on it. IIRC on mine, it was a funny shaped box and a thick cable which plugged into it. thankfully the 660av has a standard macII series video connection so any of the mac monitors of that time will still work with it. From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 14 16:10:01 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF63@TEGNTSERVER> > Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > I have it on good authority that Smalltalk-80 was not ported to the Star. > > I have it on good authority that there *was* a port. However, it was > probably done by ParcPlace rather than PARC. That would, at least, place the visit into late 86/early 87, years after the *two* vists of Apple personnel to PARC, and at the end of the Star's lifecycle as a product. The definitive story of the development of the Lisa GUI can be read at: http://home.san.rr.com/deans/lisagui.html As the final design jelled, the designers did make comparisons between what they'd come up with and the Star interface. IIRC, property sheets were one of the big Star features that had a direct analogue in the Lisa GUI. BTW, the Green Book remains the best source for info on the various implementations of Smalltalk (I have 3 of the four books original projected for publication, Blue, Orange, and Green; the book on Creating a User Interface that would have documented using MVC (Model - View - Controller paradigm) was never finished. Later, the Blue Book was discontinued and replaced with a Purple Book which omitted details on how to implement the Smalltalk Virtual Machine. regards, -doug quebbeman From rdd at smart.net Fri Jul 14 16:15:40 2000 From: rdd at smart.net (R. D. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Mike Ford wrote: > >On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Will Jennings wrote: > >> Actually, why not use the politicians/beaurecrats as lovely cement-weighted > >> pond ornaments? > > > >There's just one thing wrong with that idea: it would be extremely > >cruel to the plants and creatures living in the pond. Would you want > >to be a plant, fish or frog and have a politician plopped into your > >pond? > > Put em deep enough and they quiet down pretty quick. ;) Hmmm... good point. :-) Alas, that would still pollute the pond; you know, that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "pond scum." Ok, so, now we have another idea for a good use for our vintage computers: simulating the amount of damage to a pond based upon it's capacity and the number of money stealing control-freaks polluting it. Another idea: calculating the number of feathers and gallons of tar it would take to properly clothe all of the politicians in the world. We could then use that calculation, run on a PDP-11/70 in FORTRAN. as a benchmark to rate our systems by, the CTFP benchmark. -- R. D. Davis rdd@perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900 From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Fri Jul 14 16:24:32 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF64@TEGNTSERVER> > I've been trying to find anyone who might have the early Xerox release > images that were provided to their licensees, Apple, HP, Tektronix, etc., > as described in _Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice_. Ok. I have two versions of Apple's Virtual Image 1 release; these are the second and third ones Apple did. I'll have to check Kurt Scmucker's book tonight; the first release I knew of was the Macintosh XL version (not quite a Lisa anymore). IIRC, the second release was to support the Mac 512k (where I enter the picture, having owned the Blue Book for a year and not believing I could acquire ST80 for US$50.00!!!). The second release was to support the Mac Plus' 1MB of RAM. There was a third internal release which replaced the MVC-based GUI with the standard Mac GUI, all done with a Smalltalk version of MacApp. Xerox then takes all the feedback from the Virtual Image 1 testers and creates Virtual Image 2. There are updates, I think VI2.2 is actually what gets shipped. Two versions are marketed for the Mac, 'DE' which is for the Mac and Mac Plus, and another, can't recall the designation, which is marketed for the Mac II (68020 code). I have Smalltalk-80 VI2.2 DE, in vanilla and heavily enhanced form. I do not have any docs that accompanied the product. This period lasts about two years, then the product line off as ParcPlace Systems. The first product they ship is Virtual Image 2.5, which has Peter Deutsch's J-I-T compiler and virtual machine. Very fast. Things get boring after VI2.5, as PPS quits chasing technology and starts chasing dollars. > I've asked several people who worked on it at PARC, and the responses > I get are mostly "use Squeak instead". They don't seem to understand > that someone might have a historical interest in the early released > images. > The Apple version for the Macintosh is reportedly not very much > different from the Xerox image, though without seeing the latter I > obviously can't confirm that. AFAIK, APple never produces a VI2-based system. Kent Beck or Larry Teslar could perhaps answer that more accurately. Another person to ask might be Sam Adams, at UIUC (he used to have a Smalltalk firm in Triangle Park). > I'd also like to get the Lisa version. It either ran on the bare > metal or on Monitor, I'm not sure which. The original disks for the two Apple releases I had are acting as growth medium for something green, having spent time under water. :-( I may have archived the disk images before that happened; I most definitely did manage to archive the ST80 VI2.2 DE disks. Eric, if you're up late mailing, send any queries to me at dougq@iglou.com Take note of the confusing 'G's and 'Q's in that address. regards, -doug q From dpeschel at eskimo.com Fri Jul 14 16:57:34 2000 From: dpeschel at eskimo.com (Derek Peschel) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:24 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF63@TEGNTSERVER> from "Douglas Quebbeman" at Jul 14, 2000 05:10:01 PM Message-ID: <200007142157.OAA14616@eskimo.com> Doug Quebbeman wrote: > various implementations of Smalltalk (I have 3 of the four > books original projected for publication, Blue, Orange, and > Green; the book on Creating a User Interface that would have > documented using MVC (Model - View - Controller paradigm) > was never finished. Later, the Blue Book was discontinued and > replaced with a Purple Book which omitted details on how to > implement the Smalltalk Virtual Machine. I have always wondered what was going to go in that fourth book. Are you saying that the project was started? (I assumed it was never started.) Do you know any more details? The two-volume _Inside Smalltalk_ set is a decent substitute for the missing book, but the code and the page layout are not up to Xerox' high standards. The text is well-written in some ways but badly written in others. The parts that were cut out of the Blue Book to make the Purple Book are available online at http://users.ipa.net/~dwighth/smalltalk/bluebook/bluebook_imp_toc.html P.S. If anyone has an extra copy of Inside Smalltalk, volume II, I'm looking for it. I already found a brand-new copy of volume I (it may be a first edition, first printing) at Powell's Technical Books in Portland. They may still have some. -- Derek From hofmanwb at worldonline.nl Fri Jul 14 13:57:16 2000 From: hofmanwb at worldonline.nl (W.B.(Wim) Hofman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 Message-ID: <20000714220654.9846236CB2@rhea.worldonline.nl> IBM blew it as far as mini's concerned. The IBM 1800 was fun to work with. System 7 software initially had to be developped on a mainframe and was not compatible. System 1 was sold via higher management. So no (mini)computers for the masses. Wim ---------- > From: Eric Smith > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: IBM System/1 > Date: Monday, July 10, 2000 5:35 PM > > > What is an IBM system/1 ? > > A minicomputer. In some sense an incompatible followon to the > IBM 1130 & 1800. > > Please save the docs! If noone who actually has a System/1 needs them, > I'd like to have them, and would be happy to pay postage. > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 14 16:51:59 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question In-Reply-To: from "Sellam Ismail" at Jul 14, 0 12:22:46 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 714 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000714/316e3d80/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 14 16:59:19 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF63@TEGNTSERVER> from "Douglas Quebbeman" at Jul 14, 0 05:10:01 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 881 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000714/27007ce1/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 14 17:02:53 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question In-Reply-To: <20000714204452.10644.qmail@brouhaha.com> from "Eric Smith" at Jul 14, 0 08:44:52 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1085 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000714/288d4147/attachment.ksh From aw288 at osfn.org Fri Jul 14 17:18:31 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: <20000714220654.9846236CB2@rhea.worldonline.nl> Message-ID: > IBM blew it as far as mini's concerned. The IBM 1800 was fun to work with. > System 7 software initially had to be developped on a mainframe and was not > compatible. System 1 was sold via higher management. So no (mini)computers > for the masses. Well, I think they had a good score with the AS/400. Its been the king of minis for some time now, bypassing even the mighty PDP-11 in numbers. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From louiss at gate.net Fri Jul 14 18:22:54 2000 From: louiss at gate.net (Louis Schulman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: While we're talking about Lisas In-Reply-To: <00Jul14.143425bst.46099@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> Message-ID: <200007142322.TAA40994@flathead.gate.net> This definitely sounds like a video card problem. Most often, the adjusting pots at the top of the card become oxidized, and provide intermittent or no performance. Thus, you might try the standard procedure of applying some tuner/channel selector cleaner, and twisting the pots back and forth, remembering their original position. Some adjustment will likely be necessary. Of course, I could be wrong. But it is worth a try. Louis On Fri, 14 Jul 2000 14:34:24 +0100, Adrian Graham wrote: >My Lisa 2 (vanilla one, 1.2A PSU) has developed a habit of turning the >screen off while she's running. In fact it's now permanently off which is >annoying to say the least. Some of you may have experienced this before so >here are the symptoms; > >System working fine (at the time running MacWorks 1.0), screen goes dim as >per screensaver then blinks off like I'd hit the power button. It eventually >comes back on after leaving it powered down for a couple of hours. James at >Sigma Seven Systems said he thought he remembered there was a serial port >bug in MW1.0 that caused the screen to go off sometimes so I left it at >that. >I've now got myself a ProFile so I was intending on installing LisaOS 3.1, >but when she was powered up for the first time since maybe mid-may the >screen came on briefly then blinked off again as it did before; since then >it's only come back on once for around 10 minutes. >While all this is going on the machine keeps running normally. If I power up >I hear the self test passing, if I've got the first OS disk in (or MacWorks >boot disk) it will actually boot, if I've got a standard composite monitor >connected I can see things happening so I know the machine itself is >fine....... > >Anyone else seen this? I've got another video card and screen coming over >but it won't be here till the end of august; to say I'm champing at the bit >would be an understatement :) > >cheers! > From Glenatacme at aol.com Fri Jul 14 21:46:32 2000 From: Glenatacme at aol.com (Glenatacme@aol.