From wizard at voyager.net Mon Jan 1 00:02:08 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 01:02:08 -0500 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <45982CAE.9020109@brutman.com> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> <45980BA0.80605@brutman.com> <45982CAE.9020109@brutman.com> Message-ID: <1167631329.13407.10.camel@linux.site> On Sun, 2006-12-31 at 15:33 -0600, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > In the case of a really old system like that, it doesn't matter what the > network is - the network will never be the problem, unless I use bongos > as the transport mechanism. Keep it in historical context... Bongos were a significant speed increase over smoke signals. Also, I note that you COULD have a slow network (10baseT) have an adverse effect upon your 1.5 Mbit (IIRC) broadband connection. That could happen if the network is jammed with traffic, and the collision rate is such that the packets from the broadband can't get through in timely fashion. In that case, increasing the network speed of the local machines would reduce the time they spent occupying the network. Most times, it won't matter, granted, but it COULD slow you down. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 1 00:03:53 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 01:03:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200701010609.BAA14542@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Some of you noted from last time that there is no character echoing > or line editing. Telnet users on Unix machines will probably have > local line editing, which makes things a wee bit nicer. Yes, I found I did. > The standard Windows telnet client doesn't do that by default, so you > will type but not see your characters. That's a project for a > different day. What, fixing Windows telnet to actually conform to the spec? Yes, that's quite a project. :-) > And lastly, if you remember, type in your OS and machine type as a > command. It will complain about it being an invalid command, but > I'll see it in the log and I'll have a better idea of what I'm > testing against. Actually, it complained about it being two or three "Bogus command"s (I'm not sure what the relevant difference between the two-complaint ones and the three-complaint ones is.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Mon Jan 1 00:19:24 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:19:24 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <1167631329.13407.10.camel@linux.site> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> <45980BA0.80605@brutman.com> <45982CAE.9020109@brutman.com> <1167631329.13407.10.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <4598A7EC.3040502@brutman.com> Warren Wolfe wrote: > On Sun, 2006-12-31 at 15:33 -0600, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > > >> In the case of a really old system like that, it doesn't matter what the >> network is - the network will never be the problem, unless I use bongos >> as the transport mechanism. > > > Keep it in historical context... Bongos were a significant speed > increase over smoke signals. > > Also, I note that you COULD have a slow network (10baseT) have an > adverse effect upon your 1.5 Mbit (IIRC) broadband connection. That > could happen if the network is jammed with traffic, and the collision > rate is such that the packets from the broadband can't get through in > timely fashion. In that case, increasing the network speed of the local > machines would reduce the time they spent occupying the network. Most > times, it won't matter, granted, but it COULD slow you down. > > The bongo reference was tongue in cheek - I was alluding to this: The Bongo Project: TCP/IP via Primitive Communication http://eagle.auc.ca/%7edreid/index.html The point being that my slowest machines will never be able to saturate a 10Mbps Ethernet, or cause the collisions at the rate you allude to. My PCjr can do at best 40KB/sec over the Ethernet, quite a bit less if disk I/O is involved. But you're welcome to try - the Jr is up and running. :-) (See my previous email about TCP/IP Testing help) Mike From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Mon Jan 1 00:22:15 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:22:15 -0600 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <200701010609.BAA14542@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <200701010609.BAA14542@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <4598A897.4040803@brutman.com> der Mouse wrote: >> Actually, it complained about it being two or three "Bogus command"s > (I'm not sure what the relevant difference between the two-complaint > ones and the three-complaint ones is.) The TCP/IP part has been interesting and fun. String parsing and doing a user interface is not as fun, hence the limited set of commands and lack of edit capability. At least for testing the TCP/IP code, it'll do for now .. I saw your session in real-time on the tcpdump. I suspect it didn't disconnect cleanly, so I'll be going back through the logs to find out what happened. (My side timed out sending a packet to your side.) Thanks again, Mike From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 1 00:38:09 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 22:38:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <1167631329.13407.10.camel@linux.site> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> <45980BA0.80605@brutman.com> <45982CAE.9020109@brutman.com> <1167631329.13407.10.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <20061231223151.P22918@shell.lmi.net> > > In the case of a really old system like that, it doesn't matter what the > > network is - the network will never be the problem, unless I use bongos > > as the transport mechanism. On Mon, 1 Jan 2007, Warren Wolfe wrote: > Keep it in historical context... Bongos were a significant speed > increase over smoke signals. ?? ~1100 feet per second v 186,000 miles per second But bongos could operate without line of sight, and with or without ambient light. Neither seems to be supported by current MICROS~1 software. So, reliability is likely to be higher than modern NICs. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 1 02:17:36 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:17:36 -0800 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> Message-ID: <45985320.25038.73BA6E5@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Dec 2006 at 23:50, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > I'm back at it again - I plan on doing better this time. (I've fixed the > specific double delete bug that bit me last time, improved tracing quite a > bit, and added a lot of consistency checking code.) I telnet-ed from my Windoze to a Linux box and ran Telnet from there to your server to get echoing. (What's the record for nested telnets?) It looked pretty good, but then I fired off some garbage characters at it and it quit responding. Cheers, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 1 02:22:57 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 02:22:57 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4598C4E1.4080702@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Am I thinking correctly or am I likely to see > an improvement in internet access speed if I upgrade? You will see 0% improvement in internet access speed. However, moving your entire internal network to 100mbps makes things like network storage a convenience, and 1000mbps makes it transparent. Half a decade ago I upgraded everything to 100mbps and it became possible for me to edit video over the network (DV, which is 3.125MB/s, easily within the realm of 100mbps). That really helped my workflow, as I could put all my crap in one place but edit any project from any machine I wanted. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 1 02:25:14 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 02:25:14 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <4597E9B0.23322.59FCD56@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com>, <45982A14.5070302@shiresoft.com>, <4597E9B0.23322.59FCD56@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4598C56A.40006@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Could the second hub and the translation/turnaround over the coax > link between the two be the culprit? Only if you're running at half duplex and/or have some sort of collision nightmare. > Just trying to figure out why a 2 GHz box is getting consistently > beaten by a 225 MHz one. Boot knoppix (linux on a CD that runs completely off of the CD) and run "netstat -in" to see if the 2Ghz box is suffering from something obvious. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 1 02:27:02 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 02:27:02 -0600 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4598C5D6.4090203@oldskool.org> Michael B. Brutman wrote: > > Here is a picture of the machine you are connecting to, complete with > the Western Digital 8003 Ethernet card grafted onto the side: BTW, I'd like to re-re-direct people to that photograph. That has to be the only PCjr in existence with real functioning ISA cards. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 1 02:27:49 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:27:49 -0800 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <003301c72d4c$bc2934d0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com>, <003301c72d4c$bc2934d0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <45985585.4266.74504D6@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Dec 2006 at 20:29, Jay West wrote: > This sounds like the classic problem of a duplex mismatch between the device > and the hub. A lot of folks don't realize it, but when you mix > 10mb/HDX/100mb/FDX devices in a single network - you would THINK that the > devices would autonegotiate identical settings on both ends. I took some older Socket 7 boards with both ISA and PCI slots with CPUs ranging from an Intel 166 (no MMX) to a K6 PR300. Tried about 5 different PCI 100BaseT NICs and only a single generic NE2000 10BaseT ISA card. In every case, the ISA card was faster than the PCI cards (talking to a 10BaseT hub) when doing an A-B comparison in the same box. OSes were Win98 and Win2K. I suppose I should throw in some Linux just to be fair, but I didn't do it this round. To be fair, I used different cables and ports on the hub. I think you've hit the nail on the head, Jay--at least it seems that way. I've got a few more tests to do before I'm sure. To say that I'm surprised is an understatement. Cheers, Chuck From spc at conman.org Mon Jan 1 02:37:02 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 03:37:02 -0500 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> Message-ID: <20070101083702.GD17269@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great Michael B. Brutman once stated: > > Happy New Year! Happy New Year! > I'm back at it again - I plan on doing better this time. (I've fixed > the specific double delete bug that bit me last time, improved tracing > quite a bit, and added a lot of consistency checking code.) > > Just like last time, all you need to do is telnet to 24.159.203.149, > port 2301. Once again, that's my Linux box, but today it is forwarding > port 2301 to my PCjr. The commands are slightly enhanced from the last > test, but it isn't anything highly interactive. > > Up to 9 people can connect simultaneously. We didn't get more than 2 or > 3 simultaneous connections last time, so I'm probably overly optimistic. Well, I tested the nine simultaneous connections and yes, it seems to work, although pressing ^C causes whatever program is listening on the other end of the TCP connection to stop responding to commands. > Here is a picture of the machine you are connecting to, complete with > the Western Digital 8003 Ethernet card grafted onto the side: > > http://brutman.com/PCjr_WD_small.jpg Very neat. How did you do that to a PCjr? Some sort of hacked up ISA bus or something? > And lastly, if you remember, type in your OS and machine type as a > command. It will complain about it being an invalid command, but I'll > see it in the log and I'll have a better idea of what I'm testing against. sockets 9 sockets are active, 0 more are available Ip Address and Port MSS State Started 66.252.226.50:61108 1432 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 192.168.2.1:3018 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 66.252.226.50:61097 1432 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 65.11.56.196:42377 1452 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 66.252.226.50:61111 1432 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 66.252.227.139:52611 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 66.165.166.190:49217 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 64.124.179.116:36491 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 204.29.162.199:38999 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 These (with the exception of the 192.168.2.1 address) are me. All Linux systems (2.0 to 2.6) with one Mac mini thrown in. -spc (Oh, and your system clock is a bit off 8-) From grant at stockly.com Mon Jan 1 03:12:12 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:12:12 -0900 Subject: Altair 680 CSAVE Problems!@ : ( Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231234847.03956f20@pop.1and1.com> I'm having a ton of trouble saving a program on a cassette tape using Altair 680 basic. Was there a KCACR basic made without the CSAVE command? My basic appears to have a CSAVE command, but it won't accept the name!!!!! : ( I'm sending this to two groups. I've been at this problem for hours now... : ( I'll post a transcript below. Let me know what I'm doing wrong! : ( -------------------- .J FD00 (cassette bootstrap rom address) (basic loading) (basic loaded) .J 0000 (run basic...) MEMORY SIZE? TERMINAL WIDTH? 80 WANT SIN-COS-TAN-ATN? YES 9604 BYTES FREE MITS ALTAIR 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 --KCACR-- COPYRIGHT 1976 BY MITS INC. OK 10 PRINT "HELLO" 20 GOTO 10 CSAVE A ?TM ERROR OK -------------------- TM is a type mismatch error. SM is for a command it doesn't understand. Watch... -------------------- CSAVE A ?TM ERROR OK CSAVE ?SN ERROR OK AHHHH! ?SN ERROR OK AHHHH! A ?SN ERROR OK -------------------- Am I wrong assuming that because it gives me a TM error instead of SN that it is "trying" to work? I get the same things for CLOAD... How in the world are you supposed to save something to tape! : ( If I have the wrong version of basic, anyone have the right one? What will it take for me to get a copy! : ) (first smile in this e-mail... ; ) ) Thanks, Grant From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Jan 1 06:24:08 2007 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 07:24:08 -0500 Subject: Build your own Apollo Guidance Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070101122408.42592BA4257@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Richard wrote: > In article <45981727.2040705 at jetnet.ab.ca>, > woodelf writes: > > > Richard wrote: > > > > > Is it even possible to build with RTL parts anymore? > > > > > > I guess you'd have to do it PDP-8 style with discrete transistors? > > Well I don't like the FPGA idea -- TTL/DTL/RTL logic is still > > visible logic. What good is FPGA's if the windows gets updated and > > the FPGA software is not supported. PALS and GALS I could see used. > > Sense not making, you. I have hand-programmed PALs all the way from pencil-and-paper logic to putting the right volts on the right pins and hitting a one-shot to do the fuse-blowing. No computer necessary at all. It was decades ago but I did it! Non-registered PALs can also be reverse-engineered without any fancy tools (although I'll admit that I usually use a computer to do so, a couple times I have found all the possibilities for "what address does this thing decode?" with just some 7493's and a 555.) Now all that probably could be done for GALs and even FPGA's but I haven't done that :-). Even most GALS do not have publicly released programming specs. I will gladly admit that the "moral equivalent of the visible PAL" is the guy who built a processor from discrete surface mount parts where the "programmable logic" was using/not using arrays (of diodes? most likely) of parts on pluggable PCB's. Don't have the URL handy and Google isn't helping. End result seemed to be more compact and functional for homebrew processor purposes than DIP PAL's, and a lot more visible. Tim. From Alwrcker82 at wmconnect.com Mon Jan 1 06:39:27 2007 From: Alwrcker82 at wmconnect.com (Alwrcker82 at wmconnect.com) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 07:39:27 EST Subject: Altair 680 CSAVE Problems!@ : ( Message-ID: Hi, sometime you must use "A" to save a file, (CSAVE "A") or lower case, worth a try. Al DePermentier From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Mon Jan 1 08:23:19 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 08:23:19 -0600 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <20070101083702.GD17269@linus.groomlake.area51> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <20070101083702.GD17269@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <45991957.2040606@brutman.com> Hi guys, It fell over again during a session with Spc. This failure isn't so obvious .. it seems to function normally, and then the consistency checking finds the heap corruption. Once again, thanks for the help. Time to do a post-mortem. Mike From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Mon Jan 1 08:26:00 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 08:26:00 -0600 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <20070101083702.GD17269@linus.groomlake.area51> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <20070101083702.GD17269@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <459919F8.6090803@brutman.com> Sean Conner wrote: > Well, I tested the nine simultaneous connections and yes, it seems to > work, although pressing ^C causes whatever program is listening on the other > end of the TCP connection to stop responding to commands. I think that's a telnet feature - it probably sent an 'interrupt' command, and the other side is not a real telnet server so it doesn't respond in the proper way. > >> Here is a picture of the machine you are connecting to, complete with >> the Western Digital 8003 Ethernet card grafted onto the side: >> >> http://brutman.com/PCjr_WD_small.jpg > > Very neat. How did you do that to a PCjr? Some sort of hacked up ISA bus > or something? ISA bus to PCjr bus adapter :-) >> And lastly, if you remember, type in your OS and machine type as a >> command. It will complain about it being an invalid command, but I'll >> see it in the log and I'll have a better idea of what I'm testing against. > > sockets > > 9 sockets are active, 0 more are available > Ip Address and Port MSS State Started > 66.252.226.50:61108 1432 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 > 192.168.2.1:3018 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 > 66.252.226.50:61097 1432 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 > 65.11.56.196:42377 1452 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 > 66.252.226.50:61111 1432 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 > 66.252.227.139:52611 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 > 66.165.166.190:49217 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 > 64.124.179.116:36491 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 > 204.29.162.199:38999 1460 ESTABLISHED Mon Jan 01 02:13:50 2007 > > These (with the exception of the 192.168.2.1 address) are me. All Linux > systems (2.0 to 2.6) with one Mac mini thrown in. > > -spc (Oh, and your system clock is a bit off 8-) > > It wasn't too long after this that it died, so I'm going to test 9 simultaneous connections here. Mike From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Mon Jan 1 09:16:25 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 09:16:25 -0600 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <459919F8.6090803@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <20070101083702.GD17269@linus.groomlake.area51> <459919F8.6090803@brutman.com> Message-ID: <459925C9.2050605@brutman.com> Found it! Testing is open again - hammer away at will! (Hopefully this time I'm just going to sit back with a nice glow and monitor it working perfectly.) The postmortem: Consistency checking is a good thing. The runtime of my compier has a 'heapcheck' function that walks the heap and verifies that everything is in order. I have some code controlled by a #def that is doing this checking (along with checking my own data structures) fairly often. It impacts performance, but at least I can get closer the problem.) There were almost no symptoms for this heap corruption - the machine was running fine, sessions were still going, and DOS didn't behave badly after I shut the server down. Nor could I see an obviously bad flow in the traces. So I started diagnostics on the machine, thinking it was a fluke. While I was walking the dog this morning, it occurred to me what happened. Simple buffer overun .. I allocated only 512 bytes for output per session, but tried sending quite a bit more. Spc exposed my crap coding with the 'sockets' command that showed nine sessions .. The last time I tested with 9 simultaneous connections I didn't have the consistency checking, so I was probably corrupting heap and not realizing it. Telnet users: My understanding of telnet is that it is a protocol, not just raw characters. So when you hit Ctrl-C under a typical Telnet client in Unix, you are sending the equivalent of a 'process' interrupt. I see lots of funny characters on my side, but they'll get consumed and life goes on. I suspect that telnet is not so tolerant though, and is expecting a proper response back from the telnet server. I don't have a real telnet server here - it's not negotiating options or talking the official protocol. Short story .. don't bother with control chars. My code doesn't care, and I think the normal telnet clients get tied up because my code isn't responding right. Anybody notice the BIOS date and machine ID? That's generated at runtime, not a static string. :-) Thanks again, and party on! Mike From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 1 11:01:52 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 12:01:52 -0500 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> On Dec 31, 2006, at 7:31 AM, Grant Stockly wrote: > This is my attempt at an "art" x-ray. > > This image includes the entire range of densities. If I were to > penetrate the motor I would blow through the plastic. > > This is a high resolution x-ray. Zoom into the front label and see > if you can read the embossed name plates... What COLOR is this > actual drive? The answer is in there! ; ) > > http://www.stockly.com/images2/061231- > Disk_II_Drive-120kv6ma15msDG35SFD.jpg > > This shot was taken with the drive elevated at an angle by foam so > that you would get a 3d feeling and not a flat picture. > > Let me know if its cool. I may x-ray an entire computer next... : ) It's extremely cool. What's with you and the x-rays lately? Did you score an x-ray machine somewhere recently? (I ask out of jealousy...I'd love a small x-ray setup [and the knowledge to use it] for soldering BGA components). -Dave -- Dave McGuire Cape Coral, FL From wizard at voyager.net Mon Jan 1 11:15:32 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:15:32 -0500 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <20061231223151.P22918@shell.lmi.net> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> <45980BA0.80605@brutman.com> <45982CAE.9020109@brutman.com> <1167631329.13407.10.camel@linux.site> <20061231223151.P22918@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1167671733.13407.17.camel@linux.site> On Sun, 2006-12-31 at 22:38 -0800, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Mon, 1 Jan 2007, Warren Wolfe wrote: > > Keep it in historical context... Bongos were a significant speed > > increase over smoke signals. > > ?? > ~1100 feet per second v 186,000 miles per second Oh, SURE, the PROPAGATION speed is higher for smoke signals, the delay comes in filling the "cache" with smoke to let it go, and different interpretations of various clouds of smoke, necessitating error retries. > But bongos could operate without line of sight, > and with or without ambient light. Yes, an attribute not seen again in the commercial market until the advent of SneakerNet. > Neither seems to be supported by current MICROS~1 software. > So, reliability is likely to be higher than modern NICs. The EXISTENCE of software from MICROS~1 does not, in itself, degrade a NIC -- one has to actually RUN the software to mess things up. My NIC has only run Linux drivers, and has functioned perfectly. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From tpeters at mixcom.com Mon Jan 1 11:31:25 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 11:31:25 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <003301c72d4c$bc2934d0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> <45982A14.5070302@shiresoft.com> <4597E9B0.23322.59FCD56@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070101112442.0d6eb380@localhost> At 08:29 PM 12/31/2006 -0600, you wrote: >You wrote... >>Just trying to figure out why a 2 GHz box is getting consistently >>beaten by a 225 MHz one. > >This sounds like the classic problem of a duplex mismatch between the >device and the hub. A lot of folks don't realize it, but when you mix >10mb/HDX/100mb/FDX devices in a single network - you would THINK that the >devices would autonegotiate identical settings on both ends. C'mon, they >even SAY they autonegotiate on the box, and they DO have an 'auto' >setting, right? Fact is, they get it wrong better than 80% of the time. >Even two devices from the same manufacturer usually don't autonegotiate >right. Pretend that "autonegotiation" doesn't exist. Set both ends >manually to identical settings. If one > >Some will say - this can't be... I plug them in and they work, and the >right speed lights come on! And they pass traffic JUST fine. Don't trust >this. FDX/HDX mismatches can create very odd looking wierdness. Like a >connection that SEEMS to work, but is actually working very poorly. Yeah, I can attest. We used to have one particular run of 3Com cards that negotiated the wrong duplex about 25% of the time when used with one particular kind of 10/100 blade in a Cisco Catalyst 5000 series switch. The symptoms were that the connection would work ok, and ping tests seemed to indicate all was well, but as you loaded the connection down a little, it would start having errors and retries, until the retries overwhelmed any real work being done. Any time someone reported a good connection that would hang, timeout, and quit with errors whenever you tried to copy a file over it (larger than a few k) I know what the problem was. A firmware upgrade fixed some of it. Policy fixed the rest: Thou shalt set the speed and duplex we tell you to on your PC, or we'll disable your port. No Auto/Auto permitted. Better gear and Corporate Standard NICs eliminated the problem after a while. [Computing] The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offence. --E.W.Dijkstra, 18th June 1975. --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From tpeters at mixcom.com Mon Jan 1 11:46:15 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 11:46:15 -0600 Subject: SCSI CD cabinets In-Reply-To: <4596F71D.21764.1EC435E@cclist.sydex.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20061231003741.0be38e00@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20061229184648.0e6e67e0@localhost> <459654D7.2070409@yahoo.co.uk> <5.1.0.14.2.20061231003741.0be38e00@localhost> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070101114234.0cd209a8@localhost> At 11:32 PM 12/30/2006 -0800, you wrote: >On 31 Dec 2006 at 0:38, Tom Peters wrote: > > > But they were amusing. Well, sort of amusing. > >If I had a nice cabinet like that, I'd fill it with one each of >various types of floppy drives (except for 8") and a switch. >Let's see -- one 1.44, one 720K, 1 1.3MB for 3.5", one 100 tpi 5.25", >1 360K, 1 1.2MB. Given that the 100 tpi is a full height unit, >that's 7 half-height drives. Would take a bit of hacking, but it >should work. > >Right now, except for the FH drives, I use IBM PS/2 Diskette >Adapter/A cabinets, one for each drive. I guess you could, if you were willing to trick up your own front panel, or make it all fit into 5.25" vertical openings. The drives are standard 5?" with proprietary rails, so two thumbscrews allow removal of the drive. The rails are simple wide U-stock, maybe 1.25" wide, with the flat wide edge bolted to the drive. The legs of the U are less than a quarter inch and ride on slots milled in the cabinet. Simple and elegant. [Commentary] Putting smokers and non-smokers in the same room is like having a urinating and a non-urinating section in a swimming pool. --- Ross Parker --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From rcini at optonline.net Mon Jan 1 12:05:59 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 13:05:59 -0500 Subject: Closet-cleaning Message-ID: <019a01c72dcf$7def3f60$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I was doing some closet-cleaning in the shop this weekend and came across a few things I have no use for any longer or were bought for projects that never got off the ground (and probably won't). If anyone's interested in anything, please email me off list. Shipping to the US only is not included. Trades considered. * Seagate 9gb full-height SCSI hard drive (new but unused/untested); ST940800N: $10 * Compaq-badged external DLT drive 5/10gb (SCSI-I; working last time used): $25 * Panasonic 616 phone system with 4 keysets (untested but bought working). I have manuals in electronic form: $50 * STD-BUS 14-slot card cage with assortment of cards (2 analog, 2 digital, 2 relay, Z80 CPU and DSKY. May have other cards in it). I think I have docs for most of the cards and a disassembly of the ROM. NASA surplus. All cards should work but it was some sort of data acquisition or process control system so I never finished fully decoding the ROM to see what it did. $75 * SpareTimeGizmos SB6120 PDP-8 fully built and working in a Lucite case. All that's needed is 5v adapter. Includes CF adapter and 16mb CF card with four disk images. $250 (reflects actual costs of partial kit and parts I bought). * TI-74 BASIC-Calc system. Includes unit, PC324 printer and AC adapter. I will also include CD of random information and programs that I had collected. $40. I'm looking specifically for a Tandy CM-1 color monitor for my Tandy 2000 and a small self-contained PC/104 SBC (stand-alone -- not for use with a backplane) with at least a 486 CPU. I'm also looking for an older Mac Mini (1.42ghz version with Airport/Bluetooth). Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From tpeters at mixcom.com Mon Jan 1 12:14:36 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 12:14:36 -0600 Subject: SCSI CD cabinets In-Reply-To: References: <4596F71D.21764.1EC435E@cclist.sydex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20061229184648.0e6e67e0@localhost> <459654D7.2070409@yahoo.co.uk> <5.1.0.14.2.20061231003741.0be38e00@localhost> <4596F71D.21764.1EC435E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070101114648.0d703ec8@localhost> At 03:45 AM 12/31/2006 -0500, you wrote: >On 12/31/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>I'm just sorry that I gave away my old 7 CD unit. > >I have something like that I was thinking about digging out... it's a >table-top unit, with a 2X drive and a 7-disc internal changer. I was >contemplating seeing if I could replace the transport with a SCSI >DVD-ROM unit just for fun, as 7 CDs isn't all that interesting. I still have this slick Nakamichi 7 disk scsi CD changer with audio outputs on the back. Something like MBR-7?? I wish I had a killer application for it. I wonder if it has enough front panel control to use it as an audio CD player without connecting to the scsi bus at all-- something like I'm doing with my NEC Multispin 6x caddy type CD drive. I have it connected to my stereo, via coax digital audio out. I only have 4 or 5 caddies laying around though. >As for the OP's question, if _I_ had a 7 *transport* box, I'd consider >replacing most or all of the transports with SCSI DVD-ROMs for a >decent amount of archival storage readback. I could back interesting >things up to DVD-R on a single writer, then keep the most important >stuff available for readback. It's not as much storage as even a >moderate-sized RAID array, but it isn't likely to suffer from >headcrashes, etc. > >-ethan [Commentary] ...nothing banned in Singapore can be all bad. --Cosma R. Shalizi, on The Economist --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Jan 1 12:37:08 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 10:37:08 -0800 Subject: Network question Message-ID: If it isn't hampering you, I wouldn't mess with it, but > But it's the hubs I wonder about--two old > National Semi 6-port Datamover 10BaseT units coupled together with a > 10Base2 (coax) link. It's that coax that I dread replacing--it goes > between floors and snaking it through the walls was a real chore. > Keep in mind that this time around it won't be so hard- just attach two nylon strings to the coax, pull it out, attach your fiber or UTP to one of the strings and pull it up. Leave the other string in the wall if you ever need a second line. From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jan 1 12:42:04 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 13:42:04 -0500 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 01 January 2007 12:01, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 31, 2006, at 7:31 AM, Grant Stockly wrote: > > This is my attempt at an "art" x-ray. > > > > This image includes the entire range of densities. If I were to > > penetrate the motor I would blow through the plastic. > > > > This is a high resolution x-ray. Zoom into the front label and see > > if you can read the embossed name plates... What COLOR is this > > actual drive? The answer is in there! ; ) > > > > http://www.stockly.com/images2/061231- > > Disk_II_Drive-120kv6ma15msDG35SFD.jpg > > > > This shot was taken with the drive elevated at an angle by foam so > > that you would get a 3d feeling and not a flat picture. > > > > Let me know if its cool. I may x-ray an entire computer next... : > > ) > > It's extremely cool. What's with you and the x-rays lately? Did > you score an x-ray machine somewhere recently? (I ask out of > jealousy...I'd love a small x-ray setup [and the knowledge to use it] > for soldering BGA components). He said in an earlier message, that it was at his place of employment. :) He's aparently not as crazy as I am to have some x-ray gear at home (then again, I've never used it partly because I don't know enough about dosages to determine what's safe, and how much to use to expose film properly, etc). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Jan 1 12:43:23 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 10:43:23 -0800 Subject: Network question Message-ID: <16369844010cd256cdd3bd313ffdf446@valleyimplants.com> Fred Csin wrote >> Keep it in historical context... Bongos were a significant speed >> increase over smoke signals. > > ?? > ~1100 feet per second v 186,000 miles per second > > But bongos could operate without line of sight, > and with or without ambient light. > Well, smoke signals may have lower latency, but bongos would have higher possible switching speeds and so better bandwidth. Things don't change much, do they? Scott From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jan 1 12:47:45 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 10:47:45 -0800 Subject: early DSP In-Reply-To: <4597C28E.25598.506F302@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" > >On 31 Dec 2006 at 13:49, woodelf wrote: > > > That means I have to buy a toaster-oven to do my PCB's. :) > > Also I want to go to MARS ... a bigger computer is needed - umm 20 >bits??? > >That reminds me; the other day I ran across the datasheet for the NEC >uPD7720 DSP (was it the first IC DSP?). 2 instructions--23 bit >instruction word length. Data memory was 16 bits. Very strange >bird... > >Cheers, >Chuck > Hi Chuck OK, I'll bite. What were the two instructions? Most DSP's are built around a MAC. I would guess the large word length might be to include immediate coefficients. I know some early ones like the Intel 2920 ( not to be confused with AMD's 2900 series parts ) ran as a continuous loop. I'd guess the 7720 was similar in that it would just loop. Most of these type were to create inline filters to shape the band pass going to and from codec's. Even though the Intel 2920 was just a simple loop, it was able to be used for something like a spectrum analyzer with just the coding. Not too bad for something that doesn't even have conditional jump instructions. These types of DSP's were obsoleted when Motorola and TI came out with DPS's that were more like traditional uP's of the time. The connected a uP with a MAC. The Motorola was more easily programmed by someone familar with regular uP's while the TI's had all kinds of restrictions on how different parts of the memory could be used. I have a I2920 developement SDK and a few 2920's. Someday, I'd drag it out and play some with it. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes is here. Get all the scoop. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/ From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Jan 1 13:01:00 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 14:01:00 -0500 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 Message-ID: <01C72DAD.45E3D620@MSE_D03> ---------------Original Message: Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 01:03:53 -0500 (EST) From: der Mouse Subject: Re: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 > The standard Windows telnet client doesn't do that by default, so you > will type but not see your characters. That's a project for a > different day. What, fixing Windows telnet to actually conform to the spec? Yes, that's quite a project. :-) ---------------Reply: Gimme a break; this "project" merely involves getting the free HypertermPE upgrade from Hilgraeve. Fixes the local echo bug and works just fine. mike From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 1 13:02:34 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 14:02:34 -0500 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <16369844010cd256cdd3bd313ffdf446@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200701011902.l01J2ntO059017@keith.ezwind.net> On Mon, 1 Jan 2007 10:43:23 -0800, Scott Quinn wrote: >Fred Csin wrote >>> Keep it in historical context... Bongos were a significant speed >>> increase over smoke signals. >> >> ?? >> ~1100 feet per second v 186,000 miles per second >> >> But bongos could operate without line of sight, >> and with or without ambient light. >> >Well, smoke signals may have lower latency, but bongos would have >higher possible switching speeds and so better bandwidth. Things don't >change much, do they? >Scott Smoke signals have much better point to point side channel noise rejection. Bongos have a poor signal to noise ratio. Just my two copper, in the well ... Bob From rcini at optonline.net Mon Jan 1 13:02:44 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 14:02:44 -0500 Subject: Closet-cleaning Message-ID: <000901c72dd7$6b71ff00$04000100@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: The SB6120 and the TI74 have been spoken for as of now. Thanks for your interest. Dan Veeneman.do you have another email address? I got an error from your receiving mail server rejecting my reply. I'll also try sending from another account. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From rickb at bensene.com Mon Jan 1 13:03:46 2007 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:03:46 -0800 Subject: Network question Message-ID: Chuck Guzis wrote: >I'm beginning to wonder if it's time I upgraded my home network. The >NICs on most of the machines are 100BaseT, with the odd old machine >sporting a 10BaseT. But it's the hubs I wonder about--two old >National Semi 6-port Datamover 10BaseT units coupled together with a >10Base2 (coax) link. It's that coax that I dread replacing--it goes >between floors and snaking it through the walls was a real chore. >My DSL speed is 1.6Mbps, so I'm thinking that there's little reason >to upgrade the setup. Am I thinking correctly or am I likely to see >an improvement in internet access speed if I upgrade? My home network is rather different. My "data center" is out in the shop. The network out in the shop is centered on a 1GB/Sec. Ethernet switch, with all of the infrastructure servers hooked up to it. There's also an earlier 10/100 switch, which supports a couple of older machines that don't really need GigE (dedicated SETI at Home machines). My DSL connection is 1.5Mb/Sec., and I use a nice router/firewall with a separate seconday firewall creating a DMZ between the main home network and the Internet. The secondary firewall connects into the GigE fabric. There's an 802.11G (108Mb/Sec. link speed) wireless access point in the shop for wireless use when I'm out there. The shop is also completely wired with Cat6 cable to many drops. I have two GigE Cat6 lines, one active, one as a spare) that run in conduit underground between the shop and the house. In the house, there's a GigE switch, a 10/100 switch for older machines, an 802.11G wireless access point. The wireless stuff all uses WPA for improved security, although out there where I live, the chances of "snoops" is pretty small. The wireless access point are long-range devices...I can actually connect to the WAP in the house from anywhere within about 100 yards of the house. The house is all wired with Cat6 cable also, with lots of drops. All of these upgrades (previously, everything was 10/100), have made a dramatic improvement with regard to 'response' of end-user machines. The GigE interconnect between the servers and the end-user machines. As far as Internet connectivity goes...in networks, as in racecars, the weakest part is the limiting factor. The T1-equivalent DSL connection is SO much slower than any of the rest of the network, that upgrading everything to GigE made absolutely no detectable difference in terms of speed of access to the Internet. So, if your main concern is Internet connectivity, leave your network as-is. Spending the money to upgrade really won't make any substantial difference there. If you have any time of server-based infrastructure (file server, media server, Email server, etc.) then upgrading the "core" network can make a big difference in terms of response to core network services. If you want your Internet to be faster, spend the money to try to get a faster connection (if possible). With DSL, the limiting factor on speed is the distance from your home to the closest DSLAM, and the equipment used by your ISP. Rick Bensene From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jan 1 13:16:10 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 11:16:10 -0800 Subject: National MA2000 parts. In-Reply-To: <16369844010cd256cdd3bd313ffdf446@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: Hi I was just digging though my stuff ( actually, doing some early spring cleaning ). I came across some of these components. I was wondering if anyone else had heard of them before. These are modules that stack to form systems. They are based on the CMOS version of the NSC800 processor. This was pin compatable with the 8085 but used the Z80 instructions ( or so I've been told ). Here is waht I have: MA2000 base unit ( damaged by a leaky NiCad but looks repairable ) MA2800 Processor unit ( some I/O, ROM with monitor and some RAM ) MA2232 RS232 interface MA2301 Forth in ROM MA2016 16K CMOS RAM's( used the bad NiCad to hold data ) I'f got 3 of these. MA2017L 16K RAM with its own battery ( hope it isn't a NiCad ). MA2732 Holds two 2716 or 2732 EPROMs MA2802 Another with Real Time Clock. Manual with data sheets for these and others. Also a lot on how to use these, monitor listing and NSC800 instruction set are included. I'm not thinking of getting rid of these but would like to know if anyone else has played with these. A web search doesn't show a hold lot. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Type your favorite song.? Get a customized station.? Try MSN Radio powered by Pandora. http://radio.msn.com/?icid=T002MSN03A07001 From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 1 13:28:09 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 11:28:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <200701011902.l01J2ntO059017@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200701011902.l01J2ntO059017@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <20070101111543.N40477@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 1 Jan 2007, Bob Bradlee wrote: > Smoke signals have much better point to point side channel noise rejection. > Bongos have a poor signal to noise ratio. Bongos are not well suited for full duplex, even with asymmetric FSK. Bongos can control data rate (and legitimately use "BAUD"!); smoke signals rely on ambient conditions for their data rate. Smoke signals permit virtually unlimited simultaneous transmissions, until the media is saturated (like LA) With special hardware (specially equipped plane), smoke signals can be plain text, with a limited selection of fonts. As near as I can tell, Smoke Signal Broadcating company (like Vector Graphics) never produced the products implicit in the company name. > Just my two copper, in the well ... best to stick with silver in wells -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 1 13:35:33 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 11:35:33 -0800 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Jan 2007 at 11:03, Rick Bensene wrote: > If you want your Internet to be faster, spend the money to try to get a > faster connection (if possible). With DSL, the limiting factor on speed > is the distance from your home to the closest DSLAM, and the equipment > used by your ISP. It's the fastest it comes right now--I'm over 10 wire-miles from the CO, but Qwest bought some land from me and installed a terminus of some sort about 400 ft. from the house (a 20'x20' concrete pad with lots of big boxes--and a Qwest service truck tha seems to be parked daily--on it). They tell me that Real Soon Now, they'll have 5Mb/sec service available. "Real Soon Now" in my experience with Qwest seems to be about 3-4 years. Still wondering where that 42Mb/sec service is that the telcos promised the FCC they'd have deployed in 2006. Qwest seems to be more interested in selling me Dish TV and mobile services than providing good net access. The maddening thing is that there's a local wireless net provider here with excellent pricing. I can see their transmitter tower two hills over from my window, but they nothing pointing in my direction nor do they plan to. And cable doesn't exist out here in the boonies. BTW, manually altering the setting on the 100BaseT NICs does appear to make a significant difference in performance, although Win2K does appear to be doing the cybernetic equivalent of passing a kidney stone when settings are being changed. As far as file movement between systems goes, 1MB is a big transfer for me--I mostly move source code, executables and small data files around. Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 1 15:22:39 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 16:22:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <4598A897.4040803@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <200701010609.BAA14542@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <4598A897.4040803@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200701012124.QAA17566@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I saw your session in real-time on the tcpdump. I suspect it didn't > disconnect cleanly, so I'll be going back through the logs to find > out what happened. (My side timed out sending a packet to your > side.) I initiated at least three, and I think four, sessions (from two different addresses). One I deliberately disconnected by escaping and telling telnet to quit; the rest, I think I disconnected with "quit". I don't see why any of them would time out, unless you don't handle RST segments correctly. I'll be happy to work with you to debug this, if you want. der Mouse From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 1 15:28:17 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 15:28:17 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45997CF1.3050203@oldskool.org> Rick Bensene wrote: > (dedicated SETI at Home machines) [soapbox] Might I interest you in something a little more fulfilling? The folding at home project publishes its results and is actively working to cure diseases caused by protein misfolding such as alzheimer's, parkinson's, etc. [/soapbox] I became quite disillusioned with SETI when they dumped core a few years ago and lost hundreds of millions of computer-hours' worth of work. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Mon Jan 1 16:13:08 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 14:13:08 -0800 Subject: TTL 7400's Available References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org> <45984110.5020708@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <45998774.E7AA453F@cs.ubc.ca> woodelf wrote: > > A 18 bit CPU with a 1.5 us cycle time seems possible but I need some > OC buffers. All I can say is the Flip/Flops are a bitch to design. > Registers are MAR/MDR/PC/AC -- If the difficulty with flip-flops is coming up with an edge-triggerred design, or regardless, you might be interested in a scheme used in (many) Japanese SSI calculators from the late 60s: - All flips flops are a master-slave form, but each section (M & S) is a basic, dead-simple, gated flip-flop. - The clock presents two phases to the system, the phases being *non-overlapping* pulses. - All slave sections are gated *directly* by one phase of the clock (call it the update phase). - Master sections are gated by the other phase (call it the capture phase), but not (necessarily) directly: typically, intervening logic controls whether a given master section is gated or not, as per the desired function of the flip-flop. Because the slave section outputs are all modified simultaneously, but asynchronous to the master sections, the master section inputs are guaranteed to be stable when the master sections are gated (as long as the longest logic propagation path is accounted for). Advantages: - simple flip-flop design, no need for edge-triggerring. - no concern about setup or hold times. - fully synchronous at the system level, no worrying about propagation glitches, etc. Disadvantages: - every 'system flip-flop' or 'bit of state' is actually two (gated) flip-flops. (Another cheap trick in the SSI IC era was to front a basic 2-gate flip-flop with discrete capacitors and resistors to get edge triggerring.) From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 1 16:16:28 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 14:16:28 -0800 Subject: early DSP In-Reply-To: References: <4597C28E.25598.506F302@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <459917BC.16015.B33505@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Jan 2007 at 10:47, dwight elvey wrote: > OK, I'll bite. What were the two instructions? Most DSP's > are built around a MAC. I would guess the large word length > might be to include immediate coefficients. Well, the 7720 has 3 or 4 instructions according to the manual (I don't know who wrote it, but it's very confusing) which seems not to be able to make up its mind. Storage is a 23-bit instruction ROM, a 16-bit data ROM and a 16-bit data RAM. Architecture is basically 1-address, with two selectable accumulators. Instruction I/II, OP and RT: Same format, but the RT also performs a subroutine return at the conclusion. Fields designate ALU function, source, destination, and address register modification. Instruction is single-cycle. Instruction III, JP: Jump; does conditional, unconditional jumps and subroutine call. Instruction IV, LD: Immediate load of value to selected destination. Now, I'd say that saying that there are only 3 instructions is sort of cheating, but then, I didn't write the manual. NEC doesn't call this chip a DSP; but an SPI (signal processing interface). But it has the DSP earmark of compute-and-accumulate capability with a 16x16 single-cycle multiplier. Literature seems to date the chip sometime in 1983. Unfortunately, I don't have one of the chips. Cheers, Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 1 16:17:57 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 14:17:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: flash card adapter board Message-ID: <20070101221757.4293.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> "The flash card adapter board contains the basic circuitry needed to add an SD/MMC, miniSD, and microSD/TransFlash socket to virtually any microcontroller application using as few as four I/O pins." introductory price - $39 US http://www.ecs87.com/adaptor.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jan 1 16:43:35 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 15:43:35 -0700 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <45998774.E7AA453F@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org> <45984110.5020708@jetnet.ab.ca> <45998774.E7AA453F@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <45998E97.4090400@jetnet.ab.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Because the slave section outputs are all modified simultaneously, > but asynchronous to the master sections, the master section inputs are > guaranteed to be stable when the master sections are gated (as long as the > longest logic propagation path is accounted for). > > Advantages: > - simple flip-flop design, no need for edge-triggerring. > - no concern about setup or hold times. > - fully synchronous at the system level, no worrying about > propagation glitches, etc. > > Disadvantages: > - every 'system flip-flop' or 'bit of state' is actually two (gated) flip-flops. That is what I plan to use -- the problem is generating the two phase clock. Q: How to do that. > (Another cheap trick in the SSI IC era was to front a basic 2-gate flip-flop > with discrete capacitors and resistors to get edge triggerring.) A: See above. > . From rick at rickmurphy.net Mon Jan 1 19:06:57 2007 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 20:06:57 -0500 Subject: Closet-cleaning In-Reply-To: <000901c72dd7$6b71ff00$04000100@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <000901c72dd7$6b71ff00$04000100@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200701020107.l0216whH031651@mail.itm-inst.com> At 02:02 PM 1/1/2007, Richard A. Cini wrote: > Dan Veeneman.do you have another email address? I got an > error >from your receiving mail server rejecting my reply. I'll also try sending >from another account. Piggybacking on Richard's message: Dan, my replies to you appear to be dropping into a black hole - no reply to multiple e-mails from here and from gmail. I'm not getting bounces, though. -Rick From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 1 19:18:29 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 20:18:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <459925C9.2050605@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <20070101083702.GD17269@linus.groomlake.area51> <459919F8.6090803@brutman.com> <459925C9.2050605@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200701020135.UAA19014@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Found it! Testing is open again - hammer away at will! Cool! I left you with a deliberately half-open socket, for your testing pleasure. (I tried to leave you with another one, but it went away - and the rest of the connections didn't, so I don't think it was you resetting things.) It's the one from 216.46.1.51:64971. (I created it by connecting and then hard-resetting the machine.) > Telnet users: > My understanding of telnet is that it is a protocol, not just raw > characters. You are correct. See RFC 854. :-) > So when you hit Ctrl-C under a typical Telnet client in Unix, you are > sending the equivalent of a 'process' interrupt. Most likely an Interrupt Process (0xff 0xf4) sequence, quite possibly an Abort Output (0xff 0xf5) and/or a Synch (0xff 0xf2 with the TCP urgent pointer pointing just after the 0xf2) as well. > I see lots of funny characters on my side, but they'll get consumed > and life goes on. I suspect that telnet is not so tolerant though, > and is expecting a proper response back from the telnet server. I'm inclined to doubt it. There is no defined response that a telnet client can reasonbly expect to IP, AO, or Synch. I'll snoop traffic and try a ^C to see what's really going on - at the wire level, at least. > Anybody notice the BIOS date and machine ID? That's generated at > runtime, not a static string. :-) I noticed it, but had no way to tell whether it were static or not. :) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 1 19:42:58 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 20:42:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <200701020135.UAA19014@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <20070101083702.GD17269@linus.groomlake.area51> <459919F8.6090803@brutman.com> <459925C9.2050605@brutman.com> <200701020135.UAA19014@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200701020152.UAA19166@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> So when you hit Ctrl-C under a typical Telnet client in Unix, you >> are sending the equivalent of a 'process' interrupt. > Most likely an Interrupt Process (0xff 0xf4) sequence, quite possibly > an Abort Output (0xff 0xf5) and/or a Synch (0xff 0xf2 with the TCP > urgent pointer pointing just after the 0xf2) as well. >> [...] > I'll snoop traffic and try a ^C to see what's really going on - at > the wire level, at least. I've now got something to report. This may well vary according to the telnet client. The test I did was with a moderately old NetBSD telnet client. When I typed ^C, I saw, on the wire (in hex), ff f4 ff fd 06. This is IAC IP IAC DO TIMING-MARK. But I never see IAC WILL TIMING-MARK or IAC WONT TIMING-MARK coming back, which is probably why the telnet client hangs - it's expecting one or the other. (And, in passing, it doesn't actually hang; I can type and what I type goes out. But it doesn't show me anything that comes back, even though data does come back, presumably waiting for a response to its IAC DO TIMING-MARK.) I did server-side code for a mud for which we wanted to support telnet connections. I had to make the server recognize enough protocol to refuse to negotiate any options on (IAC DO xxx produced IAC WONT xxx; IAC WILL xxx produced IAC DONT xxx). If you could do that much, and swallow most (all?) of the other IAC xxx commands, telnet will probably work better to connect to it. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 1 20:44:34 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 18:44:34 -0800 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <45998E97.4090400@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <45998774.E7AA453F@cs.ubc.ca>, <45998E97.4090400@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <45995692.12702.1A8A7AB@cclist.sydex.com> This talk of making flip-flops brings to mind a topic not mentioned much at all any more--that of AC-coupled logic. Does anyone own any CPUs constructed using this logic type? I realize it was more common when thermionic devices (tubes/valves) were used, but I do recall seeing some transistor and tunnel diode circuits using AC coupling. Cheers, Chuck From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Mon Jan 1 21:31:09 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:31:09 -0600 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done! In-Reply-To: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com> This round of testing is over. Here are the highlights: - No heap corruption since I fixed the buffer overflow bug this morning. (Doh!) - I have a lot of a lot of open connections in ESTABLISHED state which I suspect are no longer valid, but because there is no data transfer there is no error. I already knew I'd have to implement a session timeout or keep-alives, and this confirms it. - I have one connection in FIN_WAIT_2. I suspect that will never close on it's own because the host has long since forgotten about it, so I'll need to implement a cleanup timer for those. (I read that Berkeley derived stacks do this, even though it is a violation of the spec.) - I suspect I need to work on my RST segment processing - I think I'm being too strict about what I consider to be an allowable RST. It's all in the RFCs, I just must not be grokking. I'm not going to be testing anything again anytime soon .. it's back to real work, and I have a lot to do before I can subject anybody to my code again. Besides the issues above I need to work on the following: - Besides tracking window sizes, actually honor them. (My code is ill behaved, and can send more than the window advertises.) - Telnet options negotiation - Some sort of 'select' call so that the app doesn't have to keep polling each socket directly. This is DOS so underneath the covers it will poll anyway, but having the app do it makes the code nearly unmanageable. - Go through the logs (both on the server machine and the tcpdump logs on the Linux firewall) and see what else I goofed up. Once again, thanks to those of you who helped me test. I've never undertaken something this large at home - this has been a year in the making. TCP/IP on an 8088 class machine isn't particularly new and exciting, but having my own implementation allows me to determine the balance of features and performance, and to fix the dang bugs that will pop up. :-) This code (without disk access) can transfer an receive on a socket at over 50KB/sec on a PCjr with a NEC V20. That ain't shabby .. :-) Mike From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 1 21:40:09 2007 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:40:09 -0800 Subject: Low cost 1" paper tape In-Reply-To: <20070101221757.4293.