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment Message-ID: > > I assume you mean something like a VAX 11/730 rather than the ol' Austin > > And what's wrong with an 11/730? It's a nice little machine... > > > Morris car of the same name? :) Actually, I would't tarnish a VAX by > roping > > a politician to one, so how about an AS/400 instead? > > Err, what about using a no-name Pentium PC clone?? Not heavy enough to hold one of those gasbags down. Glen 0/0 From jpero at sympatico.ca Fri Jul 14 18:04:27 2000 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero@sympatico.ca) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20000715030132.JXUW5823.tomts6-srv.bellnexxia.net@pii350> > Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 22:46:32 -0400 (EDT) > From: Glenatacme@aol.com > Subject: Re: Unresistable pond comment > To: classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Reply-to: classiccmp@classiccmp.org ing > > > a politician to one, so how about an AS/400 instead? > > > > Err, what about using a no-name Pentium PC clone?? > > Not heavy enough to hold one of those gasbags down. Remember to prick one first. :-) Wizard > > Glen > 0/0 > > From lgwalker at look.ca Fri Jul 14 21:12:44 2000 From: lgwalker at look.ca (Lawrence Walker) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Micom In-Reply-To: <000001bfedcc$b44b2c80$0e0301ac@databaseamerica.com> References: <396F3225.4175.2B4225@localhost> Message-ID: <396F905C.28437.19B596D@localhost> On 14 Jul 2000, at 15:50, John Allain wrote: > > Is that the same Micom that made all the > neat datacom (E.G. Statistical Multiplexers) > hardware and got bought out by Black Box > company? > > John A. > Not to my knowledge. After Philips bought them out they continued marketing them well into the mid-80s. Can't figure out how Philips could have let the name get away from them tho. ciao larry – –G«þZ(“÷Á©dz»ÿj[Z¾+-kùÞµ¸ Á©dÿ(šf¢—÷( From mrbill at mrbill.net Fri Jul 14 22:16:58 2000 From: mrbill at mrbill.net (Bill Bradford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: VAX 6000 power requirements? Message-ID: <20000714221657.A9744@mrbill.net> Anybody know what the power requirements for a VAX 6000 are? I've got one (in a single cabinet) coming to me in a few days.. bill -- +-------------------\ /-----------------+ | Bill Bradford | www.sunhelp.org | | mrbill@mrbill.net | www.decvax.org | | Austin, Texas USA | www.pdp11.org | +-------------------/ \-----------------+ From mikeford at socal.rr.com Fri Jul 14 23:57:17 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: I love auction junk lots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Nice auction the other day, only slightly making up for my trip to San Jose getting dumped ("maybe" about 8/2 I try again). Crazy people paying too much for old PCs etc etc., but right in the middle was a lot of mixed junk. I love mixed boxes of junk, got the bid for $20. Naturally the goodie I wanted near the top wasn't what I thought (Radio Shack regular power strip vs the active controlled strip), but the box was very good. Maybe 30 10bt ISA cards, 3 or 4 10/100, and 3 or 4 PCI. A layer of external and internal 14.4k modems, half a dozen 28.8k externals, cables cables cables, then in the very bottom a Exabyte 8505 XLE. No idea if it works, but looks nice. From mikeford at socal.rr.com Sat Jul 15 00:26:59 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: References: <20000714220654.9846236CB2@rhea.worldonline.nl> Message-ID: >Well, I think they had a good score with the AS/400. Its been the king of >minis for some time now, bypassing even the mighty PDP-11 in numbers. I am not knowledgable, but never let that impede making comments, so isn't the success of the AS/400 more at the expense of mainframe sales and former mainframe applications? From mikeford at socal.rr.com Sat Jul 15 00:20:36 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Refusing In-Reply-To: References: <20000714204452.10644.qmail@brouhaha.com> from "Eric Smith" at Jul 14, 0 08:44:52 pm Message-ID: >I've never worked out what fault would blow the fuse and not do other >internal damage to the PSU. Maybe an overvoltage surge (or plugging it My guess is that about 90% of the time fuses go poof, and putting a new one in makes the world fine again. The great factor here is how conservatively the designer specs the fuse, plus of course what happens to blow it. From foo at siconic.com Fri Jul 14 23:35:41 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: An amazing emulator Message-ID: I find this hard to believe, but apparently this one emulator can emulate a bunch of different machines: M.E.S.S.: Multi Emulator Super System http://mess.emuverse.com/ According to the website it can emulate the following: Acorn Atom AdventureVision Amiga (NTSC) Amstrad CPC (464, 664, 6128) Apple I Apple II (6 varieties) Atari 400 Atari 5200 Atari 7800 Atari 800 Bally Astrocade EACA Colour Genie 2000 Coco 3 Colecovision Color Computer Commodore 16 Commodore 64 Commodore 64gs Commodore 65 Commodore 128 Commodore 2000 Commodore 3000 Commodore 4000 Commodore 8000 Commodore B Series Commodore Max Commodore Plus/4 Commodore Vic 20 CP400 CPS Changer Dragon 32 Enterprise 128K IBM PC/XT Inves Spectrum 48K+ Jupiter Ace Kaypro 2x KC Compact KC85/4 KIM-1 Laser (110, 200, 210, 310, 350, 500, 700, TX8000) Macintosh Plus Memotech MTX512 MicroBee MSX Nintendo Entertainment System Nintendo Gameboy Oric 1/Oric Atmos PC Engine PDP/1 (SpaceWar!) Philips P2090T/M Sam Coupe Sega Game Gear Sega Master System Sega Megadrive/Genesis Spectrum Plus 2 Spectrum Plus 3 Spectrum Plus 4 TI99/4A Home Computer Tandy 1000TX Tandy MC-10 Timex Computer 2048 Timex Sinclair 2068 TK90x Color Computer TRS-80 Model 1 Vectrex VZ200/VZ300 ZX Spectrum 48K ZX80/81 Haven't downloaded it yet but I plan to once I'm done indexing all the vintage computer sites on the net :) 938 links and growing at the VCF Link Library http://www.vintage.org/cgi-bin/links.pl Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From foo at siconic.com Sat Jul 15 00:12:00 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Apple ][ on the Psion Series 5! Message-ID: I will die a happy man: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/8089/psiapple.html An Apple ][ emulator for the Psion Series 5. Hella sweet. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From foo at siconic.com Sat Jul 15 00:30:12 2000 From: foo at siconic.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: More Apple Emulator Shenanigans Message-ID: Applelet: Apple ][ Java Emulator Applet! http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/8089/Applelet.html Will the coolness never cease? Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1 San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California See http://www.vintage.org for details! From vonhagen at vonhagen.org Sat Jul 15 01:42:32 2000 From: vonhagen at vonhagen.org (William von Hagen) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: TI MicroExplorer Help/Info/Folklore Wanted In-Reply-To: References: <20000714220654.9846236CB2@rhea.worldonline.nl> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20000715023801.01d68950@mail.vonhagen.org> To complement my lovely new Symbolics/MacIvory system, I recently picked up a TI MicroExplorer board set. I didn't even know that TI made these! I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has software, docs, or even just reminiscences about this board. I have several "real" Exploders running, but would love to reduce the BTUs coming from my computer collection by being able to run a MicroExploder. Also, as always, I'd love to hear from anyone with docs, software, or memories of any other Lisp Machine. (Tony, please spare me a discussion of whether a MicroExploder board counts as a LispM ;-) Thanks, Bill From vonhagen at vonhagen.org Sat Jul 15 01:45:55 2000 From: vonhagen at vonhagen.org (William von Hagen) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: WCW Hardware/Docs Wanted Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20000715024236.01d64e80@mail.vonhagen.org> After begging for help with my new MicroExploder, it occurred to me that it's been a while since I begged the group and the universe in general for any White Chapel Workstation or Hitech hardware, docs, marketing literature. if you have any WCW hardware, docs, etc. that you're willing to part with, please let me know. I'll pay something plus all shipping charges. It doesn't matter what country you're in! "Will work for obscure computers" Bill From geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au Sat Jul 15 03:17:12 2000 From: geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au (Geoff Roberts) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: VAX 6000 power requirements? References: <20000714221657.A9744@mrbill.net> Message-ID: <000701bfee35$15fc5900$0100a8c0@helpdesk> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Bradford" To: Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2000 12:46 PM Subject: VAX 6000 power requirements? > Anybody know what the power requirements for a VAX 6000 are? I've got > one (in a single cabinet) coming to me in a few days.. In it's original form, it is 3 phase, however, it only requires around 500w or so. This will vary depending on the no of cpu's (up to 6 depending on VMS Version) I have a personal 6000-430 and I use a 6000-440 at work. and the ram (up to 512mb) and the no/type of adapters fitted to it. It is convertible to single phase fairly easily, (at least for 240v) and seems reliable in that format. We have a couple here, one has been running in this form for nearly 3 continuous years without a hitch, so it is a viable conversion. If you have 3 phase, just hook it up and go. It needs a VT term for a console. If you are so inclined and have a KDB50 SDI controller fitted, 2 RA9x drives will fit neatly into the bottom shelf of the system unit, feed them power from the mains distribution box and you have a very nice self contained machine. It would also be possible to use just about any small (physically) drive requiring 5/12 v power as the supplies in the machine are truly awesome in capacity. (If you had a scsi controller, you could fit/power a couple dozen conventional size drives in there easily.) Be aware this box weighs on the order of 350kg. Drives etc are extra and are not normally mounted internally. If it was in a cluster, you may have a problem, as it probably doesn't have a disk controller. These vaxen can be fitted with SCSI, DSSI SDI/STI controllers, but in a cluster most only have a CI bus adapter to speak to a Heirarchical Storage Controller. These are file cabinet size and consume roughly the same amount of power as the Vax itself, with blue semi rigid cables (2 sets of TX / RX channels) from the HSC to a Star Coupler (sort of passive hub - and no, you can't do without it) and from the Star Coupler to the Vax. The HSC's run an O/S of their own, (they are essentially a PDP11) called CRONIC, and boot from a TU58 tape (HSC50) or a 5.25" FDD (HSC70) I've played with these vaxen more than any other, as they are not too expensive to run on a regular basis, and don't have enormous cooling requirements. (Also typically overspeced in various areas, the work machine suffered a long weekend where the airconditioner died Thursday night (in mid summer.) Temp in the room the Monday was ~45c. It was still purring happily, the 2 week old $20k Netware server was not.) Cheers Geoff Roberts Computer Systems Manager Saint Mark's College Port Pirie, South Australia geoffrob@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au From CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com Sat Jul 15 05:41:13 2000 From: CLASSICCMP at trailing-edge.com (CLASSICCMP@trailing-edge.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: S-100/IEEE-696 standard now online Message-ID: <000715064113.202001c7@trailing-edge.com> I had scanned this some time ago and never got around to making it available until this morning: http://s-100.trailing-edge.com/ has all 25 pages of the IEEE 696.1/D2 draft standard. Tim. From transit at lerctr.org Sat Jul 15 08:35:53 2000 From: transit at lerctr.org (Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip)) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: An amazing emulator In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote: > > I find this hard to believe, but apparently this one emulator can emulate > a bunch of different machines: > > M.E.S.S.: Multi Emulator Super System > http://mess.emuverse.com/ > > According to the website it can emulate the following: [...] long list of systems snipped. I run M.E.S.S sometimes. Some of the emulations are much better than others. The TI and CoCo seem especially good. The Apple emulation is ok, except I can't seem to get it to work in color. I like ApplePC better. The Commodore emulations (VIC, C64, etc.) tend to have little problems (sound a bit off, etc), that will eventually get fixed. Again, there are other emulators out there. From rigdonj at intellistar.net Sat Jul 15 10:49:11 2000 From: rigdonj at intellistar.net (Joe) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: TI MicroExplorer Help/Info/Folklore Wanted In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20000715023801.01d68950@mail.vonhagen.org> References: <20000714220654.9846236CB2@rhea.worldonline.nl> Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.20000715104911.4b376da0@mailhost.intellistar.net> Bill, Is that the TI system that has a bunch of modules that plug together? If so, I have the software book that goes with it. The name of it is "Software Design for MicroProcessors" by TI. I also have the brochure for the system along with the packing slip and misc papers from when someone ordered the book (only) from TI. Modules for the system were: LCM-1001 Microprogrammer Module, LCM-1002 Controller Module, LCM-1003 Memory Module and LCM-1004 Input/Output Module. There were also manuals for each module but I don't have them. Joe At 02:42 AM 7/15/00 -0400, you wrote: >To complement my lovely new Symbolics/MacIvory system, I recently picked up >a TI MicroExplorer board set. I didn't even know that TI made these! I'd >appreciate hearing from anyone who has software, docs, or even just >reminiscences about this board. I have several "real" Exploders running, >but would love to reduce the BTUs coming from my computer collection by >being able to run a MicroExploder. > >Also, as always, I'd love to hear from anyone with docs, software, or >memories of any other Lisp Machine. (Tony, please spare me a discussion of >whether a MicroExploder board counts as a LispM ;-) > >Thanks, > > Bill > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jul 15 12:45:02 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: WCW Hardware/Docs Wanted In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20000715024236.01d64e80@mail.vonhagen.org> from "William von Hagen" at Jul 15, 0 02:45:55 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 3266 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000715/aea3efcd/attachment.ksh From vonhagen at vonhagen.org Sat Jul 15 14:10:15 2000 From: vonhagen at vonhagen.org (William von Hagen) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: TI MicroExplorer Help/Info/Folklore Wanted In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.20000715104911.4b376da0@mailhost.intellistar.net> References: <4.3.2.7.2.20000715023801.01d68950@mail.vonhagen.org> <20000714220654.9846236CB2@rhea.worldonline.nl> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20000715150830.01c8b9e0@mail.vonhagen.org> Unfortunately not. The MicroExplorer board is a TI Explorer LISP machine on a board, which presumably plugs into a Mac II NuBus motherboard ala the Symbolics MacIvory. Thanks for the offer - BTW, I still owe you some stuff which I swear I'll be sending soon. Bill At 10:49 AM 7/15/00 -0500, Joe wrote: >Bill, > > Is that the TI system that has a bunch of modules that plug together? If >so, I have the software book that goes with it. The name of it is "Software >Design for MicroProcessors" by TI. I also have the brochure for the system >along with the packing slip and misc papers from when someone ordered the >book (only) from TI. Modules for the system were: LCM-1001 Microprogrammer >Module, LCM-1002 Controller Module, LCM-1003 Memory Module and LCM-1004 >Input/Output Module. There were also manuals for each module but I don't >have them. > > Joe > >At 02:42 AM 7/15/00 -0400, you wrote: > >To complement my lovely new Symbolics/MacIvory system, I recently picked up > >a TI MicroExplorer board set. I didn't even know that TI made these! I'd > >appreciate hearing from anyone who has software, docs, or even just > >reminiscences about this board. I have several "real" Exploders running, > >but would love to reduce the BTUs coming from my computer collection by > >being able to run a MicroExploder. > > > >Also, as always, I'd love to hear from anyone with docs, software, or > >memories of any other Lisp Machine. (Tony, please spare me a discussion of > >whether a MicroExploder board counts as a LispM ;-) > > > >Thanks, > > > > Bill > > > > From hofmanwb at worldonline.nl Sat Jul 15 23:52:02 2000 From: hofmanwb at worldonline.nl (W.B.(Wim) Hofman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 Message-ID: <20000715202821.24EB636EF0@pandora.worldonline.nl> > Well, I think they had a good score with the AS/400. Its been the king of > minis for some time now, bypassing even the mighty PDP-11 in numbers. You are right of course, but doesn't it depend on your definition of mini? Not everybody would call say a System 34 a mini, let alone a AS/400. But this would be mincing words. Wim From lemay at cs.umn.edu Sat Jul 15 20:20:28 2000 From: lemay at cs.umn.edu (Lawrence LeMay) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: TI MicroExplorer Help/Info/Folklore Wanted In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20000715023801.01d68950@mail.vonhagen.org> from William von Hagen at "Jul 15, 2000 02:42:32 am" Message-ID: <200007160120.UAA26081@caesar.cs.umn.edu> I think I may have a complete set of floppy disks with version 5.0 of the software. I also have disks with version 4.1.1 which is definitely missing at least 3 disks. Thats about 57 floppy disks for version 5.0, plus about 17 duplicates. Make an offer that interests me, plus pay shipping, and they can be yours. I have no manuals, nor the appropriate hardware to test these disks, so its as-is. -Lawrence LeMay > To complement my lovely new Symbolics/MacIvory system, I recently picked up > a TI MicroExplorer board set. I didn't even know that TI made these! I'd > appreciate hearing from anyone who has software, docs, or even just > reminiscences about this board. I have several "real" Exploders running, > but would love to reduce the BTUs coming from my computer collection by > being able to run a MicroExploder. From rhudson at ix.netcom.com Sat Jul 15 20:28:08 2000 From: rhudson at ix.netcom.com (Ron Hudson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 References: <20000715202821.24EB636EF0@pandora.worldonline.nl> Message-ID: <39710FA8.A6FAB3E4@ix.netcom.com> There is a system/1 emulation on the mac emulation page (www.emulation.com) where can I find out more about this machine? From dpeschel at eskimo.com Sun Jul 16 01:23:07 2000 From: dpeschel at eskimo.com (Derek Peschel) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF66@TEGNTSERVER> from "Douglas Quebbeman" at Jul 15, 2000 08:13:36 AM Message-ID: <200007160623.XAA08258@eskimo.com> > > I have always wondered what was going to go in that fourth book. > > Are you saying that the project was started? (I assumed it was > > never started.) Do you know any more details? > > No... it was essentially just a manuscript stored on one of > the Smalltalk workstations, and it had been evolving to cover > the changes in MVC since back when it called the Form-Path-Image > paradigm. At some point, Stephen T. Pope (I think it was him) > used it to master MVC, and he then in turn wrote a short paper > describing the use of MVC. But Adele got distracted with running > PPS and nver got back to playing author. > > I think Steve's paper is available on the web. Yes, I believe I've seen that. But I've never seen the manuscript. I thought the book was going to explain how to write programs with MVC (which I assume means examples). Steve's paper is not that detailed -- I recall it as being only a very good description of MVC, without any large programming examples. > > The two-volume _Inside Smalltalk_ set is a decent substitute > > for the missing book, but the code and the page layout are not up > > to Xerox' high standards. The text is well-written in some ways > > but badly written in others. > > These books are some of the few ST resources I don't have. In that case, look at http://www.powells.com for the information about Powell's Technical Books and ask if volume 1 is still on the shelf. They will also start book searches for you for both volumes. I'm having them search for _Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer_ by Wilkes/Wheeler/Gill. > A non-commercial version of the current descendent of PPS and ST > (VisualWorks) can be downloaded and used for free. But Squeak is > actually much better, IMHO. Yes, Squeak is a nice piece of work. Can you tell me a little more about the history of the ST-80 class library and language? That's one of the two questions I asked Ted Kaehler (along with "Is the original tape with the test ST-80 images still available?") but he hasn't answered my e-mail yet. I specifically want to know how the class library and language evolved after the licensing (which is about when the Xerox features of Squeak were frozen) and before the language went commercial. The Purple Book and _Inside Smalltalk_ mention some features that aren't in Squeak (the simulation classes, multiple inheritance, and temporary variables inside blocks) but I was looking for a more detailed list with dates. My ultimate goal would be to put those features back into Squeak. Have you ever used any of the Xerox workstations? That's something I always wanted to try. -- Derek From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jul 16 01:32:16 2000 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: Re: Another tech legend for discussion! (Derek Peschel) References: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF66@TEGNTSERVER> <200007160623.XAA08258@eskimo.com> Message-ID: <14705.22256.424728.990489@phaduka.neurotica.com> On July 15, Derek Peschel wrote: > In that case, look at http://www.powells.com for the information about > Powell's Technical Books and ask if volume 1 is still on the shelf. They > will also start book searches for you for both volumes. > > I'm having them search for _Preparation of Programs for an Electronic > Digital Computer_ by Wilkes/Wheeler/Gill. Good luck, man...I've been looking for that book for a few years now. If you find a [second] copy of it please let me know. :) -Dave McGuire From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jul 16 02:31:41 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: TI MicroExplorer Help/Info/Folklore Wanted In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20000715023801.01d68950@mail.vonhagen.org> Message-ID: > To complement my lovely new Symbolics/MacIvory system, I recently picked up > a TI MicroExplorer board set. I didn't even know that TI made these! I'd > appreciate hearing from anyone who has software, docs, or even just > reminiscences about this board. I have several "real" Exploders running, > but would love to reduce the BTUs coming from my computer collection by > being able to run a MicroExploder. Wow. Nice. > Also, as always, I'd love to hear from anyone with docs, software, or > memories of any other Lisp Machine. (Tony, please spare me a discussion of > whether a MicroExploder board counts as a LispM ;-) RCS/RI just received Symbolics 3600 and a 3670, plus we are getting two 3640s. Interestingly, these specific machines were the development tools for the CM-2 at Thinking Machines. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jul 16 02:53:38 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > I am not knowledgable, but never let that impede making comments, so isn't > the success of the AS/400 more at the expense of mainframe sales and former > mainframe applications? Yes, but over a very long time. The IBM minis came out of the S/360 family in the late 1960s. IBM had a very low end S/360 intended for small businesses, which unfortunately, was not really a S/360 (big incopatibilities, like half the registers!). IBM decided to split the product off, as it was selling, and proved that the business minicomputer was a real thing. They decided to come up with a new design, the S/3, in the very early 1970s. It too was a good seller, and led to other models further down the line - S/32, S/34, S/38, then S/36 (note that some of these machines are wildly different, but made for the same market). The last two were used, along with some ideas from a project called "FS", to make the AS/400 in the mid-1980s. Did all of this steal mainframe applications? Well, not directly, but yes. But as you can see, it has been happening for 30 years now. Additionally, the was not just an IBM thing - DEC witnessed the same shift, as the PDP-11 and VAX took applications away from the PDP-10. While many hackers complain and dislike AS/400s, they really are very interesting, well built machines (but very unhackable - one of the big problems for us.). They are damn near bulletproof, in both the hardware and software end. If you order an AS/400 from IBM, you unpack it and turn it on. That's it - it works perfectly. It doesn't crash, even when bogged down. System administration really is not much of an issue, unlike a Unix or NT box. Massive architecture changes can happen (and have) without problems. The financial and business people love them... William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jul 16 03:03:47 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: <20000715202821.24EB636EF0@pandora.worldonline.nl> Message-ID: > You are right of course, but doesn't it depend on your definition of mini? > Not everybody would call say a System 34 a mini, let alone a AS/400. But > this would be mincing > words. What could an S/34 or AS/400 be other than a mini? Certainly they are not micros, nor are the mainframes. Other than the S/38 and AS/400. with their bizzare mega CISC object based architecture, the other members of the family have all had fairly standard mini architectures. The only real difference is that these IBM minis are not very good at math, but excell in character and string manipulating. William Donzelli aw288@osfn.org From cbajpai at mediaone.net Sun Jul 16 04:15:39 2000 From: cbajpai at mediaone.net (Chandra Bajpai) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Xerox Alto emulator(s) In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20000715150830.01c8b9e0@mail.vonhagen.org> Message-ID: I was just thinking...Would it be possible in 2000 to write a Xerox Alto emulator and SmallTalk OS (assuming binaries are available). Is there any efforts underway? personally I've love to experience an Alto, but unless an emulator happens this is never going to happen. Historically it's a very significant machine..and it would be neat to preserve it for future generations. What makes it difficult to write an emulator for this machine? Thanks, Chandra From dpeschel at eskimo.com Sun Jul 16 05:04:06 2000 From: dpeschel at eskimo.com (Derek Peschel) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Xerox Alto emulator(s) In-Reply-To: from "Chandra Bajpai" at Jul 16, 2000 05:15:39 AM Message-ID: <200007161004.DAA17443@eskimo.com> > I was just thinking...Would it be possible in 2000 to write a Xerox Alto > emulator and SmallTalk OS (assuming binaries are available). Is there any > efforts underway? personally I've love to experience an Alto, but unless an > emulator happens this is never going to happen. Historically it's a very > significant machine..and it would be neat to preserve it for future > generations. Ask Al Kossow. He's supposedly been working on one for a while. > What makes it difficult to write an emulator for this machine? Probably the fact that you have to emulate the microcode. Some of the Alto software was written in BCPL and used an instruction set geared for running BCPL programs (which may have been similar to the Data General Nova's set). But fire up Smalltalk or LISP or Mesa and you're suddenly using an entirely different instruction set. You might be able to emulate each instruction set as a special case, but it would probably be safer to emulate the microinstructions that create the instruction sets. The microcycle time is 170 nanoseconds, so it might just be possible on current hardware if the OS doesn't get in the way. Supporting the 3MB/sec Ethernet might be a challenge too. -- Derek From mrbill at mrbill.net Sun Jul 16 07:40:31 2000 From: mrbill at mrbill.net (Bill Bradford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <14705.22256.424728.990489@phaduka.neurotica.com>; from mcguire@neurotica.com on Sun, Jul 16, 2000 at 02:32:16AM -0400 References: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF66@TEGNTSERVER> <200007160623.XAA08258@eskimo.com> <14705.22256.424728.990489@phaduka.neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20000716074031.W9744@mrbill.net> On Sun, Jul 16, 2000 at 02:32:16AM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: > > I'm having them search for _Preparation of Programs for an Electronic > > Digital Computer_ by Wilkes/Wheeler/Gill. > Good luck, man...I've been looking for that book for a few years > now. If you find a [second] copy of it please let me know. :) > -Dave McGuire Anybody know where I can find a copy of _IBM's Early Computers_, by Bashe/Johnson/Palmer/Pugh? I've already got a copy of _IBM's 360 and Early 370 Systems_ by Pugh/Johnson/Palmer. (cost me like $45 at a USED bookstore, but man, it was worth it.. very cool reading..). Bill -- +-------------------\ /-----------------+ | Bill Bradford | www.sunhelp.org | | mrbill@mrbill.net | www.decvax.org | | Austin, Texas USA | www.pdp11.org | +-------------------/ \-----------------+ From fmc at reanimators.org Sun Jul 16 11:28:12 2000 From: fmc at reanimators.org (Frank McConnell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: Dave McGuire's message of "Sun, 16 Jul 2000 02:32:16 -0400 (EDT)" References: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF66@TEGNTSERVER> <200007160623.XAA08258@eskimo.com> <14705.22256.424728.990489@phaduka.neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200007161628.JAA09608@daemonweed.reanimators.org> Dave McGuire wrote: > On July 15, Derek Peschel wrote: > > I'm having them search for _Preparation of Programs for an Electronic > > Digital Computer_ by Wilkes/Wheeler/Gill. > > Good luck, man...I've been looking for that book for a few years > now. If you find a [second] copy of it please let me know. :) Um, y'all do know that this was reprinted by Tomash Publishers as part of the Charles Babbage Institute's reprint series for the history of computing, right? ISBN 0-938228-03-X, also 0-262-23118-2. OK, OK, it's not an *original*, but as a reading copy it'll do just fine, and it'll probably be a bit easier on your wallet. ISTR (somewhat more recently, like this year) that CBI was offering some books in the reprint series as thank-you gifts for contributions too. -Frank McConnell From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jul 16 19:21:35 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: (message from William Donzelli on Sun, 16 Jul 2000 03:53:38 -0400 (EDT)) References: Message-ID: <20000717002135.18367.qmail@brouhaha.com> William Donzelli wrote: > Yes, but over a very long time. The IBM minis came out of the S/360 > family in the late 1960s. IBM had a very low end S/360 intended for small > businesses, which unfortunately, was not really a S/360 (big > incopatibilities, like half the registers!). IBM decided