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070101221757.4293.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4599D419.9050208@sbcglobal.net> This seller has 1" paper tape for a fair price, $3.00 for 7 rolls. See item number 8288222035 He has 75 boxes available. Bob From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jan 1 21:42:50 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 20:42:50 -0700 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <45995692.12702.1A8A7AB@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <45998774.E7AA453F@cs.ubc.ca>, <45998E97.4090400@jetnet.ab.ca> <45995692.12702.1A8A7AB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4599D4BA.7040504@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > This talk of making flip-flops brings to mind a topic not mentioned > much at all any more--that of AC-coupled logic. Does anyone own any > CPUs constructed using this logic type? I realize it was more common > when thermionic devices (tubes/valves) were used, but I do recall > seeing some transistor and tunnel diode circuits using AC coupling. I am guessing the orginal DEC logic flip/chips used AC logic. > Cheers, > Chuck > From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 1 21:55:12 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 21:55:12 -0600 Subject: Low cost 1" paper tape References: <20070101221757.4293.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <4599D419.9050208@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <00a401c72e21$ce0e9890$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> The tape doesn't appear to be the oiled variety. That rules out use in an ASR33 does it not? Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Rosenbloom" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, January 01, 2007 9:40 PM Subject: Low cost 1" paper tape > This seller has 1" paper tape for a fair price, $3.00 for 7 rolls. See > item number 8288222035 > He has 75 boxes available. > > Bob > From swtpc6800 at comcast.net Mon Jan 1 22:24:02 2007 From: swtpc6800 at comcast.net (Michael Holley) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 20:24:02 -0800 Subject: Altair 680 CSAVE Problems!@ : ( References: <200701011800.l01I0P6h069008@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <008601c72e25$dc318910$6601a8c0@downstairs2> Here is my copy of Altair 680 BASIC. I never owned an Altair, I bought this for my SWTPC 6800. The BASIC and manuals are here. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/Altair/Altair_Basic.htm Michael Holley > Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:12:12 -0900 > From: Grant Stockly > Subject: Altair 680 CSAVE Problems!@ : ( > To: altaircomputerclub at yahoogroups.com, cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231234847.03956f20 at pop.1and1.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed > > I'm having a ton of trouble saving a program on a cassette tape using > Altair 680 basic. Was there a KCACR basic made without the CSAVE > command? My basic appears to have a CSAVE command, but it won't accept > the > name!!!!! : ( > From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 1 22:50:35 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 23:50:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done! In-Reply-To: <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200701020452.XAA21461@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > TCP/IP on an 8088 class machine isn't particularly new and exciting, Oh, I don't know; *I* think this is Pretty D*mn Cool! Well, okay, TCP on an 8088 may not be exciting. TCP using your own code on an 8088, that rocks! /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 1 22:55:21 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 23:55:21 -0500 Subject: Apple IIe Motherboard X-Ray In-Reply-To: <07f583d10ab430dcf7dff1e4e977e19f@valleyimplants.com> References: <07f583d10ab430dcf7dff1e4e977e19f@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <4599E5B9.7090708@gmail.com> Scott Quinn wrote: >> And with so much radiation being shot onto metals and like, does it >> became radioactive? >> >> I have some MSX here that I want to "give it a shot" (pun intended) >> hehehe >> > > Remeber- two types of radiation: particle (Alpha, Beta, neutrons, > protons) and electromagnetic (gamma, X-ray, radio, light, etc). The > particles can make things radioactive, the electromagnetic radiation > cannot. Theoretically, wouldn't it be possible to bombard a proton with an electron with enough force to cause them to merge into a neutron, and in doing, render the material radioactive? In that case, would it be possible to generate said electrons with the photoelectric effect? Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 1 22:56:03 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 23:56:03 -0500 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <45982A14.5070302@shiresoft.com> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> <45980BA0.80605@brutman.com> <45982A14.5070302@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <4599E5E3.6020701@gmail.com> Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > > Zane H. Healy wrote: >> >> You obviously don't have any really old systems on your network. I'm >> still at 1.5Mbps, and have systems on my network that can't keep up >> with that. > I can attest to that! My 11/70 which is running 10Mbps ethernet can > only ftp at ~25KB/s (and that's to a machine that's on the same switch!). That might be because of limited disk bandwidth. The machine itself is capable of talking faster than that. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 1 23:01:28 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:01:28 -0500 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4599E728.6040102@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > BTW, manually altering the setting on the 100BaseT NICs does appear > to make a significant difference in performance, although Win2K does > appear to be doing the cybernetic equivalent of passing a kidney > stone when settings are being changed. I have this laptop here with an Intel gigabit chipset onboard. When I look at the speed/duplex configuration section of the driver configuration under Windows XP, the choices I am presented with are full auto, 10Mbps half, 10Mbps full, 100Mbps half, 100Mbps full and 1000Mbps auto. How come there's no 1000Mbps half/full settings? The performance problems I'm having are when I'm connecting to a gigabit network. Will setting to 1000Mbps auto help? Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 1 23:05:09 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 22:05:09 -0700 Subject: "Thinking Machines: The Creation of the Computer" Message-ID: I just watched this from a bittorrent; it had some nice vintage info and footage in it, so check it out! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Jan 1 23:08:46 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 23:08:46 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <4599E728.6040102@gmail.com> References: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> <4599E728.6040102@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4599E8DE.1040504@mdrconsult.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > How come there's no 1000Mbps half/full settings? The performance > problems I'm having are when I'm connecting to a gigabit network. Will > setting to 1000Mbps auto help? The biggest blessing of gigabit ethernet isn't 1000bps, it's a decent auto-negotiation standard. auto/auto is a hell of a lot more reliable between gigabit devices than 10/100 or 10Mbit, so your situation is a little odd. It sounds like XP has your adapter forced to something Not Right. I'd check the MTU first, make sure you're not on a jumbo-packet network or pushing jumbos on a 1500MTU net, then I'd try 1000Mbps/auto and see. Not like you're going to cook anything. :) Doc From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Mon Jan 1 23:13:12 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:13:12 -0800 Subject: TTL 7400's Available References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <45998774.E7AA453F@cs.ubc.ca>, <45998E97.4090400@jetnet.ab.ca> <45995692.12702.1A8A7AB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4599E9E4.9E91E4E1@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > This talk of making flip-flops brings to mind a topic not mentioned > much at all any more--that of AC-coupled logic. Does anyone own any > CPUs constructed using this logic type? I realize it was more common > when thermionic devices (tubes/valves) were used, but I do recall > seeing some transistor and tunnel diode circuits using AC coupling. Are you referring to AC-coupled/triggerred flip-flops (where the clock trigger is applied thru 2 capacitors to the input of each side of the FF) or to logic where all signals (gate inputs, etc.) are AC-coupled? From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 1 23:12:47 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:12:47 -0800 Subject: My first Mac Message-ID: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> Yeah, no kidding--someone game me a Mac 6100/60. Not very exciting, but I've upgraded the memory to 40 MB and added a 4GB hard disk from parts in my hellbox. So, does anyone have any first-hand experience with Linux on one of these critters? Is it worth the installation trouble? Cheers, Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jan 1 23:16:54 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 21:16:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 1, 7 09:12:47 pm" Message-ID: <200701020516.l025Gsdt024526@floodgap.com> > Yeah, no kidding--someone game me a Mac 6100/60. Not very exciting, > but I've upgraded the memory to 40 MB and added a 4GB hard disk from > parts in my hellbox. I am so proud of you. You have made the first, best step. ;) > So, does anyone have any first-hand experience with Linux on one of > these critters? Is it worth the installation trouble? I've only messed with mkLinux on NuBus Power Macs and IMHO it was not worth it. However, there are certainly other alternatives for NuBus kernels, including a port of Linux/PPC (look at http://nubus-pmac.sourceforge.net/ ). What were you considering? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- MOVIE IDEA: The E-mail Signature Who Loved Me ------------------------------ From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 1 23:20:09 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:20:09 -0800 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <4599E9E4.9E91E4E1@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <4599E9E4.9E91E4E1@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <45997B09.1908.23716B0@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Jan 2007 at 21:13, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Are you referring to AC-coupled/triggerred flip-flops (where the clock trigger > is applied thru 2 capacitors to the input of each side of the FF) or to logic > where all signals (gate inputs, etc.) are AC-coupled? The latter, complete with capacitor and/or transformer coupling. ...and wasn't there a type of logic using microwave technology and various stripline shapes? I think I remember reading about that kind of thing in the 60's. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 1 23:22:56 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:22:56 -0800 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <200701020516.l025Gsdt024526@floodgap.com> References: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 1, 7 09:12:47 pm", <200701020516.l025Gsdt024526@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <45997BB0.25555.239A394@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Jan 2007 at 21:16, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > ). What were you considering? Nothing in particular--just fooling with the box a bit and shelving it until a special need arises. The OS 8 interface isn't particularly exciting, particularly with MS Word and IE 4 for Mac. I miss a good command-line interface and development tools. Hence, the query about Linux. Cheers, Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jan 1 23:42:38 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 21:42:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <45997BB0.25555.239A394@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 1, 7 09:22:56 pm" Message-ID: <200701020542.l025gc8o020276@floodgap.com> > > What were you considering? > > Nothing in particular--just fooling with the box a bit and shelving > it until a special need arises. Well, let me put it this way -- my 7100 (the one I attempted mkLinux on) is now banished to OS 9 and acting as an AppleTalk server for the old Macs that have trouble speaking to the Panther file server. NetBSD is very nice on the 68ks and the PCI PPCs, and Linux runs better on the PCI PPCs also, like a 7200 or 73-75-7600. A 6100 is not a bad unit, but they aren't my favourite Mac if you intend to run something other than Mac OS. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Whatever it is, I'm against it. -- Groucho Marx ---------------------------- From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 2 00:33:55 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 23:33:55 -0700 Subject: "Thinking Machines: The Creation of the Computer" In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 01 Jan 2007 22:05:09 -0700. Message-ID: If you want the torrent: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jan 2 01:01:15 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 02:01:15 -0500 Subject: My first Mac References: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> <200701020516.l025Gsdt024526@floodgap.com> <45997BB0.25555.239A394@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <00d101c72e3b$cba42970$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 12:22 AM Subject: Re: My first Mac > On 1 Jan 2007 at 21:16, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > ). What were you considering? > > Nothing in particular--just fooling with the box a bit and shelving > it until a special need arises. The OS 8 interface isn't > particularly exciting, particularly with MS Word and IE 4 for Mac. I > miss a good command-line interface and development tools. Hence, the > query about Linux. > > Cheers, > Chuck Linux is not a very good option for pre PCI PPC Macs, which the 6100 would fall under. OS 8.1 is a decent (but not exciting) OS, but the whole point should be to experience the apps on the Mac and no stare at the OS all day. If I want a CLI interface I would power up my AWS 95 with A/UX 3.1. From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jan 2 01:06:30 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 02:06:30 -0500 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200701020206.30462.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 02 January 2007 00:12, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Yeah, no kidding--someone game me a Mac 6100/60. Not very exciting, > but I've upgraded the memory to 40 MB and added a 4GB hard disk from > parts in my hellbox. > > So, does anyone have any first-hand experience with Linux on one of > these critters? Is it worth the installation trouble? I ran a 6100/60 with a NuBus ethernet card in the PDS slot (with the appropriate PDS->nubus adapter) using Debian with some old mklinux kernel, as a NATing firewall with good success, a few years ago. Support for newer kernels is pretty much non-existant (I'm not sure if they support past 2.2; I know they don't go past 2.4 kernels), so you'd have to go with an appropriately vintage Linux distribution. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From useddec at gmail.com Tue Jan 2 01:10:29 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 01:10:29 -0600 Subject: Floating Point Systems FP-03 Message-ID: <624966d60701012310h3d9ba0cbxd0966a7e9c2a145a@mail.gmail.com> > > I have one of these and I'm looking information on it. I might be willing > to trade or sell it. If you have any info or interest, please contact me off > list. Thanks, Paul From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 2 01:18:47 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 23:18:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac Message-ID: <20070102071847.54448.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Yellow Dog is the most polished distro FWIU. There are older versions of Mandrake too. Would you get gcc though I aks myself. Funny...Im not getting an answer --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > On Tuesday 02 January 2007 00:12, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Yeah, no kidding--someone game me a Mac 6100/60. Not very exciting, > > but I've upgraded the memory to 40 MB and added a 4GB hard disk from > > parts in my hellbox. > > > > So, does anyone have any first-hand experience with Linux on one of > > these critters? Is it worth the installation trouble? > > I ran a 6100/60 with a NuBus ethernet card in the PDS slot (with the > appropriate PDS->nubus adapter) using Debian with some old mklinux > kernel, as a NATing firewall with good success, a few years ago. > Support for newer kernels is pretty much non-existant (I'm not sure if > they support past 2.2; I know they don't go past 2.4 kernels), so you'd > have to go with an appropriately vintage Linux distribution. > > Pat > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From wmaddox at pacbell.net Tue Jan 2 01:25:46 2007 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 23:25:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Low cost 1" paper tape In-Reply-To: <00a401c72e21$ce0e9890$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <20070102072546.48514.qmail@web83005.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Jay West wrote: > The tape doesn't appear to be the oiled variety. > That rules out use in an > ASR33 does it not? Yes, but it's good for high-speed punches like GNT, Facit, DEC PC04/05, etc. --Bill From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 2 02:23:47 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:23:47 -0800 Subject: TTL 7400's Available References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <4599E9E4.9E91E4E1@cs.ubc.ca> <45997B09.1908.23716B0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 1 Jan 2007 at 21:13, Brent Hilpert wrote: > > > Are you referring to AC-coupled/triggerred flip-flops (where the clock trigger > > is applied thru 2 capacitors to the input of each side of the FF) or to logic > > where all signals (gate inputs, etc.) are AC-coupled? > > The latter, complete with capacitor and/or transformer coupling. It's before my time, so I'm no expert, but I'm unaware of any 'full' systems made using such techniques. What I've run across about such stuff seemed to talk about it in-principle but with little or limited/specialised practical appplication. Core-logic, which was inherently AC-coupled, didn't go very far. The parametron circuit was AC-coupled wasn't it? .. read a little bit about it some years ago, but not in much depth. > ...and wasn't there a type of logic using microwave technology and > various stripline shapes? I think I remember reading about that kind > of thing in the 60's. ..haven't heard of that one before. From doc at mdrconsult.com Tue Jan 2 02:33:04 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 02:33:04 -0600 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <459A18C0.8040600@mdrconsult.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Yeah, no kidding--someone game me a Mac 6100/60. Not very exciting, > but I've upgraded the memory to 40 MB and added a 4GB hard disk from > parts in my hellbox. > > So, does anyone have any first-hand experience with Linux on one of > these critters? Is it worth the installation trouble? I vote with Mr. Kaiser - MacOS is going to be the most useful and least painful option on a 6100. If you want Linux or BSD, the 6100/60 is a *really* bad fit. There will be P-II and P-III PeeCees lining the curbs for the next 2 weeks. They'll be faster and less hell. Besides, if you run MacOS, there's an astounding array of goodies to stick in that expansion slot, including a G3 upgrade. There's one at the Goodwill here (untested) for about $25, IIRC. Remember the V8 Vegas? :^) If you're interested in a Unix-able Macintosh, a Blue & White G3 is a really nice box. They can be had for $30-50 if you lurk a bit, and they're *fast*. Doc From grant at stockly.com Tue Jan 2 03:02:53 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:02:53 -0900 Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070101234426.044d1ae8@pop.1and1.com> I'm pretty confused right now. I wrote a small basic program to dump my cassettes into the computer. 1 IF (1 AND PEEK(61456)) = 0 THEN POKE 61441, PEEK(61457) 2 GOTO 1 61441 - ACIA DATA PORT 61456 - KCACR STATUS PORT 61457 - KCACR DATA PORT I'm not checking if the ACIA is ready for data, because when reading at 300bps and transmitting at 9600 we should never have to. Why am I getting strange results below? The only thing I can think of is that it is somehow missing every other byte from the KCACR. Does anyone see anything wrong with the basic program? All 500 lines returned are the exact same length and they all start with 13. 1300D603EAFE3A00880C8 13000000000000000000C ... 1310452E25D34F0FEE5CC 1310C71943CF143316541 Missing every other byte? Maybe the 680 and it's basic isn't fast enough for my program? I'm just guessing that S1 and 13 are supposed to be there... S113_0_0_D_6_0_3_E_A_F_E_3_A_0_0_8_8_0_C_8 On top of all this, I'm having a hard time understanding the format. This is a good line: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 S1 13 0000 0D 76 00 F3 7E 18 F9 7E 03 3C 00 00 48 38 00 2C 7E S1 means its a data record, 13 is the byte count, 0000 is the address, and 7E is the checksum. So what are the mystery bytes? How do you get 13 data bytes and still have a place for all of the rest? 13 is supposed to include the checksum! The checksum is the one's compliment of the sum of the all bytes except S1 and the checksum itself. FF-(13+0D+76+F3+7E+18+F9+7E+03+3C+48+38+2C)=7E So 7E is the checksum. I want to know where all those bytes go! :( Grant From grant at stockly.com Tue Jan 2 03:10:06 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:10:06 -0900 Subject: Addition to cassette post earlier and 6800 assembler questions Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102000500.0159b558@pop.1and1.com> I just modified my program to get rid of the polling. It did not really speed up the display of characters. ; ) I can now see the full records with some duplicated digits here and there. Its interesting that the program below free running can only process characters at 300bps 1 POKE 61441, PEEK(61457) 2 GOTO 1 At a 500Khz clock thats over 1000 clock cycles per loop. SO THIS IS HOW Micro-Soft got started with slow software??? ; ) So any suggestions on getting started QUICKLY with 6800 assembler? Maybe one that outputs in Motorola punch tape format??? I want to archive Altair 680 KCACR basic before anything else happens to this tape. I had about 5-6 failed loads this weekend and I don't want to risk loosing this KCACR basic! : ( Grant From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 2 04:19:58 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 05:19:58 -0500 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <459A18C0.8040600@mdrconsult.com> References: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> <459A18C0.8040600@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: On 1/2/07, Doc Shipley wrote: > If you're interested in a Unix-able Macintosh, a Blue & White G3 is a > really nice box. They can be had for $30-50 if you lurk a bit, and > they're *fast*. If anyone knows where I can get just the case for one of those cheaper than the whole machine, I'd be interested. I have all the guts for one, but no box. Yes, I can make it work in an ATX case of most flavors, but the real case is so much more attractive than a beige box. FWIW, I did get OS X 10.3 working on it, so I know it'll do UNIX. -ethan From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 2 05:10:41 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 03:10:41 -0800 Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070101234426.044d1ae8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <459A3DA7.A61A3EA4@cs.ubc.ca> Grant Stockly wrote: > On top of all this, I'm having a hard time understanding the format. > > This is a good line: > > 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 > S1 13 0000 0D 76 00 F3 7E 18 F9 7E 03 3C 00 00 48 38 00 2C 7E > > S1 means its a data record, > 13 is the byte count, > 0000 is the address, > and 7E is the checksum. > > So what are the mystery bytes? How do you get 13 data bytes and still have > a place for all of the rest? 13 is supposed to include the checksum! The > checksum is the one's compliment of the sum of the all bytes except S1 and > the checksum itself. > > FF-(13+0D+76+F3+7E+18+F9+7E+03+3C+48+38+2C)=7E > > So 7E is the checksum. I want to know where all those bytes go! :( Can't help you with the tape read problem although the speed issue as you suggest sounds like a good guess, but as for the byte count issue: it's 13 hex = 19 dec, which works out exactly for the line you show when you include the address bytes (everything after the 13). Lesson: you're up too late at night :) ...but then so am I (!) :/ From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Jan 2 05:38:27 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 11:38:27 +0000 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <4599E8DE.1040504@mdrconsult.com> References: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> <4599E728.6040102@gmail.com> <4599E8DE.1040504@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <459A4433.2080304@dunnington.plus.com> Doc Shipley wrote: > Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> How come there's no 1000Mbps half/full settings? Because there's no such thing as half duplex Gigabit Ethernet. The standard only permits 1000 full (but it does allow autonegotiation). > The performance >> problems I'm having are when I'm connecting to a gigabit network. >> Will setting to 1000Mbps auto help? > > The biggest blessing of gigabit ethernet isn't 1000bps, it's a decent > auto-negotiation standard. auto/auto is a hell of a lot more reliable > between gigabit devices than 10/100 or 10Mbit, so your situation is a > little odd. I'm not sure I completely agree. The standard was changed some time ago, and where once the default was 1000 full it is now 1000 auto. The end result of course is always 1000 Mb/s full duplex but one setting allows for (and should insist upon) negotiation and the other doesn't. That's a problem with some things -- we have sporadic problems with Suns, some of which seem to do it one way and some the other[1] -- because if you pick the wrong option you get no traffic at all (as happened recently when a telco replaced a piece of kit on one of our Gigabit WAN links). [1] I don't know if this is a hardware dependency or a Solaris version/patch issue, because we (the network group) have no control over the Suns, which are run by our Systems Group, and are, um, "a mixed bag". > It sounds like XP has your adapter forced to something Not Right. I agree, but it could also be a negotiation problem; we saw a lot of that about a year ago on our student network, with Intel-chipset Gigabit interfaces in certain new laptops connecting to 10/100 ports (other chipsets worked fine). Typically the laptops got a connection, but an extremely slow or erratic one. The workaround was to fix the adaptor speed/duplex, but IIRC a recent driver update eventually improved things. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 2 05:43:54 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 05:43:54 -0600 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: References: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> <459A18C0.8040600@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <459A457A.1090809@yahoo.co.uk> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 1/2/07, Doc Shipley wrote: >> If you're interested in a Unix-able Macintosh, a Blue & White G3 is a >> really nice box. They can be had for $30-50 if you lurk a bit, and >> they're *fast*. > > If anyone knows where I can get just the case for one of those cheaper > than the whole machine, I'd be interested. Local freecycle list? (assuming you're not at the pole right now :-) It wouldn't surprise me if there are people who have migrated hard disk / memory to later systems and don't know what to do with the leftovers... From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 2 05:44:54 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 05:44:54 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <4599E8DE.1040504@mdrconsult.com> References: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> <4599E728.6040102@gmail.com> <4599E8DE.1040504@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <459A45B6.1020204@yahoo.co.uk> Doc Shipley wrote: > make sure you're not on a jumbo-packet network or > pushing jumbos on a 1500MTU net, then I'd try 1000Mbps/auto and see. > Not like you're going to cook anything. :) I don't know, that's a heck of a high data rate, and the sharp edges on all those 1's sure do generate some heat... :-) From ueoguy at yahoo.com Mon Jan 1 08:00:27 2007 From: ueoguy at yahoo.com (H.E.Robert) Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 09:00:27 -0500 Subject: [Altair Computer Club] Altair 680 CSAVE Problems!@ : ( In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231234847.03956f20@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <002a01c72dad$31df2c10$6501a8c0@ueocore> Grant, Try putting the filename in double quotes, CSAVE "A", as A is an integer variable without quotes, and "with", is interpreted as an ASCII string?? Just Bob! _____ From: altaircomputerclub at yahoogroups.com [mailto:altaircomputerclub at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Grant Stockly Sent: Monday, January 01, 2007 4:12 AM To: altaircomputerclub at yahoogroups.com; cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: [Altair Computer Club] Altair 680 CSAVE Problems!@ : ( I'm having a ton of trouble saving a program on a cassette tape using Altair 680 basic. Was there a KCACR basic made without the CSAVE command? My basic appears to have a CSAVE command, but it won't accept the name!!!!! : ( I'm sending this to two groups. I've been at this problem for hours now... : ( I'll post a transcript below. Let me know what I'm doing wrong! : ( -------------------- .J FD00 (cassette bootstrap rom address) (basic loading) (basic loaded) .J 0000 (run basic...) MEMORY SIZE? TERMINAL WIDTH? 80 WANT SIN-COS-TAN-ATN? YES 9604 BYTES FREE MITS ALTAIR 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 --KCACR-- COPYRIGHT 1976 BY MITS INC. OK 10 PRINT "HELLO" 20 GOTO 10 CSAVE A ?TM ERROR OK -------------------- TM is a type mismatch error. SM is for a command it doesn't understand. Watch... -------------------- CSAVE A ?TM ERROR OK CSAVE ?SN ERROR OK AHHHH! ?SN ERROR OK AHHHH! A ?SN ERROR OK -------------------- Am I wrong assuming that because it gives me a TM error instead of SN that it is "trying" to work? I get the same things for CLOAD... How in the world are you supposed to save something to tape! : ( If I have the wrong version of basic, anyone have the right one? What will it take for me to get a copy! : ) (first smile in this e-mail... ; ) ) Thanks, Grant __._,_.___ SPONSORED LINKS Computer telephony Portable computer Computer memory Computer training Computer school Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe __,_._,___ From gordon at gjcp.net Mon Jan 1 11:39:11 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:39:11 +0000 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4599473F.4070704@gjcp.net> Michael B. Brutman wrote: > > Happy New Year! > > > I'm back at it again - I plan on doing better this time. (I've fixed > the specific double delete bug that bit me last time, improved tracing > quite a bit, and added a lot of consistency checking code.) Works for me > Just like last time, all you need to do is telnet to 24.159.203.149, > port 2301. Once again, that's my Linux box, but today it is forwarding > port 2301 to my PCjr. The commands are slightly enhanced from the last > test, but it isn't anything highly interactive. > > Up to 9 people can connect simultaneously. We didn't get more than 2 or > 3 simultaneous connections last time, so I'm probably overly optimistic. I can leave a telnet session connected indefinitely, if it won't time out... > Some of you noted from last time that there is no character echoing or > line editing. Telnet users on Unix machines will probably have local > line editing, which makes things a wee bit nicer. The standard Windows > telnet client doesn't do that by default, so you will type but not see > your characters. That's a project for a different day. > > Here is a picture of the machine you are connecting to, complete with > the Western Digital 8003 Ethernet card grafted onto the side: > > http://brutman.com/PCjr_WD_small.jpg > > > And lastly, if you remember, type in your OS and machine type as a > command. It will complain about it being an invalid command, but I'll > see it in the log and I'll have a better idea of what I'm testing against. Done Gordon From lee at geekdot.com Tue Jan 2 07:20:01 2007 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 14:20:01 +0100 (CET) Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records Message-ID: <2471.172.143.182.245.1167744001.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > Maybe the 680 and it's basic isn't fast enough for my program? This is quite possible as interpreting decimal numbers takes a fair bit of processing. You may like to try this .. 1 A=61456:B=61441:C=61457:D=1:E=0 2 IF (D AND PEEK(A)) = E THEN POKE B, PEEK(C) 3 GOTO 2 .. which should speed things up a bit. Lee. From dave06a at dunfield.com Tue Jan 2 08:16:53 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 09:16:53 -0500 Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070101234426.044d1ae8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <200701021322.l02DMdnx025827@mail4.magma.ca> > On top of all this, I'm having a hard time understanding the format. > > This is a good line: > > 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 > S1 13 0000 0D 76 00 F3 7E 18 F9 7E 03 3C 00 00 48 38 00 2C 7E > > S1 means its a data record, > 13 is the byte count, > 0000 is the address, > and 7E is the checksum. > > So what are the mystery bytes? How do you get 13 data bytes and still have > a place for all of the rest? 13 is supposed to include the checksum! The > checksum is the one's compliment of the sum of the all bytes except S1 and > the checksum itself. This is standard Motorola HEX format: (From my XASM manual): 4.1.1 Motorola hex format Data Record: 'Stnnaaaadddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd...cc' Where: S = 'S', indicates start of data record t = Record type, '1'=data, '9'=end of file. n = Count of number of bytes in record. (in ASCII/HEX) a = Load address of data record. (in ASCII/HEX) d = Actual data bytes in record. (in ASCII/HEX) c = Checksum of count, address, and data. (in ASCII/HEX) Note1: Checksum is computed as one's complement of eight bit sum of all values from 'nn' to end of data. Note2: Count 'nn' is three greater then the number of data bytes in the record. Note that the count value includes not only the checksum, but the address bytes as well. Your record contains 10h (16 decimal) bytes and does verify. If it's any use to you, I can send some tools to work with this type of data (change record size, load address, convert to binary, set fill values etc.). I can also give you assembler/disassemblers which will work with MHX directly. Regards, Dave PS: I'd like to get a copy of the data once you get it extracted. -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From lee at geekdot.com Tue Jan 2 07:54:10 2007 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 14:54:10 +0100 (CET) Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records Message-ID: <2581.172.143.182.245.1167746050.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> After a bit of a ponder this should be about as fast as you can get without putting multiple statements on one line .. 1 GOTO 5 2 WAIT A,D,D 3 POKE B, PEEK(C) 4 GOTO 2 5 A=61456 6 B=61441 7 C=61457 8 D=1 9 GOTO 2 .. if multiple statements per line are allowed then this should be faster .. 1 A=61456:B=61441:C=61457:D=1 2 WAIT A,D,D:POKE B,PEEK(C):GOTO 2 Lee. From doc at mdrconsult.com Tue Jan 2 08:31:50 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:31:50 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <459A45B6.1020204@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> <4599E728.6040102@gmail.com> <4599E8DE.1040504@mdrconsult.com> <459A45B6.1020204@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <459A6CD6.6000408@mdrconsult.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Doc Shipley wrote: >> make sure you're not on a jumbo-packet network or pushing jumbos on a >> 1500MTU net, then I'd try 1000Mbps/auto and see. Not like you're >> going to cook anything. :) > > I don't know, that's a heck of a high data rate, and the sharp edges on > all those 1's sure do generate some heat... :-) Oh, I forgot. Teh IntarWeb Are TUBES! Doc From doc at mdrconsult.com Tue Jan 2 08:43:55 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:43:55 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <459A4433.2080304@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> <4599E728.6040102@gmail.com> <4599E8DE.1040504@mdrconsult.com> <459A4433.2080304@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <459A6FAB.4010903@mdrconsult.com> Pete Turnbull wrote: > Doc Shipley wrote: >> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> How come there's no 1000Mbps half/full settings? > > Because there's no such thing as half duplex Gigabit Ethernet. The > standard only permits 1000 full (but it does allow autonegotiation). > >> The performance >>> problems I'm having are when I'm connecting to a gigabit network. >>> Will setting to 1000Mbps auto help? >> >> The biggest blessing of gigabit ethernet isn't 1000bps, it's a >> decent auto-negotiation standard. auto/auto is a hell of a lot more >> reliable between gigabit devices than 10/100 or 10Mbit, so your >> situation is a little odd. > > I'm not sure I completely agree. The standard was changed some time > ago, and where once the default was 1000 full it is now 1000 auto. The > end result of course is always 1000 Mb/s full duplex but one setting > allows for (and should insist upon) negotiation and the other doesn't. > That's a problem with some things -- we have sporadic problems with > Suns, some of which seem to do it one way and some the other[1] -- > because if you pick the wrong option you get no traffic at all (as > happened recently when a telco replaced a piece of kit on one of our > Gigabit WAN links). I certainly wouldn't claim that the standard's perfect, much less perfectly implemented.... I really just meant that with gigabit, as opposed to 10/100, it's more likely a software problem than hardware autonegotiation. > [1] I don't know if this is a hardware dependency or a Solaris > version/patch issue, because we (the network group) have no control over > the Suns, which are run by our Systems Group, and are, um, "a mixed bag". Given my experience with SPARCs in this I'd say it's hardware. I have an e250 whose onboard HME has to be forced with one of my switches, and won't make a link at all with another unless it's set auto/auto. > I agree, but it could also be a negotiation problem; we saw a lot of > that about a year ago on our student network, with Intel-chipset Gigabit > interfaces in certain new laptops connecting to 10/100 ports (other > chipsets worked fine). Typically the laptops got a connection, but an > extremely slow or erratic one. The workaround was to fix the adaptor > speed/duplex, but IIRC a recent driver update eventually improved things. Yup. I have a dual-Xeon board right here with 2 onboard 1000Mbps ports. It attaches to a cheap AOpen switch, and won't link on boot. I have to plug the cable into a 10/100 hub, let it negotiate, then plug it back into the gigE switch, where it will then DTRT. 'Splain *that* bizness, please.... Makes PXE booting a little problematic. ;) Doc From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jan 2 10:00:04 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:00:04 -0800 Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: <2581.172.143.182.245.1167746050.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: >From: "Lee Davison" > >After a bit of a ponder this should be about as fast as you can get >without putting multiple statements on one line .. > >1 GOTO 5 >2 WAIT A,D,D >3 POKE B, PEEK(C) >4 GOTO 2 >5 A=61456 >6 B=61441 >7 C=61457 >8 D=1 >9 GOTO 2 > >.. if multiple statements per line are allowed then this should be >faster .. > >1 A=61456:B=61441:C=61457:D=1 >2 WAIT A,D,D:POKE B,PEEK(C):GOTO 2 > >Lee. > > Hi As Lee shows, not having to interpret the numbers each time should speed things up. Reading decimal numbers requires division. That is just about the slowest thing the computer can do. If the values are stored in variables, they are already converted to a computer friendly format. Another thought is that your PC may not be keeping up with 9600. You might slow it to 1200 and see what happens. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes is here. Get all the scoop. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/ From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 2 10:13:18 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:13:18 -0800 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <459A141E.28792.48D100E@cclist.sydex.com> Okay, I'll play with the thing and then stash it away rather than try to squeeze a copy of Linux onto it. This is a university town and, so G3's aren't hard to come by cheap if the urge should ever hit me again. I was mostly curious and was offered the thing free gratis. Besides, I'd probably have to BUY an AAUI-to-RJ45 ethernet adapter and that would defeat the whole "free is good" notion. :) Cheers, Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 2 10:28:37 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 11:28:37 -0500 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <459A457A.1090809@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4599794F.26707.2305950@cclist.sydex.com> <459A18C0.8040600@mdrconsult.com> <459A457A.1090809@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 1/2/07, Jules Richardson wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > On 1/2/07, Doc Shipley wrote: > >> If you're interested in a Unix-able Macintosh, a Blue & White G3 is a > >> really nice box... > > > > If anyone knows where I can get just the case for one of those cheaper > > than the whole machine, I'd be interested. > > Local freecycle list? Excellent plan. Also, we have a "FreeGeek" organization ( http://freegeekcolumbus.org/ ) down the street from my house - I was planning on volunteering with them once I get settled in at home. They are mostly engaged in recycling Intel boxes for re-donation, so I'd imagine a trickle of Apple machines passing through with no obvious disposition. > (assuming you're not at the pole right now :-) Nope... made it back to Columbus a few days ago. The Southern Hemisphere was great, and my query to the list did result in meeting one of the list members and getting a tour of interesting stuff and storage facilities in the Sydney area ;-) > wouldn't surprise me if there are people who have migrated hard disk / memory > to later systems and don't know what to do with the leftovers... Indeed. Really, though, what I was kinda after was a box from a B&W G3 that had the PSU crap out or the hard drives die and left for dead. Turns out the motherboard I have is of the right rev to work with an ATX PSU with one pin removed (-5VDC on the ATX maps to, of all things, a ground pin on the G3 board, a situation caught by the crowbar circuit of a decent power supply - pop that pin and, voila, a working G3). -ethan From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 2 10:32:00 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:32:00 -0800 Subject: My first Mac Message-ID: <459A8900.4040606@bitsavers.org> > This is a university town and, > so G3's aren't hard to come by cheap if the urge should ever hit me > again. Beige G3's are OK, and still have SCSI and serial ports. I have a gaggle of G3 powerbooks that I use at CHM for various recovery projects. Blue and White machines switched to USB and dumped SCSI and serial, which make them less interesting. If you want that sort of machine, get 2nd generation or later Grey G4. Avoid the last couple of generations of G4's, they had cooling problems... Putting a 1+GHz CPU upgrade into the earlier G4s makes a pretty decent system. I'm using one as my main machine at CHM. > I'd probably have to BUY an AAUI-to-RJ45 ethernet adapter Probably not worth messing with. You aren't going to be happy with the performance of a first generation PowerMac. If you really want a shell in the OS 9 environment, there's MPW. I remember someone playing with getting a bare-metal OS going on PPC Macs at one point with a CLI. Don't know how far they got. This is sort of interesting if you wanted to do some low level turn the interrupts off kind of programming on the machine, since you can't actually turn interrupts off completely in the OS 9 environment. From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 2 11:05:24 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 12:05:24 -0500 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On Jan 1, 2007, at 1:42 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> It's extremely cool. What's with you and the x-rays lately? Did >> you score an x-ray machine somewhere recently? (I ask out of >> jealousy...I'd love a small x-ray setup [and the knowledge to use it] >> for soldering BGA components). > > He said in an earlier message, that it was at his place of > employment. :) Oh, duh. I missed that somehow. :-/ > He's aparently not as crazy as I am to have some x-ray gear at home > (then again, I've never used it partly because I don't know enough > about > dosages to determine what's safe, and how much to use to expose film > properly, etc). What type of equipment do you have, if you don't mind my asking? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Cape Coral, FL From billdeg at degnanco.com Tue Jan 2 11:20:11 2007 From: billdeg at degnanco.com (B Degnan) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 12:20:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Exatron Stringy Floppy's In-Reply-To: <200701021527.l02FQhEK084829@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701021527.l02FQhEK084829@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <57069.207.245.121.210.1167758411.squirrel@webmail.degnanco.net> ----- Link to pics for Exatron Stringy, in use on a TRS 80 Model I: http://vintagecomputer.net/tandy/trs80_1/exatron_stringy_floppy/ ----- From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jan 2 11:32:11 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 09:32:11 -0800 Subject: Network question Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D189D78@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Michael B. wrote: In the case of a really old system like that, it doesn't matter what the network is - the network will never be the problem, unless I use bongos as the transport mechanism. Mike ----------------- I had a computer like that once... Billy From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 2 11:26:48 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 11:26:48 -0600 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <4597237A.80508@gjcp.net> References: <45944BDD.20379.6178867@cclist.sydex.com> <4595349B.24749.9A4AFAA@cclist.sydex.com> <4597237A.80508@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102111134.07c2fe58@mail> >>On 29 Dec 2006 at 22:20, Tony Duell wrote: >>>What the heck is Sabbath Mode? More than you want to know, from a kosher certification group: http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-cooking-SM.htm It says Whirlpool was awarded a patent for this in 1998. The oven stays on for more than 12 hours, and doesn't change state when you open the door to use the already-warm oven: "No lights, digits, solenoids, fans, icons, tones or displays will be activated/modified in the normal operation of the oven." And yes, this affects refrigerators, too: http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-cooling-keepcool.htm For example, they worry that opening the door turns on a light, which is prohibited. Such permutations have been considered for hundreds of years, even down to whether you can allow a trained monkey, parrot or elephant to do the work for you. - John From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 2 11:39:10 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 10:39:10 -0700 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <459A98BE.4050803@jetnet.ab.ca> CRC wrote: >> Cleaning out things and came across 40+ tubes (24/tube) of TTL 5400 >> Quad Nand Gates (Mil version of the 7400). Free for postage. >> >> Here's your chance to build your computer from scratch :oD >> >> CRC > > > 'Tis all gone... > > CRC So what computer got built? For my final post -- About 20 TTL packages ( 80 2 input nand gates ) are needed for a simple 1 bit , bit slice PCB. XOR gates, Flip/flops and muiltiplexers sure take up several packages. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jan 2 12:45:13 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 15:45:13 -0300 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> Message-ID: <033c01c72e9e$2ae8d180$f0fea8c0@alpha> > Here is a picture of the machine you are connecting to, complete with > the Western Digital 8003 Ethernet card grafted onto the side: > http://brutman.com/PCjr_WD_small.jpg Nice! From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jan 2 11:51:57 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:51:57 -0500 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done! In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:31:09 CST." <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200701021751.l02Hpvqh001685@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Michael B. Brutman" wrote: > >- Telnet options negotiation be careful when doing this. I've written a few different telnet servers and it's very easy to end up in a loop. -brad From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 2 11:51:55 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 11:51:55 -0600 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <200701020542.l025gc8o020276@floodgap.com> References: <45997BB0.25555.239A394@cclist.sydex.com> <200701020542.l025gc8o020276@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102114740.07d284c0@mail> At 11:42 PM 1/1/2007, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >Well, let me put it this way -- my 7100 (the one I attempted mkLinux on) >is now banished to OS 9 and acting as an AppleTalk server for the old Macs >that have trouble speaking to the Panther file server. I fired up my 7200 the other day. I wanted to try to recover an old floppy from a client who claimed it had some Illustrator artwork on it. The disk had the 'HD' (CH) logo but I couldn't read it in either of two HD Mac drives of that era. What floppy disk recovery / probing tools might I use to see if I can recover the artwork? My old IIci wouldn't boot when I took it from storage, with or without its PPC add-on card. I even tried booting it with the 7200's drive. Just a question-mark disk icon. A few weeks before, I'd tried to read an old Amiga drive from the same era. No go. Both drives were old Quantum 80s. Are these known to decay in a certain way? - John From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jan 2 12:05:28 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 13:05:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done! In-Reply-To: <200701021751.l02Hpvqh001685@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701021751.l02Hpvqh001685@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <200701021808.NAA07273@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> - Telnet options negotiation > be careful when doing this. I've written a few different telnet > servers and it's very easy to end up in a loop. If you always refuse everything (DO elicits WONT, WILL elicits DONT, ignore DONT and WONT) then I can't see how it can loop, unless some client brokenly insists on retrying to turn something on when you reject it. ...hmm, on second thought, this is supposed to interoperate with Windows telnet, so peer code that braindead is a real hazard.... /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jan 2 12:08:37 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 13:08:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102111134.07c2fe58@mail> References: <45944BDD.20379.6178867@cclist.sydex.com> <4595349B.24749.9A4AFAA@cclist.sydex.com> <4597237A.80508@gjcp.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20070102111134.07c2fe58@mail> Message-ID: <200701021809.NAA07292@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >>>> What the heck is Sabbath Mode? > More than you want to know, from a kosher certification group: > http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-cooking-SM.htm > [...] > Such permutations have been considered for hundreds of years, even > down to whether you can allow a trained monkey, parrot or elephant to > do the work for you. I've heard of shabbat goys, but, parrot?? That's just ridiculous. :-) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 2 12:13:08 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 10:13:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102114740.07d284c0@mail> from John Foust at "Jan 2, 7 11:51:55 am" Message-ID: <200701021813.l02ID9Ch020566@floodgap.com> > I fired up my 7200 the other day. I wanted to try to recover an old floppy > from a client who claimed it had some Illustrator artwork on it. The disk > had the 'HD' (CH) logo but I couldn't read it in either of two HD Mac drives > of that era. > > What floppy disk recovery / probing tools might I use to see > if I can recover the artwork? Does it pop up saying the disk needs to be initialized? Are you sure it's HFS? An HFS+ floppy will not be readable in Macs running 8.0 or earlier, and obviously a FAT floppy requires PC File Exchange. Otherwise you might see if Disk Copy can at least image it, and then look at whatever image it spits back out. > My old IIci wouldn't boot when I took it from storage, with or > without its PPC add-on card. I even tried booting it with the 7200's > drive. Just a question-mark disk icon. I'm not surprised the IIci wouldn't boot the 7200's drive. I imagine the HD driver is not compatible. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- A different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections. -- G. Eliot From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 2 12:15:48 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 10:15:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <200701021809.NAA07292@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from der Mouse at "Jan 2, 7 01:08:37 pm" Message-ID: <200701021815.l02IFmHK027434@floodgap.com> > >>>> What the heck is Sabbath Mode? > > More than you want to know, from a kosher certification group: > > http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-cooking-SM.htm > > [...] > > Such permutations have been considered for hundreds of years, even > > down to whether you can allow a trained monkey, parrot or elephant to > > do the work for you. > > I've heard of shabbat goys, but, parrot?? That's just ridiculous. :-) I was impressed with the detail level of the regulations. For example, http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-cooking-ovenshabbos.htm I'm kind of glad I'm a goy now. Arthur Naiman: Why did God create goyim? Because somebody has to pay retail. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Proponents of other opinions will be merrily beaten to a bloody pulp. ------ From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 2 12:08:34 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:08:34 -0600 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102120419.04723dc0@mail> At 12:38 PM 12/31/2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >My DSL speed is 1.6Mbps, so I'm thinking that there's little reason >to upgrade the setup. Am I thinking correctly or am I likely to see >an improvement in internet access speed if I upgrade? I vote for the upgrade, just on principle. Pulling new wire rejuvenates the spirit. I think the blood sacrifice improves the transfer times, too. Here is some old advice on this topic, at the bottom of the page: http://www.ipprimer.com/ethernet.cfm If I were to summarize Jay's advice as further justification for an upgrade, it would be "if you don't measure, you don't know." You've measured throughput and discovered some slow spots, but did you also measure latency, and would improved latency make your contemporary computers happier on the Internet? - John From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 2 12:28:06 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 13:28:06 -0500 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <459A8900.4040606@bitsavers.org> References: <459A8900.4040606@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 1/2/07, Al Kossow wrote: > > This is a university town and, > > so G3's aren't hard to come by cheap if the urge should ever hit me > > again. > > Beige G3's are OK, and still have SCSI and serial ports. I have a gaggle > of G3 powerbooks that I use at CHM for various recovery projects. Blue > and White machines switched to USB and dumped SCSI and serial, which > make them less interesting. Mine came with a PCI SCSI card, so the lack of onboard SCSI isn't a problem, but I do miss _real_ serial ports. I play with things like LCD controllers (yes, there _are_ USB-attached textual and graphical LCDs, but they aren't as easy to talk to), so it's nice to have either a real serial port or a real parallel port for simplicity. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 2 12:34:25 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 10:34:25 -0800 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jan 2007 at 0:23, Brent Hilpert wrote: > The parametron circuit was AC-coupled wasn't it? .. read a little > > bit about it some years ago, but not in much depth. There was at least one production parametron-based computer: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/NEC/NEC.1103.1958102 646285.pdf Vacuum-tube logic circuits with AC coupling weren't uncommon (e.g your typical instrumentation ring counter), but I was wondering if AC logic ever made it into a production semiconductor system. The parametron subject came up again when Josephson junctions were hot. (ouch!): http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Flux-Parametron-Superconducting- Supercomputers/dp/9810204590 > ..haven't heard of that one before. Apparently, it's one of those things that is periodically "invented": http://ceng.usc.edu/~bkrishna/research/papers/RAWCON98_ghzdigital.pdf It probably wouldn't do to write the authors and tell them that the basis for their patents is more than 40 years old. When I've done that (e.g., "Did you know that your work was discussed in a paper from 1962? I can send you a copy if you'd like."), intellectual courtesy seems to go out the window. But the idea's the same, using passively-combined microwave signals whose logic value is dictated by phase. Sometimes it seems that much of human innovation is just a rehash of old ideas that failed when the time just wasn't right. I believe that the same book that discussed microwave logic also talked about storing bits in a bottle of water using some sort of nuclear spin technique. About the only thing I recall is that it involved timed reversals of an external memory field and that reading back the stored bits was a real chore. Cheers, Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 2 12:28:29 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:28:29 -0600 Subject: high school and timesharing In-Reply-To: <003601c7256e$7ca3d350$6401a8c0@wtr.local> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20061221181358.0d5feec8@localhost> <003601c7256e$7ca3d350$6401a8c0@wtr.local> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102122409.07e6e0f0@mail> At 08:11 PM 12/21/2006, Jon Miles wrote: >Wow, Tom, are you a Nicolet HS alumnus? From looking in my yearbooks I'm >guessing class of '78? [...] I then also went to >UWM and got to work on their Edusystem 50 too. I remember renting a table >top ASR33 and dialing into the UWM system from home. I was dialing up to the UWM's machine from Shorewood on as ASR-33 in 1975, although as part of an after-school programming class when I was 12. :-) - John From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 2 12:31:51 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:31:51 -0600 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <200701021813.l02ID9Ch020566@floodgap.com> References: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102114740.07d284c0@mail> <200701021813.l02ID9Ch020566@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102122909.07cd4bc8@mail> At 12:13 PM 1/2/2007, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >Does it pop up saying the disk needs to be initialized? Are you sure it's >HFS? No, the client knows next to nothing about it. Yes, after I insert the disk, it waits what seems like several minutes, then says it wants to initialize it. >An HFS+ floppy will not be readable in Macs running 8.0 or earlier, and >obviously a FAT floppy requires PC File Exchange. Yes, I tried reading it on a PC. No luck. >I'm not surprised the IIci wouldn't boot the 7200's drive. I imagine the >HD driver is not compatible. And the symptom of that would be what? Incompatible in hardware, or that there wasn't a 68000-capable HD driver still in System? - John From wacarder at earthlink.net Tue Jan 2 12:40:17 2007 From: wacarder at earthlink.