to split the > product off, as it was selling, and proved that the business minicomputer > was a real thing. The 360/20. It's seems unlike to me that it was really the inspiration for the minicomputer families. They had already build minicomputer-class machines in the past (e.g., 650, 1401, 1620/1710), and were fairly successful with them. I think what caused them to scale up their efforts was more a matter that the perceived they were losing a lot of market share to DEC (and other minicomputer vendors). > They decided to come up with a new design, the S/3, in > the very early 1970s. It too was a good seller, There were some intermediate stops along the way, such as the 1130/1800, and the System/7. One of the most interesting things about Series/3 was that they invented a new punched card format for it. > and led to other models > further down the line - S/32, S/34, S/38, then S/36 (note that some of > these machines are wildly different, but made for the same market). The > last two were used, along with some ideas from a project called "FS", to > make the AS/400 in the mid-1980s. The evolution was sort of: S/3 ---> S/32 ---> S/34 ------------> S/36 ------\ >--> AS/400 FS ----------------------------> S/38 ---------------/ S/38 was almost completely different from any prior shipped IBM system, and probably not all that similar to FS (which was to be a mainframe system). But it did inherit the "single level store" concept from FS. > While many hackers complain and dislike AS/400s, they really are very > interesting, well built machines (but very unhackable - one of the big > problems for us.). I recently acquired one, and wish I had time to test the "unhackable" part. The newer machines are based on the PowerPC architecture (with some extensions), and may be more "hackable" than the old CISC machines. From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jul 16 19:24:05 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Xerox Alto emulator(s) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20000717002405.18391.qmail@brouhaha.com> > I was just thinking...Would it be possible in 2000 to write a Xerox Alto > emulator and SmallTalk OS (assuming binaries are available). Is there any Writing a simulator is certainly possible, but I don't see why you'd want to write a Smalltalk OS. I mean, if you want to write a new OS, you might as well target it for modern hardware. > What makes it difficult to write an emulator for this machine? It doesn't have a single instruction set. Each language/environment uses a different instruction set implemented by different microcode. Simulating the microcode level shouldn't be terribly difficult, but not many people have sufficient information to do it. From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jul 16 20:06:12 2000 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: <20000717002135.18367.qmail@brouhaha.com> (message from Eric Smith on 17 Jul 2000 00:21:35 -0000) References: <20000717002135.18367.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <20000717010612.18702.qmail@brouhaha.com> I wrote: > One of the most interesting things about Series/3 was that they invented ^^^^^^ Oops, that's System/3. From retro at retrobits.com Sun Jul 16 20:19:13 2000 From: retro at retrobits.com (Earl Evans) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: TRS-80 Model I, not working, only $4,000! What a deal! Message-ID: <000701bfef8d$04cf87c0$6401640a@easystreet.com> Well, I just saw the deal of a lifetime on eBay. A TRS-80 Model I (unfortunately, not working) with only a $4,000 reserve! Hmm... Think this one is a prank? I can't imagine someone would have that big a typo in the decimal points. I have a TRS-80 Model I, obtained at Goodwill for $4. I'll let it go for HALF the asking price of the eBay seller. Take a number! :-) - Earl From marvin at rain.org Sun Jul 16 20:34:12 2000 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: TRS-80 Model I, not working, only $4,000! What a deal! References: <000701bfef8d$04cf87c0$6401640a@easystreet.com> Message-ID: <39726294.47E07CE8@rain.org> Earl Evans wrote: > > Well, I just saw the deal of a lifetime on eBay. A TRS-80 Model I > (unfortunately, not working) with only a $4,000 reserve! I think it is this kind of nonsense that breeds more of the same by ignorant sellers. A $4000 TRS-80 Model I doesn't sound unreasonable ... as long as it includes a working system including expansion box and monitor, most of the software ever written for the unit, etc. :). From allisonp at world.std.com Sun Jul 16 21:49:09 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: TRS-80 Model I, not working, only $4,000! What a deal! Message-ID: <006a01bfef99$a6c1b290$7664c0d0@ajp166> -----Original Message----- From: Marvin >Earl Evans wrote: >> >> Well, I just saw the deal of a lifetime on eBay. A TRS-80 Model I >> (unfortunately, not working) with only a $4,000 reserve! > >I think it is this kind of nonsense that breeds more of the same by ignorant >sellers. A $4000 TRS-80 Model I doesn't sound unreasonable ... as long as it >includes a working system including expansion box and monitor, most of the >software ever written for the unit, etc. :). No that is not reasonable. That exceeds the new purchase price for that much. TRS80s arent even scarce nor is it complete. I'd say a clean system with all the facory mods, Expansion interface, disk drives plus software working may warrent some money but not $4k. Allison From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jul 16 22:54:07 2000 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: <20000717002135.18367.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > The 360/20. It's seems unlike to me that it was really the inspiration for > the minicomputer families. They had already build minicomputer-class > machines in the past (e.g., 650, 1401, 1620/1710), and were fairly > successful with them. Maybe not an inspiration, but certainly a rebirth. S/360 was supposed to do all the jobs for business (not counting process control or lab use). > I think what caused them to scale up their efforts > was more a matter that the perceived they were losing a lot of market > share to DEC (and other minicomputer vendors). I could see this. > There were some intermediate stops along the way, such as the 1130/1800, > and the System/7. I think these were process control machines (great for running factories). I think IBM always treated these as a whole different branch. There is an amazing lack of information on the S/7 on the web. > One of the most interesting things about Series/3 was that they invented > a new punched card format for it. Not all of them used the things, however. > I recently acquired one, and wish I had time to test the "unhackable" part. > > The newer machines are based on the PowerPC architecture (with some > extensions), and may be more "hackable" than the old CISC machines. I don't think having a PowerAS based system will help. I would think the older machines would be easier to play with. William Donzelli aw288@psfn.org From mac at Wireless.Com Sun Jul 16 23:03:43 2000 From: mac at Wireless.Com (Mike Cheponis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: IBM System/1 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > The 360/20. It's seems unlike to me that it was really the inspiration for > > the minicomputer families. They had already build minicomputer-class > > machines in the past (e.g., 650, 1401, 1620/1710), and were fairly > > successful with them. > > Maybe not an inspiration, but certainly a rebirth. S/360 was supposed to > do all the jobs for business (not counting process control or lab use). Don't you remember the 360 slogan: It Runs The "Full Circle" of Applications! (get it? 360, Full Circle...well, not as clever as IBM's "CADET" machine...) -Mike Cheponis From dlw at trailingedge.com Sun Jul 16 23:28:38 2000 From: dlw at trailingedge.com (David Williams) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: Java Exidy Sorcerer Emulator Message-ID: <39724526.4234.2F7C4C1@localhost> Philip M. Scull in the UK send me a link to add to my Exidy Sorcerer pages for a Sorcerer emulator he was working on in Java. It was pretty neat. Thought I'd pass it along to everyone here. URL is: http://www.liaquay.demon.co.uk/Sorcerer Comes up in BASIC and of course I/O is limited at the moment but he's still working on it. It runs as an applet in a Java-enabled browser. ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw@trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com From marvin at rain.org Sun Jul 16 23:49:54 2000 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: TRS-80 Model I, not working, only $4,000! What a deal! References: <006a01bfef99$a6c1b290$7664c0d0@ajp166> Message-ID: <39729072.7690716B@rain.org> allisonp wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > From: Marvin > >I think it is this kind of nonsense that breeds more of the same by > > ignorant sellers. A $4000 TRS-80 Model I doesn't sound unreasonable ... as long > > as it includes a working system including expansion box and monitor, most of > > the software ever written for the unit, etc. :). > > No that is not reasonable. That exceeds the new purchase price for that > much. TRS80s arent even scarce nor is it complete. I'd say a clean system with > all the facory mods, Expansion interface, disk drives plus software working > may warrent some money but not $4k. You seem to have missed the "most of the software ever written, etc."; I should have also added "and hardware ever available" :). From ghldbrd at ccp.com Mon Jul 17 06:43:13 2000 From: ghldbrd at ccp.com (Gary Hildebrand) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: latest finds at Washington MO hamfest Message-ID: Hello, Had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Jay West at the hamfest, where he lrelieved me of one slighty non-working Apple ][ and disk drive. After having made $60 selling four 6146 tubes, I got crazy and bought another Apple, this time a IIc, with monitor and external 5.25 drive for $10. Guess I'm just rotten to the core . . . . I noticed it takes a 3.5 disk and not the 5.25 like I've seen on the older ones. If any of you are semi-experts on these, shoot me an email off-list with some of the basics, like formatting a floppy. Not having a book, you can't say RTFM. Kind regards -- Gary Hildebrand Box 6184 St. Joseph, MO 64506-0184 816-662-2612 or ghldbrd@ccp.com From mikeford at socal.rr.com Mon Jul 17 01:56:34 2000 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: latest finds at Washington MO hamfest In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >another Apple, this time a IIc, with monitor and external 5.25 drive for >$10. >I noticed it takes a 3.5 disk and not the 5.25 like I've seen on the older If it has a 3.5 on the side its a IIc+, nice buy. RTFF, read the faq. ;) If you have an older mac with a 800k drive I think you can download images and make some boot and utility floppies for the II. From geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au Mon Jul 17 01:59:59 2000 From: geoffrob at stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au (Geoff Roberts) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:25 2005 Subject: latest finds at Washington MO hamfest References: Message-ID: <009701bfefbc$9ff22580$de2c67cb@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Hildebrand" To: "classcomp mailing list" Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 9:13 PM Subject: latest finds at Washington MO hamfest > I noticed it takes a 3.5 disk and not the 5.25 like I've seen on the older > ones. If any of you are semi-experts on these, shoot me an email off-list > with some of the basics, like formatting a floppy. Not having a book, you > can't say RTFM. I seeem to recall seeing a manual for a 3.5" external apple drive here somewhere. I'll see if I can find it..... cheers Geoff Roberts Computer Systems Manager Saint Mark's College Port Pirie, South Australia geoffrob@stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au netcafe@tell.net.au ICQ: 1970476 From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 03:55:38 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question Message-ID: <00Jul17.095542bst.46091@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > I'd start by looking for mechanical damage (cracked PCB, damaged > connectors, etc) on the PCB on the back of the CRT. Some HP > monitors have > the video signal carried on screened cables ending in RCA phono plugs > that plug into the circuit boards and bad connections here are common. OK then - I'll check. I know the monitor hit SOMETHING because the front case/bezel/whatever had separated from the back. This monitor is an A1097.......something. Dammit - I only looked yesterday :) > Normally when a fuse blows there are other faults -- fuses do > not blow > for no good reason. So when the fuse blows you're going to need a > soldering iron anyway to put the other problem right. This one blew because I fed it 240V instead of 120! Still kicking meself for that one. > And soldering the fuse in place stops j-random-public from fitting > whatever fuse happens to be to hand -- like a 13A one. Thus > protecting > the unit from further damage, and prossibly stopping a fire. True...... cheers! From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 03:58:09 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question Message-ID: <00Jul17.095809bst.46091@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > Unless you happened to plug a 120v PS into a 220 supply, > being the case > here, in which case you can leave the soldering iron in the > tool cupboard > and look for your misplaced brain cells ;) I think I should've just stayed in bed that weekend! So I've completely goosed the PSU then? cheers a From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:07:37 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question Message-ID: <00Jul17.100743bst.46092@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > conditions, so it > was not judged to need to be user-replaceable. Ah! Makes sense I suppose. > In my experience other components of the Apple ][ power suppy are much > more likely to fail than the fuse, but on the other hand I > never plugged > a 120V A][ into 240V mains. > > Too bad they didn't do autoranging back then. :-( I know - I'm wondering if this is why my Lisa isn't too happy with the video power ATM....having said that I'm running her thru a 240-120V 450VA 5A transformer so it should be fine. Why I didn't plug the ][c into the same transformer I'll never know. From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:13:11 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <00Jul17.101314bst.46091@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > of the Star's lifecycle as a product. The definitive story of the > development of the Lisa GUI can be read at: > > http://home.san.rr.com/deans/lisagui.html > Excellent - will anyone mind if I like to that from my Lisa page? From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:17:21 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question Message-ID: <00Jul17.101722bst.46097@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > I've never worked out what fault would blow the fuse and not do other > internal damage to the PSU. Maybe an overvoltage surge (or > plugging it > into the wrong mains voltage) would just take out the fuse > with no other > damage but I've never been that lucky! I live in hope :) Fuses cost pennies and it won't take me long to find out whether I HAVE fried other components, whereupon I start kicking myself again. a From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:20:58 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: While we're talking about Lisas Message-ID: <00Jul17.102103bst.46100@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> Thanks Louis, I'll give that a try. Other things I've got to check are the voltages on the card so I'm leaving her for a couple of days to allow the tube to discharge before I take the stinger off; I've been told its best to solder some extra wires onto the components in question to allow easy voltage checking without the risk of zapping myself. > -----Original Message----- > From: Louis Schulman [mailto:louiss@gate.net] > Sent: 15 July 2000 00:25 > To: Adrian Graham; classiccmp@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: While we're talking about Lisas > > > This definitely sounds like a video card problem. Most > often, the adjusting pots at the top of the card become > oxidized, and provide intermittent or no performance. > > Thus, you might try the standard procedure of applying some > tuner/channel selector cleaner, and twisting the pots back > and forth, remembering their original position. Some > adjustment will likely be necessary. > > Of course, I could be wrong. But it is worth a try. > > Louis > > On Fri, 14 Jul 2000 14:34:24 +0100, Adrian Graham wrote: > > >My Lisa 2 (vanilla one, 1.2A PSU) has developed a habit of > turning the > >screen off while she's running. In fact it's now permanently > off which is > >annoying to say the least. Some of you may have experienced > this before so > >here are the symptoms; > > > >System working fine (at the time running MacWorks 1.0), > screen goes dim as > >per screensaver then blinks off like I'd hit the power > button. It eventually > >comes back on after leaving it powered down for a couple of > hours. James at > >Sigma Seven Systems said he thought he remembered there was > a serial port > >bug in MW1.0 that caused the screen to go off sometimes so I > left it at > >that. > >I've now got myself a ProFile so I was intending on > installing LisaOS 3.1, > >but when she was powered up for the first time since maybe > mid-may the > >screen came on briefly then blinked off again as it did > before; since then > >it's only come back on once for around 10 minutes. > >While all this is going on the machine keeps running > normally. If I power up > >I hear the self test passing, if I've got the first OS disk > in (or MacWorks > >boot disk) it will actually boot, if I've got a standard > composite monitor > >connected I can see things happening so I know the machine itself is > >fine....... > > > >Anyone else seen this? I've got another video card and > screen coming over > >but it won't be here till the end of august; to say I'm > champing at the bit > >would be an understatement :) > > > >cheers! > > > > From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:23:49 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Unresistable pond comment Message-ID: <00Jul17.102352bst.46096@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > > I assume you mean something like a VAX 11/730 rather than > the ol' Austin > > And what's wrong with an 11/730? It's a nice little machine... I love the 730 - it was my first VAX; I remember us being annoyed that we couldn't upgrade to VMS V4 because we only had half a meg :) That was why I mentioned the AS400 instead..... > Morris car of the same name? :) Actually, I would't >tarnish a VAX by > roping > a politician to one, so how about an AS/400 instead? > > Err, what about using a no-name Pentium PC clone?? Not heavy enough unless you weld a stack of 'em together! From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:27:49 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Refusing Message-ID: <00Jul17.102749bst.46096@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > My guess is that about 90% of the time fuses go poof, and > putting a new one > in makes the world fine again. The great factor here is how > conservatively > the designer specs the fuse, plus of course what happens to blow it. The machine ran happily for around 10 seconds, then made a 'dying fuse' noise. Not quite the bang my spare Mac Classic will give though - I get lights with that one too :) And before anyone mentions it, this one is definitely a 240V machine. From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:29:27 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: An amazing emulator Message-ID: <00Jul17.102929bst.46100@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> The Spectrum Plus 4 never existed so I wonder what he's got there? :) > -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > Sent: 15 July 2000 06:48 > To: Classic Computers Mailing List > Subject: An amazing emulator > > > > I find this hard to believe, but apparently this one emulator > can emulate > a bunch of different machines: From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:32:59 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: TRS-80 Model I, not working, only $4,000! What a deal! Message-ID: <00Jul17.103303bst.46091@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> There was a bloke trying to sell a ZX81 over here for ukp1000 on Yahoo auctions. Unsurprisingly nobody bid :) > -----Original Message----- > From: Earl Evans [mailto:retro@retrobits.com] > Sent: 17 July 2000 02:43 > To: ClassicCmp > Subject: TRS-80 Model I, not working, only $4,000! What a deal! > > > Well, I just saw the deal of a lifetime on eBay. A TRS-80 Model I > (unfortunately, not working) with only a $4,000 reserve! > > Hmm... > > Think this one is a prank? I can't imagine someone would > have that big a > typo in the decimal points. > > I have a TRS-80 Model I, obtained at Goodwill for $4. I'll > let it go for > HALF the asking price of the eBay seller. Take a number! :-) > > - Earl > > > From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:34:59 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: latest finds at Washington MO hamfest Message-ID: <00Jul17.103500bst.46096@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > I noticed it takes a 3.5 disk and not the 5.25 like I've seen > on the older > ones. If any of you are semi-experts on these, shoot me an > email off-list > with some of the basics, like formatting a floppy. Not > having a book, you > can't say RTFM. I can RTFM for you but for anything else I'll have to see how it is when I replace the fuse :) a From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 04:47:39 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Mac Classic analogue board Message-ID: <00Jul17.104740bst.46091@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> I mentioned this in another thread so I thought I'd ask the question properly; I've got a Classic that will fry the glass fuse (and do the sound and lights bit too) when one is inserted. Is it a common fault? I should've guessed something was wrong when I bought it - there wasn't a fuse in the plug and it had no case screws, but then I didn't spot that till I got it home. cheers a From whdawson at mlynk.com Mon Jul 17 04:58:05 2000 From: whdawson at mlynk.com (Bill Dawson) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Kaypro 10 Western Digital Hard Disk Controller WD 1002-HD0 Message-ID: <000101bfefd5$8076b900$2ce3dfd0@cobweb.net> Hello all, I need any technical information anyone may have for this hard drive controller board, especially schematics. I have all the other technical docs for the Kaypro 10. This board is not in the documentation I already have because it was not considered to be field or factory repairable. WD 1002-HD0 61-031050-00 REV Y 8, 1893 Western Digital It connects via 40 pin IDC and ribbon cable to the Kaypro main board and to either 1 or 2 ST-506 10mb MFM drives. LSI on board includes WD1014AL-00, WD1010AL-00, WD1015-00, and SY2128-2. I've already searched the web and found some general information, some helps, most doesn't. Thanks again, Bill Bill Dawson <- Anti-spam protection ? Your computer will do far more than you ever expected it to, and that won't be enough. Pournelle's First Law From allisonp at world.std.com Mon Jul 17 07:19:09 2000 From: allisonp at world.std.com (allisonp@world.std.com) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: TRS-80 Model I, not working, only $4,000! What a deal! In-Reply-To: <39729072.7690716B@rain.org> Message-ID: I didn't miss nothing... Most of that is noise and all. Like I said a pristine system with the full boat is not that hard to find. I was given one (very complete) free a year ago. Tandy sold some 400,000 of them! Allison On Sun, 16 Jul 2000, Marvin wrote: > > > allisonp wrote: > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Marvin > > > >I think it is this kind of nonsense that breeds more of the same by > > > ignorant sellers. A $4000 TRS-80 Model I doesn't sound unreasonable ... as long > > > as it includes a working system including expansion box and monitor, most of > > > the software ever written for the unit, etc. :). > > > > No that is not reasonable. That exceeds the new purchase price for that > > much. TRS80s arent even scarce nor is it complete. I'd say a clean system with > > all the facory mods, Expansion interface, disk drives plus software working > > may warrent some money but not $4k. > > You seem to have missed the "most of the software ever written, etc."; I > should have also added "and hardware ever available" :). > From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Mon Jul 17 07:22:16 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF6F@TEGNTSERVER> I hate to speak for Ed, but no, I don't think he'd mind you linking to that page. -dq > -----Original Message----- > From: Adrian Graham [mailto:agraham@ccat.co.uk] > Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 5:13 AM > To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' > Subject: RE: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > > of the Star's lifecycle as a product. The definitive story of the > > development of the Lisa GUI can be read at: > > > > http://home.san.rr.com/deans/lisagui.html > > > > Excellent - will anyone mind if I like to that from my Lisa page? > From gehrich at tampabay.rr.com Mon Jul 17 07:32:17 2000 From: gehrich at tampabay.rr.com (Gene Ehrich) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: IBM System/7 In-Reply-To: References: <20000717002135.18367.qmail@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.20000717082933.009e6ca0@popmail.voicenet.com> At 11:54 PM 7/16/00 -0400, you wrote: >There is an amazing lack of information on the S/7 on the web. I was a System 7 specialist for IBM for a while in the early 70's and wrote the code for the first on-line ATM in the United States and it used a System 7 as a host. It was at a very small bank in Califon New Jersey. Once a day the disk from the S/7 was removed and taken to a S/3 where it was inputted to the banking systems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------- gene@ehrich.com gehrich@tampabay.rr.com P.O. Box 3365 Spring Hill Florida 34611-3365 www.voicenet.com/~generic Computer & Video Game Garage Sale From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 08:52:19 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! Message-ID: <00Jul17.145219bst.46097@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> Smart! > -----Original Message----- > From: Douglas Quebbeman [mailto:dhquebbeman@theestopinalgroup.com] > Sent: 17 July 2000 13:39 > To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' > Subject: RE: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > I hate to speak for Ed, but no, I don't think he'd mind you linking > to that page. > > -dq > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Adrian Graham [mailto:agraham@ccat.co.uk] > > Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 5:13 AM > > To: 'classiccmp@classiccmp.org' > > Subject: RE: Another tech legend for discussion! > > > > > > > of the Star's lifecycle as a product. The definitive story of the > > > development of the Lisa GUI can be read at: > > > > > > http://home.san.rr.com/deans/lisagui.html > > > > > > > Excellent - will anyone mind if I like to that from my Lisa page? > > > From John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com Mon Jul 17 09:20:22 2000 From: John.Allain at donnelley.infousa.com (John Allain) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Another tech legend for discussion! In-Reply-To: <20000716074031.W9744@mrbill.net> Message-ID: <000e01bfeffa$2573c5f0$0e0301ac@databaseamerica.com> > Anybody know where I can find a copy of _IBM's Early > Computers_, by Bashe/Johnson/Palmer/Pugh? ...very cool... For used books, try http://www.alibris.com They found several copies of an obscure biography of my H.S. Physics teacher in one shot. For your title: 3 copies found. John A. From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Mon Jul 17 09:41:42 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: VAX-11/730 (was RE: Unresistable pond comment) Message-ID: <20000717144142.16264.qmail@web614.mail.yahoo.com> --- Adrian Graham wrote: > > > I assume you mean something like a VAX 11/730 rather than > > the ol' Austin > > > > And what's wrong with an 11/730? It's a nice little machine... > > I love the 730 - it was my first VAX; I remember us being annoyed that we > couldn't upgrade to VMS V4 because we only had half a meg :) Nothing money can't fix. I have an 11/730 in storage that we built up to 5Mb RAM, the internal RB80/RL02 combo, and a BA-11 on the side for extra goodies. It was ordered the week it was announced from DEC because we needed a cheap VAX for product development. It was how we discovered that its internal slots are not wired the same as a DD-11DK backplane - the original Unibus COMBOARD(R), commonly called the COMBOARD I, does not work in the CPU backplane of an 11/730 or anything identical to it (there are a couple of CPUs with the same configuration). I have one "modified" COMBOARD I on the shelf - it has a mass of wires to route the Unibus signals from one set of fingers to the other. It was a design problem on our end; someone read one set of Unibus signal maps and assumed it was gospel. The COMBOARD II product was built with the Unibus signals coming from the right places. In the literature, the different slots are named "MUD" (Modified Unibus Device) and "SPC" (Small Peripheral Controller). Without reading the labels on the CPUs, I forget which ones crop up in which machines (when I was making these boards on a daily basis, I used to know, but I claim mental bit rot on the details this far out). We used that 11/730 until the last days of the company. For application compatibility purposes, our 11/750 was running VMS 4.6, but we needed to link our product under VMS 5.x for our more modern customers. To that end, I put VMS 5.3 (I think) up on the 11/730, hooked the machines together via 56K DECnet and wrote into the build scripts the ability to copy the objects and privved MACRO code from the 4.6 box to the 5.x box, link and copy back the executables. Building the product used to be a full time job. When I was done, it was a single command (and about 6 hours!) Fun little box. Prior to its life as a linker, it was the first box I ever installed UNIX on - Ultrix 1.1. I also put up UUCP and net news on it, before the Great Renaming. Somewhere I still have some articles from the newsgroup net.micro.amiga. We took it down for a few months, and when we once again fired up UUCP, all the articles were going into the Junk directory. Mich hair-pulling and hand-wringing later, a buddy of mine at Ohio State casually mentioned that all the newsgroups had changed named recently and would I like a copy of the new newsrc? Doh! As I continue to improve and upgrade my classic space at my Farm, this box is one of the ones that I intend to set up early. I cut my teeth on a lot of stuff on this guy. I was very happy to take it with me when I moved on. -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From richard at idcomm.com Mon Jul 17 09:59:51 2000 From: richard at idcomm.com (Richard Erlacher) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Kaypro 10 Western Digital Hard Disk Controller WD 1002-HD0 References: <000101bfefd5$8076b900$2ce3dfd0@cobweb.net> Message-ID: <003301bfefff$afd90e80$0500c0a8@winbook> I have lots of information but no schematics. The WD1002-HDO is the HDO-version (hard disk only) of the popular WD1010-based HDC. It is common enough, but I'll be happy to email you the data sheet/manual if you want as I did scan the thing last year. The file's BIG, however, since the scans are in bitmapped format. Dick. ----- Original Message ----- From: Bill Dawson To: Classiccmp@Classiccmp. Org Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 3:58 AM Subject: Kaypro 10 Western Digital Hard Disk Controller WD 1002-HD0 > Hello all, > > I need any technical information anyone may have for this hard drive > controller board, especially schematics. I have all the other technical > docs for the Kaypro 10. This board is not in the documentation I > already have because it was not considered to be field or factory > repairable. > > WD 1002-HD0 61-031050-00 REV Y 8, 1893 Western Digital > > It connects via 40 pin IDC and ribbon cable to the Kaypro main board and > to either 1 or 2 ST-506 10mb MFM drives. > > LSI on board includes WD1014AL-00, WD1010AL-00, WD1015-00, and SY2128-2. > > I've already searched the web and found some general information, some > helps, most doesn't. > > Thanks again, > > Bill > > Bill Dawson > <- Anti-spam protection > > Your computer will do far more than you ever expected it to, > and that won't be enough. > > Pournelle's First Law > > From agraham at ccat.co.uk Mon Jul 17 10:28:02 2000 From: agraham at ccat.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: VAX-11/730 (was RE: Unresistable pond comment) Message-ID: <00Jul17.162805bst.46096@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> > As I continue to improve and upgrade my classic space at my Farm, this > box is one of the ones that I intend to set up early. I cut > my teeth on > a lot of stuff on this guy. I was very happy to take it with > me when I moved on. I can't remember what happened to ours when we upgraded to a MicroVAX II BA213 in around 86 :( With the cost of the machines in those days it'll have gone for part-ex I reckon. Its LA100 is somewhere though, still going strong. I just wish I had space in the museum for machines of that size, but apart from anything else getting them up 2 flights of stairs would be a bit prohibitive :) Got the aforementioned MVII though, along with a 3400, 4200, PDP 11/73 and a spare RL02 drive. a From ethan_dicks at yahoo.com Mon Jul 17 11:32:42 2000 From: ethan_dicks at yahoo.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: VAX-11/730 (was RE: Unresistable pond comment) Message-ID: <20000717163242.1108.qmail@web614.mail.yahoo.com> --- Adrian Graham wrote: > > As I continue to improve and upgrade my classic space at my Farm, this > > box is one of the ones that I intend to set up early. > I just wish I had space in the museum for machines of that size, but apart > from anything else getting them up 2 flights of stairs would be a bit > prohibitive :) Got the aforementioned MVII though, along with a 3400, 4200, > PDP 11/73 and a spare RL02 drive. One of the things that attracted me to the Farm was this quonset hut with No STAIRS! Eventually, as I've said before, I plan to build a museum building in the space next to the hut. I think Hans Franke can attest I now have the room for as much building as the money permits. -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd@iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Mon Jul 17 12:55:21 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: The Molecular SuperMicro 70-32 Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF71@TEGNTSERVER> One of the more interesting microcomputers I used during my career was a Molecular SuperMicro 70-32. This machine had a unique architecture in that it was a file server and client machines and LAN all wrapped in one box. The file server was a 6 mHz Z80 board, and it had an onboard SASI interface (or was this late enough to be SCSI) as well as a floppy interface. Our unit had a QIC-24 tape drive and a 60MB hard drive... the HD was fast for its time. Molecular referred to the file server as the file processor. The client computers were boards that plugged into the bus, and were each 4 mHz Z-80 units. All I/O was through the bus. These client nodes were referred to as the Application Pro- cessors. The Supermicro's main operating system was called N*Star, and provided most of the MP/M-II API/OS calls, but not all of them, and IIRC, it provided some of its own and seemed to have some from another CP/M clone whose name escapes me. You could boot the file processor from the floppy drive into CP/M. The "bus" was actually configured as a network, using CSMA/CA to handle the traffic. It seemed to run just about every CP/M package we could throw at it. However, while I recall spending lots of time customizing a copy of ZCPR/2 for the Televideo TS-803, I don't recall doing this for N*Star, so there may have been some compatiability problems. I think it *did* run Microshell, though (which was my first "brush" with Un*x). N*Star used password-based security, and was apparantly easy to hack. One of the digital electronics instructors at the school who generally played dumb when it came to newer technology still remains the primary candidate for the hacker who made my life miserable. I got some quid pro quo later, but that's another story. Irv Hoff had one or worked on one, as I found a patch for the OS he'd authored whilst playing data recovery mule this weekend. I also recall that someone had a software package running on one that acted just like Compuserve; everything was GO commands and it had forums that worked identically. Has this machine been a subject of discussion on the list before now? Anyone else used one/have one? regards, -doug quebbeman From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jul 17 13:50:45 2000 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: The Molecular SuperMicro 70-32 In-Reply-To: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF71@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: doug quebbeman wrote: >N*Star used password-based security, and was apparantly easy >to hack. One of the digital electronics instructors at the school >who generally played dumb when it came to newer technology still >remains the primary candidate for the hacker who made my life >miserable. I got some quid pro quo later, but that's another >story. One would hope that on this list at least people would know the difference between a "Cracker" and a "Hacker"! In the above paragraph you're obviously talking about "Cracker"! Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh@aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh@holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From cem14 at cornell.edu Mon Jul 17 13:49:18 2000 From: cem14 at cornell.edu (Carlos Murillo-Sanchez) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question References: <00Jul14.163505bst.46093@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> Message-ID: <3973552E.F093FDD@cornell.edu> Adrian: While our systems staff were moving a big bunch of HP stuff that just got decomissioned, they dropped and smashed an A1097C (ouch!). I have the electronic guts should you want them. Of course, shipping might be an issue. Let me know if you are interested at all. carlos Adrian Graham wrote: > > Hi Carlos, > > It's the A1097 I think.....it definitely begins with 'A' though and I'm > fairly sure its not the 2094. And it wasn't that heavy :) > > thanks! -- Carlos Murillo-Sanchez email: cem14@cornell.edu 428 Phillips Hall, Electrical Engineering Department Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 12:49:28 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question In-Reply-To: <00Jul17.100743bst.46092@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> from "Adrian Graham" at Jul 17, 0 10:07:37 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1179 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000717/4f434691/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 13:09:49 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: While we're talking about Lisas In-Reply-To: <00Jul17.102103bst.46100@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> from "Adrian Graham" at Jul 17, 0 10:20:58 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 3440 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000717/27ce4bb1/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 12:42:49 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: ...and here's another - HP9000 question In-Reply-To: <00Jul17.095542bst.46091@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> from "Adrian Graham" at Jul 17, 0 09:55:38 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1606 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000717/9118c9b9/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 12:35:04 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: TRS-80 Model I, not working, only $4,000! What a deal! In-Reply-To: <39726294.47E07CE8@rain.org> from "Marvin" at Jul 16, 0 06:34:12 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 900 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000717/c0e0c810/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 13:13:36 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Mac Classic analogue board In-Reply-To: <00Jul17.104740bst.46091@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> from "Adrian Graham" at Jul 17, 0 10:47:39 am Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 1156 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000717/f3ccc1df/attachment.ksh From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 14:02:19 2000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: VAX-11/730 (was RE: Unresistable pond comment) In-Reply-To: <00Jul17.162805bst.46096@gatekeeper.ccat.co.uk> from "Adrian Graham" at Jul 17, 0 04:28:02 pm Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 543 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/20000717/b3c4497a/attachment.ksh From dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com Mon Jul 17 14:46:01 2000 From: dhquebbeman at theestopinalgroup.com (Douglas Quebbeman) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: The Molecular SuperMicro 70-32 Message-ID: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF75@TEGNTSERVER> > doug quebbeman wrote: > >N*Star used password-based security, and was apparantly easy > >to hack. One of the digital electronics instructors at the school > >who generally played dumb when it came to newer technology still > >remains the primary candidate for the hacker who made my life > >miserable. I got some quid pro quo later, but that's another > >story. > > One would hope that on this list at least people would know > the difference between a "Cracker" and a "Hacker"! In the > above paragraph you're obviously talking about "Cracker"! One would hope that on this list that those of us who are true cognoscenti would recognize another member of the true cognoscenti and understand by usage the correct meaning. Sheesh! -dq From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jul 17 14:55:55 2000 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: The Molecular SuperMicro 70-32 In-Reply-To: RE: The Molecular SuperMicro 70-32 (Douglas Quebbeman) References: <8763AE987517D2118C0500A0C9AB234C2BAF75@TEGNTSERVER> Message-ID: <14707.25803.424559.389522@phaduka.neurotica.com> On July 17, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > One would hope that on this list at least people would know > > the difference between a "Cracker" and a "Hacker"! In the > > above paragraph you're obviously talking about "Cracker"! > > One would hope that on this list that those of us who are > true cognoscenti would recognize another member of the true > cognoscenti and understand by usage the correct meaning. Gezundheit. -Dave McGuire From sring at uslink.net Mon Jul 17 14:59:40 2000 From: sring at uslink.net (Stephanie Ring) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:55:26 2005 Subject: Repairing Timex Message-ID: <006a01bff029$8d6cb3e0$bb57ddcc@uslink.net> Can anyone recommend sources regarding the troubleshooting and repair of the Timex 1000? Also wish to buy m