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 13:40:17 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: HP 7200A Plotter and DEC VT50 terminal Message-ID: <21001021.1167763217887.JavaMail.root@elwamui-cypress.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Does anyone out there have a Hewlett Packard 7200A plotter (made around 1972) or a DEC VT50 (not VT52) terminal? I am looking for both of these items for my classic computer center. Thanks, Ashley Carder http://www.woffordwitch.com From wizard at voyager.net Tue Jan 2 12:53:50 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:53:50 -0500 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <200701021809.NAA07292@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <45944BDD.20379.6178867@cclist.sydex.com> <4595349B.24749.9A4AFAA@cclist.sydex.com> <4597237A.80508@gjcp.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20070102111134.07c2fe58@mail> <200701021809.NAA07292@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <1167764031.13407.21.camel@linux.site> On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 13:08 -0500, der Mouse wrote: > I've heard of shabbat goys, but, parrot?? > That's just ridiculous. :-) Ridiculous? Jew don't want to go DERE, puppy... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxGAnK8F_b0 Ay, ay, ay, Manny Cockatoo wizard at voyager.net From james.rice at gmail.com Tue Jan 2 13:12:47 2007 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 13:12:47 -0600 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102111134.07c2fe58@mail> References: <45944BDD.20379.6178867@cclist.sydex.com> <4595349B.24749.9A4AFAA@cclist.sydex.com> <4597237A.80508@gjcp.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20070102111134.07c2fe58@mail> Message-ID: On 1/2/07, John Foust wrote: > > > http://www.star-k.org/kashrus/kk-cooking-SM.htm > > The oven stays on for more than 12 hours, and doesn't change state > when you open the door to use the already-warm oven: > > "No lights, digits, solenoids, fans, icons, tones or displays > will be activated/modified in the normal operation of the oven." > > And yes, this affects refrigerators, too: > > For example, they worry that opening the door turns on > a light, which is prohibited. > > > My Wolf and SubZero appliances are certified Star K. The Kosher mode instructions took more pages in the manuals than the generic versions. James -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 2 13:13:51 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 11:13:51 -0800 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: References: <459A8900.4040606@bitsavers.org>, Message-ID: <459A3E6F.15935.5325DDC@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jan 2007 at 13:28, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Mine came with a PCI SCSI card, so the lack of onboard SCSI isn't a > problem, but I do miss _real_ serial ports. I play with things like > LCD controllers (yes, there _are_ USB-attached textual and graphical > LCDs, but they aren't as easy to talk to), so it's nice to have either > a real serial port or a real parallel port for simplicity. The local recycler is selling complete beige G3's for $25 the each: http://www.lanecrrc.org/sales/ I'd have to figure out what to do with one, however. Cheers, Chuck From jhoger at gmail.com Tue Jan 2 13:20:06 2007 From: jhoger at gmail.com (John R.) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 11:20:06 -0800 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done! In-Reply-To: <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com> Message-ID: On 1/1/07, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > - I suspect I need to work on my RST segment processing - I think I'm > being too strict about what I consider to be an allowable RST. It's all > in the RFCs, I just must not be grokking. > What do you mean by "allowable RST?" RST can be thought of as hard-close, or "Sorry peer, I don't have any context about the connection you sent a packet for," or "this port is not accepting connections." It is always allowed. It is not the ideal way to close a connection, but as a peer receiving it you must always handle it, and you may send it if you have a good reason. Some consideration may be given to detecting spoofed RSTs attempting to interfere with valid connections. But I suspect you are not terribly interested in complicating your code with such corner case at this point (there are a lot of things like this if you really want to get into it). -- John. From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 2 13:22:50 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 11:22:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070102111916.U92772@shell.lmi.net> > >1 A=61456:B=61441:C=61457:D=1 > >2 WAIT A,D,D:POKE B,PEEK(C):GOTO 2 On Tue, 2 Jan 2007, dwight elvey wrote: > Hi > As Lee shows, not having to interpret the numbers each time > should speed things up. Reading decimal numbers requires > division. That is just about the slowest thing the computer can > do. If the values are stored in variables, they are already converted > to a computer friendly format. I'm coming in late on this discusssion, and I don't even know what machine we're talking about. 1) Many versions of basic use single precision floating point as the default variable type! Explicitly declaring A,B,C,D to be integer might make a significant performance change. 2) Any particular reason to not do it in machine language? From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 2 13:24:49 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 11:24:49 -0800 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca>, <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <459A4101.5608.53C6A27@cclist.sydex.com> I stumbled on this document: http://klabs.org/mapld04/papers/g/g233_alonso_p.doc while wondering about AC transformer-coupled logic and discovered that the original idea for the Apollo guidance computer was to use AC- coupled (core-transistor) logic. How's that for tying two threads together? :) Cheers, Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 2 13:29:59 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:29:59 -0600 Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: <20070102111916.U92772@shell.lmi.net> References: <20070102111916.U92772@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail> At 01:22 PM 1/2/2007, Fred Cisin wrote: >> >1 A=61456:B=61441:C=61457:D=1 >> >2 WAIT A,D,D:POKE B,PEEK(C):GOTO 2 > >On Tue, 2 Jan 2007, dwight elvey wrote: >> As Lee shows, not having to interpret the numbers each time >> should speed things up. Reading decimal numbers requires >> division. That is just about the slowest thing the computer can >> do. If the values are stored in variables, they are already converted >> to a computer friendly format. > >I'm coming in late on this discusssion, and I don't even know what machine >we're talking about. I questioned the assumption that the interpreter would parse the integer value from source code each time. Wouldn't most BASICs tokenize to a 16-bit integer in memory, once at loading? - John From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 2 14:15:47 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 12:15:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail> References: <20070102111916.U92772@shell.lmi.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail> Message-ID: <20070102115515.J92772@shell.lmi.net> > >> >1 A=61456:B=61441:C=61457:D=1 > >> >2 WAIT A,D,D:POKE B,PEEK(C):GOTO 2 > >I'm coming in late on this discusssion, and I don't even know what machine > >we're talking about. On Tue, 2 Jan 2007, John Foust wrote: > I questioned the assumption that the interpreter would parse > the integer value from source code each time. Wouldn't most BASICs > tokenize to a 16-bit integer in memory, once at loading? BASICA, and other 5150 BASICs store those numbers in RAM as 32 bit floating point! Thus, 10 X = [some number that does not come out evenly in IEEE floating point], will actually come back differently when LISTed! It is true that the code being executed is tokenized, NOT run from what we think of as source code. But, at least in THOSE BASICs, all numbers are floating point, unless explicitly declared otherwise, There is a noticable effect on performance by declaring the variables to be integer. 2) WHAT machine, and what version of BASIC are we talking about here? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 2 14:23:24 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 12:23:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail> from John Foust at "Jan 2, 7 01:29:59 pm" Message-ID: <200701022023.l02KNOOC024486@floodgap.com> > I questioned the assumption that the interpreter would parse > the integer value from source code each time. Wouldn't most BASICs > tokenize to a 16-bit integer in memory, once at loading? I don't know about this BASIC, but most Microsoft-derived BASICs do not (I know for sure that Applesoft and Commodore BASICs don't). In fact, pre-assigning constants to variables in Commodore BASIC is a very frequent method of speeding up BASIC execution. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- California, land of cereal: some fruits, nuts, and a lot of flakes. -------- From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 2 14:36:30 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 12:36:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102122909.07cd4bc8@mail> from John Foust at "Jan 2, 7 12:31:51 pm" Message-ID: <200701022036.l02KaUCo022886@floodgap.com> > >Does it pop up saying the disk needs to be initialized? Are you sure it's > >HFS? > > No, the client knows next to nothing about it. Yes, after I insert > the disk, it waits what seems like several minutes, then says > it wants to initialize it. I'd let Disk Copy take a whack at it then. Make sure Disk Copy is running before you insert the disk. At least you'd be able to look at the raw image in a hex editor and see if it looks halfway sensible. > > I'm not surprised the IIci wouldn't boot the 7200's drive. I imagine the > > HD driver is not compatible. > > And the symptom of that would be what? Incompatible in hardware, > or that there wasn't a 68000-capable HD driver still in System? The symptom would be not booting ;) the incompatibility is, as you say, the lack of a 68K-based HD driver, but the driver on a Classic Mac disk resides on the first partition. If the HD is formatted for HFS+, it is not bootable on *any* 68K Mac, even if the Mac is a 68040 and can run 8.1, because there is no 68K-bootable HFS+ HD driver at all. Such '040s can read HFS+ volumes once they have booted, but they cannot boot from them because even though there is support for HFS+ in the System, the system has to boot first to even *get* the System file. A IIci obviously falls in the same booting category. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Funny, I don't remember being absent minded. ------------------------------- From trag at io.com Tue Jan 2 15:02:21 2007 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 15:02:21 -0600 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <200701021534.l02FY6HG085135@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701021534.l02FY6HG085135@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:12:47 -0800 >From: "Chuck Guzis" >Yeah, no kidding--someone game me a Mac 6100/60. Not very exciting, >but I've upgraded the memory to 40 MB and added a 4GB hard disk from >parts in my hellbox. > >So, does anyone have any first-hand experience with Linux on one of >these critters? Is it worth the installation trouble? As long as you have a 6100, you should have a look at this page: . It has a wealth of information all aimed at the 6100 specifically. Jeff Walther From grant at stockly.com Tue Jan 2 15:22:27 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:22:27 -0900 Subject: Altair 680 CSAVE Problems!@ : ( In-Reply-To: <008601c72e25$dc318910$6601a8c0@downstairs2> References: <200701011800.l01I0P6h069008@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102121911.0425fad8@pop.1and1.com> At 07:24 PM 1/1/2007, you wrote: >Here is my copy of Altair 680 BASIC. I never owned an Altair, I bought >this for my SWTPC 6800. > >The BASIC and manuals are here. >http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/Altair/Altair_Basic.htm > >Michael Holley Thanks. I found your web page earlier that day. Your file crashes the Altair 680 unless you remove the line with address F0-FF. That is space used by the MITS ROM Montior. (once it loads that memory range it crashes) Otherwise I just typed "L" for load and pasted in the data at 9600bps. How did you read this into your computer? Do you have a paper tape reader? I want to find someone with the Editor/Assembelr package on paper tape. Maybe we can get together with you and transfer it. Let me know! : ) Thanks, Grant From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 2 15:25:53 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:25:53 -0700 Subject: Shipping company moveit.com Message-ID: I'm using them for a dovebid sale and while things are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow (knock on wood), so far I've been pretty unimpressed with moveit.com. They haven't been very good at communicating important details like MY SHIPPING ADDRESS, when the shipment would be made, how payment was to take place, etc. They say they do a love of business through dovebid, and while that may be so, I don't think I would use them again in the future compared to my experiences with cratersandfreighters.com. Has anyone else used these guys? What was your experience? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From grant at stockly.com Tue Jan 2 15:27:59 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:27:59 -0900 Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: <459A3DA7.A61A3EA4@cs.ubc.ca> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070101234426.044d1ae8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102122309.04690140@pop.1and1.com> >Can't help you with the tape read problem although the speed issue as you >suggest sounds like a good guess, but as for the >byte count issue: it's 13 hex = 19 dec, which works out exactly for the line >you show when you include the address bytes (everything after the 13). > >Lesson: you're up too late at night :) ...but then so am I (!) :/ Thats a big relief... With these hex characters encoded onto tape as two 7 bit ASCII chracters its easy to loose track. Not once did I think of converting 13 to hex... Grant From ggs at shiresoft.com Tue Jan 2 15:51:08 2007 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:51:08 -0800 Subject: Shipping company moveit.com In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459AD3CC.6090508@shiresoft.com> I do *all* of my large shipping through them (unless I do it myself). I have been *extremely* happy with them and I've been using them for a number of years now. One of the things I like about them is that they are pretty much "fire and forget". I don't have to hand hold them to get stuff done and they do a good job of getting stuff moved with no breakage. I do however give them *all* of the information at the start of the transaction. Of course, I've done enough business with them that they call me up occasionally to see if I have anything that needs to be shipped. Richard wrote: > I'm using them for a dovebid sale and while things are scheduled to be > delivered tomorrow (knock on wood), so far I've been pretty > unimpressed with moveit.com. They haven't been very good at > communicating important details like MY SHIPPING ADDRESS, when the > shipment would be made, how payment was to take place, etc. > > They say they do a love of business through dovebid, and while that > may be so, I don't think I would use them again in the future compared > to my experiences with cratersandfreighters.com. > > Has anyone else used these guys? > > What was your experience? > -- TTFN - Guy From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Tue Jan 2 16:08:39 2007 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 14:08:39 -0800 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 12/31/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > It's that coax that I dread replacing--it goes > between floors and snaking it through the walls was a real chore. Depending upon how many bends and whether it is fastened to the walls, it might be a fairly easy replacement. Cat 6 cable is close enough to the the same diameter as coax, so it should fit in the same run. I've done it by splicing the Cat 6 to the coax. Getting a splice that isn't of larger diameter than the coax is the tough part. The tightest splice I managed to do involved a needle, fishing line, glue, and heat shrink tubing, but that case was extreme due to unreachable metal grommets in the middle of the run. Once the splice is done and you are convinced it is strong enough, just pull it through. > > My DSL speed is 1.6Mbps, so I'm thinking that there's little reason > to upgrade the setup. Am I thinking correctly or am I likely to see > an improvement in internet access speed if I upgrade? You're not going to see a speed increase to the outside, but you might see a speed increase between machines on the local net. It's useful if you have modern machines that share files on both floors/ On the rack next to me is a 10/100bT switch, a 10/100bT hub, a 10bT hub with coax uplink, an ethernet-localtalk interface, and 54 Mbps wireless access point. The cable modem and another 10/100bT switch are downstairs in the garage. Now if I could find a way to get Arcnet into the mix..... From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Tue Jan 2 16:08:39 2007 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 14:08:39 -0800 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 12/31/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > It's that coax that I dread replacing--it goes > between floors and snaking it through the walls was a real chore. Depending upon how many bends and whether it is fastened to the walls, it might be a fairly easy replacement. Cat 6 cable is close enough to the the same diameter as coax, so it should fit in the same run. I've done it by splicing the Cat 6 to the coax. Getting a splice that isn't of larger diameter than the coax is the tough part. The tightest splice I managed to do involved a needle, fishing line, glue, and heat shrink tubing, but that case was extreme due to unreachable metal grommets in the middle of the run. Once the splice is done and you are convinced it is strong enough, just pull it through. > > My DSL speed is 1.6Mbps, so I'm thinking that there's little reason > to upgrade the setup. Am I thinking correctly or am I likely to see > an improvement in internet access speed if I upgrade? You're not going to see a speed increase to the outside, but you might see a speed increase between machines on the local net. It's useful if you have modern machines that share files on both floors/ On the rack next to me is a 10/100bT switch, a 10/100bT hub, a 10bT hub with coax uplink, an ethernet-localtalk interface, and 54 Mbps wireless access point. The cable modem and another 10/100bT switch are downstairs in the garage. Now if I could find a way to get Arcnet into the mix..... From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 2 16:07:48 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 22:07:48 +0000 (GMT) Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459A98BE.4050803@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jan 2, 7 10:39:10 am Message-ID: > For my final post -- About 20 TTL packages ( 80 2 input nand gates ) > are needed for a simple 1 bit , bit slice PCB. XOR gates, Flip/flops > and muiltiplexers sure take up several packages. You can make a 2-input XOR gate from 4 NANDs (a single 7400). Ditto a 2-input single-bit mux. And of course a pair of SR flip-flops take up a single 7400... Making a JK or equivalent would be a few pacakges, though. I've not worked it out, but I think a master-slave JK flip-flop is 3 or 4 7400s. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 2 15:47:15 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 21:47:15 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP-97 Manual In-Reply-To: from "Reber48035@aol.com" at Dec 31, 6 05:41:56 pm Message-ID: > > Hi, > > I'm finding inconsistencies between the HP-67 & HP-97. In what way? They were supposed to be fully compatible, with the only differences beoing, for example, there's an instruction to pause a program and display the X register on the 67, on the 97 it prints the X register. There are known to be differences with outputting non-normalised-numbers, in fact it's possible to burn out the 97 printhead if you try to print NNNs. And, IIRC, there are 2 versions of a pair of ROMs in these machines (they must be replaced as a pair, one of each will not work properly). They have totally diferent part numbers. I assume the change was a bug fix (which might expalin what you're seeing if one machine has the old version the other the newversion). > > I'm looking for an HP-97 Manual and saw a note from Joe that stated Mike Haas > found one. Is it for sale? I think the user manuals for both machines (and the 97 service manual) are available on the MoHPC CD-ROM set (http://www,hpmuseum.org). If you're interested in HP calculators, that set of CD-ROMs is well worth the money (assuming you have a mahcine that can read them and display/print .pdf files :-)) You might also try asking a similar question on the forum on that site, some very knowledgabel people turn up there. Or poke aobut on the HPCC web site (http://www.hpcc.org) and ask that club's committee if they have any thoughts. -tony From grant at stockly.com Tue Jan 2 16:26:47 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:26:47 -0900 Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: <200701021322.l02DMdnx025827@mail4.magma.ca> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070101234426.044d1ae8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102123503.03fa3c48@pop.1and1.com> >If it's any use to you, I can send some tools to work with this type of >data (change record size, load address, convert to binary, set fill >values etc.). I can also give you assembler/disassemblers which will >work with MHX directly. That would be great! Just send it to my list address. I have no size limit. >PS: I'd like to get a copy of the data once you get it extracted. I have a memory dump of basic loaded and unitialized from 0000-1FFF, but I want the original data extracted off the tape. I hooked a 232 transciever and inverter up to the demodulated output from the KCACR (right at the 1013 ACIA IC) and it wasn't 300bps. I had a 2.5ms bit clock and it should have been around 3.3ms. I am going crazy to the point of completely ignoring the following fact. I have 7-8 WAV files on my computer. I started recording the second I pushed play, which was right at the beginning of the tape. I stopped recording when it lost the carrier. I have 3 recordings that are 13:30 minutes long and 3-4 that are 10:17 long. The KCACR will load basic with either length, although at 13:30 minutes it is very sensitive to tape quality it seems. I have a very nice tape deck with dc servo controlled motors. This is very disapointing to me. It makes me cry to think about it... : ( I want a perfect quality recording of the tape and it kills me to think I have to hook one of my "junk" players up to the computer to get it... I think the reason that the demodulated output is not 300bps is the KCACR is locking onto the tape speed? The KCACR is supposed to handle a +-20% speed variance. The bitclock must be provided to the 1013 ACIA. I don't have the manual for the KCACR yet, so I have no idea... My idea to get a PERFECT MITS basic sound file is to recover the S records and generate a new sound file using the KCS.EXE program found on the web. Comments? Grant From grant at stockly.com Tue Jan 2 16:37:54 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:37:54 -0900 Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: <20070102115515.J92772@shell.lmi.net> References: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail> <20070102111916.U92772@shell.lmi.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102133647.0443a6e0@pop.1and1.com> >2) WHAT machine, and what version of BASIC are we talking about here? Altair 680. Version 1.1 Rev 3.2 of what seems to be a modified Altair 8800 8k non extended basic. Grant From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 2 16:41:58 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 17:41:58 -0500 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org> <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca> <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > There was at least one production parametron-based computer: I have a Japanese parametron logic trainer. I think there are 12 parametrons in it, so it is not too useful. I think parametrons died out fast because all other logic forms were much easier to implement as speeds increased. Once the things get up into the MHz region, tuning and phase shifting became real issues. Nobody wants to tune logic - leave that to the radio guys. -- Will From wacarder at earthlink.net Tue Jan 2 16:46:39 2007 From: wacarder at earthlink.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 17:46:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shipping company moveit.com Message-ID: <3004771.1167778000016.JavaMail.root@elwamui-cypress.atl.sa.earthlink.net> I do all of my large shipping with them too, and have been totally satisfied with their service. I agree with everything that Guy has said. I have used them many times during the past 3 years to ship *LOTS* of large equipment, PDP-11 blinkinglight systems in racks, fragile 35 year old terminals on pedestals, etc. They have always delivered oir picked up on time and it was a painless process just as Guy described. I was a little nervous with my first shipment, but they have proven time and time again that they will get my stuff moved in a safe and timely manner. Last week I they delivered two large racks of 35 year old PDP-11 systems and drives, a DecWriter, and a card reader to my place. They gave me a delivery date with a 3 hour window of delivery, and the delivery truck came right in the middle of the delivery window. Smooth and painless. Ashley -----Original Message----- >From: Guy Sotomayor >Sent: Jan 2, 2007 4:51 PM >To: General at shiresoft.com, Discussion at shiresoft.com@null, On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts , null at null >Subject: Re: Shipping company moveit.com > >I do *all* of my large shipping through them (unless I do it myself). I >have been *extremely* happy with them and I've been using them for a >number of years now. One of the things I like about them is that they >are pretty much "fire and forget". I don't have to hand hold them to >get stuff done and they do a good job of getting stuff moved with no >breakage. I do however give them *all* of the information at the start >of the transaction. > >Of course, I've done enough business with them that they call me up >occasionally to see if I have anything that needs to be shipped. > >Richard wrote: >> I'm using them for a dovebid sale and while things are scheduled to be >> delivered tomorrow (knock on wood), so far I've been pretty >> unimpressed with moveit.com. They haven't been very good at >> communicating important details like MY SHIPPING ADDRESS, when the >> shipment would be made, how payment was to take place, etc. >> >> They say they do a love of business through dovebid, and while that >> may be so, I don't think I would use them again in the future compared >> to my experiences with cratersandfreighters.com. >> >> Has anyone else used these guys? >> >> What was your experience? >> > >-- > >TTFN - Guy > > From nico at farumdata.dk Tue Jan 2 16:50:31 2007 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 23:50:31 +0100 Subject: ECMA 34 was : Recovering Cassette Tape Records References: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail><20070102111916.U92772@shell.lmi.net><6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail> <5.2.1.1.0.20070102133647.0443a6e0@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <002401c72ec0$6841cdd0$2101a8c0@finans> While speaking of cassette tapes : I have two Philips cassette decks available. The rubber band has disintegrated. I seem to remember that the ECMA standard was called ECMA 34. The logic consists of Philips 6 volt TTL. It is a bit vague, but I am quite sure that the bit rate is about 300 bps. The tapes can contain 250 K on each side. There is a cut-out in the back of the cassettes, indicating side A or B They are available for the mailing cost (from Denmark) Nico From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jan 2 16:59:35 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 14:59:35 -0800 Subject: My first Mac Message-ID: >> Does it pop up saying the disk needs to be initialized? Are you sure >> it's >> HFS? I'd first give Disk First Aid or some similar program a go at it. Start up DFA first and then insert the disk and scan it. Try covering the HD hole, also- 800k Macs could format 1.44s at 800k which could confuse a newer machine. You might be sunk, though, if that's the case, as some 800k drives don't magnetize the disk strongly enough and it is unreadable after several years. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 2 18:15:49 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 16:15:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20070103001549.48467.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Oi what a bunch of hoserz! Enough about P2s and P3s littering the sidewalk...Got relevance???. You got and older Mac in yer hands so play with it! Try YDL like I said http://yellowdog.open-mirror.com/index2.php?pwd=.%2F%2Fyellowdog-2.3 There are some older versions there. Some of the later version have the 2.6.? kernel. Apparently there's a version YDL for the Sony PS3 too. Sheesh what would you say if he had found a IIfx or whatever. Oh pyew, it's a hassle...it's slow...it takes weird ram. It's old, it's fun, so stifle it! We're not talking about ancient history, but I remember the cd cubes/stacks that you used to be able to buy from Compusa and others. Loads and loads of shareware. Lost mine :(. Right around the time of the inception of the PPC based Macs. Oi. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From evan at snarc.net Tue Jan 2 18:21:56 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 19:21:56 -0500 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <1167764031.13407.21.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <000001c72ecd$2ecabb40$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>> Ridiculous? Jew don't want to go DERE, puppy.. This thread has been entertaining, albeit OT, but "Jew don't want to go..." is not funny and I find it a bit offensive. -----Original Message----- From: Warren Wolfe [mailto:wizard at voyager.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 1:54 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Kosher stove and fridge On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 13:08 -0500, der Mouse wrote: > I've heard of shabbat goys, but, parrot?? > That's just ridiculous. :-) . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxGAnK8F_b0 Ay, ay, ay, Manny Cockatoo wizard at voyager.net From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 2 18:27:11 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 16:27:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: any interest in a teal SGI Indigo 2? Message-ID: <20070103002711.13914.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> I have at least a couple I need to get rid of. Too much stuff. No keyboards or mice (they take the regular ps/2 type though), no OS, probably busted drive door hinges, somewhat scuffed up. They weigh about 40 lbs, so keep that in mind. Free otherwise. E-mail me offlist please. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From evan at snarc.net Tue Jan 2 19:23:52 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 20:23:52 -0500 Subject: Needed: 80micro magazine Message-ID: <000601c72ed5$d4278520$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> I'm looking for the Sept. '83 issue, specifically the article on p. 272 called "Portable Word Processor"... can anyone help me? From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 2 19:57:51 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:57:51 -0800 Subject: Needed: 80micro magazine In-Reply-To: <000601c72ed5$d4278520$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000601c72ed5$d4278520$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <459A9D1F.30023.6A43D2F@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jan 2007 at 20:23, Evan Koblentz wrote: > I'm looking for the Sept. '83 issue, specifically the article on p. 272 > called "Portable Word Processor"... can anyone help me? Have you dropped a note to Ira Goldklang? He's usually pretty accomodating. If you're looking for ephemera about the Typecorder, remember it was also featured in the No.1 "Login" Japanese computer rag. Cheers, Chuck From evan at snarc.net Tue Jan 2 20:01:50 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 21:01:50 -0500 Subject: Needed: 80micro magazine In-Reply-To: <459A9D1F.30023.6A43D2F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <000c01c72edb$21ee0130$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Actually I just contacted him via IM, and he instantly sent me what I need! Good man! I never heard of Login. -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:cclist at sydex.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 8:58 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Needed: 80micro magazine On 2 Jan 2007 at 20:23, Evan Koblentz wrote: > I'm looking for the Sept. '83 issue, specifically the article on p. > 272 called "Portable Word Processor"... can anyone help me? Have you dropped a note to Ira Goldklang? He's usually pretty accomodating. If you're looking for ephemera about the Typecorder, remember it was also featured in the No.1 "Login" Japanese computer rag. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 2 20:11:24 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 18:11:24 -0800 Subject: Needed: 80micro magazine In-Reply-To: <000c01c72edb$21ee0130$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <459A9D1F.30023.6A43D2F@cclist.sydex.com>, <000c01c72edb$21ee0130$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <459AA04C.32373.6B0A379@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jan 2007 at 21:01, Evan Koblentz wrote: > I never heard of Login. I remember being reviewed in Login and being sent the issue by the publisher. Couldn't make out much other than the occasional English word. At any rate, here's an image of the magazine in question: http://t-kun.sakura.ne.jp/fo/room03/mz08.htm And here's their web site--they seem to be very games-oriented nowadays: http://www.enterbrain.co.jp/login/ Enjoy, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 2 20:16:37 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 18:16:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102133647.0443a6e0@pop.1and1.com> References: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail> <20070102111916.U92772@shell.lmi.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20070102132827.07ce7ca8@mail> <5.2.1.1.0.20070102133647.0443a6e0@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <20070102181444.A12927@shell.lmi.net> > >2) WHAT machine, and what version of BASIC are we talking about here? On Tue, 2 Jan 2007, Grant Stockly wrote: > Altair 680. Version 1.1 Rev 3.2 of what seems to be a modified Altair 8800 > 8k non extended basic. Thank you Then a lot of our assumptions based on newer BASICs may be invalid. Does it have a DEFINT command? From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Tue Jan 2 20:34:58 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:34:58 -0600 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done! In-Reply-To: References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com> Message-ID: <459B1652.9010101@brutman.com> John R. wrote: > What do you mean by "allowable RST?" RST can be thought of as > hard-close, or "Sorry peer, I don't have any context about the > connection you sent a packet for," or "this port is not accepting > connections." > > It is always allowed. It is not the ideal way to close a connection, > but as a peer receiving it you must always handle it, and you may send > it if you have a good reason. > > Some consideration may be given to detecting spoofed RSTs attempting > to interfere with valid connections. But I suspect you are not > terribly interested in complicating your code with such corner case at > this point (there are a lot of things like this if you really want to > get into it). There are lots of rules in RFC 793 for RST segment generation and handling. You don't want to just whack any connection that gets an RST. The RST has to have correct sequence and ack numbers in the header. Correct can be extended to mean 'in the allowable window'. Otherwise, somebody can have some real fun with your server by just spraying random RST segments at you. I code my RST handling code such that the RST has to be within the current receive window, which is how I read 793. I think I have misread or misinterpreted, and I should include RST packets that are in my window of previously sent (but not yet acknowledged) packets. Corner cases are an interesting design problem. I could make the code quite a bit smaller if I just tweaked the spec a bit. Things like not supporting two sides to do active opens at each other can save code, and it is not a commonly used feature. I might go back and start sprinkling my code with #defines to delete features like that if they are not needed. From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Tue Jan 2 20:39:20 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:39:20 -0600 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 In-Reply-To: <033c01c72e9e$2ae8d180$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <033c01c72e9e$2ae8d180$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <459B1758.9020200@brutman.com> Alexandre Souza wrote: >> Here is a picture of the machine you are connecting to, complete with >> the Western Digital 8003 Ethernet card grafted onto the side: >> http://brutman.com/PCjr_WD_small.jpg > > Nice! > > Glad you like it! A few years ago I did a pin-to-pin mapping from the Jr's bus to ISA. Except for DMA and some IRQs, it's doable. The particular adapter that I'm using is a commercial product from the mid 80s. I know of somebody who designed their own version of it and is running an XT hard disk controller with a modified BIOS on their Jr. Cards that do not use DMA and makes limited use of IRQs are candidates for running on the machine. Conflicts with built-in hardware have to be avoided as well, as the onboard diskette and serial ports can't be disabled without a wire cutters. I've run that Western Digital 8003, a 3Com 3C503, an NE1000, a Trantor T130 SCSI card, and a Future Domain 85x variant in the adapter. One day I'll figure out how to rework the BIOS on the Future Domain cards so that I can get the machine to boot from the hard disk. Mike From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Tue Jan 2 20:47:26 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:47:26 -0600 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done! In-Reply-To: <200701020452.XAA21461@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com> <200701020452.XAA21461@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <459B193E.2010405@brutman.com> der Mouse wrote: >> TCP/IP on an 8088 class machine isn't particularly new and exciting, > > Oh, I don't know; *I* think this is Pretty D*mn Cool! > > Well, okay, TCP on an 8088 may not be exciting. TCP using your own > code on an 8088, that rocks! > And thanks again for the testing - I watched some of your sessions in real time by looking at the tcpdump output. I started this project about a year ago by trying to get the packet driver for a Xircom PE3 10BT (parallel port Ethernet adapter) to send a packet. That worked pretty well - I had to learn how to mix x86 ASM in my C code, but it worked. Receiving packets was a different story - the dang Xircom packet driver was written in a non-friendly way, so interfacing to it was not as easy as it should have been. After two days of disassembling code, hacking, and experimenting I finally got data in and out. After that I needed ARP. Then I went to UDP. TCP scared me, so I procrastinated quite a bit. I still have a bit of cleanup and testing to do, but I'm finally over the hump again and it's back to being fun. About six months ago I found a good ISA bus adapter for the Jr and I tried out that Western Digital card. Wow .. compared to the Xircom on the parallel port, it's a rocket. The Xircoms are a good solution for limited machines, but I definitely need to reproduce the adapter card. At some point when it is a little more polished and tested I'll put a web page up and release it to the universe. There are a handful of TCP/IP stacks out there already, but I think mine is going to be the fastest by a pretty wide margin. Part of the joy of coding is seeing others make use of the code. I'd like to see some new/refreshed TCP/IP apps for older machines. I was intending to do a telnet BBS, but that's going to take a lot more effort and the audience for that is fairly limited. Mike From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 2 21:56:40 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:56:40 -0600 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <200701022036.l02KaUCo022886@floodgap.com> References: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102122909.07cd4bc8@mail> <200701022036.l02KaUCo022886@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102214831.07f1f888@mail> At 02:36 PM 1/2/2007, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >I'd let Disk Copy take a whack at it then. Make sure Disk Copy is running >before you insert the disk. At least you'd be able to look at the raw >image in a hex editor and see if it looks halfway sensible. Disk Copy 4.2 ("Apple 3.5" Disk Duplicator") waits a while, then ejects the floppy. Disk First Aid would hang for a while, declare it to have a volume name of two squares, then it would say it couldn't read it. Hiding the HD hole didn't make a difference... in fact, these programs (as well as the Desktop) almost immediately ejected it. I have newer disk recovery tools, not so much older ones. I think what I really need is a USB low/high density external floppy for a contemporary Mac. I tried a generic USB floppy. Of course it didn't work because it wasn't blessed by Apple. And should I expect a contemporary USB Mac floppy to handle the older lower densities? - John From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 2 22:15:25 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 20:15:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070102214831.07f1f888@mail> from John Foust at "Jan 2, 7 09:56:40 pm" Message-ID: <200701030415.l034FPKF009050@floodgap.com> > I have newer disk recovery tools, not so much older ones. I think what > I really need is a USB low/high density external floppy for a > contemporary Mac. I tried a generic USB floppy. Of course it > didn't work because it wasn't blessed by Apple. And should I > expect a contemporary USB Mac floppy to handle the older lower > densities? Do such animals exist? I have a "non blessed" USB floppy and it works on my G5, but only for HD disks. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- It is the business of little minds to shrink. -- Carl Sandburg ------------- From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 2 22:24:39 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:24:39 -0800 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca>, <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> <459A4101.5608.53C6A27@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <459B3000.79C72EDC@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > I stumbled on this document: > > http://klabs.org/mapld04/papers/g/g233_alonso_p.doc > > while wondering about AC transformer-coupled logic and discovered > that the original idea for the Apollo guidance computer was to use AC- > coupled (core-transistor) logic. > > How's that for tying two threads together? :) Now that was a fun read. I'm still trying to understand his description of the core rope ROM though. I'm familiar with core-rope ROM (or at least one version of it) from attempting to make a reader to dump the contents of a Wang calc microcode ROM, but the AGC version sounds like the address-decoding/word-selection is done differently (..need a diagram). And whats up with this mention of LCD displays? I didn't think there was anything practical available that early, or that was going to stand up to the rigours of space-flight - I have a calc with one of the first commercial LCDs (1972) and it's still kind of rudimentary - slow, poor contrast, temperature sensitive... (And it confirmed that the AGC was constructed from a single gate/IC type.) From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 2 22:24:49 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:24:49 -0800 Subject: timeliness of ideas, was Re: TTL 7400's Available References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca> <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <459B300A.CA72DE38@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Apparently, it's one of those things that is periodically "invented": > > http://ceng.usc.edu/~bkrishna/research/papers/RAWCON98_ghzdigital.pdf > > It probably wouldn't do to write the authors and tell them that the > basis for their patents is more than 40 years old. When I've done > that (e.g., "Did you know that your work was discussed in a paper > from 1962? I can send you a copy if you'd like."), intellectual > courtesy seems to go out the window. But the idea's the same, using > passively-combined microwave signals whose logic value is dictated by > phase. "Sometimes the truth hurts." If they are applying for patents, I can't say I see much reason their sensibilities should be spared. In theory the patent office should be pointing it out but I guess that depends on the patent status of the earlier work. > Sometimes it seems that much of human innovation is just a rehash of > old ideas that failed when the time just wasn't right. Indeed, in computing it sometimes seems that so much was conceived/imagined/ understood 'right from the start' in the 40's and 50's and has just been waiting for the practical (machining, in part) and/or economically-viable ability to implement or make use of those ideas. Perhaps it's just because I've read some about it, but the conception of Whirlwind still amazes me. Even with ENIAC barely functional and the first stored program machines yet to be built - and others just expecting a computer to print lots of numbers on paper for them to muse over - Jay Forrester went straight to the concept of digital computing for real-time simulation and control of analog physical systems, with all the attendant issues of A/D, D/A, user-interfaces, etc. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 2 22:25:01 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:25:01 -0800 Subject: parametrons, was Re: TTL 7400's Available References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org> <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca> <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <459B3015.4961F42A@cs.ubc.ca> William Donzelli wrote: > > > There was at least one production parametron-based computer: > > I have a Japanese parametron logic trainer. I think there are 12 > parametrons in it, so it is not too useful. ..enough for a 1-bit serial adder with carry flip-flop, perhaps? > I think parametrons died out fast because all other logic forms were > much easier to implement as speeds increased. Once the things get up > into the MHz region, tuning and phase shifting became real issues. > Nobody wants to tune logic - leave that to the radio guys. I was speculating along those lines as well, that as a system got more complex trying to track phase shift through all possible paths in the system would become a nightmare. I know the CDC6600 had individual wires cut to specific lengths, but this seems like a problem of another magnitude. On the same note I was going to say that it would give another meaning to 'tuning the system'. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 2 22:39:48 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:39:48 -0700 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459B3000.79C72EDC@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca>, <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> <459A4101.5608.53C6A27@cclist.sydex.com> <459B3000.79C72EDC@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <459B3394.6010202@jetnet.ab.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > And whats up with this mention of LCD displays? I didn't think there was > anything practical available that early, or that was going to stand up to the > rigours of space-flight - I have a calc with one of the first commercial LCDs > (1972) and it's still kind of rudimentary - slow, poor contrast, temperature sensitive... Doing a bit of googling on the AGC, I found that it uses electroluminescent displays. > (And it confirmed that the AGC was constructed from a single gate/IC type.) > From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jan 2 23:01:46 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:01:46 -0800 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "William Donzelli" > >>There was at least one production parametron-based computer: > >I have a Japanese parametron logic trainer. I think there are 12 >parametrons in it, so it is not too useful. > >I think parametrons died out fast because all other logic forms were >much easier to implement as speeds increased. Once the things get up >into the MHz region, tuning and phase shifting became real issues. >Nobody wants to tune logic - leave that to the radio guys. > >-- >Will Hi Will Ok, tell us more about these things. A web search tells little. All I see is something about non-linear magnetic core, f/2 and phase. I don't see how it is used to create a logical operation. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Fixing up the home? Live Search can help http://imagine-windowslive.com/search/kits/default.aspx?kit=improve&locale=en-US&source=hmemailtaglinenov06&FORM=WLMTAG From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 2 23:13:01 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:13:01 -0800 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459B3000.79C72EDC@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459B3000.79C72EDC@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <459ACADD.27625.518178@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jan 2007 at 20:24, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Now that was a fun read. I'm still trying to understand his description of > the core rope ROM though. I'm familiar with core-rope ROM (or at least one > version of it) from attempting to make a reader to dump the contents of a Wang > calc microcode ROM, but the AGC version sounds like the > address-decoding/word-selection is done differently (..need a diagram). Somewhere, on one of the AGC sites linked to by the guy who's building his own, is a diagram of both the ROM and RAM setup. In the paper, the author says: "I don?t know of any other computer that uses 1?s complements ." He obviously never met Seymour Cray. One's complement arithmetic isn't hard to deal with; and it helped that Cray designed his ALU as a subtracter rather than an adder, so that the only way (using addition and subtraction) to get a negative zero was to subtract negative zero from negative zero. In practice, this came up very rarely. The zero and nonzero conditional branches worked on both species of zero at any rate. There are a few very clever bit-twiddling tricks possible on a 1's complement machine that don't carry over to 2's complement. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 2 23:22:41 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:22:41 -0800 Subject: timeliness of ideas, was Re: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459B300A.CA72DE38@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459B300A.CA72DE38@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <459ACD21.11437.5A5823@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jan 2007 at 20:24, Brent Hilpert wrote: > "Sometimes the truth hurts." If they are applying for patents, I can't say I > see much reason their sensibilities should be spared. In theory the patent > office should be pointing it out but I guess that depends on the patent > status of the earlier work. What's changed is that software methods can now be patented. But not that long ago, the best you could hope for was to publish your algorithm in CALGO or one one of the other journals (say, NYU Courant Institute) and hope someone noticed. I think that a number of software patents currently granted could be undermined with some scholaraly research. Nothing like omitted "prior art" citations to mess over a patent. Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jan 2 23:31:22 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 00:31:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done! In-Reply-To: <459B1652.9010101@brutman.com> References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com> <459B1652.9010101@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200701030540.AAA16350@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> [...RST handling...] > You don't want to just whack any connection that gets an RST. [...] > Otherwise, somebody can have some real fun with your server by just > spraying random RST segments at you. True. (At least if ths stack is for use on the open Internet. In some rather closed environments, it may be perfectly acceptable to take down a connection on any RST with the right address/port numbers.) > I code my RST handling code such that the RST has to be within the > current receive window, which is how I read 793. I think I have > misread or misinterpreted, and I should include RST packets that are > in my window of previously sent (but not yet acknowledged) packets. Not quite, I think. Rather, you should take an RST only when its sequence number is right at the edge of the window, provided you send a pure-ACK packet in response to an RST with a bad sequence number. These make it significantly harder for third parties to shoot down your TCP connections. If all they need to do is hit your window, the chance of a random sequence number working is window-size/2^32, which can get comparatively large, especially when window scaling is in use (though admittedly I imagine a PCjr stack does not do window scaling :). But if you accept an RST only when its sequence number is at your window's edge, the chance is 1/2^32 regardless of window size. In order to take down legitimately half-open connections, you need to communicate that sequence number to the legitimate peer, which is what the pure-ACK in response to wrong-sequence RSTs is for - to elicit a properly-sequenced RST. (If you want to be really spiffy, rate-limit the pure-ACK packets, so you can't be used to turn an RST flood into an ACK flood.) I think this algorithm is written up in an RFC somewhere, but I forget the number. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 2 23:45:01 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:45:01 -0700 Subject: Shipping company moveit.com In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:46:39 -0500. <3004771.1167778000016.JavaMail.root@elwamui-cypress.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: We'll see how well they did tomorrow. I purchased several lots through dovebid; two could be packed and send ground with no problem and one needed freight. So I filled out two shipping quotes. They ended up i) combining the two quotes into a single shipment without bothering to mention this to me, ii) didn't pay attention when merging the orders and used my home address as the freight shipping address, iii) every time I deal with them, its a different person and they don't seem to know anything about my order or what state it is in, iv) when I explicitly asked them on the phone how I was going to pay for this, I got some sort of mumble "we'll deal with that later" answer. I asked for a quote based on pessimistic (i.e. overly large and overly heavy) estimates on the equipment and *presto* the final order is exactly what their estimate based on my pessimistic measurements said. Then they send me a bunch of digitized fax paperwork asking me to apply for a "line of credit" with them without me asking for any such thing. Each step of the process was from a different email address/person at this company, making each attempt to contact me look like spam to spam filters. So overall it feels like they are incompetent. They mismashed two separate orders together without telling me and half-assed combined them together, without paying any attention to what they were doing. I had the freight carrier call me today saying "so we're delivering to {my home address}, right?" and me having to correct them *after* I already told moveit.com about the error and they informed me they would correct the problem and update the freight company. This clearlyd id not happen. Then they email me saying "the freight company has been trying to contact you, is XXX-XXXX the right phone number?" without bothering to give me the name of the freight company or any way to contact them until I ask for it. Now I realize that noone is perfect and everyone has bad days, but they have made mistakes along every step of the way here, and as near as I can tell all the mistakes were made by different people. It feels like they just assume they'll get dovebid business and don't have to bother doing a good job. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 2 23:46:01 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:46:01 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage Message-ID: Owner's manual has a date of 1997... Someone is giving one of these to me with 4 CPUs. What should I do with it? Its got no graphics, but I figure I could make it compute arbitrary precision deep Mandelbrot set zooms. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 3 00:18:23 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:18:23 -0800 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca>, <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> <459A4101.5608.53C6A27@cclist.sydex.com> <459B3000.79C72EDC@cs.ubc.ca> <459B3394.6010202@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <459B4AA3.DC016D9B@cs.ubc.ca> woodelf wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > > And whats up with this mention of LCD displays? I didn't think there was > > anything practical available that early, or that was going to stand up to the > > rigours of space-flight - I have a calc with one of the first commercial LCDs > > (1972) and it's still kind of rudimentary - slow, poor contrast, temperature sensitive... > > Doing a bit of googling on the AGC, I found that it uses electroluminescent displays. Yes, I'm finding those references as well. Although it seems quite early for electroluminescent displays too, don't know of anything else that was using them at that time, esp. in 7-seg form. From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 00:24:06 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:24:06 -0900 Subject: altair 680 tapes In-Reply-To: <000001c72ee8$2f45ea70$176fa8c0@obie> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102211425.038b5eb8@pop.1and1.com> Posted for comment, started off list: I have about 3-4 recordings of the tape. As well as a "reproduction" of the tape. I lifted the "transmit" leg on the serial chip so that it wasn't in the socket. Then I put a jumper from the receive pin to the transmit hole. While playing the tape into the Altair I recorded the remodulated data into the computer and made a note if there were no checksum errors. As the tape was being demodulated the KCACR was remodulating the data at the same time. I have never been able to get a computer recorded file to load into the Altair. This may be caused from a lack of audio amplitude? I was surprised that the KCS.EXE utility only found 3 errors in the cassette tape wav file but found 11,000 errors with the remodulated WAV file. There was a slight DC offset and a background hum (not 60hz) I'm STILL trying to figure out why I have a few 13 minute long and a few 10 minute long recordings of the SAME TAPE!!!! Once I am through with this process I will make a tutorial. I'll also offer to recover other people's tapes. I LOVE time capsules! : ) Grant >If you haven't done so already, back up your tapes to .wav files right >away! > >Just plug your cassette player into your PC and do some high quality >mono recordings (8bits @ 22050 samples/sec). Avoid MP3 because of lossy >compression. > >Look here: http://www.netbay.com.au/~dxforth/ if you want to >post-process the .wav files, but it's even easier to just feed the audio >back and forth via your sound card. > >Once you have the digital data, you can always recreate the tapes but if >you lose the tapes, that's it. > >Jack From adamg at pobox.com Tue Jan 2 14:07:36 2007 From: adamg at pobox.com (Adam Goldman) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 15:07:36 -0500 Subject: Archive your Apple floppies at the W6TRW swap meet, January 2007 Message-ID: <20070102200735.GA72439@silme.pair.com> ARCHIVE YOUR APPLE FLOPPIES AT THE W6TRW SWAP MEET, JANUARY 2007 Even if your Apple IIe is long gone, you'll soon have a chance to get at your old data again, when Device Side Data (www.deviceside.com) holds the second public demonstration of a new USB floppy interface. USB floppy drives are widely available, but those currently on the market only support 3.5" disks. The new interface, due to be released later this year, connects to 5.25" drives. It will also allow the owners of modern computers to read a variety of old disk formats that ordinary floppy controllers no longer support. The demo will take place on Saturday, January 27th, 2007, at the famous W6TRW swap meet in Redondo Beach, California. Attendees are invited to bring along a few disks and have image copies made. The final product will read many disk formats, but the prototype only reads Apple II disks, so please leave your IBM or CP/M floppies at home for now. The W6TRW swap meet runs from 7 AM to 11:30 AM in the Northrop Grumman parking lot near the intersection of Aviation and Marine in Redondo Beach. There is no fee to attend. Once there, look for the spinning disk in row C. Besides Device Side Data, many other vendors will also be present, with a wide range of equipment for sale. This is an outdoor event and will proceed regardless of weather. Please carry your disks in waterproof bags in case of rain. From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 2 14:50:45 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:50:45 +0000 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20070101112442.0d6eb380@localhost> References: <45979317.4685.44D897E@cclist.sydex.com> <45982A14.5070302@shiresoft.com> <4597E9B0.23322.59FCD56@cclist.sydex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20070101112442.0d6eb380@localhost> Message-ID: <459AC5A5.2090100@gjcp.net> Tom Peters wrote: > A firmware upgrade fixed some of it. Policy fixed the rest: Thou shalt > set the speed and duplex we tell you to on your PC, or we'll disable > your port. No Auto/Auto permitted. Better gear and Corporate Standard > NICs eliminated the problem after a while. Alvarion stuff is bad for this, particularly when used in conjunction with Cisco switches. The most recent Cisco firmware just makes the problem worse, because if you specify the speed and duplex settings on the switch, it will fall back to auto/auto if it loses its connection. Like, for instance, when you reboot the wireless bridge... Gordon (still gearing up to bomb Tel Aviv until Alvarion sort out their stupid software) From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 2 14:56:19 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:56:19 +0000 Subject: Network question In-Reply-To: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <459AC6F3.2060601@gjcp.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > The maddening thing is that there's a local wireless net provider > here with excellent pricing. I can see their transmitter tower two > hills over from my window, but they nothing pointing in my direction > nor do they plan to. And cable doesn't exist out here in the > boonies. Rent a spot on the tower, and provide your own feed. How far a path is it? A couple of Orthogon Geminis will give you near-LOS connections up to around 20Mbps, for somewhere in the region of $6000. Gordon From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 2 18:34:09 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 00:34:09 +0000 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <20070103001549.48467.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070103001549.48467.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <459AFA01.7050304@gjcp.net> Chris M wrote: > Oi what a bunch of hoserz! Enough about P2s and P3s > littering the sidewalk...Got relevance???. You got and > older Mac in yer hands so play with it! Try YDL like I > said > > http://yellowdog.open-mirror.com/index2.php?pwd=.%2F%2Fyellowdog-2.3 > > There are some older versions there. Some of the later > version have the 2.6.? kernel. Apparently there's a > version YDL for the Sony PS3 too. > Sheesh what would you say if he had found a IIfx or > whatever. Oh pyew, it's a hassle...it's slow...it > takes weird ram. It's old, it's fun, so stifle it! > We're not talking about ancient history, but I > remember the cd cubes/stacks that you used to be able > to buy from Compusa and others. Loads and loads of > shareware. Lost mine :(. Right around the time of the > inception of the PPC based Macs. Oi. Is this some sort of code? Gordon From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 2 18:39:26 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 00:39:26 +0000 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <000001c72ecd$2ecabb40$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000001c72ecd$2ecabb40$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <459AFB3E.1090308@gjcp.net> Evan Koblentz wrote: >>>> Ridiculous? Jew don't want to go DERE, puppy.. > > This thread has been entertaining, albeit OT, but "Jew don't want to go..." > is not funny and I find it a bit offensive. Why's that then? Gordon From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 2 19:38:10 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 01:38:10 +0000 Subject: Old Mac music software Message-ID: <459B0902.2000103@gjcp.net> Sort of off-topic(-ish) but I'm looking for some midi sequencing software to run on my Powerbook 180. Actually, since they came out in about '92 I think they might well be on-topic. Most of the synths I want to connect are older than that. Anybody got any thoughts on this? I tried Midigraphy but couldn't really get my head around it. Gordon. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 3 01:04:44 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:04:44 -0800 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459B4AA3.DC016D9B@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459B4AA3.DC016D9B@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <459AE50C.13780.B7C77E@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jan 2007 at 22:18, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Yes, I'm finding those references as well. Although it seems quite early for > electroluminescent displays too, don't know of anything else that was using > them at that time, esp. in 7-seg form. I recall a Popular Science (IIRC) article of around that same time gushing about how EL was going to revolutionize the world and one of the applications shown was a large 7 segment display. Work with EL generated quite a bit of interest back in the 60's, including light amplification for radiography (make a sandwich of dots of EL cells with CdS photoresistors and apply an AC voltage. The dark cells will tend to stay dark, while those that fluoresce under bombardment will form a feedback loop.) Reminds me of making a code practice oscillator by sandwiching a carbon mic with an earphone. I don't know if the technology ever made it to prime time. So that it used EL doesn't surprise me. The only other alternatives (incandescent, plasma, mechanical) were probably too power-hungry and/or fragile. Cheers, Chuck From wizard at voyager.net Wed Jan 3 01:31:25 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 02:31:25 -0500 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <000001c72ecd$2ecabb40$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000001c72ecd$2ecabb40$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <1167809485.13407.53.camel@linux.site> On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 19:21 -0500, Evan Koblentz wrote: > >>> Ridiculous? Jew don't want to go DERE, puppy.. > > This thread has been entertaining, albeit OT, but "Jew > don't want to go..." is not funny and I find it a bit > offensive. What a waste... too bad it wasn't a troll, as it would have been successful. I am assuming, here, that you are referring to the word "Jew," as in a person of the Jewish faith. I'll ignore for the moment such things as my lifetime membership in Sigma Alpha Mu, etc., which gives me license to tell any Jewish jokes I wish. The major issue here is that "Jew don't want to go DERE, puppy" is my attempt to phoneticize the "Brazilian Fighting Cockatoo's" accent from the clip I quoted. Personally, I think it is a fine job. Further, I find the clip to be hilarious. YMMV. Neither the clip, nor my use of it, have anything whatsoever to do with Jews, in either a positive or negative manner, other than the accidental positioning in a string on Kosher appliances. Actually, if you weren't overly sensitive on this subject, as indicated by your false positive, the "DERE" should have been a strong clue, as should my signature phrase, "Ay, ay, ay," and signature of Manny Cockatoo, all taken from the clip -- which I assume you failed to view prior to complaining. To lose the accent, what is being said is "You don't want to go THERE, puppy," which seems pale and lackluster compared to the way the cockatoo (and I) put it. Again, YMMV. Unsolicited advice: lighten up. Oh, and in case I am once more offering unintended offense, "cockatoo" has nothing to do with male genitalia, "troll" is a word from the fishing vernacular meaning to fish for an over-reaction, as opposed to an insulting term for little people, and "success" is not a reference to a sex act. That's all I can think of to pre-explain. Let me know if I missed any potentially offensive references. Furthermore, if you are NOT complaining about my use of the word "Jew," and your perceived insults to either Hebrew or Jewish people, you will have to clearly state the exact reason for your perceived offense. I'm not seeing it. Thank you for taking the time to over-react to nothing. That, and any other humorous input you might have, is greatly appreciated. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 3 01:31:37 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 02:31:37 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7DF12D22-F3D6-447B-A46C-AE15216FE8AC@neurotica.com> On Jan 3, 2007, at 12:46 AM, Richard wrote: > Owner's manual has a date of 1997... Unreal. I know of dozens of these in production. This "10 year" rule really just doesn't fit sometimes. > Someone is giving one of these to me with 4 CPUs. What CPUs? > What should I do with it? Its got no graphics, E450s were primarily designed to be servers, not workstations. But I know a guy (ahem Doc!) who has a very tasty workstation-config E450, rather drool-worthy. Depending on your network setup, I'd use it as a centralized server. Mail, spam filtering, NFS (or samba if you're still running legacy Windows systems), etc. > but I figure I could make it compute > arbitrary precision deep Mandelbrot set zooms. Bad idea. SPARCs, even the later UltraSPARCs, don't do very well in the floating point department. But...if you could code up an integer-based routine it'd scream. The dynamic range of the numbers required in these calculations is very, very small. One thing that comes to mind is that Ciarcia did a nice integer implementation years ago, to run on 8051 microcontrollers. I've looked at that project in some detail but haven't built one...yet. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Cape Coral, FL From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 02:18:21 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:18:21 -0900 Subject: MITS Altair 680 KCACR Cassette BASIC Recovered Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102231444.038e9228@pop.1and1.com> I thought I would post this for the search engines to latch a hold onto. It appears that my 20k post including the Cassette Basic source was killed. If you want the authentic S record listing of MITS Altair 680 KCACR Basic then send me an e-mail... If you mentioned that you wanted it, please e-mail me off list again. I may forget! I am in the process of setting up a web page on the 680, so I'll put the information there when I'm ready. If someone is interested in helping me "figure out" what is on the leader and footer of the tape, please request the original files. I have two. One 8bit ASCII and another forced to 7bit. This one attached has been forced to 7bit ASCII. Both files WILL load into the Altair without issue. It seems random which bytes had the 8th bit set and which didn't. Also, there is what appears to be garbage after the S0 record. I have no idea why. The tape has a bunch of 7Fs, then S0 and a bunch of garbage, and then 00s. At the end there is some garbage too. The KCACR ROM appears to ignore it. I've found this file reliably loads at 9600bps. It takes 21 seconds to load into a 680. .J 0000 MEMORY SIZE? TERMINAL WIDTH? 80 WANT SIN-COS-TAN-ATN? YES 9604 BYTES FREE MITS ALTAIR 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 --KCACR-- COPYRIGHT 1976 BY MITS INC. OK ------------------------------------------ S10400F3FF09 S11300000D7600F37E1A4F7E034A00004838002C18 S113001000000000000000000000000000000000DC S113002000000000000000000000000000000000CC S113003000000000000000000000000000000000BC S113004000000000000000000000000000000000AC S1130050000000000000000000000000000000009C S1130060000000000000000000000000000000008C S1130070000000000000000000000000000000007C S1130080000000000000000000000000000000006C S1130090000000000000000000000000000000005C S11300A0000000000000000000000000000000004C S11300B00000000000000000000000000000007CC0 S11300C000C926037C00C8B6EA60813A240881206E S11300D027ED803080D039FFEA607E03D500000030 S113010000000000000000000000000000804FC755 S113011052007E1A4F0CF10E6015E6165A16000DA9 S1130120710E410E6C18521932142818BE19681930 S11301306E19B419F811BC10D50F1D117910F510F2 ... Blah hlah blah, ask me for more... From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 02:20:40 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:20:40 -0900 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: References: <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> >>> It's extremely cool. What's with you and the x-rays lately? Did After I scanned the IIe motherboard and people liked it, I did a few more. When you have access to this equipement its easy to not appreciate it. ; ) >>>you score an x-ray machine somewhere recently? (I ask out of >>>jealousy...I'd love a small x-ray setup [and the knowledge to use it] >>>for soldering BGA components). X-rays really won't help too much for soldering BGA devices. With x-rays you can't tell the difference between 2 pieces of .25" steel stacked on each other or 1 piece of .5" steel when x-raying through the thickness. >>He said in an earlier message, that it was at his place of >>employment. :) > > Oh, duh. I missed that somehow. :-/ Although I did these at work on Saturday, it was for my own entertainment. ; ) If they were to pay me to do x-rays it would probably be of a customer's sample. ; ) >>He's aparently not as crazy as I am to have some x-ray gear at home >>(then again, I've never used it partly because I don't know enough >>about >>dosages to determine what's safe, and how much to use to expose film >>properly, etc). > > What type of equipment do you have, if you don't mind my asking? We manufacture a line of high resolution digital x-ray equipment. The system I used is called the EnvisionScan NP (for no parallax). Grant From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jan 3 06:54:03 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 09:54:03 -0300 Subject: My first Mac References: <459A8900.4040606@bitsavers.org>, <459A3E6F.15935.5325DDC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <05f201c72f36$ad2e7170$f0fea8c0@alpha> > The local recycler is selling complete beige G3's for $25 the each: > http://www.lanecrrc.org/sales/ > I'd have to figure out what to do with one, however. Holy God! An HP 8100 for $100?! What the hell am I still doing in Brazil??? :oP Buaaaaaaaaaaa From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 06:02:09 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 06:02:09 -0600 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> References: <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <459B9B41.30906@yahoo.co.uk> Grant Stockly wrote: > >>>> It's extremely cool. What's with you and the x-rays lately? Did > > After I scanned the IIe motherboard and people liked it, I did a few > more. When you have access to this equipement its easy to not > appreciate it. ; ) A stop-motion X-rayed animation of a drive actually "running" would be rather cool (I presume there's no hope of the electronics actually operating whilst being x-rayed? [1]) [1] I am not a physicist... cheers Jules From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jan 3 07:08:16 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 10:08:16 -0300 Subject: TCP/IP Testing help, Round 2 - Done! References: <4598A124.7050307@brutman.com> <4599D1FD.8040400@brutman.com><200701020452.XAA21461@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <459B193E.2010405@brutman.com> Message-ID: <063201c72f38$d45b5d60$f0fea8c0@alpha> > At some point when it is a little more polished and tested I'll put a web > page up and release it to the universe. There are a handful of TCP/IP > stacks out there already, but I think mine is going to be the fastest by a > pretty wide margin. Mike, the RTL8019 is a very friendly chip for 8 bits, even being used into a 16-bit card. Almost all embeeded systems uses the 8019 as the ethernet interface. Take a look at the packet whacker in www.edtp.com If you want to skip programming and have a independent tcp stack, you can also take a good look in the wizchip series of chips and modules. They have 10/100 modules with internal tcp stack and even a wireless one! I used them in my last project. Very friendly to use. Congratulations for a great job! So bad I've never ever touched one PCJr. But my first colour CGA monitor was taken from one :D Greetz from Brazil Alexandre Souza http://www.tabajara-labs.com.br From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 06:12:24 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 06:12:24 -0600 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459B9DA8.90803@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > Owner's manual has a date of 1997... > > Someone is giving one of these to me with 4 CPUs. What should I do > with it? Its got no graphics, but I figure I could make it compute > arbitrary precision deep Mandelbrot set zooms. Hmmm, as Dave says, they're really suited to server type apps with lots of integer math. I believe there's a few coming up for disposal locally (UK-side) fairly soon as the support contracts run out (and the renewal expense isn't justified). I can't think of a good reason for having them, though [1]. [1] Although the bulk of the A3000/A1000 storage units which "belong" with one of our E6500 machines were kept back to be used with these, so I should find out what's happening about those purely in order to reunite them with their original machine. cheers Jules From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 3 07:54:28 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 07:54:28 -0600 Subject: [OT] Network question In-Reply-To: <459AC6F3.2060601@gjcp.net> References: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> <459AC6F3.2060601@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070103075043.07f6f610@mail> At 02:56 PM 1/2/2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >Chuck Guzis wrote: >>The maddening thing is that there's a local wireless net provider here with excellent pricing. I can see their transmitter tower two hills over from my window, but they nothing pointing in my direction nor do they plan to. And cable doesn't exist out here in the boonies. > >Rent a spot on the tower, and provide your own feed. How far a path is it? A couple of Orthogon Geminis will give you near-LOS connections up to around 20Mbps, for somewhere in the region of $6000. And far cheaper WiFi equipment could match the speed of the residential Internet connection you'd likely want to pay for. (Maybe $600 total: two each of Senao bridges, 29 dB mesh antenna, cables would reach 4-5 miles.) The easiest and cheapest route is to ask the ISP how many subscribers they'd need to have in your direction before they'd consider adding more equipment. Then go find those customers for them. - John From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 2 08:34:19 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 08:34:19 -0600 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage References: Message-ID: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So no, it's not officially vintage ;) Jay From joachim.thiemann at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 09:06:10 2007 From: joachim.thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 10:06:10 -0500 Subject: Old Mac music software In-Reply-To: <459B0902.2000103@gjcp.net> References: <459B0902.2000103@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <4affc5e0701030706m61e8d374k85e8b20c2c0fa02f@mail.gmail.com> On 1/2/07, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Sort of off-topic(-ish) but I'm looking for some midi sequencing > software to run on my Powerbook 180. Actually, since they came out in > about '92 I think they might well be on-topic. Most of the synths I > want to connect are older than that. > > Anybody got any thoughts on this? I tried Midigraphy but couldn't > really get my head around it. I have an original copy (disk&manual) of Opcode EZ-vision - this program is an "entry-level" MIDI sequencer that worked fine on my Plus (IIRC) and I did fire it up on my SE30 and played around with it for a minute or two. I also have a disk with a program called "Trax" but I honestly can't remember much about it (time to boot up the SE30 again, I guess...) You can have those programs if you're keen on them. We can bring this discussion really on topic by ranting about music (and esp. MIDI sequencing) software from the old days - even merge this with a wholly different topic that that is just now fading 'round here: Let's face it, early MIDI software sucked - and hooray for hi-res full-color displays. Maybe things were better on the Atari ST side, but all I ever used (Amiga-based) was either too simplistic to be useful, or too complicated (at least to me (*)) to "just do stuff". I have a copy (also original, with manual) of KCS Level II for Amiga, and never figured out how to really use it properly. (*) This may be due to the fact that I mostly used Trackers before leaping into MIDI. OctaMED is a heck of a great program, and a good enough reason to keep my Amiga up and running. I bought KCS and built myself a MIDI interface to join the MIDI crowd... in the end I did all my MIDI sequencing with OctaMED. Also very painful, but at least a more familiar kind of painful :-) Joe. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jan 3 09:59:27 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 07:59:27 -0800 Subject: altair 680 tapes In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102211425.038b5eb8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: >From: Grant Stockly ----snip----> >I have never been able to get a computer recorded file to load into the >Altair. This may be caused from a lack of audio amplitude? I was >surprised that the KCS.EXE utility only found 3 errors in the cassette tape >wav file but found 11,000 errors with the remodulated WAV file. There was >a slight DC offset and a background hum (not 60hz) > ---snip--- Hi There is usually some compensation circuits that are intended to correct for the phase shift of frequencies caused by the tape recorder. Without feeding it through a tape recorder, you are not adding this additional phase error. Most of these early machines did simple zero crossing type detectors. This means that the phase of the harmonics of the signal going to the tape are important, since they effect the timing of the zero cross. For the most part, harmonic phase is not that important to our ears since we are most sensitive to spectral content and less so to phase. To a zero cross detector, it is more important. This phase shift is caused by the fact that the tape head only redords by the trailing edge of the head gap while the playback is from the entire width of the head gap. This causes both a high frequency rolloff and a phase shift. From an audio perspective, they use pre-emphasis and de-emphasis circuits to compensate for the gain. The problem is that some phase error is always left. It is the high frequency content that creates the sharp edge at the front of a square wave. Move the high frequency part around and it doesn't look too square anymore. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes is here. Get all the scoop. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/ From labomb_s at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 10:00:51 2007 From: labomb_s at yahoo.com (Scott LaBombard) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 08:00:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: MITS Altair 680 KCACR Cassette BASIC Recovered Message-ID: <20070103160055.36598.qmail@web50714.mail.yahoo.com> Hi Grant, >One 8bit ASCII and another forced to 7bit. This one attached has >been forced to 7bit ASCII. Both files WILL load into the Altair without >issue. The tapes are comprised of recorded ascii data (s-record format) ...so if you are just reading the data as is (vs. loading the data via a s-record loader) then you should probably get the same thing regardless if you use 7 or 8 bits. >It seems random which bytes had the 8th bit set and which >didn't. I assume that you are referring to the data in memory as a result of the ROM tape loader execution? If so, you will note that Basic has bit 8 set on many ascii text elements within the source. Microsoft Basic used the high bit set in the keyword tables for the code that searched the keyword tables. They also often used the high bit to determine the last character of message strings. > Also, there is what appears to be garbage after the S0 record. I >have no idea why. The tape has a bunch of 7Fs, then S0 and a bunch of >garbage, and then 00s. At the end there is some garbage too. The KCACR >ROM appears to ignore it. It appears that the tape is similar to the MITS Absolute Tape Load format. I'm guessing that your format is as follows: First ... Pre-leader - comprised of a series of bytes that represent the length of the tape checksum loader. For example, a series of 7F bytes would mean that the checksum loader is 127 bytes long. Second... S-record header record (S0) Third... Checksum loader - intended for those who do not have the kacr ROM. It should be 127 bytes in in your example. Forth... Tape leader - a series of nulls Forth... The actual code. There may be some garbage bytes appended, depending on how MITS dumped the tape (specifically, how long the address range specified to dump was). Fifth... Trailer - a series of nulls This is similar to the typical format used for MITS tapes (both paper and cassette based). Scott __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 10:19:36 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 09:19:36 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 02 Jan 2007 08:34:19 -0600. <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So no, > it's not officially vintage ;) You and your crazy rules! ;-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From emu at e-bbes.com Wed Jan 3 10:37:29 2007 From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 09:37:29 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459BDBC9.8000602@e-bbes.com> Richard wrote: > In article <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0 at BILLING>, > "Jay West" writes: > >> Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So no, >> it's not officially vintage ;) > > You and your crazy rules! ;-) I thought it is 20 years anyway ;-) From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 3 12:12:23 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:12:23 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> Jay West wrote: > Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So > no, it's not officially vintage ;) I just what to know if the MAC is vintage if contains a 68000? From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Wed Jan 3 12:19:01 2007 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 12:19:01 -0600 Subject: Anyone else here do AS/400? Message-ID: <001b01c72f63$a4b8c9f0$920718ac@CLCILLINOIS.EDU> I'm not entirely sure if this is off topic yet(hence why I put it on cctalk), but I know on a hobbyist level it's fairly rare. On Saturday I'll be picking up an AS/400 model 9406-600 originally purchased September 1997 with all the software and docs, licences etc that were ever used with the machine, from the original owner. I've contacted IBM and arranged license transfer (there was thankfully no charge) Does anyone else here deal with AS/400, or have a lingering interest in it? Secondly, I'm thinking of connecting a classic IBM terminal to it such as a 5251 S/34 term instead of the one that comes with it (something fairly modern, not sure of the model yet) I am curious; are any limitations on what I can connect, or are all twinax terminals pretty equal from a connectivity standpoint? From wizard at voyager.net Wed Jan 3 12:32:58 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 13:32:58 -0500 Subject: Old Mac music software In-Reply-To: <459B0902.2000103@gjcp.net> References: <459B0902.2000103@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <1167849178.11480.26.camel@linux.site> On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 01:38 +0000, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Sort of off-topic(-ish) but I'm looking for some midi sequencing > software to run on my Powerbook 180. Actually, since they came out in > about '92 I think they might well be on-topic. Most of the synths I > want to connect are older than that. > > Anybody got any thoughts on this? I tried Midigraphy but couldn't > really get my head around it. I have a PC copy of Texture. If you can find a Mac executable, I can arrange a copy of the manual for you. I understand they are essentially identical in operation -- although I've never used the Mac version. That's the best *I* can do. Good luck! Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 12:30:51 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:30:51 -0700 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? Message-ID: I just received my first SGI "iron" -- an Onyx Reality Engine 2 250 MHz. However, the power connector is not your standard style of connector. It has three prongs, arranged horizontally: ---- ---- ---- I'm guessing that this implies it needs more than the rated 15A for a standard outlet. Any ideas where I can obtain the correct cord? Searching for "power cord" on the net just returns too many hits... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 12:56:45 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:56:45 -0700 Subject: my vintage Christmas present Message-ID: Back in the early 90s, I rescued some equipment from work that was being discarded. This is where I got my ESV/50 and my ARS (Advanced Rendering System) and other E&S bits. At some later time, a former E&S coworker really wanted a board out of the ARS as a keepsake because he worked on it. Since I had not powered up/connected my ARS to my ESV even once and I wasn't yet totally smitten by the "collecting bug", I sent him the board. Since then I have regretted that a little bit because this board wasn't optional in the ARS, there is only one of these boards as it houses the main processor array. However, I also rescued some equipment that I gave to another former E&S coworker. As time went by, he decided that he wanted to get rid of his equipment and asked me if I wanted it. Since E&S equipment is as rare as hen's teeth, I immediately said yes. Well, we went over after Christmas on a sunny Saturday afternoon and picked up the gear. He had an ESV/10 Workstation (a smaller version of my ESV/50), a Freedom 3000 accelerator and an ARS! Now the ARS is probably the biggest baddest piece of iron that the Workstation Division of Evans & Sutherland ever produced. Its a fairly large box, about the size of a deskside SGI Onyx if you're familiar with that. Except its not a whole computer, its just a peripheral! Its whole purpose is to render photorealistic images at full screen resolution in just a few seconds. It has hardware antialiasing, hardware texture mapping, environment mapping and reflection mapping. In the late 80s/early 90s this was pretty hot shit although now you can get it on a cheapo $100 graphics card for your PC. (To many of you, this will be a familiar refrain!) Now that I have a 2nd ARS, I can get one back in working condition. Its a rather unique beasty, considering that only one piece of software (CDRS, the "Conceptual Design and Rendering System") ever supported the ARS. The primary customers of CDRS were car companies doing auto body design. Therefore you had to do high quality renderings that showed how the reflections and gloss would look on the painted car body in order to satisfy the customer. Customers for CDRS were a "who's who" of the car industry at the time: Ford, Chrysler, Daimler-Benz, Harley-Davidson, Renault and I'm sure some others I'm forgetting. If I get the ARS back in working order, then its quite possible that I will have the only working ARS on the planet, unless there are still some kicking around the automotive companies. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 12:59:15 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:59:15 -0700 Subject: Anyone else here do AS/400? In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 12:19:01 -0600. <001b01c72f63$a4b8c9f0$920718ac@CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: In article <001b01c72f63$a4b8c9f0$920718ac at CLCILLINOIS.EDU>, "Wolfe, Julian " writes: > Does anyone else here deal with AS/400, or have a lingering interest in it? I've never used one, but as I pursue terminals I notice that the IBM terminals with the coax style connector always seem to mention AS/400 machines in conjunction with the terminals. Was this a typical configuration for things like the 3279, 3180, etc. terminals? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 3 13:19:12 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:19:12 -0500 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <1167809485.13407.53.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> My objection isn't to the actual word "Jew" but to your casual use of it to replace "You" for no good reason. Yes, political correctness has gone too far, and a little counter-push is healthy. But that doesn't give everyone a blank check to be an insensitive jerk. I don't care if you are also Jewish or not -- as the reader I've got no way of knowing and it still wasn't even funny. >>> Unsolicited advice: lighten up ... I'm not seeing it. You idiot. -----Original Message----- From: Warren Wolfe [mailto:wizard at voyager.net] Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 2:31 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: Kosher stove and fridge On Tue, 2007-01-02 at 19:21 -0500, Evan Koblentz wrote: > >>> Ridiculous? Jew don't want to go DERE, puppy.. > > This thread has been entertaining, albeit OT, but "Jew don't want to > go..." is not funny and I find it a bit offensive. What a waste... too bad it wasn't a troll, as it would have been successful. I am assuming, here, that you are referring to the word "Jew," as in a person of the Jewish faith. I'll ignore for the moment such things as my lifetime membership in Sigma Alpha Mu, etc., which gives me license to tell any Jewish jokes I wish. The major issue here is that "Jew don't want to go DERE, puppy" is my attempt to phoneticize the "Brazilian Fighting Cockatoo's" accent from the clip I quoted. Personally, I think it is a fine job. Further, I find the clip to be hilarious. YMMV. Neither the clip, nor my use of it, have anything whatsoever to do with Jews, in either a positive or negative manner, other than the accidental positioning in a string on Kosher appliances. Actually, if you weren't overly sensitive on this subject, as indicated by your false positive, the "DERE" should have been a strong clue, as should my signature phrase, "Ay, ay, ay," and signature of Manny Cockatoo, all taken from the clip -- which I assume you failed to view prior to complaining. To lose the accent, what is being said is "You don't want to go THERE, puppy," which seems pale and lackluster compared to the way the cockatoo (and I) put it. Again, YMMV. Unsolicited advice: lighten up. Oh, and in case I am once more offering unintended offense, "cockatoo" has nothing to do with male genitalia, "troll" is a word from the fishing vernacular meaning to fish for an over-reaction, as opposed to an insulting term for little people, and "success" is not a reference to a sex act. That's all I can think of to pre-explain. Let me know if I missed any potentially offensive references. Furthermore, if you are NOT complaining about my use of the word "Jew," and your perceived insults to either Hebrew or Jewish people, you will have to clearly state the exact reason for your perceived offense. I'm not seeing it. Thank you for taking the time to over-react to nothing. That, and any other humorous input you might have, is greatly appreciated. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Jan 3 13:23:16 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:23:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <200701031932.OAA21222@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > My objection isn't to the actual word "Jew" but to your casual use of > it to replace "You" How else would you spell that pronunciation distortion of "you"? > for no good reason. Judgement call. Phonetic respelling to allude to a particular character's line in a video strikes me as good enough reason; you apparently differ. I suppose this makes me an "idiot" too. So be it. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 3 13:32:57 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 11:32:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jan 03, 2007 11:12:23 AM Message-ID: <200701031932.l03JWvpN027310@onyx.spiritone.com> > Jay West wrote: > > Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So > > no, it's not officially vintage ;) > > I just what to know if the MAC is vintage if contains a 68000? Consider this, it's been nearly 10 years since a Mac containing a 68000 CPU was even able to run the current version of the operating system. I forget if support was dropped with System 7.6, or Mac OS 8.0. Zane From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 13:45:19 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:45:19 -0500 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C07CF.909@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > I just received my first SGI "iron" -- an Onyx Reality Engine 2 250 > MHz. > > However, the power connector is not your standard style of connector. > It has three prongs, arranged horizontally: > > ---- > > ---- ---- > > I'm guessing that this implies it needs more than the rated 15A for a > standard outlet. Yeah. That's a 20A cord. (Or maybe 16A.) > Any ideas where I can obtain the correct cord? Searching for "power > cord" on the net just returns too many hits... That connector is an IEC C20. (Assuming you're in the USA,) You need a cord that goes from a NEMA 5-20P to an IEC C19. You can probably get away with getting a cord that goes from a NEMA 5-15P (regular 15A wall outlet) to an IEC C19. It probably won't give you any trouble, even though it's out of spec. Peace... Sridhar From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 3 13:46:29 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 11:46:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <200701031932.l03JWvpN027310@onyx.spiritone.com> from "Zane H. Healy" at "Jan 3, 7 11:32:57 am" Message-ID: <200701031946.l03JkTKr013638@floodgap.com> > > I just what to know if the MAC is vintage if contains a 68000? > > Consider this, it's been nearly 10 years since a Mac containing a 68000 CPU > was even able to run the current version of the operating system. I forget > if support was dropped with System 7.6, or Mac OS 8.0. 8.5. 8.0 dropped the '030 and prior, but an '040 could still run 8.0 and 8.1 officially, and an '030 could run them with some hacking. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "Nobody Does It Better" from "The Spy Who Loved Me" From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 3 13:48:00 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 11:48:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <200701031932.l03JWvpN027310@onyx.spiritone.com> from "Zane H. Healy" at "Jan 3, 7 11:32:57 am" Message-ID: <200701031948.l03Jm0Si013706@floodgap.com> > > > Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So > > > no, it's not officially vintage ;) > > > > I just what to know if the MAC is vintage if contains a 68000? > > Consider this, it's been nearly 10 years since a Mac containing a 68000 CPU > was even able to run the current version of the operating system. I forget > if support was dropped with System 7.6, or Mac OS 8.0. Oh, wait, you said 68000. The 68000 and 68020 was supported through 7.5.x and dropped in 7.6, which required an '030. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Why do we scoff at fortune tellers, yet listen to economists? -------------- From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 13:48:23 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:48:23 -0500 Subject: Anyone else here do AS/400? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C0887.1010306@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > In article <001b01c72f63$a4b8c9f0$920718ac at CLCILLINOIS.EDU>, > "Wolfe, Julian " writes: > >> Does anyone else here deal with AS/400, or have a lingering interest in it? > > I've never used one, but as I pursue terminals I notice that the IBM > terminals with the coax style connector always seem to mention AS/400 > machines in conjunction with the terminals. > > Was this a typical configuration for things like the 3279, 3180, etc. > terminals? Nope. The coax terminals speak EBCDIC and are usually connected to mainframes. The terminals for AS/400 had Twinax connectors and (if memory serves) speak ASCII. Peace... Sridhar From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 3 13:50:27 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:50:27 -0800 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? References: Message-ID: <459C0902.DFCE08B3@cs.ubc.ca> Richard wrote: > > I just received my first SGI "iron" -- an Onyx Reality Engine 2 250 > MHz. > > However, the power connector is not your standard style of connector. > It has three prongs, arranged horizontally: > > ---- > > ---- ---- > > I'm guessing that this implies it needs more than the rated 15A for a > standard outlet. > > Any ideas where I can obtain the correct cord? Searching for "power > cord" on the net just returns too many hits... It's probably IEC C19/20, to narrow it down a bit, does this look right?: http://www.bulgin.co.uk/Products/IEC_Connectors/IEC_Inlets-Conns_C19-C20.html However, there is/was another range of 120V/240V connectors for things like power tools, same general size as an ordinary plug but with different orientations of the three pins for different currents, and one of those orientations may match what you have. I'm not finding a reference online. Electrical wholesale stores typically have them and I think I've seen some of the variations at Home Depot. From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Jan 3 13:49:31 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:49:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <200701031932.OAA21222@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20070103194931.4A1C43EAF4@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by der Mouse > > > My objection isn't to the actual word "Jew" but to your casual use of > > it to replace "You" > > How else would you spell that pronunciation distortion of "you"? > chew? choo? > > for no good reason. > > Judgement call. Phonetic respelling to allude to a particular > character's line in a video strikes me as good enough reason; you > apparently differ. > The video by itself has nothing to do with kosher appliances, other then it has a refrigerator. Is the cockatoo supposed to be the "Sabbath switch"!? The video seems to be here because of how the bird pronounces "you", which in the context of the past thread causes it to be offensive... Cheers, Bryan From wizard at voyager.net Wed Jan 3 13:58:03 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:58:03 -0500 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <1167854283.17672.26.camel@linux.site> On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 14:19 -0500, Evan Koblentz wrote: > My objection isn't to the actual word "Jew" but to your casual use of it to > replace "You" for no good reason. I'll try again. Have you ever heard a native speaker of Portuguese, especially the Brazilian variety, say "You" in English? It sounds EXACTLY like an English speaker saying "Jew." As I mentioned, I consider this a good reason. And, let me guess... You STILL haven't watched the clip. > Yes, political correctness has gone too far, and a little counter-push is > healthy. But that doesn't give everyone a blank check to be an insensitive > jerk. I don't care if you are also Jewish or not -- as the reader I've got > no way of knowing and it still wasn't even funny. > > >>> Unsolicited advice: lighten up ... I'm not seeing it. > > You idiot. Okay... So, tell me how I get my "blank check" to be an insensitive jerk. (Hey, YOU mixed the metaphor first...) You are obviously making good use of yours... and I'd hate to miss out. This is more verbose than my favorite idiot quote, which was "Use some tact, you fathead." You need to work on a more concise delivery. I've noticed that essentially every time someone gripes about some behavior on the part of others, correctly or incorrectly, they almost IMMEDIATELY exhibit that behavior on their own. So, why is it you complain about ME being an insensitive jerk (incorrectly, in this case) and then, in the very next paragraph you write, exhibit insensitive jerk behavior? Would you have felt better if I had written "Joo don't want to go DERE, puppy?" Is it the sound, or the spelling that has your knickers in a twist? (And, please do examine your answer for idiocy, as the potential for public humiliation is significant.) Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 3 14:00:13 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 15:00:13 -0500 Subject: VCF East 4.0 update -- Commodore Pet 30th bday party w/ Chuck Peddle Message-ID: <005101c72f71$c8231220$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Hi all, Today, Sellam and I confirmed Chuck Peddle as the keynote speaker for VCF East 4.0. There will be other notable early Commodore computer people as well. Just as VCF 9.0 celebrated the 30th anniversary of Apple, at East 4.0 we'll do Commodore! The show is Saturday, June 9, starting at 9:30am. The Commodore panel will be from 10:30-12 followed by Chuck et al signing autographs. We still might expand the show to Sunday, June 10 as well. To be determined. Of course there will be plenty of other cool things and people beside Peddle. For example, we found a guy who worked closely with John Mauchly, and he might be a speaker for us. Talk about being one degree removed from history! - Evan From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 3 14:02:37 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 15:02:37 -0500 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <1167854283.17672.26.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <005501c72f72$1dc33ca0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>> please do examine your answer for idiocy You've already used up the cctalk daily allowance. From wizard at voyager.net Wed Jan 3 14:03:25 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:03:25 -0500 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <200701031932.OAA21222@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <200701031932.OAA21222@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <1167854605.17672.31.camel@linux.site> On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 14:23 -0500, der Mouse wrote: > > My objection isn't to the actual word "Jew" but to your casual use of > > it to replace "You" > > How else would you spell that pronunciation distortion of "you"? Well, M. Mouse, I COULD have used "Joo," as I mentioned previously. I obviously over-estimated the media savvy of my audience, at least in SOME cases. My bad. > > for no good reason. > > Judgement call. Phonetic respelling to allude to a particular > character's line in a video strikes me as good enough reason; you > apparently differ. Yep. Time to get out the rope, and find a tree. > I suppose this makes me an "idiot" too. So be it. Hey, maybe we could start a club, and build a clubhouse... Nah. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jan 3 14:05:04 2007 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:05:04 -0600 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <005501c72f72$1dc33ca0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <002201c72f72$75d63be0$920718ac@CLCILLINOIS.EDU> FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! Oops, sorry, thought I was at a gradeschool playground for a second there. My mistake. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Evan Koblentz > Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 2:03 PM > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: RE: Kosher stove and fridge > > >>> please do examine your answer for idiocy > > You've already used up the cctalk daily allowance. > > From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 14:18:37 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:18:37 -0900 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <459B9B41.30906@yahoo.co.uk> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103111648.03480e08@pop.1and1.com> At 03:02 AM 1/3/2007, you wrote: >Grant Stockly wrote: >> >>>>> It's extremely cool. What's with you and the x-rays lately? Did >>After I scanned the IIe motherboard and people liked it, I did a few >>more. When you have access to this equipement its easy to not appreciate >>it. ; ) > >A stop-motion X-rayed animation of a drive actually "running" would be >rather cool (I presume there's no hope of the electronics actually >operating whilst being x-rayed? [1]) That's a good idea. I'll have to find an Apple II disk that makes the disk drive seek back and forth a lot. Electronics don't care if there are x-rays present when they are on any more than when they are off. They die at the same rate. : ) Grant From joachim.thiemann at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 14:28:18 2007 From: joachim.thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 15:28:18 -0500 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103111648.03480e08@pop.1and1.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> <459B9B41.30906@yahoo.co.uk> <5.2.1.1.0.20070103111648.03480e08@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> On 1/3/07, Grant Stockly wrote: > Electronics don't care if there are x-rays present when they are on any > more than when they are off. They die at the same rate. : ) Actually, I've been wondering: What is the effect of x-rays on EPROMS? Joe. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 14:37:20 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:37:20 -0600 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <200701031932.l03JWvpN027310@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200701031932.l03JWvpN027310@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <459C1400.4080609@yahoo.co.uk> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> Jay West wrote: >>> Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So >>> no, it's not officially vintage ;) >> I just what to know if the MAC is vintage if contains a 68000? > > Consider this, it's been nearly 10 years since a Mac containing a 68000 CPU > was even able to run the current version of the operating system. Surely the current version of the OS wasn't available ten years ago - unless all Macs included a time travel device, which may well have explained their high cost... ;-) From bbrown at harpercollege.edu Wed Jan 3 12:46:23 2007 From: bbrown at harpercollege.edu (Bob Brown) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 12:46:23 -0600 Subject: Anyone else here do AS/400? In-Reply-To: <001b01c72f63$a4b8c9f0$920718ac@CLCILLINOIS.EDU> References: <001b01c72f63$a4b8c9f0$920718ac@CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: I've long had an interest in AS400. Any leads on other systems being available in the Chicago area? thanks. -Bob >I'm not entirely sure if this is off topic yet(hence why I put it on >cctalk), but I know on a hobbyist level it's fairly rare. > >On Saturday I'll be picking up an AS/400 model 9406-600 originally purchased >September 1997 with all the software and docs, licences etc that were ever >used with the machine, from the original owner. I've contacted IBM and >arranged license transfer (there was thankfully no charge) > >Does anyone else here deal with AS/400, or have a lingering interest in it? > >Secondly, I'm thinking of connecting a classic IBM terminal to it such as a >5251 S/34 term instead of the one that comes with it (something fairly >modern, not sure of the model yet) I am curious; are any limitations on what >I can connect, or are all twinax terminals pretty equal from a connectivity >standpoint? -- bbrown at harpercollege.edu #### #### Bob Brown - KB9LFR Harper Community College ## ## ## Systems Administrator Palatine IL USA #### #### Saved by grace From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 14:44:24 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:44:24 -0600 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > In article <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0 at BILLING>, > "Jay West" writes: > >> Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So no, >> it's not officially vintage ;) > > You and your crazy rules! ;-) We need a page reachable through the classiccmp website which takes into account things like: age physical size production count / rarity operational noise level number of flashing lights case styling 'coolness' factor number of mouse nests / dead insects inside number of times system has inflicted injuries on the owner etc. ... and then makes a call as to whether it will be seen by the list at large as on-topic or not. ;-) From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Jan 3 15:09:26 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 21:09:26 -0000 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <000f01c72f7b$74b30280$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Jules Richardson wrote: > age > physical size > production count / rarity > operational noise level I pass all of those tests :-) > number of times system has inflicted injuries on the owner That seems reasonable - I'm sure we all agree every QBUS enclosure ever produced is on topic :-) :-) Antonio From brian at quarterbyte.com Wed Jan 3 15:16:58 2007 From: brian at quarterbyte.com (Brian Knittel) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 13:16:58 -0800 Subject: IBM 5100/5110 ROS (ROM) images? Message-ID: <459BACCA.1824.6BC81492@brian.quarterbyte.com> Has anyone extracted images of the Read Only Storage for the IBM 5100/5100 desktop computers? I haven't seen any mention of it anywhere, nor any simulators. Has anyone worked on this? Seems like it should be doable and worthwhile. Though, it might be necessary to build hardware to read out the ROS contents -- I don't think the 5100 provides programmatic access to the PALM object code for the 360 and S/3 emulators, just the BASIC and APL code. Does that sound right? Brian From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 3 15:17:33 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:17:33 -0500 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:28:18 EST." <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200701032117.l03LHXsj027113@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Joachim Thiemann" wrote: > >Actually, I've been wondering: What is the effect of x-rays on EPROMS? I was always told it could flip bits. But that was older UV erasable types. I'd would be interested to know if that is really true... (I'm having a flash back to wrapping eproms in tin-foil when flying prototype game carts and coin-op games out to the west coast. probably just paranoid, but we did that) now days I just wear the tin-foil as a hat :-) -brad From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 15:20:02 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:20:02 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <000f01c72f7b$74b30280$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <000f01c72f7b$74b30280$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <459C1E02.1000407@gmail.com> arcarlini at iee.org wrote: > That seems reasonable - I'm sure we all agree every QBUS enclosure > ever produced is on topic :-) :-) How long ago was the last of the VAX 4000 systems discontinued? I thought it wasn't that long. Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 15:19:53 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:19:53 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:44:24 -0600. <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: In article <459C15A8.4050006 at yahoo.co.uk>, Jules Richardson writes: > We need a page reachable through the classiccmp website which takes into > account things like: > > age > physical size > production count / rarity > operational noise level > number of flashing lights > case styling 'coolness' factor > number of mouse nests / dead insects inside > number of times system has inflicted injuries on the owner > etc. > > ... and then makes a call as to whether it will be seen by the list at large > as on-topic or not. By that metric, I think a majority of cctalk list traffic doesn't qualify! :) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 15:18:12 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:18:12 -0700 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:50:27 -0800. <459C0902.DFCE08B3@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: In article <459C0902.DFCE08B3 at cs.ubc.ca>, Brent Hilpert writes: > It's probably IEC C19/20, to narrow it down a bit, does this look right?: I didn't look at that link, but a search of IEC C20 yielded a picture that looked exactly like what I see on the unit. Any other Onyx owners on the list? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 15:27:02 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 13:27:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <683045.1310.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jules Richardson wrote: > Richard wrote: > > In article > <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0 at BILLING>, > > "Jay West" writes: > > > >> Just because a computer is 10 years old does not > mean it's on topic. So no, > >> it's not officially vintage ;) > > > > You and your crazy rules! ;-) > > We need a page reachable through the classiccmp > website which takes into > account things like: > > age > physical size > production count / rarity > operational noise level > number of flashing lights > case styling 'coolness' factor > number of mouse nests / dead insects inside > number of times system has inflicted injuries on > the owner > etc. > > ... and then makes a call as to whether it will be > seen by the list at large > as on-topic or not. > > ;-) Uh no we don't. If Jay says it ain't, it ain't. Z. He's king here and his word prevails above all others. Let's not stage a coup or something creepy here. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 15:27:28 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:27:28 -0500 Subject: Mac pre-OS X versions and hardware support (was Re: Sun E450 server officially vintage) Message-ID: On 1/3/07, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > I just what to know if the MAC is vintage if contains a 68000? > > > > Consider this, it's been nearly 10 years since a Mac containing a 68000 CPU > > was even able to run the current version of the operating system. I forget > > if support was dropped with System 7.6, or Mac OS 8.0. > > 8.5. 8.0 dropped the '030 and prior, but an '040 could still run 8.0 and 8.1 > officially, and an '030 could run them with some hacking. Was that due to instruction set differences? Stack frame differences? MMU differences? -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 3 15:30:28 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 13:30:28 -0800 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> References: , <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <459BAFF4.19008.F51E8B@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2007 at 14:44, Jules Richardson wrote: > We need a page reachable through the classiccmp website which takes into > account things like: Well, there you go! Someone submits a system for consideration and list votes on it. You know, there's vintage and then there's vintage. That Mac 6100 that I picked up certainly qualifies as "vintage" by the 10-year rule, but as a sample of something,unique it's very [yawn!]. I find some of the PC-like things more interesting. Even my modem running Linux is more interesting. Cheers, Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 15:31:21 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 13:31:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <05f201c72f36$ad2e7170$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <870623.44982.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> Right. So since Chuck has never had a compact Mac to play with, who's going to donate him one? I vote it has to be pre-ADB, to get the full look and feel experience. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 15:33:58 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:33:58 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <7DF12D22-F3D6-447B-A46C-AE15216FE8AC@neurotica.com> References: <7DF12D22-F3D6-447B-A46C-AE15216FE8AC@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 1/3/07, Dave McGuire wrote: > E450s were primarily designed to be servers, not workstations. > But I know a guy (ahem Doc!) who has a very tasty workstation-config > E450, rather drool-worthy. I'm hoping to run across an E3000 (pedestal, FC-AL external, SCA internal drives, up to 8? CPUs in 4? trays...) sometime soon. I spec'ed and ordered one for Lucent in 1997 or 1998, so not quite on-topic, but I do know a few have surfaced for free/cheap recently. That's about the only Sun I'm trying to keep an eye out for that has a CPU enclosure larger than a 3U box. I also worked with some E5000s, but that's a lot more Sun than I need in my house. -ethan (whose present active Sun is a SPARC5/110) From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 3 15:35:16 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 13:35:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac pre-OS X versions and hardware support (was Re: Sun E450 server officially vintage) In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jan 3, 7 04:27:28 pm" Message-ID: <200701032135.l03LZHvo011348@floodgap.com> > > 8.5. 8.0 dropped the '030 and prior, but an '040 could still run 8.0 and 8.1 > > officially, and an '030 could run them with some hacking. > > Was that due to instruction set differences? Stack frame differences? > MMU differences? You mean, why the '030s weren't supported under 8.0/8.1? No idea. They would run just fine under 8.0/8.1, so it was clearly Apple's way of just killing the '030 Macs off, I guess. You used a tool like Wish I Were to fool it, and all that did was change the Gestalt ID, so there was nothing else specific about it. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- PowerPC inside! ------------------------------------------------------------ From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 15:36:55 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:36:55 -0500 Subject: Anyone else here do AS/400? In-Reply-To: References: <001b01c72f63$a4b8c9f0$920718ac@CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: On 1/3/07, Bob Brown wrote: > I've long had an interest in AS400. Any leads on other systems being > available in the Chicago area? It's not Chicago, but I'm in Columbus (6-7 hrs away) and probably won't do much with the smallish AS/400 I have once I get it to power up (still missing the twinax cable to the console terminal). I'd post model and specs, but it's not where I am at the moment. -ethan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 15:33:03 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:33:03 -0600 Subject: D-shell connector age? Message-ID: <459C210F.2030004@yahoo.co.uk> Anyone know where D-shell connectors first appeared on equipment? Interesting thread going on in a local group at the moment about why SCART [1] sockets are so horrible and nasty (prone to breaking pins, difficult to line up, prone to falling out etc.) and why something better, like a D-shell connector, wasn't chosen instead. Thing is, SCART was apparently first used in consumer A/V equipment in 1977, which probably means it was thought up in the mid-70's. Edge connectors and/or circular DIN connectors were probably more common on computer equipment of that time, but were D-shell types around by then too? [1] For the non-Europeans, SCART is common on all A/V equipment in Europe and provides component RGB (as well as composite) interconnect between devices, along with stereo audio channels, sync lines, remote device standby control etc. cheers Jules From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 15:42:33 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 13:42:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459BAFF4.19008.F51E8B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070103214233.78093.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3 Jan 2007 at 14:44, Jules Richardson wrote: > > > We need a page reachable through the classiccmp > website which takes into > > account things like: > > Well, there you go! Someone submits a system for > consideration and > list votes on it. Bah. Then everything becomes vintage just cuz someone says so. There has to be an unimpeachable criteria - age. I say 20 YEARS! I have spoken. > You know, there's vintage and then there's vintage. > That Mac 6100 > that I picked up certainly qualifies as "vintage" by > the 10-year > rule, but as a sample of something,unique it's very > [yawn!]. The 10 year rule was revoked, probably too late in time also. With regards to the PM 6100, it depends on how you look at things (pertaining to interesting, not vintage). It was the first PPC based Mac. Yeah the slightly later ones were more expandable, more fun. But those were pretty exciting times. I can remember when the first COLOR Macs came out (now that's a vintage topic, or nearly :). It felt like the dawn of a new era. Why we loved those skeevy little b & w boxes so much I don't know LOL LOL. I find > some of the PC-like things more interesting. Even > my modem running > Linux is more interesting. I'd say anywhere up to the very first few 386's are vintage (grudgingly). We can always make the case for innovative, stylish, mod. But those are separate issues from deeming something vintage. If you start to blur the line all heck breaks loose. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 15:37:26 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:37:26 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 13:30:28 -0800. <459BAFF4.19008.F51E8B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <459BAFF4.19008.F51E8B at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > Well, there you go! Someone submits a system for consideration and > list votes on it. I think that will just lead to lots of argument about what qualifies as a "vintage" system when instead you're really arguing about which vintage systems are "interesting". Very uninteresting machines become vintage simply because there are so few around anymore. Take a Beehive terminal for instance. There's absolutely nothing special about it and nothing "good" about it, particularly if you're the guy who had to keep them working in the 80s! But its certainly vintage and its certainly scarce. Then there's the VIC-20 and C=64. As common as dirt, but certainly interesting and also vintage. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 15:29:06 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:29:06 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 13:27:02 -0800. <683045.1310.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <683045.1310.qm at web61017.mail.yahoo.com>, Chris M writes: > Uh no we don't. If Jay says it ain't, it ain't. Not that being off-topic has ever stopped anyone before.... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 3 15:47:00 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 13:47:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <000f01c72f7b$74b30280$5b01a8c0@uatempname> from "arcarlini@iee.org" at Jan 03, 2007 09:09:26 PM Message-ID: <200701032147.l03Ll0bO030875@onyx.spiritone.com> > > number of times system has inflicted injuries on the owner > > That seems reasonable - I'm sure we all agree every QBUS enclosure > ever produced is on topic :-) :-) > > Antonio I don't believe I've ever been injured by a Q-Bus enclosure. You just need to be careful! :^) I can't remember loosing any skin, even on a BA23. Granted most of the time I've used a BA123. Zane From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 3 15:55:40 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 13:55:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C1400.4080609@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 03, 2007 02:37:20 PM Message-ID: <200701032155.l03Ltf1E031212@onyx.spiritone.com> > Zane H. Healy wrote: > >> Jay West wrote: > >>> Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So > >>> no, it's not officially vintage ;) > >> I just what to know if the MAC is vintage if contains a 68000? > > > > Consider this, it's been nearly 10 years since a Mac containing a 68000 CPU > > was even able to run the current version of the operating system. > > Surely the current version of the OS wasn't available ten years ago - unless > all Macs included a time travel device, which may well have explained their > high cost... ;-) I meant what was current at that time. Actually as of January '97 I don't believe System 7.6 was out yet. Zane From mtapley at swri.edu Wed Jan 3 16:00:41 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:00:41 -0600 Subject: Mac OS vintage (was: Re: Sun E450 server officially vintage) In-Reply-To: <200701032124.l03LOLhx014791@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701032124.l03LOLhx014791@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 15:24 -0600 1/3/07, Zane wrote: >Consider this, it's been nearly 10 years since a Mac containing a 68000 CPU >was even able to run the current version of the operating system. I forget >if support was dropped with System 7.6, or Mac OS 8.0. > > Zane To elaborate on what Cameron said: Last OS *my* 68000 Mac Plus has run is MacOS 7.1. MacTracker claims 7.5.5, I can't dispute that as I haven't tried it but I expect it might not do much good (no RAM left for applications). Same is claimed for the Mac SE and Classic and PowerBook 100. MacTracker doesn't report the Outbounds (Jeff?) but since (I think) they used motherboards from the above systems, I would be surprised if they ran later versions. I'm not aware of any later 68000 Macs (or indeed, any others excepting the 128k/512k/fat Mac series, none of which went to OS 7.x). If the question was whether 680x0 processors support OS 8, the answer to that should be yes. Quadra 950 is claimed to run MacOS 8.1, as is PowerBook 540/c and others, again per MacTracker (which is a reasonably useful resource for these machines). The Mac OS category in the same program says the same thing, giving requirements as follows: 7.1 68000 or later, 2 MB RAM, 4 MB hard drive 7.5 68000 or later, 4 MB RAM, 21 MB hard drive 7.6 32-bit clean 68030 or later, 8 MB RAM, 40-120 MB hard drive 8.0/1 68040 or later, 12 MB RAM, 195 MB hard drive 8.5 PPC, 16 MB RAM, 150-250 MB hard drive 8.6 PPC, 24 MB RAM, 190-250 MB hard drive Wow. Looking back, it's amazing how fast requirements shot up. I'm really glad I sort of sat out that period as far as buying computers. Our main home system was a Mac Plus until we leapfrogged to a Powerbook 3400 (which is still our current system). Nice to go from on-topic to brand-new machines - gives us a while to save up our computer-buying budget. FWIW, hit http://www.mactracker.ca/ if you want to grab the (freeware) program I'm looking at. Gotta love these guys, there's a version which runs on MacOS 8.5 still available, as well as one for (spit) Windows and (grin) *iPod*. Not affiliated. -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jan 3 16:01:36 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:01:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <200701032147.l03Ll0bO030875@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200701032147.l03Ll0bO030875@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > number of times system has inflicted injuries on the owner > > > > That seems reasonable - I'm sure we all agree every QBUS enclosure > > ever produced is on topic :-) :-) > > I don't believe I've ever been injured by a Q-Bus enclosure. You just need > to be careful! :^) I can't remember loosing any skin, even on a BA23. > Granted most of the time I've used a BA123. I've never used such a thing, but I have gashed my hand on the corner of a disused one. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 16:02:03 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:02:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <272619.29878.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> --- Richard wrote: > > In article <683045.1310.qm at web61017.mail.yahoo.com>, > Chris M writes: > > > Uh no we don't. If Jay says it ain't, it ain't. > > Not that being off-topic has ever stopped anyone > before.... True, but by legitimizing it you're invalidating the list's mission. I hate to admit, but I'm frequently amused to see the zanies go off on all sorts of bizzare tangents. I don't read each and every message, but now and again I'll open something with a title to which I have no particular interest. Sure enough I'll obtain an education on some totally disparate topic. After I do a double take. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jan 3 16:05:43 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:05:43 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: <7DF12D22-F3D6-447B-A46C-AE15216FE8AC@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200701031705.43359.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 03 January 2007 16:33, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 1/3/07, Dave McGuire wrote: > > E450s were primarily designed to be servers, not workstations. > > But I know a guy (ahem Doc!) who has a very tasty > > workstation-config E450, rather drool-worthy. > > I'm hoping to run across an E3000 (pedestal, FC-AL external, SCA > internal drives, up to 8? CPUs in 4? trays...) sometime soon. I > spec'ed and ordered one for Lucent in 1997 or 1998, so not quite > on-topic, but I do know a few have surfaced for free/cheap recently. > That's about the only Sun I'm trying to keep an eye out for that has > a CPU enclosure larger than a 3U box. I also worked with some > E5000s, but that's a lot more Sun than I need in my house. Actually, only up to 6 CPUs - the system has 4 systemboard slots, but you need to have at least one I/O board in the system. The E3500 fixed that particular dumbness by having 5 slots, so you can have 8 CPUs (4 CPU/mem boards) + 1 I/O board, but introduced FC-AL internal drives, which are a pain in the butt (and make the internal disk bays basically useless for Linux). Ethan, I've got some spare E4000s, which can be "desk mounted", and have more cpu/i/o board slots than the E3000, and internal optical/tape drive slots (but no internal disk bays, unless you use a "disk board"). 8U tall, perhaps? I've even got a set of desk-top side covers for it -- but of course, I don't have the top or bottom covers. The E4000s I've got came as rack-mounted systems. The only real annoying thing about E4000 systems vs E3000 systems is that they only support the 83MHz bus speed, not the 100MHz bus speed; and the "clock board" they come with only supports a 4:1 CPU clock multiplier - so you can only do 336MHz CPUs instead of 400MHz, unless you replace the clock board with one that does a 5:1 multiplier. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From auringer at tds.net Wed Jan 3 16:05:29 2007 From: auringer at tds.net (Jon Auringer) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:05:29 -0600 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: <7DF12D22-F3D6-447B-A46C-AE15216FE8AC@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <459C28A9.7050805@tds.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I'm hoping to run across an E3000 (pedestal, FC-AL external, SCA > internal drives, up to 8? CPUs in 4? trays...) 6 CPUs on three cards. Mine has 6 400Mhz with 6 1GB memory kits. There are also 2GB memory kits to take the machine to 12GB. They are still rather pricey. It is possible to run 464Mhz processors, but they are still not easy/cheap to obtain. Be careful about what configuration you acquire. I bought mine for cheap, but ended up replacing the processor/memory boards to accommodate the move to the 400MHz from the original pair of 167MHz processors. I also had to replace the 83Mhz bus I/O cards with 100MHz I/O boards to support the faster procs. :( I also talked myself into swapping the SBUS video for UPA (creator) graphics. My cheap E3000 didn't end up being so cheap. I do enjoy playing with it, but I am glad that I can keep it at my office, and not have to pay for the electricity. With all 10 drive bays filled, it makes for a dandy little space heater. :) Jon From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 3 16:08:14 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:08:14 +0000 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: <459C210F.2030004@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 3/1/07 21:33, "Jules Richardson" wrote: > > Anyone know where D-shell connectors first appeared on equipment? > > Interesting thread going on in a local group at the moment about why SCART [1] > sockets are so horrible and nasty (prone to breaking pins, difficult to line > up, prone to falling out etc.) and why something better, like a D-shell > connector, wasn't chosen instead. SCART was originally known as PERITEL and originated in France. Make of that what you will :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jan 3 16:09:03 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:09:03 -0600 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <870623.44982.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> References: <870623.44982.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <459C297F.6020807@oldskool.org> Chris M wrote: > Right. So since Chuck has never had a compact Mac to > play with, who's going to donate him one? I vote it > has to be pre-ADB, to get the full look and feel experience. ADB? -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 16:10:50 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:10:50 -0600 (CST) Subject: D-shell connector age? Message-ID: <200701032210.l03MAoD8009961@keith.ezwind.net> --- Jules Richardson wrote: > > Anyone know where D-shell connectors first appeare d > on equipment? > > Interesting thread going on in a local group at th e > moment about why SCART [1] > sockets are so horrible and nasty (prone to breaki ng > pins, difficult to line > up, prone to falling out etc.) and why something > better, like a D-shell > connector, wasn't chosen instead. > Yeah, the cable seems to put weight on the SCART socket and caused a glitchy SCART socket (or cable?) so we had to stick a thin piece of card in to get it to work!! I use a 3-way SCART box myself now, no more connecting/deconnecting to damage those pins, or the sockets on the TV/DVD/VCR. > Thing is, SCART was apparently first used in > consumer A/V equipment in 1977, > which probably means it was thought up in the > mid-70's. Really? I never realised SCART was so old, I thought it was a modern thing. Or was it just re-introduced by TV manufacturers? Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From useddec at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 16:13:19 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:13:19 -0600 Subject: Shipping company moveit.com In-Reply-To: References: <3004771.1167778000016.JavaMail.root@elwamui-cypress.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <624966d60701031413t7f10ad0ag818db2f57c150124@mail.gmail.com> I've been using Computer Transportation Services since the late 70's or early 80's, and don't remember ever having any problems with them. I used to ship several 11/70's a month, and other systems and options. I always call, and didn't even know their web site was moveit.com Paul On 1/2/07, Richard wrote: > > > We'll see how well they did tomorrow. > > I purchased several lots through dovebid; two could be packed and send > ground with no problem and one needed freight. > > So I filled out two shipping quotes. > > They ended up i) combining the two quotes into a single shipment > without bothering to mention this to me, ii) didn't pay attention when > merging the orders and used my home address as the freight shipping > address, iii) every time I deal with them, its a different person and > they don't seem to know anything about my order or what state it is > in, iv) when I explicitly asked them on the phone how I was going to > pay for this, I got some sort of mumble "we'll deal with that later" > answer. I asked for a quote based on pessimistic (i.e. overly large > and overly heavy) estimates on the equipment and *presto* the final > order is exactly what their estimate based on my pessimistic > measurements said. Then they send me a bunch of digitized fax > paperwork asking me to apply for a "line of credit" with them without > me asking for any such thing. Each step of the process was from a > different email address/person at this company, making each attempt to > contact me look like spam to spam filters. > > So overall it feels like they are incompetent. They mismashed two > separate orders together without telling me and half-assed combined > them together, without paying any attention to what they were doing. > > I had the freight carrier call me today saying "so we're delivering to {my > > home address}, right?" and me having to correct them *after* I already > told moveit.com about the error and they informed me they would correct > the problem and update the freight company. This clearlyd id not happen. > Then they email me saying "the freight company has been trying to contact > you, is XXX-XXXX the right phone number?" without bothering to give me the > name of the freight company or any way to contact them until I ask for it. > > > Now I realize that noone is perfect and everyone has bad days, but > they have made mistakes along every step of the way here, and as near > as I can tell all the mistakes were made by different people. It feels > like they just assume they'll get dovebid business and don't have to > bother doing a good job. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > < http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> > > Legalize Adulthood! > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 16:13:24 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:13:24 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <200701031705.43359.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <7DF12D22-F3D6-447B-A46C-AE15216FE8AC@neurotica.com> <200701031705.43359.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On 1/3/07, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Wednesday 03 January 2007 16:33, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > I'm hoping to run across an E3000 (pedestal, FC-AL external, SCA > > internal drives, up to 8? CPUs in 4? trays...) sometime soon... > > Actually, only up to 6 CPUs - the system has 4 systemboard slots, but > you need to have at least one I/O board in the system. Ah, yes... that sounds familiar now. We only had 2 CPU boards, so it wasn't an issue for our machine. > The E3500 fixed that particular dumbness by having 5 slots, so you > can have 8 CPUs (4 CPU/mem boards) + 1 I/O board... Handy... > but introduced FC-AL internal drives, which are a pain in the butt > (and make the internal disk bays basically useless for Linux). Good to know, but if I'm going to run Sun hardware, it'll be running Solaris. > Ethan, I've got some spare E4000s, which can be "desk mounted", and have > more cpu/i/o board slots than the E3000, and internal optical/tape > drive slots (but no internal disk bays, unless you use a "disk board"). > 8U tall, perhaps? I've even got a set of desk-top side covers for > it -- but of course, I don't have the top or bottom covers. The E4000s > I've got came as rack-mounted systems. Interesting. I don't know much about E4000s. > The only real annoying thing about E4000 systems vs E3000 systems is > that they only support the 83MHz bus speed, not the 100MHz bus speed; > and the "clock board" they come with only supports a 4:1 CPU clock > multiplier - so you can only do 336MHz CPUs instead of 400MHz, unless > you replace the clock board with one that does a 5:1 multiplier. I'm not such a CPU speed slut that that is likely to matter to me. I still fiddle with Sun hardware because they make nice servers and have more robust hardware than commodity Intel stuff. If I wanted speed, I'd go out and get the latest X GHz box and throw Linux on it and wait for it to break. ;-) As for taking on more Sun hardware myself, at the moment, I have a Netra (off-topic) that I still need to press into full service. I picked up some more RAM for it and need to get Solaris loaded, but that will lead to questions to the "Suns at Home" list, not this one (the kit is too new). Cheers, -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 3 16:14:02 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:14:02 -0800 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: <459C210F.2030004@yahoo.co.uk> References: <459C210F.2030004@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <459BBA2A.4173.11D02B0@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2007 at 15:33, Jules Richardson wrote: > Thing is, SCART was apparently first used in consumer A/V equipment in 1977, > which probably means it was thought up in the mid-70's. Edge connectors and/or > circular DIN connectors were probably more common on computer equipment of > that time, but were D-shell types around by then too? If my memory isn't too faulty, DB25's (used to be called "Cannon connectors") go back at least to the early 60s. Ma Bell used them on her datacomm equipment, complete with the chunky bakelite hoods. Cheers, Chuck From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 16:19:03 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:19:03 -0600 (CST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage Message-ID: <200701032219.l03MJ1F2010496@keith.ezwind.net> --- David Griffith wrote: > On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > > > number of times system has inflicted > injuries on the owner > > > > > > That seems reasonable - I'm sure we all agree > every QBUS enclosure > > > ever produced is on topic :-) :-) > > > > I don't believe I've ever been injured by a Q-Bu s > enclosure. You just need > > to be careful! :^) I can't remember loosing any > skin, even on a BA23. > > Granted most of the time I've used a BA123. > > I've never used such a thing, but I have gashed my > hand on the corner of a > disused one. > Never heard of one myself(!), however I have come close to cutting myself when putting a 1MB RAM expansion card into the trapdoor on my Amiga 600 (giving it a whopping 2MB total chip RAM) - I just got a few grazes (spelling?). Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 3 16:21:14 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:21:14 -0800 Subject: IBM 5100/5110 ROS (ROM) images? Message-ID: <459C2C5A.4010007@bitsavers.org> > Has anyone extracted images of the Read Only Storage > for the IBM 5100/5100 desktop computers? Eric has talked about doing it. Apparently it is scanned during initial self-test, so it could be captured with a deep logic analyzer Considering how many have failed, it's something that needs doing. From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Jan 3 16:32:41 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 22:32:41 -0000 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <200701032147.l03Ll0bO030875@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <001501c72f87$16044ee0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Zane H. Healy wrote: > I don't believe I've ever been injured by a Q-Bus enclosure. You > just need to be careful! :^) It was usually reaching under the bottom cards of a full BA23 to fish out the RQDX3 internal connecting cable that did it. Or the TQK50 one. Happy days :-) Antonio From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 3 16:36:25 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:36:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jan 03, 2007 04:33:58 PM Message-ID: <200701032236.l03MaPE6032311@onyx.spiritone.com> > I'm hoping to run across an E3000 (pedestal, FC-AL external, SCA > internal drives, up to 8? CPUs in 4? trays...) sometime soon. I > spec'ed and ordered one for Lucent in 1997 or 1998, so not quite > on-topic, but I do know a few have surfaced for free/cheap recently. > That's about the only Sun I'm trying to keep an eye out for that has a > CPU enclosure larger than a 3U box. I also worked with some E5000s, > but that's a lot more Sun than I need in my house. > > -ethan > > (whose present active Sun is a SPARC5/110) There is something to be said for older slower Sun's. While my current SunBlade 1000 (dual 750Mhz UltraSparc III) system is surprisingly quiet, it's the largest system besides my PDP-11/73 that I have at home (I do have larger). Additionally it sucks a *LOT* of power, and generates a *LOT* of heat. I'd hate to think about how much heat something like an E3000 will generate! Zane From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Jan 3 16:43:06 2007 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:43:06 -0800 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On 1/3/07, woodelf wrote: > Jay West wrote: > > Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So > > no, it's not officially vintage ;) We were thinking about auctioning off the original E450 that was the SETI at home server as a fund raiser. (Actually the original server is an Ultra-10 sitting on my desk. ellie aka jill nee sagan). Unfortunately university rules don't allow departments or groups to sell things and use the proceeds. University salvage sells them and the university gets the money. :( But SETI at home isn't 10 years old yet... (sun gave us an old E450). Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been declared officially vintage yet? From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Jan 3 16:43:06 2007 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:43:06 -0800 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On 1/3/07, woodelf wrote: > Jay West wrote: > > Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So > > no, it's not officially vintage ;) We were thinking about auctioning off the original E450 that was the SETI at home server as a fund raiser. (Actually the original server is an Ultra-10 sitting on my desk. ellie aka jill nee sagan). Unfortunately university rules don't allow departments or groups to sell things and use the proceeds. University salvage sells them and the university gets the money. :( But SETI at home isn't 10 years old yet... (sun gave us an old E450). Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been declared officially vintage yet? From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jan 3 17:40:01 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 20:40:01 -0300 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage References: <200701032236.l03MaPE6032311@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <00d701c72f90$efc500d0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > There is something to be said for older slower Sun's. While my current > SunBlade 1000 (dual 750Mhz UltraSparc III) system is surprisingly quiet, > it's the largest system besides my PDP-11/73 that I have at home (I do > have > larger). Additionally it sucks a *LOT* of power, and generates a *LOT* of > heat. *LOT* of power translates to how much amperes/hour? :o) From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Jan 3 16:46:47 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:46:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <200701032236.l03MaPE6032311@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200701032236.l03MaPE6032311@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Zane H. Healy wrote: > There is something to be said for older slower Sun's. While my current > SunBlade 1000 (dual 750Mhz UltraSparc III) system is surprisingly quiet, > it's the largest system besides my PDP-11/73 that I have at home (I do have > larger). Additionally it sucks a *LOT* of power, and generates a *LOT* of > heat. My first experience with Sun was a desktop 3/60. THAT was a space heater. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 16:47:59 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:47:59 -0500 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: <459C297F.6020807@oldskool.org> References: <870623.44982.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> <459C297F.6020807@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 1/3/07, Jim Leonard wrote: > Chris M wrote: > > Right. So since Chuck has never had a compact Mac to > > play with, who's going to donate him one? I vote it > > has to be pre-ADB, to get the full look and feel experience. > > ADB? Apple Desktop Bus. The first Macs (128k/512k/Plus?) had RJ-11-like connectors for the keyboard and DE9s for the mouse. Later Macs (SE and newer, up until USB) and probably the Apple IIGS had ADB peripherals - the connector looks much like an S-Video connector - mini-DIN with 4 pins and, IIRC, a plastic tab in the male connectors to trip a switch (termination?) inside the female connectors when plugged together. There may have been other peripherals than keyboard and mouse, but those were the common ones through the Mac ADB era. -ethan From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 16:48:40 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:48:40 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <459C32C8.5040304@gmail.com> Eric J Korpela wrote: > On 1/3/07, woodelf wrote: >> Jay West wrote: >> > Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So >> > no, it's not officially vintage ;) > > We were thinking about auctioning off the original E450 that was the > SETI at home server as a fund raiser. (Actually the original server is > an Ultra-10 sitting on my desk. ellie aka jill nee sagan). > Unfortunately university rules don't allow departments or groups to > sell things and use the proceeds. University salvage sells them and > the university gets the money. :( > > But SETI at home isn't 10 years old yet... (sun gave us an old E450). > > Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. > Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various > SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been > declared officially vintage yet? The Alpha 21064 (EV4) came out in 1992. I think that probably qualifies. Peace... Sridhar From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 16:50:30 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:50:30 -0500 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: <459C210F.2030004@yahoo.co.uk> References: <459C210F.2030004@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: > Anyone know where D-shell connectors first appeared on equipment? They are in the 1954 Terminal catalog, at least. ...and the Dshell naming thread pops up on the horizon again... -- Will From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 16:51:43 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:51:43 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <459C337F.1090406@gmail.com> Eric J Korpela wrote: > Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. > Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various > SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been > declared officially vintage yet? I already mentioned the Alpha 21064, but I believe the MIPS R4000 was even earlier. Peace... Sridhar From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 16:56:27 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:56:27 -0600 (CST) Subject: Old Mac music software Message-ID: <200701032256.l03MuPtW012336@keith.ezwind.net> --- Joachim Thiemann w rote: **>> snip <<** > (*) This may be due to the fact that I mostly used > Trackers before > leaping into MIDI. OctaMED is a heck of a great > program, and a good > enough reason to keep my Amiga up and running. > OctaMED :) I tried various pieces of music software on the Amiga including Music Mouse (great idea, but you need Deluxe Music Construction Set to save the music! - I have it now too, BTW), Tracker and a few others. Teijo Kinnunens OctaMED was by far the easiest to use, for me atleast. I have only composed 2 songs so far (using the score sheet window - I have the tracker style code mode, despite being the only way to add special effects). The first was rubbish (seriously), but the 2nd was very good and only took 2 hours to compose. It only last's 1 min 30 secs and is "played" on the Bamboo Zylaphone. I called it "Jungle Beat". Teijo's 2 demo pieces of music that acompanied OctaMED 5 (the version I use) were awesome. Is he still in the music scene somewhere? OctaMED became OctaMED Sound Studio (which I have the demo of somewhere) but I wasn't keen on it. Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 3 16:55:53 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:55:53 +0000 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <001501c72f87$16044ee0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: On 3/1/07 22:32, "arcarlini at iee.org" wrote: > Zane H. Healy wrote: >> I don't believe I've ever been injured by a Q-Bus enclosure. You >> just need to be careful! :^) > > It was usually reaching under the bottom cards of a full BA23 > to fish out the RQDX3 internal connecting cable that did it. > Or the TQK50 one. The thing that got me the most was the cabling associated with the RQDXE, purely because it had to be last on the bus. Just before xmas when I was troubleshooting my Micro 11/73 (on work's time, heh) I thought I'd beaten myself by reassembling the whole cardcage in reverse order but the bloody thing still got me :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Wed Jan 3 17:00:11 2007 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:00:11 -0600 Subject: Dual Posts (was Re: Sun E450 server officially vintage) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Eric, I tried emailing you off-list, but your filters bounced my email (and your message back looked like spam to Hotmail!). Your posts are coming through twice because you are sending to cctech with a CC: to cctalk. All cctech posts go to cctalk by default, and on-topic cctalk posts go to cctech, after moderation (correct Jay?). So, you don't need the CC: Regards, Bob >From: "Eric J Korpela" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" >CC: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: Sun E450 server officially vintage >Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 14:43:06 -0800 > _________________________________________________________________ The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes is here. Get all the scoop. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/ From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 17:00:51 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:00:51 -0500 Subject: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Ok, tell us more about these things. A web search tells little. All I > see is something about non-linear magnetic core, f/2 and phase. > I don't see how it is used to create a logical operation. All my (very few) documents (yes, Al), are in Japanese. >From what I see, it looks like each logic block is a majority gate with inputs feeding the core. With an odd number of inputs (required with majority gates), and sine signals of either phase applied (0 degrees is zero, and 180 degrees is one, for example) to the inputs, the phase in the majority saturates the core, and is fed out to the amplifier (12AX7s, in this case) to be normalized. At least I think that is how they work. The more important thing about this logic trainer, and the NEAC, is that it shows us Westerners that the Japanese were indeed able to make quality goods in the late 1950s. -- Will From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 17:00:54 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:00:54 -0900 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <200701032117.l03LHXsj027113@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103135435.034d1bc8@pop.1and1.com> At 12:17 PM 1/3/2007, you wrote: >"Joachim Thiemann" wrote: > > > >Actually, I've been wondering: What is the effect of x-rays on EPROMS? > >I was always told it could flip bits. But that was older UV erasable >types. I'd would be interested to know if that is really true... Most PROM memory can be erased with x-rays, although with FLASH memory it actually damages the memory's ability to be reprogrammed before it erases them... (So the erasure risk isn't important) I've never tried, but heard of people erasing OTP microcontrollers with x-rays. The 1702 was originally designed to be erased with x-rays and then annealed in an oven. The temperature required to recondition the EPROM was a risk to the device. So they put a window in it. That's the birth of the window on EPROMs (they didn't have windows in the beginning). One of our customers did some contract work for an electronics company once. They erased a few thousand EPROMs with their x-ray source. It was much faster and cheaper than UV I guess. I don't know any of the details though... >(I'm having a flash back to wrapping eproms in tin-foil when flying >prototype game carts and coin-op games out to the west coast. probably >just paranoid, but we did that) That wouldn't do very much at all. The x-ray machine at the airport goes right through tin foil. 1/8 of lead would have worked wonders. I once checked a 30lb slab of lead as luggage. The screener wasn't expecting a cardboard sleeve the SIZE of a national geographic to be so heavy. : D From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 3 16:11:47 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 22:11:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> from "Jay West" at Jan 2, 7 08:34:19 am Message-ID: > > Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So no, > it's not officially vintage ;) Oh not this _again_.... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 3 16:56:00 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 22:56:00 +0000 (GMT) Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: <459C210F.2030004@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 3, 7 03:33:03 pm Message-ID: > > > Anyone know where D-shell connectors first appeared on equipment? Earlier than you might think. I would guess 1950's/early 1960s. I've got bits of navigational equipment, stuffed full of valves, and they have D connectors on the modules. They were certainly around long before the horrible SCART plug! > > Interesting thread going on in a local group at the moment about why SCART [1] > sockets are so horrible and nasty (prone to breaking pins, difficult to line > up, prone to falling out etc.) and why something better, like a D-shell > connector, wasn't chosen instead. Well, the D connector is not really an RF connector (yes, there are versions with coaxial connector inserts, when did those come out?). Mind you, the SCART connecotr is not exactly constnat impedance either! > > Thing is, SCART was apparently first used in consumer A/V equipment in 1977, > which probably means it was thought up in the mid-70's. Edge connectors and/or > circular DIN connectors were probably more common on computer equipment of > that time, but were D-shell types around by then too? Well, for home comuputers, maybe (the DIN connector [1], another horrible thing, beaten only by the mini-DIN IMHO, was not at all common on larger machines . But the DB25 was already well-established for RS232 serial connections at that point. [1] I don't know the date of that either, but Philips had DIN connectors on tape recoerders in the mid 1960s. [An aside. Am I the only person here to rememebr the IEC record player connector? It's a flat thing with 5 flat pins on 0.2" (IIRC) centres, no overal shroud round the pins like a DIN plug. The pins are arranged something like : -- -- | -- | Every other pin is ground, the other 2 are left and right audio inputs. Oh yes, the pins are called P, Q, R, S, T for some totally unknown reason. A couple of my old Philps tape recorders have such a socket on them for the record player input (wired in parallel with a DIN socket, thankfully!). I have also found _one_ plug in my overstocked junk box. No idea where you'd get more of them now. ] -tony From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 3 17:03:20 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:03:20 +0000 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C32C8.5040304@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/1/07 22:48, "Sridhar Ayengar" wrote: >> SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been >> declared officially vintage yet? > > The Alpha 21064 (EV4) came out in 1992. I think that probably qualifies. $hells no, the Alpha is still a valid and working architecture, and people like me are wondering when the EV9 will be released because it MUST happen soon :D It's still the best CPU ever...discuss. (yes yes yes I'm bang up to speed with Alpha developments,and the lack of, but one can hope :)) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 17:06:42 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:06:42 -0500 Subject: parametrons, was Re: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459B3015.4961F42A@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org> <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca> <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> <459B3015.4961F42A@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: > I was speculating along those lines as well, that as a system got more > complex trying to track phase shift through all possible paths in the > system would become a nightmare. I know the CDC6600 had individual wires > cut to specific lengths, but this seems like a problem of another > magnitude. I would bet there is some sort of Nyquisteque formula for figuring out how fast a parametron could work, using frequency F. Obviously, for the parametron to go fast, the frequency (or pulse duration) needs to be really quite high (or short). And as the F goes up in HF and VHF, all the gremlins come out that all the radio guys know about. -- Will From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 3 17:11:10 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 23:11:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jan 3, 7 05:47:59 pm Message-ID: > > > > ADB? > > Apple Desktop Bus. The first Macs (128k/512k/Plus?) had RJ-11-like I'll ocnfirm the Mac Plus has the RJ11 connetor for the keyboard and a DE9 for the mouse (but miniDIN-8 conenctors for the serial ports, I thought the older machines had DE9s for those too). > connectors for the keyboard and DE9s for the mouse. Later Macs (SE > and newer, up until USB) and probably the Apple IIGS had ADB > peripherals - the connector looks much like an S-Video connector - > mini-DIN with 4 pins and, IIRC, a plastic tab in the male connectors > to trip a switch (termination?) inside the female connectors when > plugged together. Does it? I know the 3 pin miniDIN used on the Localtalk network has a switch in the socket that conencts a terminating resistor, and which is openned when the plug is inserted, but I've never seen any evidence of this on ADB. But admittedly I've never tried to trace out schematics of an ADB'ed Mac. -tony From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 17:07:43 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:07:43 -0600 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C373F.4010807@yahoo.co.uk> Adrian Graham wrote: > On 3/1/07 21:33, "Jules Richardson" wrote: > >> Anyone know where D-shell connectors first appeared on equipment? >> >> Interesting thread going on in a local group at the moment about why SCART [1] >> sockets are so horrible and nasty (prone to breaking pins, difficult to line >> up, prone to falling out etc.) and why something better, like a D-shell >> connector, wasn't chosen instead. > > SCART was originally known as PERITEL and originated in France. > > Make of that what you will :) To be honest, it's a great idea - and much better than non-European countries where the typical connectivity is via RF only. Going source->modulator->tuner->display never did seem like a good idea when you could just go source->display via separate shielded RGB signals. (The picture quality I've seen on the typical US setup is piss-poor compared to the UK, jokes about NTSC aside) It's just a shame that the connector they picked for the standard is so lousy. Having looked at some old pricelists, SCART connectors weren't much cheaper than D-shells - and given that they were typically used on expensive equipment which only contained a couple of them, the difference couldn't have been significant at all. The only thing I can think of (other than it being some odd political decision) is that you know SCART is SCART; if using D-shells there would have been a few idiots trying to plug any old computer cable into their equipment. That hardly seems justification to enforce a nasty connector choice, though. Assuming that D-shell connectors were around, of course - but if Chuck's right then they should have been readily available in the mid-70's. Pin spacing is wider on SCART, so presumably they suffer less from interference - but we all know that D-shells are perfectly good for video (particularly at TV rates). cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 17:11:58 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:11:58 -0600 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C383E.8040901@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > In article <459BAFF4.19008.F51E8B at cclist.sydex.com>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > >> Well, there you go! Someone submits a system for consideration and >> list votes on it. > > I think that will just lead to lots of argument about what qualifies > as a "vintage" system when instead you're really arguing about which > vintage systems are "interesting". Yikes. I was very, very much joking :-) But some sort of: "is it vintage or not" page on the classiccmp website could be fun; questions could be weighted somehow so that it doesn't favour the stereotypical computer that's huge and has lots of flashing lights... From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 17:18:47 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:18:47 -0500 Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/3/07, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > > > ADB? > > > > Apple Desktop Bus. The first Macs (128k/512k/Plus?) had RJ-11-like > > I'll ocnfirm the Mac Plus has the RJ11 connetor for the keyboard and a > DE9 for the mouse (but miniDIN-8 conenctors for the serial ports, I > thought the older machines had DE9s for those too). Older Macs did have DE9s for serial (printer/modem/Appletalk...) > > the connector looks much like an S-Video connector - > > mini-DIN with 4 pins and, IIRC, a plastic tab in the male connectors > > to trip a switch (termination?) inside the female connectors when > > plugged together. > > Does it? I know the 3 pin miniDIN used on the Localtalk network has a > switch in the socket that conencts a terminating resistor, and which is > openned when the plug is inserted, but I've never seen any evidence of > this on ADB. But admittedly I've never tried to trace out schematics of > an ADB'ed Mac. Perhaps that's what I'm thinking of - the switch goes with the 3-pin miniDIN Localtalk connectors, not 4-pin miniDIN ADB connectors. -ethan From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 17:19:21 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:19:21 -0600 (CST) Subject: Needed: 80micro magazine Message-ID: <200701032319.l03NJKpO013356@keith.ezwind.net> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: **>> snip <<** > > And here's their web site--they seem to be very > games-oriented > nowadays: > > http://www.enterbrain.co.jp/login/ > > Enjoy, > Chuck > LOL. Just a bit! Enterbrain own the largest Japanese (and Worldwide??) brand of videogames magazines, including: Arcadia (arcade mag) Famitsu PS2 (errr....!!) Famitsu XBox (erm!) Famitsu Wii (that may not be out yet!) Famitsu Weekly (weekly multi-format console mag) Famitsu Wave DVD/Mag I get the last one. It comes out every month and has 2 DVD's packed with adverts, tips, wacky Japanese stuff (well.. most games mags/TV shows are nutty - anyone here in the UK recall Bits or Games Master?), reviews and interviews. Theres usually around 3 hours of stuff. Going well OT, sorry Jay. Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 3 17:20:48 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:20:48 -0700 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> <459B9B41.30906@yahoo.co.uk> <5.2.1.1.0.20070103111648.03480e08@pop.1and1.com> <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <459C3A50.1030305@jetnet.ab.ca> Joachim Thiemann wrote: > On 1/3/07, Grant Stockly wrote: > Actually, I've been wondering: What is the effect of x-rays on EPROMS? Umm they glow in the dark afterwords. :) > Joe. I suspect they DON'T have a healty effect on them. From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Jan 3 17:22:04 2007 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:22:04 -0600 Subject: IBM 5100/5110 ROS (ROM) images? In-Reply-To: <459C2C5A.4010007@bitsavers.org> References: <459C2C5A.4010007@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <459C3A9C.7050806@pacbell.net> Al Kossow wrote: > > Has anyone extracted images of the Read Only Storage > > for the IBM 5100/5100 desktop computers? > > Eric has talked about doing it. Apparently it is scanned during > initial self-test, so it could be captured with a deep logic analyzer > > Considering how many have failed, it's something that needs doing. I bought a 5110 model 3 (the one with integrated dual disk drives) for the same purpose. However, it is destined to stay low on my list of emulation projects. If somebody comes along and does it first, it will save me a lot of work. :-) Here is my current list of emulator/website projects, in descending order. Does anybody else have projects like these in the pipeline? (1) Wang 3300; half way done. I've scanned docs, disassembled about half of the BASIC interpreter, written the core CPU emulator code. Soon I hope to get back to it to add the rest of the emulation infrastructure and then debug it. (2) Compucolor II. I have captured the ROMs from mine (via stimulation by program and capture by logic analyzer) and I've been collecting disks and docs for the eventual website, but things turn up infrequently on ebay. (3) Wang 2200; frozen for now; someday I'll add MVP mode. (4) Sol-20; frozen for now; someday I'll add helios emulation. (5) IBM 5110. Collecting dust, waiting for the above projects to give way. (6) Exidy Sorcerer. I know there is a java emulator out there. Low priority to do a portable C version. (7) HP-8x emulator. Done. But not by me. Once I found that it had been emulated I gave away my 85 and 86 but kept my 87. From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 17:26:38 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:26:38 -0600 (CST) Subject: Recovering Cassette Tape Records Message-ID: <200701032326.l03NQcvf013710@keith.ezwind.net> --- Grant Stockly wrote: > > I think the reason that the demodulated output is > not 300bps is the KCACR > is locking onto the tape speed? I don't know anything about the KCACR, but the way the Spectrum and C64 saved data the computer would go by the speed of the tape. Typically, any data would be preceeded by 4 (perhaps less?) seconds of pulses which would allow the computer to work out the speed of the tape. I can only assume other computers used this method too?? Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Wed Jan 3 17:37:08 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:37:08 -0600 Subject: Anyone else here do AS/400? In-Reply-To: <001b01c72f63$a4b8c9f0$920718ac@CLCILLINOIS.EDU> References: <001b01c72f63$a4b8c9f0$920718ac@CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: <459C3E24.1050204@brutman.com> Wolfe, Julian wrote: > I'm not entirely sure if this is off topic yet(hence why I put it on > cctalk), but I know on a hobbyist level it's fairly rare. > > On Saturday I'll be picking up an AS/400 model 9406-600 originally purchased > September 1997 with all the software and docs, licences etc that were ever > used with the machine, from the original owner. I've contacted IBM and > arranged license transfer (there was thankfully no charge) > > Does anyone else here deal with AS/400, or have a lingering interest in it? > > Secondly, I'm thinking of connecting a classic IBM terminal to it such as a > 5251 S/34 term instead of the one that comes with it (something fairly > modern, not sure of the model yet) I am curious; are any limitations on what > I can connect, or are all twinax terminals pretty equal from a connectivity > standpoint? > > > I've got code in that box. When you get around to discussing the internals, I can core dump some of my brain for you. (I worked in the low level OS of the AS/400 from 1992 to 2000.) The 5251 should work fine - I've used them on much newer AS/400s. Mike From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 17:24:50 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:24:50 -0600 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C3B42.2080104@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > Well, the D connector is not really an RF connector (yes, there are > versions with coaxial connector inserts, when did those come out?). Mind > you, the SCART connecotr is not exactly constnat impedance either! Indeed; I can't see why a D-type would be any worse, and it would have eliminated a lot of the problems with SCART types. >> Thing is, SCART was apparently first used in consumer A/V equipment in 1977, >> which probably means it was thought up in the mid-70's. Edge connectors and/or >> circular DIN connectors were probably more common on computer equipment of >> that time, but were D-shell types around by then too? > > Well, for home comuputers, maybe (the DIN connector [1], another horrible > thing, beaten only by the mini-DIN IMHO, was not at all common on larger > machines . But the DB25 was already well-established for RS232 serial > connections at that point. I was struggling to think of any - but then most of the systems we have are either 50's / 60's (and tend to use all manner of oddball connectors), or are late-70's onwards (and so post-date SCART). There seems to be a real blank spot when it comes to early 70's systems, for some reason. (I'm not at all clued up on our DEC stuff though, so some of that may well qualify) > [An aside. Am I the only person here to rememebr the IEC record player > connector? It's a flat thing with 5 flat pins on 0.2" (IIRC) centres, no > overal shroud round the pins like a DIN plug. The pins are arranged > something like : > > -- -- | -- | > > Every other pin is ground, the other 2 are left and right audio inputs. Hmm, I've seen those about - I think I've still got one in the junk box somewhere, although I don't recall what gadget it came from. cheers Jules From geneb at simpits.com Wed Jan 3 17:30:12 2007 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:30:12 -0800 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <200701031932.OAA21222@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <200701031932.OAA21222@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <459C3C84.1070100@simpits.com> der Mouse wrote: >> My objection isn't to the actual word "Jew" but to your casual use of >> it to replace "You" > > How else would you spell that pronunciation distortion of "you"? > Actually, I've seen it as "joo" and "j00" (with two zeros, the most common representation I've seen), both used in the same context as "joo doan wanna go dere!". Regardless, there's far too much panty wadding going on here. Move along. g. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 17:35:41 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:35:41 -0700 Subject: Shipping company moveit.com In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:13:19 -0600. <624966d60701031413t7f10ad0ag818db2f57c150124@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: OK, the shipment arrived today. And just like I expected, they fscked up. Again. The pallet they used looks like it was slapped together from scrap lumber and was practically falling apart as the delivery men hefted it up onto the loading dock. Because the pallet was falling apart, they *almost* dropped the whole thing onto the ground. Don't ask me why they insisted on lifting it instead of using their lift gate! I guess it was too much trouble to properly park the truck against the dock. If this had been a proper pallet this wouldn't have been a problem. OK, so I get a look at how they "packed" the item to prepare it for shipment. The Onyx is just sitting on the pallet, not strapped down to anything. The Octane2 and sirius video box (which were my two other dovebid lots that I *requested* be shipped by ground, but my request was ignored and I wasn't informed of this until it was too late to do anything about) were just saran wrapped onto the pallet. As a result, the O2 -- which was looking cosmetically quite clean in the dovebid photos -- is now covered in scuffs and scratch marks all over the case. The sirius box is fine, but since its basically a big metal rack mount box I wasn't worried about that in the first place. The onyx -- which as very fragile plastic skins -- was only protected by one or two layers of bubble wrap and then saran wrapped all around. Compare this to the other Onyx that I had delivered yesterday. That Onyx was vinyl strapped to the pallet. Then styrofoam was placed around all sides of the unit and a cardboard "crate" created around the styrofoam and then this was all strapped to the pallet again. I couldn't imagine two more clear examples of how to do things the right way and the wrong way. I consider myself damn lucky that the Onyx delivered today didn't become a big pile of scrap metal. Given that this whole experience was one big Mongolian cluster fsck from one end of the transaction to the other, I can't help but think that the CTS that y'all knew and love is no more. Craters & Freighters was about the same price as these people and put *much* more care into packing items for shipment than CTS. It appears that "careful packing for shipment" to them means just put 4 more layers of saran wrap around it and calling it "good". I'll definately never use them again. Thank the dogs for capitalism so that I have other choices. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 3 17:22:46 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:22:46 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C3AC6.3090103@gmail.com> Adrian Graham wrote: > On 3/1/07 22:48, "Sridhar Ayengar" wrote: > >>> SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been >>> declared officially vintage yet? >> The Alpha 21064 (EV4) came out in 1992. I think that probably qualifies. > > $hells no, the Alpha is still a valid and working architecture, and people > like me are wondering when the EV9 will be released because it MUST happen > soon :D It's still the best CPU ever...discuss. Just because it evolved into something that is currently in use doesn't make the original Alpha a non-classic. End-of-line S/370's are not all that different architecturally from the latest System/z's. Can you say that an early '60's Corvette isn't a classic because they still make the Corvette today? Come on. Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 17:45:25 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:45:25 -0700 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:07:43 -0600. <459C373F.4010807@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: Wikipedia claims they were invented by ITT Canon, but doesn't give a year. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Jan 3 18:41:14 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 19:41:14 -0500 Subject: IBM 5100/5110 ROS (ROM) images? In-Reply-To: <459BACCA.1824.6BC81492@brian.quarterbyte.com> Message-ID: <200701032347.l03Nl5ZR028209@hosting.monisys.ca> > Has anyone extracted images of the Read Only Storage > for the IBM 5100/5100 desktop computers? I haven't > seen any mention of it anywhere, nor any simulators. > Has anyone worked on this? Seems like it should be doable > and worthwhile. Though, it might be necessary to build > hardware to read out the ROS contents -- I don't think the > 5100 provides programmatic access to the PALM object code for > the 360 and S/3 emulators, just the BASIC and APL code. > Does that sound right? I'd be VERY interested if some progress can be made on this. I have a (BASIC only) 5100 that has a failure of the non-executable ROS ... So far I've not been able to dig up any significant technical information, and images of the ROS do not appear to exist.... Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 3 17:47:56 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:47:56 +0000 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 3/1/07 22:56, "Tony Duell" wrote: > A couple of my old Philps tape recorders have such a socket on them for > the record player input (wired in parallel with a DIN socket, > thankfully!). I have also found _one_ plug in my overstocked junk box. No > idea where you'd get more of them now. ] I remember my parents having a Sharp amp plus Garrard record deck back in the 70s that had similar connections for the speakers, but that's a bit OT :) As an aside I was there over xmas and they still have the same setup in a box somewhere, bits of me are thinking I should keep it for the forseeable.... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 17:49:47 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 15:49:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20070103234947.63094.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> > > > > > > > > ADB? > > > > > > Apple Desktop Bus. The first Macs > (128k/512k/Plus?) had RJ-11-like Right, my point was that a REAL Mac has that old rattley keyboard. Much more vintij then the newer sleeker style of the SE-> and II's--> Seriously, if I had one I'd send it too him gratis. But I don't. I hope someone steps up. But I don't. You haven't lived until you've played with that bizarre Mockingtosh type and talk program. That wasn't it's name of course, but when it said Macintosh it sounded an awful lot like Mackingtosh. > > I'll ocnfirm the Mac Plus has the RJ11 connetor > for the keyboard and a > > DE9 for the mouse (but miniDIN-8 conenctors for > the serial ports, I > > thought the older machines had DE9s for those > too). > > Older Macs did have DE9s for serial > (printer/modem/Appletalk...) Right, and the old Macs had RS-422? And someone help me remember what cable, although intended for an entirely different purpose (I want to say to interface to the Imagewriter, but I'm thinking that had a mini din at the printer end, though I could be daffy) worked quite well as a null modem for Mac<-->PC transfers. I'm sure I also still have it in my stash, but I ain't going through that mess anytime soon. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 3 17:52:16 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:52:16 +0000 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: <459C373F.4010807@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 3/1/07 23:07, "Jules Richardson" wrote: > UK, jokes about NTSC aside) Never The Same Colour? :) > The only thing I can think of (other than it being some odd political > decision) is that you know SCART is SCART; if using D-shells there would have Yes the connector is the same, but the wiring suffers the same faults as D(b)25, you can't pick up a SCART and assume it'll do what you want, also you can't even assume that because there's a thick cable between connectors then there's a full set of connections in each plug.... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 17:56:15 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:56:15 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:43:06 -0800. Message-ID: In article , "Eric J Korpela" writes: > Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. > Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various > SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been > declared officially vintage yet? Vintage Suns I have: - GTX graphics tower sans interface card (anyone got one?) - Sun 3/110 w/expansion chassis Is a SPARCstation 5 vintage yet? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 17:59:13 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:59:13 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:11:58 -0600. <459C383E.8040901@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: In article <459C383E.8040901 at yahoo.co.uk>, Jules Richardson writes: > Yikes. I was very, very much joking :-) I know :) But, just like always, that has never stopped us! > But some sort of: "is it vintage or > not" page on the classiccmp website could be fun; questions could be weighted > somehow so that it doesn't favour the stereotypical computer that's huge and > has lots of flashing lights... Yes, if it has to be huge and have lots of blinking lights, then surely that leaves out most S-100 and CP/M systems of the 70s and 80s. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 17:57:15 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:57:15 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:51:43 -0500. <459C337F.1090406@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <459C337F.1090406 at gmail.com>, Sridhar Ayengar writes: > I already mentioned the Alpha 21064, but I believe the MIPS R4000 was > even earlier. MIPS R3000 was used in the ESV in 1989. I think the R4000 came out in 1990/1991? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 17:53:31 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:53:31 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 14:02:03 -0800. <272619.29878.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <272619.29878.qm at web61011.mail.yahoo.com>, Chris M writes: > [...] I hate to admit, but I'm frequently > amused to see the zanies go off on all sorts of > bizzare tangents. [...] Heh heh, yep. I try to make a habit of adjusting the subject line when I am responding on a thread with a side-topic. That way the people who have been skimming/skipping a long thread may pick up on my divergence as more "interesting" -- or perhaps less interesting! Either way, accurate labelling helps :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 3 18:04:34 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:04:34 +0000 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C337F.1090406@gmail.com> References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> <459C337F.1090406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <459C4492.3050309@dunnington.plus.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Eric J Korpela wrote: >> Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. >> Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various >> SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been >> declared officially vintage yet? > > I already mentioned the Alpha 21064, but I believe the MIPS R4000 was > even earlier. R4000 is only 32-bit, though. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 18:10:53 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:10:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <459C3C84.1070100@simpits.com> Message-ID: <196041.70066.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Trying terribly hard to resist a response to this thread, the origin of which I'm not even aware of (it probably looked like all the rest of the goofy spam I've been getting (no I don't have these posts sent to a different folder, and in fact do not have ANYTHING any longer sent to different folders, not even the spam. One great big smorgasbord.)), I forge on... I used to work with a guy years ago, who in fact was a supervisor, who in fact was Jewish. In the midst of some conversation we were having, something I said was misunderstood, to which I replied "what did you think I said?". Now, being born and raised in New York (and YES I do make a point of pronouncing most of *most of* my R's, and never once in my life have uttered the syllables comprising the detestable YAWK), I'll type something, but it comes out of my mouth sometimes ;) differently. And I've probably been guilty of all 3 of the following mispronounciations: "what did yuh think I said?" "what did juh think I said?" "what did joo think I said?" Frankly, I can't remember which I was guilty of on that particular day, but I guess my friend figured it was time for a good gafaw, and replied "WHO ARE YOU CALLING A JEW!". And believe you me, we both laughed good and hard. I probably got a little red faced to boot. Does this have anything to do with the origin of the thread? Like I said I can't tell you. Seemed as appropriate as any other way to *hopefully* end it though. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 18:10:34 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:10:34 -0600 Subject: Shipping company moveit.com In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C45FA.8090809@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > As a result, the O2 -- which was looking cosmetically quite clean in > the dovebid photos -- is now covered in scuffs and scratch marks all > over the case. Is there any chance those will polish out somehow? I know I managed to get scuffs off an Indigo shell before, at least to the point where it looked cosmetically good unless you had your nose right up to it. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 18:18:36 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:18:36 -0700 Subject: Shipping company moveit.com In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:10:34 -0600. <459C45FA.8090809@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: In article <459C45FA.8090809 at yahoo.co.uk>, Jules Richardson writes: > Richard wrote: > > As a result, the O2 -- which was looking cosmetically quite clean in > > the dovebid photos -- is now covered in scuffs and scratch marks all > > over the case. > > Is there any chance those will polish out somehow? [...] Possibly, I hadn't thought of that. However, there was a reason that I specifically asked for this to be shipped separately by ground -- and that was because I didn't want this sitting on a pallet getting kicked around in the freight channel. I wanted it in bubble wrap and packing peanuts inside a box. They totally disregarded my request and didn't even bother telling me that they'd combined everything into one freight shipment until it had already left and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Bad shipper! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 18:14:41 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:14:41 -0600 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C46F1.2050006@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: >> But some sort of: "is it vintage or >> not" page on the classiccmp website could be fun; questions could be weighted >> somehow so that it doesn't favour the stereotypical computer that's huge and >> has lots of flashing lights... > > Yes, if it has to be huge and have lots of blinking lights, then > surely that leaves out most S-100 and CP/M systems of the 70s and 80s. Maybe an additional question is something like: "would it cost more than $500US to move it 100 miles?" so that we can skew the result to favour the smaller systems a bit more too :-) From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Jan 3 18:27:31 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 19:27:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20070104002731.2E53E5824E@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Richard > > Then there's the VIC-20 and C=64. As common as dirt, but certainly > interesting and also vintage. And IMHO, a lot more fun then playing with dirt and you don't need a shower afterwards. Cheers, Bryan From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 3 18:36:07 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:36:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> References: <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20070103163414.D60274@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Jules Richardson wrote: > We need a page reachable through the classiccmp website which takes into > account things like: nahh. codable in FORTRAN and a few dozen assembly languages > age > physical size > production count / rarity > operational noise level > number of flashing lights > case styling 'coolness' factor > number of mouse nests / dead insects inside > number of times system has inflicted injuries on the owner > etc. > ... and then makes a call as to whether it will be seen by the list at large > as on-topic or not. Do you have a formula to use for the algorithm? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From pcw at mesanet.com Wed Jan 3 18:37:08 2007 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:37:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C4492.3050309@dunnington.plus.com> References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> <459C337F.1090406@gmail.com> <459C4492.3050309@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 4 Jan 2007, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:04:34 +0000 > From: Pete Turnbull > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > ; > Subject: Re: Sun E450 server officially vintage > > Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Eric J Korpela wrote: >>> Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. >>> Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various >>> SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been >>> declared officially vintage yet? >> >> I already mentioned the Alpha 21064, but I believe the MIPS R4000 was even >> earlier. > > R4000 is only 32-bit, though. No, The R4000 is 64 bits and probably the first 64 bit Microprocessor... > > -- > Pete Peter Turnbull > Network Manager > University of York > Peter Wallace From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 18:39:07 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:39:07 -0900 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <459C3A50.1030305@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> <459B9B41.30906@yahoo.co.uk> <5.2.1.1.0.20070103111648.03480e08@pop.1and1.com> <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103153045.0366ad18@pop.1and1.com> At 02:20 PM 1/3/2007, you wrote: >Joachim Thiemann wrote: >>On 1/3/07, Grant Stockly wrote: >>Actually, I've been wondering: What is the effect of x-rays on EPROMS? >Umm they glow in the dark afterwords. :) Actually, you aren't too far off if you consider out of this world tests... A linear accelerator emitting electrons, not x-rays, can put a charge in plastic and cause it to glow. Here is some text from a neat test at a lab... (they have a lot of fun) I have all the pictures from these tests if you guys are interested. These guys also make diamonds turn blue. : ) The answer(s): Using electrons with much higher ionizing/charging ability than x-rays, (the "ozone" (O3) was very apparent in the shelter by the way!) the damage ("tree/branch" appearance) is done by the electrons leaping out/suddenly discharging through the Plexiglas. As a lightning strike parts the air, it will also part Plexiglas in an obviously similar fashion. What we are doing is pushing a bunch of electrons (electron 'charge', as if it were a capacitor) into the Plexiglas from one side. Unlike X-Rays which easily pass through >3" of carbon steel at this energy level, these electrons only penetrate 4mm for every 1 MeV (Million Electron Volts) of energy. The penetration in this 'experiment' was about 1/2" or 12 mm. We were running 60 mA (Milliamperes) each pulse at 50 PPS (Pulses per second) with a 4.5 microsecond pulse width. That's about 12 Microamperes average. We ran for 1.5 minutes max for a charge of 1 Millicoulomb.(A unit of electrical charge equal to the amount of charge transferred by a current of 1 ampere in 1 second) At 3 MeV (Million Electron Volts) (the system I was using here) that's 3.24kj or Kilojoules. (Joules: A unit of electrical energy equal to the work done when a current of one ampere passes through a resistance of one ohm for one second With the Plexiglas thus full of electrons, ("charged" as would be a capacitor just before it conducts) we pick it up and put it on a board, and whack the edge with a pointed object. After first making sure that the point is grounded. It can also be done using a drill press, with a sharpened nail in the chuck. This causes a stress crack in the Plexiglas, which encourages some of the electrons to exit. This tears a track in the Plexiglas, which permits more of the electrons to come out. The electrons coming out tear/rip a path in the Plexiglas just as lightning tears a path in the air leaving behind a witness path, such as you see in the pictures. And like lightning the process is accompanied by a loud bang and a flash. The Plexiglas continues to 'sparkle' with bright blue 'sprits' running along the small branches for several minutes. It is truly a beautiful appearance.....at least in MY opinion! This plus the final pattern (which is obviously different every time) is great at entertaining the multitude. From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jan 3 18:42:27 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 19:42:27 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C337F.1090406@gmail.com> References: <459C337F.1090406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200701031942.27890.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 03 January 2007 17:51, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Eric J Korpela wrote: > > Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. > > Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various > > SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been > > declared officially vintage yet? > > I already mentioned the Alpha 21064, but I believe the MIPS R4000 was > even earlier. But the R4x00 was 32-bit... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 18:45:09 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:45:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <200701031942.27890.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <20070104004510.91994.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> --- Patrick Finnegan wrote: > But the R4x00 was 32-bit... > > Pat No it's not Pat, read the previous post. Sheesh. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 18:42:23 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:42:23 -0600 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <20070103163414.D60274@shell.lmi.net> References: <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> <20070103163414.D60274@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <459C4D6F.4060200@yahoo.co.uk> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Jules Richardson wrote: >> We need a page reachable through the classiccmp website which takes into >> account things like: > > nahh. > codable in FORTRAN and a few dozen assembly languages Hmm, interesting. It's not vintage unless you can download the code and run it to find out if it's vintage or not. I like it :-) >> ... >> ... and then makes a call as to whether it will be seen by the list at large >> as on-topic or not. > > Do you have a formula to use for the algorithm? Hell, no. I came up with the idea - you guys can bash out the details :-) From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 18:49:19 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:49:19 -0900 Subject: Altair Basic Discussion and Calculator Forensics Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103154756.040bfeb0@pop.1and1.com> This is a discussion started off list. >Startrek might port to 680 BASIC. It runs the 8080 Tic Tac Toe program. I haven't tried loading star trek yet. It might just work out of the box. I'll find out tonight. More responses below... >There are a couple of issues that I am not too sure about. > >The 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 lable uses VERSION and REVISION. I used >mostly 300-5-C. The C and F revisions of Version 5 BASIC are the only 300 >series that work. There is a Version 5.0 that I don't remember much about. I >started with BASIC 4.1 and always thought it was the first "good" version. I >assumed all earlier versions were buggy and missing features. > >At first, I thought 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 was similar to 8080 BASIC >3.2. Now I don't know because I'm not used to working with Revision numbers. >The 300 series uses Revision letters. At this point, I don't know how the >680 and 8080 BASIC versions compare. The 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 >language and interpreter have at least one feature introduced in 8080 BASIC >4.0. > >The term "regular BASIC" is ambigous. There are several versions of BASIC. >Which ones are "regular"? The term BASIC can refer to the language or the >interpreter. When someone refers to 8K BASIC, the size is obvious and a set >of language features is assumed. Disk Extended BASIC adds language features, >bug fixes, and major internal changes. Do all 8K BASICS support the same >languages and syntax. > >The term "patches" could be accurate, but I'm more comfortable with version >and revision. The label MITS ALTAIR 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 may be a >port of 8K BASIC. What version and revision of 8K BASIC? The examples below >show the same lable on two two sizes of interpreter. MITS should have >changed the lables. > >I don't know which 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 came first. Do they both >translate the same exact language? The obvious guess would be that the paper >tape interpreter has the CSAVE command removed or disabled. It could also be >that the smaller BASIC supports the older CSAVE syntax. It could also be >that the bigger version has changes and someone forgot to bump the revision >number. I think non KCACR came first. The KCACR doesn't seem very popular. Its not even in a lot of the -system- documentation. What could we do to determine if the basics are the same? This would tell us the math function similarity... http://www.rskey.org/~mwsebastian/miscprj/forensics.htm I could run the forensics on the Altair32 emulator and on both versions of the 680 basic. If it matches up with any of the 8080 basics then we've found the "version" of 8080 basic used as a starting point. >Does CSAVE work if you load the paper tape version into a machine with a >cassette interface? Nope. Not with any of the syntax changes either. Grant From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 3 18:49:18 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:49:18 +0000 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C3AC6.3090103@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/1/07 23:22, "Sridhar Ayengar" wrote: > Can you say that an early '60's Corvette isn't a classic because they > still make the Corvette today? Come on. Hm, the current 'vette does nothing for me because it had to conform to current US design rules, the original now looks ugly to me thanks to a recent showing on a UK TV advert for car insurance... Help! I'm growing old, but not, at the same time! :) Alpha, OTOH, for me, will always be groundbreaking technology because I was involved with it from the beginning; maybe that's why I don't think about Chevy stuff the same way? -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 18:56:30 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:56:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C4D6F.4060200@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <581355.63482.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jules Richardson wrote: > Fred Cisin wrote: > > On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Jules Richardson wrote: > >> We need a page reachable through the classiccmp > website which takes into > >> account things like: > > > > nahh. > > codable in FORTRAN and a few dozen assembly > languages > > Hmm, interesting. It's not vintage unless you can > download the code and run it > to find out if it's vintage or not. I like it :-) Say what? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 3 19:01:20 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:01:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070103165901.Y60274@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Tony Duell wrote: > Well, for home comuputers, maybe (the DIN connector [1], another horrible > thing, beaten only by the mini-DIN IMHO, was not at all common on larger > machines . But the DB25 was already well-established for RS232 serial > connections at that point. > [1] I don't know the date of that either, but Philips had DIN connectors > on tape recoerders in the mid 1960s. My father had a Telefunken "High Fi" from the 50s that had some DINs. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jan 3 19:06:22 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:06:22 -0800 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage Message-ID: <887928ddeb6ec7eaaa8872e1057a14fc@valleyimplants.com> Well- Sun4u is still in production, and it doesn't have any "first" cachets like the Ultra1, E10k, etc. so I sort of see where Jay's going. Older Sun4 machines (4m 4d 4c -4) would probably be ontopic, though. SGI 4Ds (loosest definition, all MIPS based machines rather than the strict definition of from the 4D/60 to the introduction of ARCS PROMs) are probably fair game now, given that the line has been discontinued effective Dec 31. Newish Alphas and HP-9000s are probably a bit shady, though, since they're still in (semi) production, but not pushed, so they could be on. From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jan 3 19:08:51 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 20:08:51 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <20070104004510.91994.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070104004510.91994.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200701032008.51124.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 03 January 2007 19:45, Chris M wrote: > --- Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > But the R4x00 was 32-bit... > > > > Pat > > No it's not Pat, read the previous post. Sheesh. Actually, I'm half right. The 4400 and 4600 ARE 32-bit, and are the only R4x00 variants I've ever seen. According to Wikipedia, the R4000 itself was 64-bit, but I've never seen one in the wild. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 3 19:21:31 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:21:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: yet another Cat *purr* on ePay *meow* Message-ID: <566983.924.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-CAT-computer-Jef-Raskin-PRE-Macintosh-MAC-HISTORY_W0QQitemZ300066150418QQihZ020QQcategoryZ80286QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem listed under Apple/Macintosh category. Don't know if that'll make a difference, I don't search by categories myself. Not as nice as the last one (or mine woohoo). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 3 19:23:50 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:23:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac OS vintage (was: Re: Sun E450 server officially vintage) In-Reply-To: from "Mark Tapley" at Jan 03, 2007 04:00:41 PM Message-ID: <200701040123.l041NoXr003557@onyx.spiritone.com> > The Mac OS category in the same program says the same thing, > giving requirements as follows: > > 7.1 68000 or later, 2 MB RAM, 4 MB hard drive > 7.5 68000 or later, 4 MB RAM, 21 MB hard drive > 7.6 32-bit clean 68030 or later, 8 MB RAM, 40-120 MB hard drive > 8.0/1 68040 or later, 12 MB RAM, 195 MB hard drive > 8.5 PPC, 16 MB RAM, 150-250 MB hard drive > 8.6 PPC, 24 MB RAM, 190-250 MB hard drive > > Wow. Looking back, it's amazing how fast requirements shot > up. I'm really glad I sort of sat out that period as far as buying > computers. Our main home system was a Mac Plus until we leapfrogged Remember how fast CPU's shot up during that time period, even on the Mac side of things. Memory increases had a lot to do with it as well. 7.5 is where TCP/IP really started getting used, so that might effect it as well. The OS changed significantly during these releases. My first Mac was a PowerBook 520c, it shipped with 7.1 installed, and images of 7.5.x on the HD. With only 4MB RAM base, you didn't want to run 7.5, with 20MB RAM, it ran OK. IIRC, my PowerMac 8500/180 that I got a year later shipped with some version of 7.5 as well. Additionally, I can't even imagine running these OS's with that little RAM. Zane From lbickley at bickleywest.com Wed Jan 3 19:27:06 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:27:06 -0800 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701031727.06449.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Wednesday 03 January 2007 13:18, Richard wrote: > Any other Onyx owners on the list? I have an RE2 (in storage) and in my "shop" an Infinite Reality [w/(4)195MHz processors, 1.5GB RAM, Sirius Video, ASO Audio, Dual 64MB RMs, 8 Channel DG]. I love my IR ;-) Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jan 3 19:27:05 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:27:05 -0800 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage Message-ID: > Eric J Korpela wrote: >> Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. >> Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various >> SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been >> declared officially vintage yet? > > I already mentioned the Alpha 21064, but I believe the MIPS R4000 was > even earlier. > > Peace... Sridhar Well, we're talking three things: processor architectures, processors, and systems. The 21064 is definitely on-topic, as are the early AXP systems (DEC 3000/4000/7000) The basic Alpha architecture is probably irrelevant, because I have never heard a discussion about architectures as being on or off topic, generally discussions of that nature are sufficiently technical to pass. The R4000 is an interesting case, because the chip predates the 21064, but (a) early versions could not run 64-bit since they had a bug in the MIPS-III instructions and (b) no R4000/R4400 systems were 64-bit capable until the Onyx in 1993 unless I've missed something. In short, therefore, the 64-bit potential of the R4000 arrived first, but 21064 realized a 64-bit system first. Take that how you will. From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 3 19:29:38 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:29:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <00d701c72f90$efc500d0$f0fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jan 03, 2007 08:40:01 PM Message-ID: <200701040129.l041TcF5003643@onyx.spiritone.com> > > > There is something to be said for older slower Sun's. While my current > > SunBlade 1000 (dual 750Mhz UltraSparc III) system is surprisingly quiet, > > it's the largest system besides my PDP-11/73 that I have at home (I do > > have > > larger). Additionally it sucks a *LOT* of power, and generates a *LOT* of > > heat. > > *LOT* of power translates to how much amperes/hour? :o) > For the SunBlade 1000: http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SunBlade1000/spec.html AC input 100 - 240 VAC, 47 - 63 Hz, 8 A(max), 0.875 KVA Input power 670 W Heat output 2286 BTU/hr Zane From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 19:34:35 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:34:35 -0700 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:27:06 -0800. <200701031727.06449.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: In article <200701031727.06449.lbickley at bickleywest.com>, Lyle Bickley writes: > On Wednesday 03 January 2007 13:18, Richard wrote: > > > Any other Onyx owners on the list? > > I have an RE2 (in storage) and in my "shop" an Infinite Reality [w/(4)195MHz > processors, 1.5GB RAM, Sirius Video, ASO Audio, Dual 64MB RMs, 8 Channel DG]. > > I love my IR ;-) Lyle, it sounds like you have exactly the same Onyx setup I just acquired! Onyx RE2, dunno the exact config yet Onyx IR, Sirius Video, dunno what else yet exactly :-) When I saw the Sirius Video box being auctioned in one lot, I gambled that the Onyx had the Sirius board inside it (and it did). This came from a TV station sale so I figured that it was used for digital video editing or the weather overlay presentation or some such. The Onyx has a couple SCSI drives, a Jaz drive, an 8mm tape drive and a CD-ROM drive occupying all the bays. I see the Sirius rack mount box on ebay sans the interface card quite a bit. (Don't you find it simultaneously funny *and* sad when people yank the peripherals and discard the cables and interface card? I mean, the peripheral box is probably worthless without the interface card and vice-versa considering that these are typically custom interface cards.) The TV station Onyx has lint on all the air vents telling me that this machine was on pretty much all the time :-). It will need a good disassembling and cleaning/inspection before I power it on and see what happens. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 19:36:06 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:36:06 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives Message-ID: OK, suppose you have a workstation and it has stuff installed on its drives. You don't have the original distribution media for the OS and any installed applications and you don't have a spare system with the same stuff installed. What's the best way to make a backup of the entire hard drive so that the essential software doesn't get lost? The drives are SCSI. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 3 19:41:36 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:41:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 03, 2007 06:36:06 PM Message-ID: <200701040141.l041fa72003944@onyx.spiritone.com> > OK, suppose you have a workstation and it has stuff installed on its > drives. You don't have the original distribution media for the OS and > any installed applications and you don't have a spare system with the > same stuff installed. > > What's the best way to make a backup of the entire hard drive so that > the essential software doesn't get lost? > > The drives are SCSI. If by workstation you mean Unix, I should think that hooking them up to a more modern system with SCSI and using 'dd' to copy them to an image file would be a good start. Ideally though you're going to need to determine the model of HD, and get some extras. Basically you have a bad problem there, and should do the 'dd' portion ASAP. Mentioning the specific type of workstation and OS might allow some better advice. Zane From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Wed Jan 3 19:41:43 2007 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:41:43 -0800 Subject: ALERT: Boeing Surplus, Cheap Workstations Message-ID: <200701031741430682.139221A0@192.168.42.129> This is directed mainly to ClassicCmp folk in or near the Puget Sound region. While at Boeing Surplus this afternoon, I noticed that there were having what amounts to a 'Blowout Sale' on SGI Indigo and Octane workstations. These systems are, as far as I know from talking to their computer guy, complete except for the hard drive (although the Sun Ultra 10 I bought still had the drive in it, admittedly blanked). Here's the best part: The price -- $1.00 Each. No, that's not a typo. One measley dollar for an SGI Octane, Indigo, or a Sun Ultra 10. Now the bad news -- Their computer guy tells me that they need to clear shelf space for a bunch of incoming Dell systems. If said Dells happen to come in tomorrow (Thursday, Jan. 4th), all the Octanes, Indigos, and other non-PC's will ALL be THROWN OUT. So -- If you want to take a crack at getting an ultra-cheap system, I would strongly recommend stopping at Boeing Surplus on Thursday. They're at 20651 84th Ave. S, Kent, WA 98032, open from 11:00 - 17:00 PST. I landed an Ultra-10 myself. Happy scrounging. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jan 3 19:43:57 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 19:43:57 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C5BDD.8010204@oldskool.org> Richard wrote: > OK, suppose you have a workstation and it has stuff installed on its > drives. You don't have the original distribution media for the OS and > any installed applications and you don't have a spare system with the > same stuff installed. > > What's the best way to make a backup of the entire hard drive so that > the essential software doesn't get lost? > > The drives are SCSI. dd if=/dev/sda0 of=/some/filesystem/with/enough/space Seriously! Copies the entire thing, sector by sector, to a file. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Wed Jan 3 19:48:11 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:48:11 -0800 Subject: Missing Bits Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D03669F@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> In the mid-80's when I first moved to Silicon Valley, I worked for Fujitsu Computer Products. I (and my support engineers) went around the Valley to various companies installing Hard Drives. Recently, I've been trying to write up some of those experiences and found that I have almost nothing on a lot of the companies. And I see that bitsavers doesn't have much either. Does anybody remember or know anything about: Daisy Systems - Design Automation stuff Arix or later, Arete - Unix systems for government sites Pixel - Unix systems California Computer Corporation - Training systems General Computer - 16 and 32 bit CPUs System Industries - Controller PCBs DEC compatible Intertest - Design Automation And one that is driving me crazy, a company that supplied Ada systems to the military. Was first based in Mt. View, then moved to San Jose into one of the old Amdahl buildings. I can visualize the people and systems but can't remember the name. Getting old sucks. I'd love to hear about anyone's experience with any of these companies and especially if any documents or hardware survived. And I'm especially interested in ARIX. It was a very unusual company, and obliquely mentioned in the 6 part TV series on Silicon Valley. Billy From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jan 3 19:48:40 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:48:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103153045.0366ad18@pop.1and1.com> References: <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> <459B9B41.30906@yahoo.co.uk> <5.2.1.1.0.20070103111648.03480e08@pop.1and1.com> <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20070103153045.0366ad18@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Grant Stockly wrote: > This causes a stress crack in the Plexiglas, which encourages some of the > electrons to exit. This tears a track in the Plexiglas, which permits more > of the electrons to come out. The electrons coming out tear/rip a path in > the Plexiglas just as lightning tears a path in the air leaving behind a > witness path, such as you see in the pictures. And like lightning the > process is accompanied by a loud bang and a flash. The Plexiglas continues > to 'sparkle' with bright blue 'sprits' running along the small branches for > several minutes. It is truly a beautiful appearance.....at least in MY > opinion! > > This plus the final pattern (which is obviously different every time) is > great at entertaining the multitude. Here's something along those lines that yields a permanent piece of art: (main page www.teslamania.com) http://205.243.100.155/frames/interesting.html. Basic process: Irradiate a block of plexiglass with an electron beam from a particle accelerator to build up a high static charge. Then carefully touch the block with a grounded metal spike to cause a discharge, leaving feathery branches of "frozen lightning" behind. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jan 3 19:50:06 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:50:06 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C5D4E.4050802@arachelian.com> First fill the empty space on it with zeros, remove the file with the zeros, unmount it, then dd the whole disk, and pipe it to gzip. Make sure that you use the proper device name that will grab the whole disk, bootsector, partition table, and all. i.e. dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/junk bs=65536 rm /mnt/junk umount /mnt dd if=/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s2 | bzip2 -9 >/somewhere-else/disk.dd.gz Richard wrote: > OK, suppose you have a workstation and it has stuff installed on its > drives. You don't have the original distribution media for the OS and > any installed applications and you don't have a spare system with the > same stuff installed. > > What's the best way to make a backup of the entire hard drive so that > the essential software doesn't get lost? > > The drives are SCSI. > From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Wed Jan 3 19:58:44 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:58:44 -0800 Subject: Missing Bit Redux Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A0@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Billy wrote: And one that is driving me crazy, a company that supplied Ada systems to the military. Was first based in Mt. View, then moved to San Jose into one of the old Amdahl buildings. I can visualize the people and systems but can't remember the name. Getting old sucks. Of course as soon as I clicked send, the name came to me - Rational Systems. Anybody remember them or have any of their systems? Billy From lbickley at bickleywest.com Wed Jan 3 20:00:51 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:00:51 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701031800.52297.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Wednesday 03 January 2007 17:36, Richard wrote: > OK, suppose you have a workstation and it has stuff installed on its > drives. You don't have the original distribution media for the OS and > any installed applications and you don't have a spare system with the > same stuff installed. > > What's the best way to make a backup of the entire hard drive so that > the essential software doesn't get lost? > > The drives are SCSI. Richard, If you're talking about the Onyx - you can, as usual w/*NIX, use "tar" to backup everything to tape or another storage media (attached or via NFS). I suggest you create a duplicate system disk. If you use the same size disk, you can use "dd", which will copy the boot blocks, etc. Make sure the destination disk is "clean" (has no bad blocks). With any SGI, it's good to have a bootable OS CD set, preferably V6.5. That way you can recreate a system HD from "scratch", etc. BTW: for lots of good technical info on all SGI products and drivers (which are not included in the standard CD sets) see: http://vintagecomputers.info/ Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 3 20:01:36 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:01:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac OS vintage (was: Re: Sun E450 server officially vintage) In-Reply-To: <200701040123.l041NoXr003557@onyx.spiritone.com> from "Zane H. Healy" at "Jan 3, 7 05:23:50 pm" Message-ID: <200701040201.l0421aXs019162@floodgap.com> > My first Mac was a PowerBook 520c, it shipped with 7.1 installed, and images > of 7.5.x on the HD. With only 4MB RAM base, you didn't want to run 7.5, > with 20MB RAM, it ran OK. IIRC, my PowerMac 8500/180 that I got a year > later shipped with some version of 7.5 as well. > > Additionally, I can't even imagine running these OS's with that little RAM. Actually, 7.1 will run fine in 2MB -- I ran a Plus that way. 4MB is better (my IIsi). 24MB is very, very nice ;) (my playbox IIci). -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "Eight tries. The number is ... seven." ------------------------------------ From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 3 20:05:55 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:05:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: ALERT: Boeing Surplus, Cheap Workstations In-Reply-To: <200701031741430682.139221A0@192.168.42.129> from "Bruce Lane" at Jan 03, 2007 05:41:43 PM Message-ID: <200701040205.l0425tSp004573@onyx.spiritone.com> > Here's the best part: The price -- $1.00 Each. No, that's not a > typo. One measley dollar for an SGI Octane, Indigo, or a Sun Ultra > 10. Argh!!! You really know how to hurt a person! I wouldn't mind an Octane at that price, but there is no way I can get up there to pick one up. Oh, well, it's not like I have room for one, or even need it. Zane From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 3 20:07:20 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:07:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Missing Bit Redux In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A0@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> from "Billy Pettit" at Jan 03, 2007 05:58:44 PM Message-ID: <200701040207.l0427KNw004597@onyx.spiritone.com> > Billy wrote: > And one that is driving me crazy, a company that supplied Ada systems to the > military. Was first based in Mt. View, then moved to San Jose into one of > the old Amdahl buildings. I can visualize the people and systems but can't > remember the name. Getting old sucks. > > > Of course as soon as I clicked send, the name came to me - Rational Systems. > Anybody remember them or have any of their systems? > > Billy Have you googled? That name sounds really familiar, are you sure they aren't still doing Ada stuff? Zane From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 3 20:11:14 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:11:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: My first Mac In-Reply-To: from Tony Duell at "Jan 3, 7 11:11:10 pm" Message-ID: <200701040211.l042BE0F013642@floodgap.com> > I'll ocnfirm the Mac Plus has the RJ11 connetor for the keyboard and a > DE9 for the mouse (but miniDIN-8 conenctors for the serial ports, I > thought the older machines had DE9s for those too). They do. The Plus was the first one with mini-DIN serial ports. > > connectors for the keyboard and DE9s for the mouse. Later Macs (SE > > and newer, up until USB) and probably the Apple IIGS had ADB > > peripherals - the connector looks much like an S-Video connector - > > mini-DIN with 4 pins and, IIRC, a plastic tab in the male connectors > > to trip a switch (termination?) inside the female connectors when > > plugged together. > > Does it? I know the 3 pin miniDIN used on the Localtalk network has a > switch in the socket that conencts a terminating resistor, and which is > openned when the plug is inserted, but I've never seen any evidence of > this on ADB. But admittedly I've never tried to trace out schematics of > an ADB'ed Mac. I'm not aware of this either. In fact, my "force reboot" dongle is just an S-video cable bought from WalMart with the reset pin hardwired to ground and no special business otherwise. It works just fine. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Just another Sojourner of the Dispersion (1 Peter 1:1) --------------------- From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Wed Jan 3 20:12:27 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:12:27 -0800 Subject: Missing Bit Redux Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A1@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: Have you googled? That name sounds really familiar, are you sure they aren't still doing Ada stuff? Zane ------------------ Yes, there still do softwware. But in the late 80's, they made complete systems, designing all their own hardware. That's what I'm trying to find. Billy From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 3 20:15:09 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:15:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Missing Bit Redux In-Reply-To: <200701040207.l0427KNw004597@onyx.spiritone.com> from "Zane H. Healy" at "Jan 3, 7 06:07:20 pm" Message-ID: <200701040215.l042F9XC016170@floodgap.com> > > And one that is driving me crazy, a company that supplied Ada systems to the > > military. Was first based in Mt. View, then moved to San Jose into one of > > the old Amdahl buildings. I can visualize the people and systems but can't > > remember the name. Getting old sucks. > > Of course as soon as I clicked send, the name came to me - Rational Systems. > > Anybody remember them or have any of their systems? > Have you googled? That name sounds really familiar, are you sure they > aren't still doing Ada stuff? I remember a Rational Systems from DOS/4GW, the 32-bit DPMI extender that was used a lot in the days before Win95 (DOOM, for example). -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Computers aren't intelligent. They just think they are. -------------------- From wmaddox at pacbell.net Wed Jan 3 20:17:27 2007 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 18:17:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Missing Bit Redux In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A0@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <665053.75048.qm@web83006.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Billy Pettit wrote: > Of course as soon as I clicked send, the name came > to me - Rational Systems. > Anybody remember them or have any of their systems? Rational developed an integrated Ada development environment, very advanced for its time, that ran on dedicated hardware. They later produced workstation-hosted environments for Ada and C/C++. They are probably best known for their CASE and modelling tools, e.g., Rational Rose, and for the work of Grady Booch (UML). They acquired Pure-Atria in 1997, adding Purify and Clearcase to their stable. IBM bought Rational a few years back, but apparently are still using the Rational brand. --Bill Software From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 3 20:16:17 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:16:17 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <459C5D4E.4050802@arachelian.com> References: <459C5D4E.4050802@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070103201501.07b5b8d0@mail> At 07:50 PM 1/3/2007, you wrote: >First fill the empty space on it with zeros, remove the file with the >zeros, What? And potentially erase all those yet un-deleted files? :-) >unmount it, then dd the whole disk, and pipe it to gzip. And with the size and price of hard drives today, why bother with compression? Especially if you want to mount the image in an emulator. - John From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 3 20:20:24 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:20:24 -0800 Subject: Rational Message-ID: <459C6468.6080304@bitsavers.org> Yes, there still do softwware. But in the late 80's, they made complete systems, designing all their own hardware. That's what I'm trying to find. -- CHM just got a system w/o docs a month or so ago Did you mean Arete? We have one, and it ran a version of Unix called Arix. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 3 20:28:25 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:28:25 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <459C5D4E.4050802@arachelian.com> References: <459C5D4E.4050802@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <459C6649.9090202@yahoo.co.uk> Ray Arachelian wrote: > First fill the empty space on it with zeros, remove the file with the > zeros, unmount it, then dd the whole disk, and pipe it to gzip. Usual warnings about compressing anything that's a 'critical' archive presumably apply (I'm not sure how good gzip is at recovering from errors, but most compression schemes seem pretty bad) Sadly I'm drowning in raw disk backups here because software and/or OS media to allow "proper" backups for various systems has long gone :-( Incidentally, I've had some successes in the past in migrating 'alien' OS installs from failing drives to new ones via raw data copies; often the OS doesn't care if a raw backup is restored onto a larger disk - it'll just see lots of wasted space at the end of the drive. Some OSes will record drive geometry somewhere in their partition data structures though, and may rely on it at some stage, so: a) If the system's in a runnable state, search for any info you can find on the disk layout (gleaned from man pages for the format/partitioning programs, C header files etc.) and keep them in plain text outside of the raw drive backup. b) Make sure you have a note at least of the drive make / model, and preferably any info you can find on geometry, transfer times etc. ... that way if the drive does go bang you aren't left scratching around for an identical replacement. It's also useful knowing the partition format in case you might want to try mounting the filesystem(s) on a more modern system at some point (e.g. dd the raw partition out of the drive image and mount it as a filesystem using a loopback device under linux) > dd if=/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s2 Worth having conv=noerror,sync in there too, just in case the disk is getting a little tired. Actually, sometimes subsequent re-reads will be successful for bad blocks - I've hacked together scripts before that auto-retry failed blocks several times just to see if the source drive can eventually be coaxed into supplying data. Oh, some systems store data on disk in byte-swapped order (my NCR tower's one). Not relevant for a raw backup / restore, but it's just a gotcha to look out for if you want to try interpreting data on a modern system (or even just browsing in a hex / text editor) cheers Jules From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 20:59:26 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:59:26 -0900 Subject: Altair Basic Discussion and Calculator Forensics In-Reply-To: <000001c72fa0$ff7fb1e0$9b36a8c0@Phoenix55> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103151529.035400b8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103170913.015a9800@pop.1and1.com> At 04:38 PM 1/3/2007, you wrote: >At this point, I would just use the cassette version, unless I needed the >extra memory. I would be tempted to patch the ID text. I might change >"VERSION" to "VER PT " and "VER CT ". It's not original, but could avoid >confusion. Is it not possible that the only difference between the paper tape and cassette is the CSAVE and CLOAD commands? (as well as --KCACR-- in the opening text) I think we need a memory image of unloaded paper tape and unloaded cassette basic to compare. Hopefully it is "patched" in a way that makes few differences. Or maybe the commands were just activated... >Next, I would build a BASIC version timeline based on reading all issues of >Computer Notes in chronological order. That would be a good time to make >hardware timelines and copy info about software and hardware changes. > >Now you see why I collect the newest Altairs. I can assume I have the most >powerful debugged MITS products. I wasn't in a hurry for the 680 because I >always needed drives for development and business software. As a collector, >I appreciate the weight and size and the opportunity to learn the M6800 at >the bit and ASM level. > > >The KCACR doesn't seem very popular. > >I need a better timeline on the 680 and Pertec acquisition. After looking at >some issues of Computer Notes, I see that the 680 was around for awhile. >Pertec purchased a lot of problems when the bought MITS. They may have >killed the 680 just as the KCACR was finished. The documentation was not >updated and few people got new KCACR. Some 680 owners may be industrial and >not interested in cassettes. Much of my stuff and a lot from eBay auctions >came from Albuquerque after MITS closed. The component or product may not >have reached many MITS customers. > >The KCACR is popular with me. I have two and a new reason to use the 680. >I've avoided cassettes on the 8800. Now I have a smaller platform to use for >learning. The 680 may lack software, but BASIC makes it easier write more. >There are good books on the 6800 with small code examples. A 33K 680 with >BASIC and switches with lights could keep someone busy for awhile. > > >What could we do to determine if the basics are the same? This would tell >us the math function similarity... > >I think that is too much detail for now. I'd just use the newest version >that would fit in memory with my application. So far I only have two software applications for the 680. Even if they are the same except for two commands. ; ) > >I could run the forensics on the Altair32 emulator and on both versions of > >the 680 basic. If it matches up with any of the 8080 basics then we've > >found the "version" of 8080 basic used as a starting point. > >Interesting idea. I'd start with Reading Computer Notes. It would only prove anything if all the 8800 basics have different finger prints. The disk basics could have the same fingerprint and we wouldn't care about that, I think. This doesn't rule out bug fixes in all non math areas... >I hope you find someone with additional software. Did you find a KCACR >manual? I don't have one and haven't checked Steve's list. I will look at >pricelists and see what is listed for the 680. I'm sure I will. Steve has the manuals. I'm making a big list for him. : ) Grant From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 3 21:08:12 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 19:08:12 -0800 Subject: Missing Bit Redux In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A1@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A1@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <459BFF1C.19980.22A50F2@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2007 at 18:12, Billy Pettit wrote: > Yes, there still do softwware. But in the late 80's, they made complete > systems, designing all their own hardware. That's what I'm trying to find. Are you certain it was Rational? AFAIK, they've always been a Natick, Mass. languages outfit (they certainly were in 1987). Was that one of the buildings near San Tomas and Central expressways (Lawson Lane??) (it'd be Santa Clara, not San Jose, then). Dunno, you've got me stumped. I Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 21:29:41 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:29:41 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:41:36 -0800. <200701040141.l041fa72003944@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: In article <200701040141.l041fa72003944 at onyx.spiritone.com>, "Zane H. Healy" writes: > Mentioning the specific type of workstation and OS might allow some better > advice. ESV which runs RISC/os (MIPS version of some version of unix; SysV I think? Its weird, it has both SysV and BSD headers when you compile.) I may have OS distributions on QIC, now that I think of it. But at the time I was more giddy about getting the hardware to think about media for applications. I have a QIC for Mathematica. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 21:38:19 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:38:19 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:50:06 -0500. <459C5D4E.4050802@arachelian.com> Message-ID: In article <459C5D4E.4050802 at arachelian.com>, Ray Arachelian writes: > dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/junk bs=65536 > rm /mnt/junk > umount /mnt > dd if=/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s2 | bzip2 -9 >/somewhere-else/disk.dd.gz Nice! Presumably this can be done by taking the disk out of the existing system and attaching it to a SCSI bus on another system? Also, presumably I'd use the device name that is the "raw" disk device. Isn't that what unix typically called it? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 21:42:12 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:42:12 -0700 Subject: Missing Bit Redux In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:58:44 -0800. <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A0@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: In article <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A0 at wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com>, "Billy Pettit" writes: > Of course as soon as I clicked send, the name came to me - Rational > Systems. Anybody remember them or have any of their systems? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jan 3 21:48:49 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:48:49 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C7921.6060201@arachelian.com> Yup! Even nicer, if you have ssh setup (or rsh, yuck) you can actually dump it to another machine: dd if=/dev/whatever | bzip -9 | ssh otherhost "dd of=/bigdrive/mydisk.dd.bz2" I'm not sure that slice2 on a sun machine will include the boot sector, but it will include the partition table, so you'll want to get details for whatever system you're running. I'm not sure that you'll want to use the raw device name there however. Another choice would be ufsdump or whatever it's called on your system (possibly fsdump or just dump.) Richard wrote: > In article <459C5D4E.4050802 at arachelian.com>, > Ray Arachelian writes: > > >> dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/junk bs=65536 >> rm /mnt/junk >> umount /mnt >> dd if=/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s2 | bzip2 -9 >/somewhere-else/disk.dd.gz >> > > Nice! > > Presumably this can be done by taking the disk out of the existing > system and attaching it to a SCSI bus on another system? > > Also, presumably I'd use the device name that is the "raw" disk > device. Isn't that what unix typically called it? > From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 21:58:21 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:58:21 -0700 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion Message-ID: Does anyone have a machine with an Clipper RISC cpu in it? Wikipedia says that only two companies ever used the Clipper (from Fairchild) were Intergraph and High Level Hardware. HLH I never heard of before; Intergraph I know of because they're big in CAD and GIS markets. Ah, WikiP says that HLF was UK firm that made the Orion. Anyone got one? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 3 22:03:15 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:03:15 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:48:49 -0500. <459C7921.6060201@arachelian.com> Message-ID: In article <459C7921.6060201 at arachelian.com>, Ray Arachelian writes: > Another choice would be ufsdump or whatever it's called on your system > (possibly fsdump or just dump.) fsdump rings a bell. However, one of the systems currently has a dead power supply, I think. The other system has been in a garage environment for probably 5 years? or more, I'd have to ask the until- recently owner. What I was thinking was this: take these drives out of these systems and attach them to something unixy with a SCSI interface and dump the stuff over the network onto something I can use to write it on DVD-R. That would at least get me a backup I can use now or in a few years or whenever I get around to doing due diligence on bringing these machines back to life. I should also do this on the SGIs, but at the moment I'm more concerned about the ESVs because of the lack of OS media. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jan 3 22:26:56 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:26:56 -0800 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103135435.034d1bc8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: >From: Grant Stockly ---snip--- > >One of our customers did some contract work for an electronics company >once. They erased a few thousand EPROMs with their x-ray source. It was >much faster and cheaper than UV I guess. I don't know any of the details >though... > > Hi One might use this method on the OTP PROMs. Most of these were just EPROM's without windows. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Communicate instantly! Use your Hotmail address to sign into Windows Live Messenger now. http://get.live.com/messenger/overview From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jan 3 22:38:51 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:38:51 -0800 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103111648.03480e08@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: >From: Grant Stockly ---snip--- > >Electronics don't care if there are x-rays present when they are on any >more than when they are off. They die at the same rate. : ) > >Grant > Hi That is not totally true. Semiconductors do care. When x-rays go through a simiconductor, it creates electron/hole pairs. With no bias on these, they usually just recombine. With bias, these become current flow. To add to insult, this current can be amplified by parasitic transistors as exist in CMOS devices. This can lead to a high current run away. Snap, the magic smoke leaks out and that is the end. Now, the question is, does an airport x-ray machine create enough of this kind of current to cause damage to a biased device? Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Find sales, coupons, and free shipping, all in one place! ?MSN Shopping Sales & Deals http://shopping.msn.com/content/shp/?ctid=198,ptnrid=176,ptnrdata=200639 From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 23:25:00 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:25:00 -0900 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103111648.03480e08@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103201832.03585d70@pop.1and1.com> >That is not totally true. Semiconductors do care. When x-rays go through >a simiconductor, it creates electron/hole pairs. With no bias on these, they >usually just recombine. With bias, these become current flow. To add to >insult, this current can be amplified by parasitic transistors as exist in >CMOS >devices. This can lead to a high current run away. >Snap, the magic smoke leaks out and that is the end. >Now, the question is, does an airport x-ray machine create enough of this >kind of current to cause damage to a biased device? >Dwight Hmmm...Do you know what percentage recombine? This could explain reports of 50k rad on a device turned off and 11k rad on a device turned on. Airport machines are puny. 120-160kv and a few ma. I think you would need a TON of x-rays to actually damage a device. CCD cameras show bright dot flashes where x-rays hit the active area, but its nothing that "hurts" them quickly. It looks like snow, or the star travel type screen savers. The only electronic device ever to fail from x-rays in my experience has been those basic stamps. AVRs have held up to limited exposure to a linear accelerator and the basic stamp died after hardly anything. From rickb at bensene.com Wed Jan 3 23:31:19 2007 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 21:31:19 -0800 Subject: Wire Rope ROMs (Was: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available) Message-ID: Brent Hilpert wrote: > > .... I'm familiar with > core-rope ROM (or at least one version of it) from attempting > to make a reader to dump the contents of a Wang calc > microcode ROM, but the AGC version sounds like the > address-decoding/word-selection is done differently (..need a > diagram). Speaking of Wang Calculator ROM's, I've recently built a fixture that I'm successfully able to read Wang 700-series ROMs with. It's unfortunately a non-automatic system...toggle switches and TIL-311 HEX displays (can automate it later), and am in the (slow) process of dumping a known good Wang 720C ROM. The ROM strobe signal timing is very tight on the 700-series ROM...off even a little bit on the timing (pulse width), and the readout gets real inconsistent. Also trying to write a microcode execution engine in Perl to run the code, but there are lots of interesting timing considerations that require deep digging into the schematics (which is something that I have little patience for...basically, I'm not very good at it) in terms of the timing of all of the register transfers in the machine. On the surface, it looks simple, just a basic 10-phase non-overlapping clock (shift register), but there's a lot of combinatorial logic that derives a lot of weird timing from the basic clock phases. So far, my attempts to execute the code I've extracted so far lead to execution of illegal instructions (all zero ROM locations), or infinte loops, and the code execution doesn't seem to make much sense. There are also some microcode instructions that aren't documented, and having to dig through schematics to figure out what they do. Wang is also famous for purposefully putting errors into published schematics to throw off competitors who would use such schematics to reverse-engineer how the machines work. So, some of my problem could be that the schematics are not necessarily an accurate representation of the actual logic. Still some tinkering to do. Still, I'm very sure that the fixture to read the ROMs is working perfectly. All ROM locations return consistent results, and other than the emulator running into all zero ROM content (there are quite a few "unused" locations in the ROM), all of the instructions decoded thus far are "valid" in terms of the allowed values of the various microcode fields. The Wang 700, 500, and 600-series machines all used this style of ROM, so, in theory, the reader (other than hardware pinout variations and subtle microcode field diffrences) should be able to be tweeked to read the 500 or 600-series ROMs without too much work. The main goal of this is to be able to capture the microcode images for as many of the Wang calculators that use this type of ROM as possible, as this technology is really unweildly to troubleshoot and repair (and I have some ROMs that are known bad that I want to try to be able to fix), and also because the genius of Harold Koplow (now deceased) is buried in that microcode. I want to preserve as much of it as I can (and maybe figure out how he made these machines do what they do) as a legacy to him. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Web Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jan 4 00:13:53 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:13:53 -0800 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103201832.03585d70@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: >From: Grant Stockly ---snip--- > >The only electronic device ever to fail from x-rays in my experience has >been those basic stamps. AVRs have held up to limited exposure to a linear >accelerator and the basic stamp died after hardly anything. > > I guess that a basic stamp wouldn't be a good device to use in a space station. I wonder what fails? Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Communicate instantly! Use your Hotmail address to sign into Windows Live Messenger now. http://get.live.com/messenger/overview From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 4 00:15:11 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:15:11 -0700 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics (was: Wire Rope ROMs (Was: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available)) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:31:19 -0800. Message-ID: In article , "Rick Bensene" writes: > [...] Wang is also > famous for purposefully putting errors into published schematics to > throw off competitors who would use such schematics to reverse-engineer > how the machines work. [...] Wow, I'd never heard that story before. Interesting! How many other companies did this back when schematics were pretty much leaving the machine laying naked in front of you? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jan 4 00:16:21 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:16:21 -0700 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459C9BB5.4000700@jetnet.ab.ca> dwight elvey wrote: >> The only electronic device ever to fail from x-rays in my experience >> has been those basic stamps. AVRs have held up to limited exposure to >> a linear accelerator and the basic stamp died after hardly anything. > > I guess that a basic stamp wouldn't be a good device to use > in a space station. I wonder what fails? EEPROM style programing for the PROM section? > Dwight > From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jan 4 00:39:59 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 01:39:59 -0500 Subject: Missing Bits Message-ID: <01C72FA1.5591B100@MSE_D03> Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:48:11 -0800 From: "Billy Pettit" Subject: Missing Bits -------------Original Message: Recently, I've been trying to write up some of those experiences and found that I have almost nothing on a lot of the companies. And one that is driving me crazy, a company that supplied Ada systems to the military. Was first based in Mt. View, then moved to San Jose into one of the old Amdahl buildings. I can visualize the people and systems but can't remember the name. Getting old sucks. I'd love to hear about anyone's experience with any of these companies and especially if any documents or hardware survived. And I'm especially interested in ARIX. It was a very unusual company, and obliquely mentioned in the 6 part TV series on Silicon Valley. Billy -----------Reply: I worked with an Arix system years ago, and I think at least one person up here in Ontario has one; I sent him whatever Arix documentation I had left a while ago. Dave Dunfield might know better if they're still around and who has them now. mike From grant at stockly.com Thu Jan 4 00:50:56 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:50:56 -0900 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103201832.03585d70@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070103214831.03584868@pop.1and1.com> >I guess that a basic stamp wouldn't be a good device to use >in a space station. I wonder what fails? >Dwight Well, from what I remember there was a PIC microcontroller and a small EEPROM chip. I don't think it could have been the PIC because those hold right next to the AVR I mentioned. It could have been something as simple as the voltage regulator. It would power up and only rarely work. Other times it would just spasm its outputs. This wasn't an isolated case. : ( I ended up doing my first AVR machine language program because of it. : ) From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 3 01:21:25 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 22:21:25 -0900 Subject: MITS Altair 680 KCACR Cassette BASIC Recovered Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070102221338.039f1928@pop.1and1.com> I thought I would post this for the search engines to latch a hold onto. I thought a second about posting a 20k e-mail, but the posts from the past hour FAR exceed that. ; ) If someone is interested in helping me "figure out" what is on the leader and footer of the tape, please request the original files. I have two. One 8bit ASCII and another forced to 7bit. This one attached has been forced to 7bit ASCII. Both files WILL load into the Altair without issue. It seems random which bytes had the 8th bit set and which didn't. Also, there is what appears to be garbage after the S0 record. I have no idea why. The tape has a bunch of 7Fs, then S0 and a bunch of garbage, and then 00s. At the end there is some garbage too. The KCACR ROM appears to ignore it. I've found this file reliably loads at 9600bps. It takes 21 seconds to load into a 680. The listing below is unmodified from an original Altair 680 tape. The garbage leader and footer have been removed. .J 0000 MEMORY SIZE? TERMINAL WIDTH? 80 WANT SIN-COS-TAN-ATN? YES 9604 BYTES FREE MITS ALTAIR 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 --KCACR-- COPYRIGHT 1976 BY MITS INC. 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S1131B500113BD04F286BD9704CE050EDF057E0396 S1131B604A57414E542053494E2D434F532D54410F S1131B704E2D4154CE000D0A0C5752495454454E33 S1131B80204259205249434841524420572E20575D S1131B9045494C414E44AE0D0A005445524D494E00 S1131BA0414C2057494454C80020425954455320BD S1131BB0465245C50D0A0D0A4D49545320414C5413 S1131BC0414952203638302042415349432056453A S1131BD05253494F4E20312E312052455620332E38 S1131BE0B20D0A2D2D4B434143522DAD0D0A434FE7 S1131BF050595249474854203139373620425920E8 S1131C004D49545320494E43AE0D0A004D454D4FA6 S10C1C1052592053495AC5000041 S10400F30008 S9 From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jan 3 02:34:50 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 08:34:50 +0000 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459B4AA3.DC016D9B@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca>, <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> <459A4101.5608.53C6A27@cclist.sydex.com> <459B3000.79C72EDC@cs.ubc.ca> <459B3394.6010202@jetnet.ab.ca> <459B4AA3.DC016D9B@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <459B6AAA.8000703@gjcp.net> Brent Hilpert wrote: > woodelf wrote: >> Brent Hilpert wrote: >> >>> And whats up with this mention of LCD displays? I didn't think there was >>> anything practical available that early, or that was going to stand up to the >>> rigours of space-flight - I have a calc with one of the first commercial LCDs >>> (1972) and it's still kind of rudimentary - slow, poor contrast, temperature sensitive... >> Doing a bit of googling on the AGC, I found that it uses electroluminescent displays. > > Yes, I'm finding those references as well. Although it seems quite early for > electroluminescent displays too, don't know of anything else that was using > them at that time, esp. in 7-seg form. I don't see why. I've seen early 1970s guitar amplifiers that use a large EL strip for the control panel backlight. It's not a huge stretch to imagine that NASA would make a display for a spaceship computer out of them a few years previously. Gordon From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Wed Jan 3 07:14:37 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 08:14:37 -0500 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available Message-ID: <0JBA00HYKNADJ8OD@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available > From: Brent Hilpert > Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:24:39 -0800 > To: General at priv-edtnaa05.telusplanet.net, > "Discussion at priv-edtnaa05.telusplanet.net":On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> >> I stumbled on this document: >> >> http://klabs.org/mapld04/papers/g/g233_alonso_p.doc >> >> while wondering about AC transformer-coupled logic and discovered >> that the original idea for the Apollo guidance computer was to use AC- >> coupled (core-transistor) logic. >> >> How's that for tying two threads together? :) > >Now that was a fun read. I'm still trying to understand his description of >the core rope ROM though. I'm familiar with core-rope ROM (or at least one >version of it) from attempting to make a reader to dump the contents of a Wang >calc microcode ROM, but the AGC version sounds like the >address-decoding/word-selection is done differently (..need a diagram). cant help on core rope. >And whats up with this mention of LCD displays? I didn't think there was >anything practical available that early, or that was going to stand up to the >rigours of space-flight - I have a calc with one of the first commercial LCDs >(1972) and it's still kind of rudimentary - slow, poor contrast, temperature sensitive... My memory of LCDs is they were way too late for the AGC and the basic AGC design used either LEDs or Lamps in a 7 segment format. >(And it confirmed that the AGC was constructed from a single gate/IC type.) That statement I believe is in error. While the logic used was RTL and a single family type the logic elements for that family by the mid 60s were more diverse than just a two input NOR. My junkbox contains parts from the era and includes JK-FF, three input nor, inverter buffers, and three wide NOR parts. It is true that the 2input NOR is the fundamental RTL logic building block there was nothing to limit it to 2,3 or 4 inputs for the die size of the time other than the hermetic flat packs of the day were typically 8/10/12 pins. Examples of mid 60s RTL. ul900 buffer inverter uL914 dual two input nor uL923 jk-ff uL925 dual 2 input nor gate expander (914 withput collector resistor). These were widely available and purchaseable by hobbists in 1967 at reasonable prices, typically under $2.00US. Most ham/electronics magazines had DMM and frequency counter projects using these parts by or during 1968. History of transistor computers by that time frame had already proven that a minimal set of logic blocks made general computer design easier. The TX1 and TX2 could stand as foundation machines on that basis alone. Those bocks were an inverter(buffer), NOR or NAND, and a register (FF). Any more specialized parts were likely used for core or other very limited use parts of a computer. RTL is old, some of the peices I have are now reaching 40! Allison From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Wed Jan 3 12:15:11 2007 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 12:15:11 -0600 Subject: Anyone else here do AS/400? Message-ID: I'm not entirely sure if this is off topic yet(hence why I put it on cctalk), but I know on a hobbyist level it's fairly rare. On Saturday I'll be picking up an AS/400 model 9406-600 originally purchased September 1997 with all the software and docs, licences etc that were ever used with the machine, from the original owner. I've contacted IBM and arranged license transfer (there was thankfully no charge) Does anyone else here deal with AS/400, or have a lingering interest in it? Secondly, I'm thinking of connecting a classic IBM terminal to it such as a 5251 S/34 term instead of the one that comes with it (something fairly modern, not sure of the model yet) I am curious; are any limitations on what I can connect, or are all twinax terminals pretty equal from a connectivity standpoint? From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jan 3 15:26:18 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:26:18 +0000 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> References: <459C15A8.4050006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <459C1F7A.4000201@gjcp.net> Jules Richardson wrote: > operational noise level My PDP-11 is quieter than my PC, unless I fire up the RL02s... Gordon From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jan 3 15:29:10 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:29:10 +0000 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge In-Reply-To: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <459C2026.7020908@gjcp.net> Evan Koblentz wrote: > My objection isn't to the actual word "Jew" but to your casual use of it to > replace "You" for no good reason. Aw, grow up. I've got to put up with my faith having the piss taken out of it, what makes the Jews special? Gordon From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jan 3 15:34:25 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:34:25 +0000 Subject: [OT] Network question In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070103075043.07f6f610@mail> References: <4598F205.7933.1FE144@cclist.sydex.com> <459AC6F3.2060601@gjcp.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20070103075043.07f6f610@mail> Message-ID: <459C2161.5030301@gjcp.net> John Foust wrote: > At 02:56 PM 1/2/2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> The maddening thing is that there's a local wireless net provider here with excellent pricing. I can see their transmitter tower two hills over from my window, but they nothing pointing in my direction nor do they plan to. And cable doesn't exist out here in the boonies. >> Rent a spot on the tower, and provide your own feed. How far a path is it? A couple of Orthogon Geminis will give you near-LOS connections up to around 20Mbps, for somewhere in the region of $6000. > > And far cheaper WiFi equipment could match the speed of the residential Internet > connection you'd likely want to pay for. (Maybe $600 total: two each of Senao > bridges, 29 dB mesh antenna, cables would reach 4-5 miles.) The easiest and > cheapest route is to ask the ISP how many subscribers they'd need to have in > your direction before they'd consider adding more equipment. Then go find > those customers for them. That's ok with one or two computers hanging off them. As soon as the connection get anything like busy they will have problems. Consumer kit just isn't designed for that kind of thing. Gordon From W.F.J.Mueller at gsi.de Wed Jan 3 12:18:22 2007 From: W.F.J.Mueller at gsi.de (Walter F.J. Mueller) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 19:18:22 +0100 Subject: 2.11BSD Patch 445; FPSIM fixed; 211bsd runs on systems without FPP Message-ID: <459BF36E.5040100@gsi.de> A note to all 2.11bsd users: Some time ago I looked into running 2.11bsd on systems without floating point unit. The release notes state that this is untested and unsupported, and indeed it didn't work. Robin Birch some time ago fixed part of the issues, see patch 434, but still the kernel paniced when the very first program was started. I managed to localize and fix the problem in sys/pdp/mch_fpsim.s. Steven Schultz right away issued 2.11BSD patch #445. All patches up to and including 445 are provided by Steven under ftp://sg-1.ims.ideas.gd-ais.com/pub/2.11BSD A patch level 445 system will now boot on simh for example on a set cpu 11/70 nofpp 4m configuration and work just fine, albeit a little slower. It should thus also work on a real 11/70 without FPP. I heard of some 11/70 with non-working FPP's, so this maybe good news for the owners. With best regards, Walter Mueller -- Dr. Walter F.J. M?ller Mail: W.F.J.Mueller at gsi.de GSI, Abteilung KP3 Phone: +49-6159-71-2766 D-64291 Darmstadt FAX: +49-6159-71-3762 URL: http://www-linux.gsi.de/~mueller/ From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jan 3 15:21:45 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:21:45 +0000 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <200701032117.l03LHXsj027113@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701032117.l03LHXsj027113@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <459C1E69.4000906@gjcp.net> Brad Parker wrote: > "Joachim Thiemann" wrote: >> Actually, I've been wondering: What is the effect of x-rays on EPROMS? > > I was always told it could flip bits. But that was older UV erasable > types. I'd would be interested to know if that is really true... > > (I'm having a flash back to wrapping eproms in tin-foil when flying > prototype game carts and coin-op games out to the west coast. probably > just paranoid, but we did that) > > now days I just wear the tin-foil as a hat :-) > > -brad > A friend of mine brought a Spectrum back from Saudi Arabia when they were still very very new. It didn't survive the trip. I often wondered if airport X-rays had toasted the already-fragile ULA. Gordon From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 4 02:02:17 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:02:17 -0800 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage References: <200701032147.l03Ll0bO030875@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <459CB481.74971FE1@cs.ubc.ca> David Griffith wrote: > > On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > > > number of times system has inflicted injuries on the owner > > > > > > That seems reasonable - I'm sure we all agree every QBUS enclosure > > > ever produced is on topic :-) :-) > > > > I don't believe I've ever been injured by a Q-Bus enclosure. You just need > > to be careful! :^) I can't remember loosing any skin, even on a BA23. > > Granted most of the time I've used a BA123. > > I've never used such a thing, but I have gashed my hand on the corner of a > disused one. I was never fond of the physical construction of DEC machines, things like heavy gauge stamped metal with no cleanup of the sheared edges. Can't say I was ever injured by it but I always approached it with a wary eye when working inside the cabinets. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 4 02:02:56 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:02:56 -0800 Subject: IBM 5100/5110 ROS (ROM) images? References: <200701032347.l03Nl5ZR028209@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: <459CB4A7.F9E01685@cs.ubc.ca> Dave Dunfield wrote: > > > Has anyone extracted images of the Read Only Storage > > for the IBM 5100/5100 desktop computers? I haven't > > seen any mention of it anywhere, nor any simulators. > > Has anyone worked on this? Seems like it should be doable > > and worthwhile. Though, it might be necessary to build > > hardware to read out the ROS contents -- I don't think the > > 5100 provides programmatic access to the PALM object code for > > the 360 and S/3 emulators, just the BASIC and APL code. > > Does that sound right? > > I'd be VERY interested if some progress can be made on this. > > I have a (BASIC only) 5100 that has a failure of the non-executable > ROS ... > > So far I've not been able to dig up any significant technical information, > and images of the ROS do not appear to exist.... > Just curious, what technology is the ROS? - mask ROM, fuse PROM, EPROM, something else? .. wondering which it is that's failing. From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jan 4 02:15:45 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 03:15:45 -0500 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459CB7B1.4090701@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > In article <459C337F.1090406 at gmail.com>, > Sridhar Ayengar writes: > >> I already mentioned the Alpha 21064, but I believe the MIPS R4000 was >> even earlier. > > MIPS R3000 was used in the ESV in 1989. I think the R4000 came out in > 1990/1991? Sounds right. The R3K wasn't 64-bit in the slightest, though. Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 4 02:21:11 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:21:11 -0800 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <0JBA00HYKNADJ8OD@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JBA00HYKNADJ8OD@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <459C4877.31158.348D919@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2007 at 8:14, Allison wrote: > >(And it confirmed that the AGC was constructed from a single gate/IC type.) > > That statement I believe is in error. While the logic used was RTL and a > single family type the logic elements for that family by the mid 60s were > more diverse than just a two input NOR. If you read the AGC construction documents carefully, the RTL element used was a dual 3-input NOR. Now, I don't expect that this was used to the exclusion of all other active discretes, just that the circuit mentioned was probably the only digital IC type used. In 1968 I was already building circuits using reject 923 flatpacks to build my registers. No one told me how to deal with them physically, so I simply etched a single-sided PCB with solderable pads on each one and wired the pads to one another using (gasp) #26 enameled magnet wire. It worked well enough to satisfy my curiosity. But no matter what was available, the AGC had to be constructed of something that could be qualified for service--and using a single logic type undoubtedly simplified the process by limiting the active logic elements to a single known type. What really impressed my about the AGC design was the the thought that went into the modulatrity of the logic blocks--and that the whole thing took up only 2 cubic feet. Cheers, Chuck From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jan 4 03:49:46 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 06:49:46 -0300 Subject: Anyone else here do AS/400? References: Message-ID: <00e601c72fe5$e8644490$f0fea8c0@alpha> >> Does anyone else here deal with AS/400, or have a lingering interest in >> it? I'd love to have one, but who said these beasties are possible to be found in Brazil?! :P From wizard at voyager.net Thu Jan 4 02:58:15 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 03:58:15 -0500 Subject: Missing Bit Redux In-Reply-To: <459BFF1C.19980.22A50F2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A1@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> <459BFF1C.19980.22A50F2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1167901095.23907.45.camel@linux.site> On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 19:08 -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3 Jan 2007 at 18:12, Billy Pettit wrote: > > > > Yes, there still do softwware. But in the late 80's, they made complete > > systems, designing all their own hardware. That's what I'm trying to find. > > Are you certain it was Rational? AFAIK, they've always been a > Natick, Mass. languages outfit (they certainly were in 1987). Was > that one of the buildings near San Tomas and Central expressways > (Lawson Lane??) (it'd be Santa Clara, not San Jose, then). > > Dunno, you've got me stumped. I The company I thought of, FWIW, was Savi Technology, Inc. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 4 03:29:50 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 01:29:50 -0800 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available References: <0JBA00HYKNADJ8OD@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <459CC905.13CD6ADF@cs.ubc.ca> Allison wrote: > > Brent Hilpert > > > >Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> I stumbled on this document: > >> http://klabs.org/mapld04/papers/g/g233_alonso_p.doc > > >And whats up with this mention of LCD displays? I didn't think there was > >anything practical available that early, or that was going to stand up to the > >rigours of space-flight - I have a calc with one of the first commercial LCDs > >(1972) and it's still kind of rudimentary - slow, poor contrast, temperature sensitive... > > My memory of LCDs is they were way too late for the AGC and the basic > AGC design used either LEDs or Lamps in a 7 segment format. Apparently it was electro-luminescent, see other messages (too early for LED displays, too). > >(And it confirmed that the AGC was constructed from a single gate/IC type.) > > That statement I believe is in error. While the logic used was RTL and a > single family type the logic elements for that family by the mid 60s were > more diverse than just a two input NOR. My junkbox contains parts from There are now two, perhaps three, sources from the period that indicate it was a single gate/IC type: a dual 3-input NOR in 10-pin flat-pak. Read the document Chuck ref'ed above (although there do seem to be some mis-rememberings in there such as LCD instead of EL displays). I'm well aware of the state of RTL/IC development at the time, but high-reliabiliy design doesn't necessarily correlate with whats current in the rest of the industry. Keep in mind the design started years before 1967/8. The IC spec sheets are dated 1965. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 4 03:41:42 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 01:41:42 -0800 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459A1689.7F1F9D3F@cs.ubc.ca>, <459A3531.2003.50E43C8@cclist.sydex.com> <459A4101.5608.53C6A27@cclist.sydex.com> <459B3000.79C72EDC@cs.ubc.ca> <459B3394.6010202@jetnet.ab.ca> <459B4AA3.DC016D9B@cs.ubc.ca> <459B6AAA.8000703@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <459CCBCE.2D86801D@cs.ubc.ca> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > woodelf wrote: > >> Brent Hilpert wrote: > >> > >>> And whats up with this mention of LCD displays? I didn't think there was > >>> anything practical available that early, or that was going to stand up to the > >>> rigours of space-flight - I have a calc with one of the first commercial LCDs > >>> (1972) and it's still kind of rudimentary - slow, poor contrast, temperature sensitive... > >> Doing a bit of googling on the AGC, I found that it uses electroluminescent displays. > > > > Yes, I'm finding those references as well. Although it seems quite early for > > electroluminescent displays too, don't know of anything else that was using > > them at that time, esp. in 7-seg form. > > I don't see why. I've seen early 1970s guitar amplifiers that use a > large EL strip for the control panel backlight. It's not a huge stretch > to imagine that NASA would make a display for a spaceship computer out > of them a few years previously. I'm not surprised that some basic use of the technology was around at the time, so no it's not a huge stretch in principle. However, for such an item as a numeric display I anticipated NASA would be going with something with a track record as opposed to a special development. I expect there are lot of little incandescent indicators in the capsule and standardising on one bulb type (hence one set of spares) would have benefits. Plus, while EL may have the benefit of low power consumption, it does require a special power supply and driver requirements. One of the AGC writeups indicates they got around the latter by using relays (later SCRs, I think it said) to drive the segments. I guess they felt that the basic EL principle was reliable enough that they were comfortable developing with it. Or perhaps those displays were a very high-end (military) thing and I just don't/didn't get to see equipment that may have used it. I do have one multi-digit (what I believe to be) EL display from 1973 (not Gas-Discharge, not VF, not LCD, not LED), sans equipment. Have to try lighting it up someday. From trag at io.com Thu Jan 4 04:02:11 2007 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 04:02:11 -0600 Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage In-Reply-To: <200701040839.l048dcV3032980@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701040839.l048dcV3032980@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2007 16:00:41 -0600 >From: Mark Tapley > Last OS *my* 68000 Mac Plus has run is MacOS 7.1. MacTracker >claims 7.5.5, I can't dispute that as I haven't tried it but I expect >it might not do much good (no RAM left for applications). Same is >claimed for the Mac SE and Classic and PowerBook 100. MacTracker >doesn't report the Outbounds (Jeff?) but since (I think) they used >motherboards from the above systems, The Outbounds used motherboards designed and built by Outbound but with Apple ROMs installed which were scavenged from Apple Macs. I can't speak to the Notebook series but the Laptop (a much cooler machine, IMHO) will not run past Mac OS 7.0.1. However, this is a limitation in Outbound support. In order to use the Outbound Laptop Model 125 one needed to run a system installer application from Outbound after installing the stock Apple System. The Outbound installer definitely puts some code on EEPROMs living in the Outbound Laptop. It may also do some modifications to the System file, but I'm not sure about the latter. It also installs some custom Outbound inits (control panels and extensions, now days), for things such as power management and the trackbar control. Outbound went under before or pretty simultaneous with Apple releasing 7.1 so the Outbound installer was never modified to support 7.1. The required modification could be very simple from a programmer's point of view but I've never been willing to invest the time to figure it out. I'd have to develop the skills to interpret 68000 machine code in the Mac OS environment and for the Mac Plus-ish hardware and figure out what's going on and that seems like a daunting task when there are so many hardware projects around. Still, if there are any 68000 savvy programmers out there interested in taking a hack at it, it would be cool to get the Outbound Laptop past OS 7.0.1. The jump to 7.1 would be very nice. Additionally, the Outbound Laptop is an interesting beast in that it uses 2.5" IDE hard drives. This is the first Macintosh to use an IDE device by many many years. I don't think any Apple Mac used them until the Quadra 630 and its performa and LC cousins. Anyway, the Laptop only supports up to an 80 MB drive. I suspect that it just has parameters for four drives stored in the installer (20, 40, 60 & 80) but I don't know for certain. It would also be very nice to hack the thing to support larger hard drives. Have you tried to find 80 *MB* hard drives these days? Of course you have; this is the CC list. It's a pain. I had a line on a place in Florida with fifty or so in stock for about $40 each but didn't have the money at the time and now they're gone who knows where. Sigh. Anybody have the modified Macsbug application? The Outbound Laptop required a patched version of Macsbug. Also, the Outbound Laptop was meant to dock with it's host computer (the desktop from which the ROMs were taken). There was a card that installed in the host and provided teh connection to the Outbound. I've never managed to find one of these cards. I envision Pluses and SEs going to scrap or being sold without the owners ever realizing this very rare card is installed. Scrap is especially likely because a Mac with the docking card installed won't boot up unless the Laptop is docked (ROMs required). So the host machine would appear "broken". Jeff Walther From jvdg at sparcpark.net Thu Jan 4 04:23:04 2007 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (jvdg at sparcpark.net) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 11:23:04 +0100 Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage Message-ID: Jeff Walther wrote: >> Last OS *my* 68000 Mac Plus has run is MacOS 7.1. MacTracker >> claims 7.5.5, I can't dispute that as I haven't tried it but I expect >> it might not do much good (no RAM left for applications). Same is >> claimed for the Mac SE and Classic and PowerBook 100. MacTracker >> doesn't report the Outbounds (Jeff?) but since (I think) they used >> motherboards from the above systems, > > The Outbounds used motherboards designed and built by Outbound but > with Apple ROMs installed which were scavenged from Apple Macs. > > I can't speak to the Notebook series but the Laptop (a much cooler > machine, IMHO) will not run past Mac OS 7.0.1. However, this is a > limitation in Outbound support. Mac OS 7.5.5 runs on any Mac except the 128K, the 512K and any Mac released after 7.5.5 was current. I have run it on a 2 MB PowerBook 100, and found it performs surprisingly well. More RAM is recommended, though, I wouldn't have put up with it for daily use on a machine with less than 4 MB RAM. However, I always felt that System 7.1 is a better choice for machines that support it than 7.5. After all, 7.5 is basically 7.1 with a bunch of shareware goodies thrown in. ,xtG tsooJ From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jan 4 05:08:06 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:08:06 +0000 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> <459C337F.1090406@gmail.com> <459C4492.3050309@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <459CE016.9060800@dunnington.plus.com> Peter C. Wallace wrote: > On Thu, 4 Jan 2007, Pete Turnbull wrote: >> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> Eric J Korpela wrote: >>>> Has any 64-bit microprocessor been >>>> declared officially vintage yet? >>> >>> I already mentioned the Alpha 21064, but I believe the MIPS R4000 was >>> even earlier. >> >> R4000 is only 32-bit, though. > > No, The R4000 is 64 bits and probably the first 64 bit Microprocessor... Actually, now that I think about it, that's true -- partly. It just didn't work properly in 64-bit mode, and so all the systems it was ever used in (SGI Crimson and Indigo, mainly) are 32-bit systems and the CPU is fixed in 32-bit mode, with 32-bit registers and a 32-bit bus. The R4400 and R4600 were fixed, but the only R4400 system I know of that was 64-bit capable was the top end SGI Challenge, and I don't know if it was ever supported in that mode (the R8000 Challenge and Onyx systems were the first ones with 64-bit support). I don't know of any R4600 64-bit systems, and the later R4xxx devices are mostly 32-bit chips anyway (like R4300). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From bear at typewritten.org Thu Jan 4 05:11:37 2007 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 03:11:37 -0800 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 3, 2007, at 1:18 PM, Richard wrote: > I didn't look at that link, but a search of IEC C20 yielded a picture > that looked exactly like what I see on the unit. > > Any other Onyx owners on the list? Yes. I have a deskside RE2, and a rackmount dual-pipe IR. The plug on the deskside is an IEC C20. ok bear From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jan 4 05:15:17 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:15:17 +0000 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459CE1C5.5010400@dunnington.plus.com> Richard wrote: > Does anyone have a machine with an Clipper RISC cpu in it? > > Wikipedia says that > only two companies ever used the Clipper (from Fairchild) were Intergraph > and High Level Hardware. HLH I never heard of before; Intergraph I > know of because they're big in CAD and GIS markets. Ah, WikiP says > that HLF was UK firm that made the Orion. Anyone got one? If you follow the HLH link in the article you'll find York mentioned in the list of UK Universities that used Orions. There were two Orions in the Computer Science machine room when I went to York, and I know where both went -- to a collector just along the road from me. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 4 06:29:07 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 06:29:07 -0600 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459CF313.10304@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > Does anyone have a machine with an Clipper RISC cpu in it? > > Wikipedia says that > only two companies ever used the Clipper (from Fairchild) were Intergraph > and High Level Hardware. HLH I never heard of before; Intergraph I > know of because they're big in CAD and GIS markets. Ah, WikiP says > that HLF was UK firm that made the Orion. Anyone got one? HLH were based in Oxford. We were offered one of the earlier (non-Clipper) machines a while back but unfortunately I couldn't get anyone else at the museum interested. I was asking about these last year in uk.comp.vintage as I'd unearthed some info that said my own uni (UKC) used to have some - yet I didn't recall seeing them during my time there. Bit more info at: http://tinyurl.com/yyomlf Jim Austin still has one I believe, although when I spoke to him last year he wasn't sure about install media. The UKC (non-Clipper) ones ended their days as nothing more than tables for the Sun machines apparently, before they were eventually dumped (the one mentioned at the start of this message is one of these, and was rescued at the time by one of the sysadmins). Key word when talking to anyone about HLH stuff seems to be "unreliability", although they sounded like pretty good systems when they actually worked. cheers Jules -- there's a carp in the tub there's a carp in the tub so nobody's taken a bath From evan at snarc.net Thu Jan 4 08:04:00 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 9:04:00 -0500 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge Message-ID: <200701041404.l04E4WMe050695@keith.ezwind.net> I didn't say anything about being 'special' (although the answer is 'plenty'.) I will respond the same to such comments about ANY minority group. I choose fights with caution, but ignorance is the biggest problem facing the human species. From dave06a at dunfield.com Thu Jan 4 09:26:16 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 10:26:16 -0500 Subject: Missing Bits In-Reply-To: <01C72FA1.5591B100@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <200701041432.l04EW5FB026484@hosting.monisys.ca> > I worked with an Arix system years ago, and I think at least one person up > here in Ontario has one; I sent him whatever Arix documentation I had left a > while ago. > > Dave Dunfield might know better if they're still around and who has them now. Mike Kenzie here in Ottawa (an infrequent participant in this list) had an Arix, but I believe he has given it to someone in Kingston (Ontario). If he doesn't see this and respond within a few days, I'll contact him and find out where the material is currently located. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 4 08:38:22 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 08:38:22 -0600 Subject: Kosher stove and fridge References: <002d01c72f6c$0d575870$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <459C2026.7020908@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <00d401c7300d$fe8ab600$6500a8c0@BILLING> I suspect the original post was not intended to reference a religion, rather, a phonetic illustration. Kill this thread. Jay From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jan 4 08:49:54 2007 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 8:49:54 -0600 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics (was: Wire Rope ROMs (Was: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available)) Message-ID: <20070104144955.IEQQ20020.ibm56aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> > In article , > "Rick Bensene" writes: > > > [...] Wang is also > > famous for purposefully putting errors into published schematics to > > throw off competitors who would use such schematics to reverse-engineer > > how the machines work. [...] > > Wow, I'd never heard that story before. Interesting! > > How many other companies did this back when schematics were pretty > much leaving the machine laying naked in front of you? This is a very old practice. Some of Babbage's drawings had intentional errors. As I recall, he drew some parts in mirror image. The group that did the difference engine reconstruction in London ran into this. And the practice wasn't new when Babbage used it. BLS From dave06a at dunfield.com Thu Jan 4 10:00:10 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 11:00:10 -0500 Subject: MIL-MOD8 (8008) simulator and a few other goodies posted Message-ID: <200701041506.l04F63Xn001969@hosting.monisys.ca> Over the break I finally got around to writing a simulator for the Microsystems International Limited MOD-8 (Modular-8). It has been very educational and interesting, and the final result of being able to experience what is like to run a very early microprocessor (8008) based system from Canada has been well worth it. The simulator is available on my site in the MOD8 section (Under "Designed in Canada") - I have also included an 8008 assembler, and my retyped source code to the MOD-8's ROM monitor (Monitor-8). This is the first step in getting my MOD-8 system up and running. I have a complete chassis (MOD8-8), as well as unpopulated ROM (MOD8-4) and RAM (MOD8-5) cards. What I don't currently have is the CPU (MOD8-1), Restart/TTY I/O (MOD8-2) and Control Buffer (MOD8-3) cards. If anyone can help locate these cards, it would be greatly appreciated. I do have several vectorboards which match the MOD-8 card format, and I will eventually construct the boards that I am unable to locate, however I would like to restore the system to as nearly original as possible. I will also need to locate a few more 1702 EPROMs - I have 3-4 of them, but the system needs a minimum of 7 for the ROM monitor. Programming them will also be a challenge (even my trusty DIO 29B doesn't do 1702s and the requirement for -40v as logic-low makes for a more complex construction project than I would like considering I will probably never need it again) - but the MOD8 has a built in 1702 programmer - Currently, I am planning to make a ROM board with a 2716 on it once I have the rest of the system completed, and use it to program 1702s for the original ROM board - an interesting kind of hardware/software bootstrap. The MOD8 was also known as the "GNC8" (Great Northern Computers), and a later version used an 8080 processor (MOD80). Any other MOD8/GNC8/MOD80 owners or interested parties out there? ----- Other things posted to the site over the break: - Updated my paper tape tools with PTE, a Paper Tape (reader) Emulator - allows you to send the content of the paper tape images over a serial or parallel interface as if from a physical reader. - Updated the NST (North Star Transfer) utility in my Horizon package to include a "Clean Head" function - easier than using N*DOS "RD" command to sweep the head back and forth over a cleaning disk. - Added disk images to the archive for: NorthStar Advantage (thanks Joachim!) Coleco Adam Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From cc at corti-net.de Thu Jan 4 09:26:40 2007 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 16:26:40 +0100 (CET) Subject: IBM 5100/5110 ROS (ROM) images? In-Reply-To: <200701032347.l03Nl5ZR028209@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <200701032347.l03Nl5ZR028209@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Dave Dunfield wrote: >> Has anyone extracted images of the Read Only Storage >> for the IBM 5100/5100 desktop computers? I haven't I've extracted the first of the two Exec ROS', the one containing all the monitor and I/O routines. I'm in the progress of disassembling and commenting the code. I've also disassembled several IBM utility programs, e.g. TDTCOPY, DDCOPY, SIO8BIT, DIAG DCP and so on. This for example is the beginning of the Tape I/O supervisor routine: ; *************************** ; Device E (Tape) I/O Routine ; *************************** 7F00 216C MOVE R1, $D8 ; Vector table for I/O routines 7F02 A13B ADD R1, #$3C ; Vector to device F 7F04 D718 MOVE R7, (R1) 7F06 0F33 INC2 R15, R3 7F08 6EF0 MOVB R14, (R15)+ ; IOCB_Cmd 7F0A 6DF6 MOVB R13, (R15)--- ; IOCB_Flags 7F0C CE0B SNZ R14 7F0E A00B BRA $7F1C ; "Sense" command 7F10 8C30 LBI R12, #$30 7F12 8103 LBI R1, #$03 7F14 CE10 SLE R14, R1 ; Read or Write ? 7F16 A007 BRA $7F20 ; No 7F18 CDC6 SBC R13, R12 7F1A A02B BRA $7F48 ; Bit 2 or 3 set 7F1C 2807 MOVE R8, $0E ; R7L0, contains vector 7F1E 2056 JMP ($00AC) ; Do I/O and return to caller [...] >> seen any mention of it anywhere, nor any simulators. >> Has anyone worked on this? Seems like it should be doable >> and worthwhile. Though, it might be necessary to build >> hardware to read out the ROS contents -- I don't think the >> 5100 provides programmatic access to the PALM object code for >> the 360 and S/3 emulators, just the BASIC and APL code. >> Does that sound right? Yes. The 5110 can only access the following ROS': Common ROS BASIC ROS APL ROS and maybe Diskette Sort (haven't tried yet) These ROS' are accessed as an I/O device. You write two PUTB instructions to device 1, MSB of the ROS address first, then LSB. Then you can read the contents of this ROS with consecutive GETBs (the second GETB automatically increments the ROS address by 1; ROS address is given as word address!). I've read these ROS' from my 5110 model 1. The Executable ROS is only accessible by the processor during an instruction fetch cycle... and by the graphics adapter while -POR is active! BTW I haven't found any 360 / S/3 emulator yet. Both BASIC and APL ROS don't contain any code I recognize. > I'd be VERY interested if some progress can be made on this. Really? Until now nobody have had any interest in neither a Kermit for the 5110 nor an Infocom interpreter (both written in assembly). > I have a (BASIC only) 5100 that has a failure of the non-executable > ROS ... Of what non-executable ROS? There are several. Do you also have the Diskette Sort feature (additional ROS card)? > So far I've not been able to dig up any significant technical information, You haven't searched for that information, have you? Do you know my site? It's still not complete, though, as I'm learing more and more while disassembling programs and playing with different bits... Christian From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 4 09:54:31 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 07:54:31 -0800 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion Message-ID: <459D2337.70804@bitsavers.org> There were two Orions in the Computer Science machine room when I went to York, and I know where both went -- to a collector just along the road from me. -- Did either still have the original 2901 based processor? Apparently most HLH machines were upgraded to Clippers CPUs From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Thu Jan 4 09:59:51 2007 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 09:59:51 -0600 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics (was: Wire Rope ROMs (Was: backto the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available)) In-Reply-To: <20070104144955.IEQQ20020.ibm56aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> Message-ID: Leonardo DaVinci put errors in the drawings for his "tank." >From: "Brian L. Stuart" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >Subject: Re: Purposefully fudged schematics (was: Wire Rope ROMs (Was: >backto the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available)) >Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 8:49:54 -0600 > > > In article , > > "Rick Bensene" writes: > > > > > [...] Wang is also > > > famous for purposefully putting errors into published schematics to > > > throw off competitors who would use such schematics to >reverse-engineer > > > how the machines work. [...] > > > > Wow, I'd never heard that story before. Interesting! > > > > How many other companies did this back when schematics were pretty > > much leaving the machine laying naked in front of you? > >This is a very old practice. Some of Babbage's drawings had >intentional errors. As I recall, he drew some parts in mirror image. >The group that did the difference engine reconstruction in London >ran into this. And the practice wasn't new when Babbage used >it. > >BLS > > _________________________________________________________________ The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes is here. Get all the scoop. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/?icid=nctagline2 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jan 4 10:04:37 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 08:04:37 -0800 Subject: Parametron In-Reply-To: <459D2337.70804@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Hi Could someone please tell me how one uses a Parametron to make logic? Nothing that I see on the web actually explains the operation. All it says is that a 180 degree shift in phase could be treated as a 1 or a zero. There is something about a resonent core with non-linear action and a frequency dividing action. I'd like to see how one would make a parametron nand gate??? Thanks Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Dave vs. Carl: The Insignificant Championship Series. ?Who will win? http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://davevscarl.spaces.live.com/?icid=T001MSN38C07001 From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 4 10:26:30 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:26:30 -0600 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: <459D2337.70804@bitsavers.org> References: <459D2337.70804@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <459D2AB6.1000004@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: > > There were two Orions in > the Computer Science machine room when I went to York, and I know where > both went -- to a collector just along the road from me. > > -- > > Did either still have the original 2901 based processor? > Apparently most HLH machines were upgraded to Clippers CPUs Pete will hopefully know. I'm starting to wonder about Jim's pair now; the usenet posting I referred to earlier suggests they were Clippers, but I've just been scanning past emails from Jim and he refers to them as being microcoded. I haven't found the rest of the conversation yet, though, which might shed some more light on things. The ex-UKC one we were offered was definitely the earlier generation with 2900-series processor. OS install media is likely to be a big problem for any potential restore, and likely documentation too (I know Jim rescued what tapes he could, but when I last spoke to him he was unsure as to exactly what data he had and whether that included OS media for either or both generations). These machines are the only HLH survivors that I've come across (which of course doesn't mean to say that someone has one lurking in private hands!). The fate of the ex-UKC 2900-series one is unknown - it was rather in the way the last I heard as the owner was moving house and sounded reluctant about moving it. I could always get back in touch, though. Hopefully it didn't get abandoned; UK-designed UNIX systems are pretty thin on the ground (unreliable or not!). cheers Jules From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 4 10:42:53 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 08:42:53 -0800 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion Message-ID: <459D2E8D.7030308@bitsavers.org> OS install media is likely to be a big problem for any potential restore, and likely documentation too -- One of the folks involved with HLH lives in the Bay Area. I've been bugging him to donate the Orion material he has to CHM. From john at guntersville.net Thu Jan 4 10:44:51 2007 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:44:51 -0600 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion References: Message-ID: <459D2F03.D4C54EBA@guntersville.net> Richard wrote: > > Does anyone have a machine with an Clipper RISC cpu in it? > > Wikipedia says that > only two companies ever used the Clipper (from Fairchild) were Intergraph > and High Level Hardware. HLH I never heard of before; Intergraph I > know of because they're big in CAD and GIS markets. Ah, WikiP says > that HLF was UK firm that made the Orion. Anyone got one? > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! I have two Clipper based boxes, Intergraph Server 200 & Intergraph Server 2000, both of which seem to be pretty good hardware. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 4 11:34:11 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:34:11 -0700 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 04 Jan 2007 03:11:37 -0800. Message-ID: In article , "r.stricklin" writes: > On Jan 3, 2007, at 1:18 PM, Richard wrote: > > > Any other Onyx owners on the list? > > Yes. I have a deskside RE2, and a rackmount dual-pipe IR. Sweet, that makes three of us who have this configuration! Onyx RE2 Onyx IR I emailed the guy at Reputable Systems (he's in Colorado, just "next door" at 700miles away :). He wasn't interested in the Challenge/L that was down in Trinidad, CO. He says they routinely get auctioned off at UC Boulder for scrap prices. I am getting hints that the 3rd party market for SGI machines is drying up. That either means that these machines are about to become as scarce, are about to become available cheaply (because there's no 3rd party reseller market for them) or both. Even the sci-vis guys at the UofU no longer use SGI irion anymore -- just piles of linux boxes with fancy PC graphics cards. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 4 11:30:05 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:30:05 -0700 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:44:51 -0600. <459D2F03.D4C54EBA@guntersville.net> Message-ID: In article <459D2F03.D4C54EBA at guntersville.net>, "John C. Ellingboe" writes: > I have two Clipper based boxes, Intergraph Server 200 & > Intergraph Server 2000, both of which seem to be pretty good > hardware. Sweet! What year were they made? Are you running CLIX on them? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jan 4 11:48:22 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 09:48:22 -0800 Subject: Dealing with corrosion... Message-ID: <200701040948.22998.lbickley@bickleywest.com> A friend and business associate recently asked me about how I dealt with corrosion issues in vintage computer restorations. After I created this writeup for for him, I realized it may also prove helpful to someone on this list. Here 'tis: Very bad corrosion from alkaline battery spillage: ------------------------------------------------- Pour 30% Hydrochloric Acid directly on the affected area of the board. When the foaming (along with "clouds" of vapor) stop, immediately rinse the board in plenty of cold water. Follow with a rinsing of distilled water (to eliminate any calcium in the tap waster). Dry in the open air or with mild air pressure (I use the later to speed drying). When originally told of this process, I was skeptical (even though sourced from a professional in the board repair business). When I first tried it, I was amazed at the quantity of foaming (and clouds of vapor) from the acid treatment. But amazingly, just as he said, the acid is not on the board long enough to dissolve traces, components, etc. It works, just as he said it would! You can get 30% Hydrochloric Acid at most hardware stores. Its "common name" is "Muriatic Acid". (Wear latex gloves when handing and protective eye guards - and use outdoors or in a well ventilated area). Medium corrosion (from any source): ---------------------------------- Apply "DeoxIT D100L" sparingly to the affected area. Wait 20 minutes. Repeat if necessary. When the corrosion is completely removed, remove any excess "D100L". Apply "DeoxIT G100L" (formerly known as "ProGold") sparingly for long term protection. Light corrosion (from any source): --------------------------------- Apply "DeoxIT GL100L" sparingly. Notes: ----- "DeoxIT GL100L" - The military (and certain manufacturers) uses this "stuff" on edge connectors in sensitive system connectors to maintain excellent contact and easy removal/insertion w/o stressing boards and connectors. I've used it for years on the edge connectors of vintage computers (PDP-8, PDP-11, etc.) - and it is truly an amazing product. Works like perfection. The "DeoxIT" products seem expensive - but because you use the stuff "sparingly", a very small bottle lasts a long time. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From john at guntersville.net Thu Jan 4 11:56:28 2007 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:56:28 -0600 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion References: Message-ID: <459D3FCC.E1D7E1F3@guntersville.net> Richard wrote: > > In article <459D2F03.D4C54EBA at guntersville.net>, > "John C. Ellingboe" writes: > > > I have two Clipper based boxes, Intergraph Server 200 & > > Intergraph Server 2000, both of which seem to be pretty good > > hardware. > > Sweet! What year were they made? Are you running CLIX on them? I have no idea of the manufacture date of either machine. They do have a bit of age on them though. They both have CLIX installed. I haven't played with them in quite a while. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 4 12:00:45 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 10:00:45 -0800 Subject: MIL-MOD8 (8008) simulator and a few other goodies posted Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A2@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Dave Dunfield wrote: The MOD8 was also known as the "GNC8" (Great Northern Computers), and a later version used an 8080 processor (MOD80). Any other MOD8/GNC8/MOD80 owners or interested parties out there? Regards, Dave ---------------------- I had completely forgotten about the MOD-8. I lived in Mississauga 1972-76 working at Control Data. We had an after hours club and the MOD-8 was just coming out. So I know I have some of the documentation. The boards are another matter. One member bought the complete unit and we reverse engineered and made sets for our selves. So if I have anything left, it would be knock offs. And I think I traded them before I left Canada. Anyway, when I come across the documentation, I'll send it to Al and make it available to the list. I've got some 1702's around the house. How many do you need? Any preference on colour? White ceramic or the later black with the foggy window? Billy From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 4 12:03:38 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:03:38 -0600 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459D417A.4070409@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > In article , > "r.stricklin" writes: > >> On Jan 3, 2007, at 1:18 PM, Richard wrote: >> >>> Any other Onyx owners on the list? >> Yes. I have a deskside RE2, and a rackmount dual-pipe IR. > > Sweet, that makes three of us who have this configuration! Sigh, we got offered an Onyx dual-pipe IR a while back - 24 x R10k CPUs and 4GB of RAM on it plus Sirius video as I recall. Unfortunately I couldn't persuade anyone else at the museum that it'd be a fun machine to have :-( Real shame IMHO, as the higher-end SGI stuff was always *really* nice and we could have done some pretty awesome demo stuff with that box! cheers Jules From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 4 12:17:47 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:17:47 -0700 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:03:38 -0600. <459D417A.4070409@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: In article <459D417A.4070409 at yahoo.co.uk>, Jules Richardson writes: > Sigh, we got offered an Onyx dual-pipe IR a while back - 24 x R10k CPUs and > 4GB of RAM on it plus Sirius video as I recall. Unfortunately I couldn't > persuade anyone else at the museum that it'd be a fun machine to have :-( The Sirius Video breakout boxes seem to get separated from the interface cards. I see the breakout boxes offered alone on ebay, etc., and rarely see an Onyx being offered anywhere, not even on the 3rd party sites. You should have snarfed that one :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 4 12:29:56 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 13:29:56 -0500 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <6E0D8A2D-52E4-4946-BBE5-26758B9A2B34@neurotica.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.2.1.1.0.20070102222341.039353f8@pop.1and1.com> <459B9B41.30906@yahoo.co.uk> <5.2.1.1.0.20070103111648.03480e08@pop.1and1.com> <4affc5e0701031228s71546a0dp27634b59d1d3b052@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <33035a291939020d4b01a375d1827a3a@neurotica.com> On Jan 3, 2007, at 3:28 PM, Joachim Thiemann wrote: >> Electronics don't care if there are x-rays present when they are on >> any >> more than when they are off. They die at the same rate. : ) > > Actually, I've been wondering: What is the effect of x-rays on EPROMS? I believe very early EPROMs (1702s) listed x-ray exposure as a means of erasure. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Cape Coral, FL From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jan 4 12:43:12 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:43:12 -0500 Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 04 Jan 2007 04:02:11 CST." Message-ID: <200701041843.l04IhCwc017411@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jeff Walther wrote: > >Additionally, the Outbound Laptop is an interesting beast in that it >uses 2.5" IDE hard drives. This is the first Macintosh to use an >IDE device by many many years. I don't think any Apple Mac used >them until the Quadra 630 and its performa and LC cousins. Perhaps true, but there were macs with 3.5" st-506 drives long before that. -brad From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jan 4 12:49:07 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:49:07 -0700 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459D4C23.6080708@jetnet.ab.ca> Robert Feldman wrote: > Leonardo DaVinci put errors in the drawings for his "tank." > But then how many people have built it! Ornithopter's are a lot more fun. :) The unrealized dream of aviation -- man powered Ornithopter. http://web.kyoto-inet.or.jp/people/kazuho/index-e.htm ------ To get back on topic about babbage's drawings, from what I read it was mechnical design that could not be produced with 18th century mechanical enginering. From uban at ubanproductions.com Thu Jan 4 12:52:27 2007 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:52:27 -0600 Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage In-Reply-To: <200701041843.l04IhCwc017411@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701041843.l04IhCwc017411@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <459D4CEB.90303@ubanproductions.com> Brad Parker wrote: > Jeff Walther wrote: >> Additionally, the Outbound Laptop is an interesting beast in that it >> uses 2.5" IDE hard drives. This is the first Macintosh to use an >> IDE device by many many years. I don't think any Apple Mac used >> them until the Quadra 630 and its performa and LC cousins. > > Perhaps true, but there were macs with 3.5" st-506 drives long before > that. > The mac powerbook 150 used a 2.5" IDE drive. It was low cost 68030 machine, circa 1994. --tom From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jan 4 13:27:33 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 14:27:33 -0500 Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage In-Reply-To: <459D4CEB.90303@ubanproductions.com> References: <200701041843.l04IhCwc017411@mwave.heeltoe.com> <459D4CEB.90303@ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <459D5525.2050406@arachelian.com> Tom Uban wrote: > The mac powerbook 150 used a 2.5" IDE drive. It was low cost 68030 > machine, circa 1994. > Yeah, the 150 was one of the 1st to use IDE. The earlier ones used SCSI 2.5" drives from what I recall. I'm not certain which the first model was that used IDE. Very difficult to obtain these days. Very few machines used SCSI 2.5" drives, but of those I know that SPARCbooks did. There are a few SCSI to IDE bridges for low profile 2.5" drives that hook on to the IDE drives and have a SCSI interface. Those are lots of fun. :-) What I really miss is the Duo's and the DuoDock's. I wish modern notebooks supported something like that as cleanly. IMHO, that was a brilliant idea. I still have my Duo230 somewhere in a closet + the parts of the dock, but it's poor keyboard got sticky and no longer works. Was a nice little machine back in the day. From blstuart at bellsouth.net Thu Jan 4 13:34:02 2007 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 13:34:02 -0600 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics Message-ID: <20070104193402.RJRW20020.ibm56aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> > To get back on topic about babbage's drawings, > from what I read it was mechnical design that > could not be produced with 18th century mechanical > enginering. That's often been conjectured, but, as usual, reality is somewhat more complicated. Most other craftsmen probably couldn't have produced what he designed. Along the way, he invented new techniques of fabrication and management as well as computation. However, he probably could have built it. He did build a small version that operated as he intended. And part of the reason for the construction project at the Science Museum was to determine if the materials and tools of the time could have built the machine. In the end, much of the reason he never built a full version of his designs was that he was too much the stereotypical engineer. Almost nobody except Ada could get along with him and he made a number of enemies among those who would fund his work. The money situation led to a dispute with his primary craftsman who walked out with all the custom tools they had made. Then as he was considering his options, he realized that he could improve his design many fold and so dropped his efforts on the difference engine in favor of the analytical engine. Even with that machine, he kept stopping his efforts to realize it because he was sure that he could build his new design faster than he could finish the work he had started on the previous version. As I recall, there were over 40 different designs for the analytical engine by the time it was done, and he had never built a full version of any of them. After his death, his son did assemble a small version of one of the designs for the mill including some parts that Babbage had already fabricated before his death. There's no question Babbage was ahead of his time in many ways. But he was also understood the materials and tools well enough to design a machine that he felt confident he could actually build. BLS From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 4 13:32:18 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:32:18 -0600 Subject: OT: Missing quotes in message replies Message-ID: <459D5642.8050806@yahoo.co.uk> I'm seeing a few messages where the text being replied to isn't quoted (anything from Al and Billy Pettit it seems, but there have been one or two others) other than a separating line beneath old and new text, making it confusing at first glance (particularly where the actual line and reply might be off the bottom of the screen). Am I alone in this? I just wondered if it's something broken within my email client (Thunderbird) and it's stopped rendering what it thinks is quoted text properly for certain classes of messages. 99% of messages are fine though, and either get displayed with quote characters or displayed with a solid coloured line to the left of the quoted text. If it's just me I'll try and find the cause though; if it's not I'll just put up with it :-) cheers Jules From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 4 14:21:33 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:21:33 -0800 Subject: AC coupling / Solid-State / core logic Message-ID: <459D61CD.974DADA3@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck, found this tangentially while attempting to find more about the parametron, as per Dwight's message. The Elliot 803 used core logic with solid-state amplifiers. (Apparently core logic received more practical use than I thought, as well.) Some description: http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/andersod/CCS/ShowPage.php?Page=19 Another description with diagram: http://www.sli-institute.ac.uk/~bob/elliott803.htm While it is AC-coupled, perhaps it is not what you were looking for, though. The logic signal propagation still takes place in discrete, clocked, time steps as opposed to continuous wave propagation, if that is an adequate description of the distinction. From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Thu Jan 4 03:38:48 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 09:38:48 -0000 Subject: D-shell connector age? Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D393D37@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> I expect they use Scart as opposed to D type for the same reason they use phono and not 75 Ohm BNC and XLR. Its cheaper in mass produced consumer electronics. Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson Sent: 03 January 2007 23:08 To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: D-shell connector age? Adrian Graham wrote: > On 3/1/07 21:33, "Jules Richardson" wrote: > >> Anyone know where D-shell connectors first appeared on equipment? >> >> Interesting thread going on in a local group at the moment about why >> SCART [1] sockets are so horrible and nasty (prone to breaking pins, >> difficult to line up, prone to falling out etc.) and why something >> better, like a D-shell connector, wasn't chosen instead. > > SCART was originally known as PERITEL and originated in France. > > Make of that what you will :) To be honest, it's a great idea - and much better than non-European countries where the typical connectivity is via RF only. Going source->modulator->tuner->display never did seem like a good idea when you could just go source->display via separate shielded RGB signals. (The picture quality I've seen on the typical US setup is piss-poor compared to the UK, jokes about NTSC aside) It's just a shame that the connector they picked for the standard is so lousy. Having looked at some old pricelists, SCART connectors weren't much cheaper than D-shells - and given that they were typically used on expensive equipment which only contained a couple of them, the difference couldn't have been significant at all. The only thing I can think of (other than it being some odd political decision) is that you know SCART is SCART; if using D-shells there would have been a few idiots trying to plug any old computer cable into their equipment. That hardly seems justification to enforce a nasty connector choice, though. Assuming that D-shell connectors were around, of course - but if Chuck's right then they should have been readily available in the mid-70's. Pin spacing is wider on SCART, so presumably they suffer less from interference - but we all know that D-shells are perfectly good for video (particularly at TV rates). cheers Jules From coredump at gifford.co.uk Thu Jan 4 15:12:08 2007 From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:12:08 +0000 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459D6DA8.7020808@gifford.co.uk> Richard wrote: > Does anyone have a machine with an Clipper RISC cpu in it? No, but I have a manual for the Clipper somewhere. > Wikipedia says that > only two companies ever used the Clipper (from Fairchild) were Intergraph > and High Level Hardware. HLH I never heard of before; Intergraph I > know of because they're big in CAD and GIS markets. Ah, WikiP says > that HLF was UK firm that made the Orion. Anyone got one? Again, no, but I did use one at Westfield College (University of London) in 1984/85. We had two, one for research projects and one for undergraduate Unix work. We also had a PDP-11/44 running V7 Unix and a Prime P750 running Primos and Software Tools. I don't know what happened to the Orions, but I can make some enquiries. -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk From coredump at gifford.co.uk Thu Jan 4 15:15:12 2007 From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:15:12 +0000 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: <459D4C23.6080708@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <459D4C23.6080708@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <459D6E60.5060302@gifford.co.uk> woodelf wrote: > To get back on topic about babbage's drawings, > from what I read it was mechnical design that > could not be produced with 18th century mechanical > enginering. I thought the Science Museum rebuild showed that it could be built with 19th century engineering? They deliberately didn't make it any more accurate than Babbage could have, and they only found a couple of minor difficulties. One was that it was too hard to turn the handle, so they geared it down. Surely something that, if Babbage had finished the Difference Engine, he'd have done himself? -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 4 15:23:13 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 14:23:13 -0700 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:12:08 +0000. <459D6DA8.7020808@gifford.co.uk> Message-ID: So noone has one of the Intergraph workstations? A pity. They were a dominant player, you'd have expected some of the machines to survive! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Jan 4 15:25:29 2007 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 21:25:29 +0000 Subject: Prime for sale again Message-ID: <26c11a640701041325q328ee66eta7daba098743b45e@mail.gmail.com> The Prime I got back in April is on ebay again. I am moving to Australia for a year or two. I don't think I'd get it over there as hand luggage. It has been stored in my spare room for 6 months so it is in good condition. The item no, is 150077818268 Dan From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 4 15:57:46 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 14:57:46 -0700 Subject: Prime for sale again In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:25:29 +0000. <26c11a640701041325q328ee66eta7daba098743b45e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I think tony still has some room in his house :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From vrs at msn.com Thu Jan 4 16:06:18 2007 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 14:06:18 -0800 Subject: Missing quotes in message replies References: <459D5642.8050806@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: From: "Jules Richardson" > I'm seeing a few messages where the text being replied to isn't quoted > (anything from Al and Billy Pettit it seems, but there have been one or > two others) other than a separating line beneath old and new text, making > it confusing at first glance (particularly where the actual line and reply > might be off the bottom of the screen). > > Am I alone in this? I just wondered if it's something broken within my > email client (Thunderbird) and it's stopped rendering what it thinks is > quoted text properly for certain classes of messages. You are not alone in this. I think it has something to do with the way that replies to HTML emails are generated. I find that emails sent to me as plain text get automatically quoted properly when I hit 'reply', but that HTML junk doesn't. My theory is that others don't bother to manually put in the "> " before the stuff that didn't get it automatically. Vince From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Thu Jan 4 16:08:08 2007 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 17:08:08 -0500 Subject: ZX-81 / TS 1000 keyboards In-Reply-To: <4571660F.2000602@gjcp.net> References: <200611081436.kA8EaRc1084329@dewey.classiccmp.org> <455213B5.4090402@yahoo.com> <45708CCB.2080105@aol.com> <4571660F.2000602@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <459D7AC8.3010405@bellsouth.net> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Glen Goodwin wrote: >> At this late date it would probably be easier to design >> and build an interface so that a common PS/2-type keyboard >> could be used, along with some self-adhesive key-top stickers. > > Seems like overkill - the interface would need more processor power than > the ZX81, most likely. There *must* be a company that makes membrane > keyboards, and will do a shortish run. I'd certainly donate a > working-ish keyboard to get some made up... Actually, ZXTEAM already has a fairly simple interface for attaching an AT keyboard. The technical details are here: http://www.fischerkai.de/zxteam/atkey_e.htm Best, Glen From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 4 16:26:08 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 14:26:08 -0800 Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A3@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Jeff Walther wrote: Additionally, the Outbound Laptop is an interesting beast in that it uses 2.5" IDE hard drives. This is the first Macintosh to use an IDE device by many many years. I don't think any Apple Mac used them until the Quadra 630 and its performa and LC cousins. Jeff Walther --------------- I'm not familiar with the Outbound Laptop. What was the model number? I do know that I was supporting Apple at Quantum in early 1994 and qualified an IDE 2.5 inch drive for their laptops. It was one of the Blackbird series, 160 if I remember correctly. Was made in Taiwan by Tatung as an ODM. For a disk drive engineer, it was an unpleasant machine - the drive was mounted above the CPU chip, dumping all the heat into the drive. Quantum could never get it to meet Apple's temperature requirements with this handicap. When Apple pushed hard, Quantum canceled the program and got out of the 2.5 inch business - no way could they be profitable with those temperature specs and Apple's pricing structure. Billy From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Thu Jan 4 16:31:24 2007 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 22:31:24 +0000 Subject: Computer Music In-Reply-To: <200612251028.kBPARdAL047817@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200612251028.kBPARdAL047817@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On 25 Dec, 2006, at 10:28, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > 1) Recordings of 2nd generation (or even before, if they exist) > mainframes making tunes. There are a few recordings out there, and I > may be getting some help from CHM for more. > There some are old recordings of my 2nd generation mainframe at : http://ict1301.co.uk/13010520.htm I also have a fuller set of 33 files in .aiff format which the files on the web site were derived from. These were recorded from audio cassette tapes which are about 30 years old but seem to sound the same as I remember them. The programs to make the music is on punched cards and the card reader is currently unreliable and I don't want to risk the card decks reading them in as I only have one set. The sound came from the built in speaker, which is pulsed once for every two conditional branch instructions. I used to write pen plotter drivers for the Macintosh and there were some plotters made by Watanabe (later renamed GrafTec) which were suitable for music. The x and y axes were driven by noisy stepper motors. The speed was programmable and when drawing a large circle you could hear the stepper motors make a rising and falling tone as the angle changed. That is, drawing a 45 degree line the two motors worked at the same speed, and when drawing a horizontal/vertical line only one motor would be working For angles in between the tone would vary depending on the angle. The slower cheaper plotters made a grating sound but the faster more expensive ones were very melodic, though I never got around to programming them to make music myself, I would not be surprised if somebody did. Roger Holmes From fryers at gmail.com Thu Jan 4 17:01:23 2007 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 23:01:23 +0000 Subject: OT: Missing quotes in message replies In-Reply-To: <459D5642.8050806@yahoo.co.uk> References: <459D5642.8050806@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: Hey all, On 04/01/07, Jules Richardson wrote: > > I'm seeing a few messages where the text being replied to isn't quoted > (anything from Al and Billy Pettit it seems, but there have been one or two > others) other than a separating line beneath old and new text, making it > confusing at first glance (particularly where the actual line and reply might > be off the bottom of the screen). > > Am I alone in this? I just wondered if it's something broken within my email > client (Thunderbird) and it's stopped rendering what it thinks is quoted text > properly for certain classes of messages. I have been seeing the same sort of thing. I am running gmail under firefox and IE. A couple of sets of replies I have seen under the signature line (dash dash space CR/LF), resulting in a little head scratching before realising what was happening. > 99% of messages are fine though, and either get displayed with quote > characters or displayed with a solid coloured line to the left of the quoted > text. If it's just me I'll try and find the cause though; if it's not I'll > just put up with it :-) Appears to be problems with bit rot... Although other things indicate that the universe is ganging up on me today so I assumed it was just me. Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 4 17:33:45 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 15:33:45 -0800 Subject: OT: Missing quotes in message replies Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A9@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Jules Richardson Wrote: I'm seeing a few messages where the text being replied to isn't quoted (anything from Al and Billy Pettit it seems, but there have been one or two others) other than a separating line beneath old and new text, making it confusing at first glance (particularly where the actual line and reply might be off the bottom of the screen). cheers Jules -------------------------------------------- Billy wrote: In my case, it is because I reply using a copy from the web site. To keep the number of emails down, I only receive digests. Yet often, I want to respond to a message without wading through the digests. So I copy off the web site, trim off the excess and comment below. I'm active, more or less on 75+ elists. And when they get active, it means 100's of emails a day. So reading and responding is very selective. For example, have you noticed how much activity there is on this list this week? It's like everybody is rested up and full of piss and vinegar. At the other extreme, some lists generate almost nothing. The paleobotany list averages 8-10 messages a year. Some of the science fiction lists are cyclical going from 100+ a day to 1-2 day and back again over a couple of months. Billy From jpero at sympatico.ca Thu Jan 4 12:49:49 2007 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 18:49:49 +0000 Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366A3@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <20070104234922.JVTH12977.tomts16-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> > Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 14:26:08 -0800 > From: "Billy Pettit" > To: > Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage > Reply-to: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > > Jeff Walther wrote: > > Additionally, the Outbound Laptop is an interesting beast in that it > uses 2.5" IDE hard drives. This is the first Macintosh to use an Snip > Jeff Walther > > --------------- > > I'm not familiar with the Outbound Laptop. What was the model number? > > I do know that I was supporting Apple at Quantum in early 1994 and qualified > an IDE 2.5 inch drive for their laptops. It was one of the Blackbird > series, 160 if I remember correctly. Was made in Taiwan by Tatung as an > ODM. For a disk drive engineer, it was an unpleasant machine - the drive > was mounted above the CPU chip, dumping all the heat into the drive. > Quantum could never get it to meet Apple's temperature requirements with > this handicap. When Apple pushed hard, Quantum canceled the program and got > out of the 2.5 inch business - no way could they be profitable with those > temperature specs and Apple's pricing structure. > > Billy No wonder Q exited the 2.5" sector. :( Btw, Apple was also wrong way to put HD over the element coil (aka CPU). Heat is MAJOR HD enemy. Shortens the life and kills the platters. Cheers, Wizard From dholland at woh.rr.com Thu Jan 4 18:34:25 2007 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 19:34:25 -0500 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1167957265.8534.7.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> On Thu, 2007-01-04 at 10:34 -0700, Richard wrote: > In article , > "r.stricklin" writes: > > > On Jan 3, 2007, at 1:18 PM, Richard wrote: > > > > > Any other Onyx owners on the list? > > PowerSeries -> Crimson conversion w/ VGXT in the box sitting next to me. (brown/blue not red, unfortunately) However, if there is anyone w/ a spare Onyx in the vicinity of Ohio, who doesn't want it, please let me know. :-) them) or both. Even the sci-vis guys at the UofU no longer use SGI > irion anymore -- just piles of linux boxes with fancy PC graphics > cards. >From what I can tell, the average high end PC graphics cards can run rings around the average Reality Engine these days, and is (alot) cheaper. David From sellam at vintagetech.com Thu Jan 4 18:35:59 2007 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 16:35:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: WTB: Nokia 9000 and HP OmniGo 700 Message-ID: Does anyone have a Nokia 9000 (not 9000i) or HP OmniGo 700? Oh yeah? Want to sell them? ;) Please reply directly to me as I am not subscribed to the list. sellam at vintagetech.com Thanks! Happy New Year all! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 4 17:48:49 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 23:48:49 +0000 (GMT) Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available In-Reply-To: <459B6AAA.8000703@gjcp.net> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jan 3, 7 08:34:50 am Message-ID: > I don't see why. I've seen early 1970s guitar amplifiers that use a > large EL strip for the control panel backlight. It's not a huge stretch > to imagine that NASA would make a display for a spaceship computer out > of them a few years previously. At least one Philips valved radio (1960's, I think) used an EL panel as the base for the tuning dial (rather than the more conventional filament lamps to illuminate said dial). And I seem to remember reading about EL panels in photogrpahic books of the late 1950s (they were proposed as a darkroom safelight). Of course all these applications ued plain panels, not divided up into segments. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 4 17:56:15 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 23:56:15 +0000 (GMT) Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: <459C373F.4010807@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 3, 7 05:07:43 pm Message-ID: > To be honest, it's a great idea - and much better than non-European countries > where the typical connectivity is via RF only. > > Going source->modulator->tuner->display never did seem like a good idea when > you could just go source->display via separate shielded RGB signals. (The > picture quality I've seen on the typical US setup is piss-poor compared to the > UK, jokes about NTSC aside) One reason for this, I susepct, is that before the common usage of SMPSUs in TV sets, almost all TVs were live-chassis, with all the internal circuitry directly connected to the mains. Very few UK/European sets had an isoalting mains transdormer. It;s is a lot easier to isolate a VHF or UHF signal (a couple of special capacitors will do it) than baseband video/audio (which would involve spectial transformers or opto-isolators at least). I've seen a few top-end (B&) and the like) valved TVs (live chassis, of ocurse) which had a special audio transformer to provide an isolated (from the mains) audio output from the set to feed into a tape recorder or whatever. But it wasn't common at all. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 4 18:04:21 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 00:04:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: from "Adrian Graham" at Jan 3, 7 11:47:56 pm Message-ID: > I remember my parents having a Sharp amp plus Garrard record deck back in > the 70s that had similar connections for the speakers, but that's a bit OT > :) Are you sure you're not thinking of the 2 pin DIN speaker connector which has one flat pin in the centre of the (cylinderical) plug and a round pin alongside it? Very common... I believe, BTW, there's also a 2 pin DIN plug of the normal type (overall cylindtical mertal chell, all round pins). It has a plastic switch-operating peg too. It was used on a frw portable tape recorders for ecternal; PSU/removte control. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 4 18:48:38 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 00:48:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics (was: Wire Rope ROMs (Was: back to In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 3, 7 11:15:11 pm Message-ID: > > > In article , > "Rick Bensene" writes: > > > [...] Wang is also > > famous for purposefully putting errors into published schematics to > > throw off competitors who would use such schematics to reverse-engineer > > how the machines work. [...] > > Wow, I'd never heard that story before. Interesting! I am wondering what the use is of a schematic that contains deliberate errors that are significant enough to stop the machine from working. OK, you can't use it to make a copy, but you surely can't also use it to repair the real machine (what do you do if the faulty part is a section that has errors in the schematics?). > > How many other companies did this back when schematics were pretty > much leaving the machine laying naked in front of you? I've never seen any 'deliberate errors' in HP, DEC, Tekky, etc diagrams. There's a very obvious error in the PERQ scheamtics book (I think in the tablet diagrams) where a 3 terminal regulator is drawn with all 3 pins tied to ground, but if you don't spot that one, you shouldn't be fixing a computer in the first place. And I don't think it's a deliberate error because it is so obvious. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 4 19:06:47 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 01:06:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Prime for sale again In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 4, 7 02:57:46 pm Message-ID: > > I think tony still has some room in his house :-) If that's refering to me, I don't think I do. Darn it, I've got problems fitting an HP9820 in at the moment... -tony From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 4 19:25:52 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 18:25:52 -0700 Subject: Prime for sale again In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 05 Jan 2007 01:06:47 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > I think tony still has some room in his house :-) > > If that's refering to me, I don't think I do. Darn it, I've got problems > fitting an HP9820 in at the moment... Heh heh... and when the brag list went by and we inquired how you fit it all in, you replied something along the lines of it being comfortable! :) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 4 19:23:35 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 19:23:35 -0600 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459DA897.3010806@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > I am wondering what the use is of a schematic that contains deliberate > errors that are significant enough to stop the machine from working. OK, > you can't use it to make a copy, but you surely can't also use it to > repair the real machine (what do you do if the faulty part is a section > that has errors in the schematics?). Yes, I can't figure that either. Surely it just annoys customers, plus incurs printing costs for the manufacturer? Why not just not release any schematics in the first place? A very strange practice indeed. I've seen errors on schematics before, but I've not heard of them being deliberate. From jpero at sympatico.ca Thu Jan 4 14:36:57 2007 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 20:36:57 +0000 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: References: <459C373F.4010807@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 3, 7 05:07:43 pm Message-ID: <20070105013630.LHXG8030.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> > > It;s is a lot easier to isolate a VHF or UHF signal (a couple of special > capacitors will do it) than baseband video/audio (which would involve > spectial transformers or opto-isolators at least). I've seen a few > top-end (B&) and the like) valved TVs (live chassis, of ocurse) which had > a special audio transformer to provide an isolated (from the mains) audio > output from the set to feed into a tape recorder or whatever. But it > wasn't common at all. > > -tony Very common here also (chassis live) till mid 1990's then changed to isolation via the flyback transformer, partial hot chassis till flyback transformer. Then SMPS for isolation. Some do double isolation via SMPS then flyback transformer. Still, certain area of chassis (just a one board now) even on SMPS is hot. Isolation transformer is a MUST when servicing any even brand new set. No buts or ifs. Cheers, Wizard From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 4 19:45:01 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:45:01 -0500 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: <459DA897.3010806@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200701050145.l051j775090197@keith.ezwind.net> On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 19:23:35 -0600, Jules Richardson wrote: >Yes, I can't figure that either. Surely it just annoys customers, plus incurs >printing costs for the manufacturer? Why not just not release any schematics >in the first place? Because in the good old days it was Federal law. The FTC or what ever they were called then required manufacturers to provide schematics for all electronic devices marketed int the US. Had to provide spare parts for something like 7 years too.... The lawyers changed all that years ago. Who else remembers the tiny little schematics inside, little transistor radios mostly from Japan. And all the 5 tube superhet radios with the schematics pasted on the bottom or back. just my 0.02 Bob Bradlee Bob From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jan 4 20:15:33 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 21:15:33 -0500 Subject: SGI Onyx power cord? In-Reply-To: <459D417A.4070409@yahoo.co.uk> References: <459D417A.4070409@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200701042115.33931.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 04 January 2007 13:03, Jules Richardson wrote: > Richard wrote: > > In article , > > > > "r.stricklin" writes: > >> On Jan 3, 2007, at 1:18 PM, Richard wrote: > >>> Any other Onyx owners on the list? > >> > >> Yes. I have a deskside RE2, and a rackmount dual-pipe IR. > > > > Sweet, that makes three of us who have this configuration! > > Sigh, we got offered an Onyx dual-pipe IR a while back - 24 x R10k > CPUs and 4GB of RAM on it plus Sirius video as I recall. Unfortunately > I couldn't persuade anyone else at the museum that it'd be a fun > machine to have :-( I've got a rackmount Onyx with R44k processors. It's marked "test rack", an is in a purple rack with no sides, and a hole on the side, over part of a CPU board. As well, it's got a different LCD than the Challenge XL's I've got; the LCD matches the one on the smaller, deskside Onyx I think. It was recovered from an SGI dumpster, and probably is a prototype machine. Unfortunately, the graphics part seems to have some problem that keeps the machine from coming up when it's attached to the system. Still, being a prototype/engineering test system does count for something even if it's not 100% working. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 4 20:55:14 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 18:55:14 -0800 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: References: from "Adrian Graham" at Jan 3, 7 11:47:56 pm, Message-ID: <459D4D92.31428.1FEA027@cclist.sydex.com> At one time, I owned a Roberts/Akai reel-to-reel tape deck (valve/tube model) in the 60's with a 5-pin DIN input connector. It was years before I figured out what it was, as it wasn't labeled. "Regular" input was via quarter-inch mono phone jacks. Cheers, Chuck From vrs at msn.com Thu Jan 4 21:12:25 2007 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 19:12:25 -0800 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics (was: Wire Rope ROMs (Was: backto References: Message-ID: From: "Tony Duell" > I've never seen any 'deliberate errors' in HP, DEC, Tekky, etc diagrams. > There's a very obvious error in the PERQ scheamtics book (I think in the > tablet diagrams) where a 3 terminal regulator is drawn with all 3 pins > tied to ground, but if you don't spot that one, you shouldn't be fixing a > computer in the first place. And I don't think it's a deliberate error > because it is so obvious. So far, every DEC schematic that I've attempted to use to re-create hardware (based on the original designs) has had at least one, usually fairly obvious, error in it. Ones that I can name off the top of my head include the RX8E and the 8/A programmer's panel, though the exact error in the RX8E escapes me at the moment. I think it was a missing line segment, that makes a signal appear to be connected to one place, rather than another. What's fishy about it is that the scan is pretty clear, and there's no trace of the missing line segment. On the 8/A programmer's panel, the bit numbering is swizzled on the DIP jumpers between board 1 and board 2. I realize that these *could* be accidental, but they don't really seem that way to me. I had more or less assumed that they had done that deliberately to complicate efforts like mine :-). I guess the suspicious part is that I seem to always find exactly one thing that is wrong. Vince From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 4 21:22:47 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 19:22:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: <459DA897.3010806@yahoo.co.uk> References: <459DA897.3010806@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20070104191226.C25772@shell.lmi.net> Tony Duell wrote: > I am wondering what the use is of a schematic that contains deliberate > errors that are significant enough to stop the machine from working. OK, D'ya mean like nonexistent streets and towns in UK Ordnance Survey maps? I could make a fortune in the coffee table gift book market by putting out a collection of photographs of rural mailboxes, and changing my name to Lillian Virgina Mountweazel! Nihilartikels, Mountweazels, and pseudata are a longstanding tradition. XenoCopy includes support for a format for which I had the only instance (prototype) of the machine. Was that esquivalience? I also once misspellled the name of one format; a couple of other programs ended up supporting that misspelt machine. BTW, my car really was parked in "Gates Alley" at the time. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From tpeters at mixcom.com Thu Jan 4 21:14:06 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:14:06 -0600 Subject: OT: Missing quotes in message replies In-Reply-To: <459D5642.8050806@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070104211311.0cb4eec8@localhost> Well, At 01:32 PM 1/4/2007 -0600, you wrote: >I'm seeing a few messages where the text being replied to isn't quoted >(anything from Al and Billy Pettit it seems, but there have been one or >two others) other than a separating line beneath old and new text, making >it confusing at first glance (particularly where the actual line and reply >might be off the bottom of the screen). This is a reply to the 3 or so lines above, which definitely show as quoted in Eudora Pro. >Am I alone in this? I just wondered if it's something broken within my >email client (Thunderbird) and it's stopped rendering what it thinks is >quoted text properly for certain classes of messages. [Sex] If your life at night is good, you think you have everything. - -Euripides (B.C. 480-406) Medea --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 4 21:44:00 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:44:00 -0700 Subject: 22 rolls of paper tape @ govliq Message-ID: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 4 21:46:53 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 19:46:53 -0800 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: <20070104191226.C25772@shell.lmi.net> References: , <459DA897.3010806@yahoo.co.uk>, <20070104191226.C25772@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <459D59AD.3087.22DE923@cclist.sydex.com> To be certain, some errors/additions are deliberate; Rand McNally generally sprikles a few non-existent landmarks in their maps; Google satellite maps have "watermarks" that can be very confusing. I spied what looked to be clearing on some of my forested land and hiked to the very spot and found--trees, just like everywhere else. It took some conferring with a USGS employee to discover that what I thought was a clearing was a rather subtle watermark (viewed in just the right way, you can make out a "Go". On the other hand, we've gotten very spoiled. Go to the Univac 7900 operation documents in bitsavers and you'll discover that their biquinary-to-decimal table counts 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9... Incidentally, the 7900 used magnetic core pulse logic, so it's an AC- coupled system (tying two threads together again!). The aforementioned manual is very long but makes interesting reading, if you're into that sort of stuff. The assembler turns out to be written by some joker named Knuth... Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 4 21:47:58 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:47:58 -0700 Subject: 22 rolls of paper tape @ govliq In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:44:00 -0700. Message-ID: In article , Richard writes: > 584 boxes of 5.25" disks NIB as well... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 4 22:24:45 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 23:24:45 -0500 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: References: <459D6DA8.7020808@gifford.co.uk> Message-ID: > So noone has one of the Intergraph workstations? A pity. They were a > dominant player, you'd have expected some of the machines to survive! There are quite a few in Rhode Island at both computer groups. Even an Intergraph VAX, with weird disk controllers made to search for polygon data in hardware. -- Will From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 4 22:46:45 2007 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 20:46:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: Big, heavy, but not blue, IBM stuff In-Reply-To: <459D61CD.974DADA3@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <346790.26236.qm@web82706.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Includes a 3490E and 3475, See: http://www.publicsurplus.com/sms/auction/view?auc=157949 It's located in Fort Lauderdale, FL Bob From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 4 23:02:36 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 00:02:36 -0500 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: <459D4C23.6080708@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <459D4C23.6080708@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > To get back on topic about babbage's drawings, > from what I read it was mechnical design that > could not be produced with 18th century mechanical > enginering. There is some vague truth to this, but basically no, the technology was indeed there. Almost. During the 19th century, British precision machining was lacking, as the machinists at the time were very reluctant to use many of the new tools. The Germans, and especially the Americans, at the time very eagerly embraced the new tools and left the British machinists behind. Very few British machinists took up the new tools, and those that did could have done the work. There is a very good book I once read about this, and it slips my mind right now. For a practical example - look at mid 19th century firearms at the time: British interchangable parts aren't. -- Will From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 4 23:02:42 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 00:02:42 -0500 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <66dbfc173e346d3c930bed422a240726@neurotica.com> On Jan 3, 2007, at 10:58 PM, Richard wrote: > Does anyone have a machine with an Clipper RISC cpu in it? > > Wikipedia says that > only two companies ever used the Clipper (from Fairchild) were > Intergraph > and High Level Hardware. HLH I never heard of before; Intergraph I > know of because they're big in CAD and GIS markets. Ah, WikiP says > that HLF was UK firm that made the Orion. Anyone got one? I have several Clipper CPU modules, but no machines wrapped around them. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Cape Coral, FL From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jan 4 23:50:35 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 00:50:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: OT: Missing quotes in message replies In-Reply-To: <459D5642.8050806@yahoo.co.uk> References: <459D5642.8050806@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200701050552.AAA23234@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I'm seeing a few messages where the text being replied to isn't > quoted [...] other than a separating line beneath old and new text, > making it confusing [...]. > Am I alone in this? In seeing it, or in finding it confusing? :-) In either case, "no". > I just wondered if it's something broken within my email client > (Thunderbird) and it's stopped rendering what it thinks is quoted > text properly for certain classes of messages. No. My mail client doesn't do fancy-schmancy rendering - it runs in a text window, in fact - and it shows me the emails as they are. It doesn't even burst MIME multipart messages without specific action on my part. And I'm seeing the same syndrome you sketch. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 5 00:11:55 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 22:11:55 -0800 Subject: 22 rolls of paper tape @ govliq Message-ID: <4A83E78E-4E60-4E3C-BE14-C1E40A2B9D51@bitsavers.org> the most interesting thing was it says who made it http://web.govliquidation.com/auction/haystack? nsn=7530001806260&eventId=2687&lotNumber=3209 http://www.arlon.com/ecp/duralon.asp sounds like pretty fancy stuff, paper,plastic,paper composite tape From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Jan 5 00:11:22 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 01:11:22 -0500 Subject: Apple Disk ][ X-Ray In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.1.1.0.20061231032842.039f3f08@pop.1and1.com> <200701011342.04956.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200701050111.22141.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 02 January 2007 12:05, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jan 1, 2007, at 1:42 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > He's aparently not as crazy as I am to have some x-ray gear at home > > (then again, I've never used it partly because I don't know enough > > about > > dosages to determine what's safe, and how much to use to expose film > > properly, etc). > > What type of equipment do you have, if you don't mind my asking? Sorry, replying slipped my mind. I've got some old lab X-ray gear (well, just the transformer tubes, and tube housings to direct the beam) from uni surplus. At one point, I had of pair of 240V in, 60kV peak output transformers, which I wired out-of-phase to make a 120kV spark between them (they're big, and oil-filled). They produced a pretty nifty effect, until one of the transformers developed an open winding... (I had to use one of the lower-power input taps on the transformers, to use them both on a single 30A 240V circuit.) I guess that they're designed for pulsed use, and the x-ray tubes draw less power than a straight arc does. :) I've also got two (I think... might be one) rackmount 60kVDC power supplies to drive x-ray tubes, in x-ray scanning equipemnt (shove a sample in, and it scans the sample with x-rays, somehow). Due to Purdue policies, X-ray equipment is normally "disabled" (wires cut at least, now they usually pull out boards), so it's harder to get intact equipment. But, they generally leave the power supply intact, and the x-ray tube is still usable if you solder on some extensions to the wires they cut off. I got a bigger x-ray transformer box (the tube was shattered from moving), but even with the oil out, it was way too heavy to move around, so I ended giving that back. They also had some Ion Implater units, which I was hoping to snag one of, and had planned to snag one, with a 200 - 500kVDC output (Can't remember for sure anymore) and a beefy 3phase input with some nice controls on it for voltage/current adjust. They looked like they were practically new Varian units, donated by Intel, but they weren't what the Donatee expected to get, so they got sent out. At about 3000lbs for each, I had no way to move them, and they ended up getting scrapped instead. :/ The next time I see a >200kVDC power supply, I'm gonna have to try to get it. Imagine the size of the jacob's ladder you could make with that. ;) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 5 00:16:42 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 22:16:42 -0800 Subject: OT: Missing quotes in message replies Message-ID: <6F3F90ED-DE8A-4997-9022-2B6CD842FF78@bitsavers.org> >I'm seeing a few messages where the text being replied to isn't quoted >(anything from Al and Billy Pettit it seems, but there have been one or >two others) other than a separating line beneath old and new text We're both using the web interface to the list to quickly scan the msgs then doing cut/paste to compose replies. The big problem with doing this is it loses the thread info in the mail header so they don't thread. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 5 00:42:00 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 22:42:00 -0800 Subject: Parametron In-Reply-To: References: <459D2337.70804@bitsavers.org>, Message-ID: <459D82B8.21304.2CE386C@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2007 at 8:04, dwight elvey wrote: > Could someone please tell me how one uses a Parametron to > make logic? Nothing that I see on the web actually explains > the operation. All it says is that a 180 degree shift in phase > could be treated as a 1 or a zero. Eichi Goto's basic patent is US Patent 2948818. Look it up here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm The explanation is quite elegant. Cheers, Chuck From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Thu Jan 4 16:13:54 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 17:13:54 -0500 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available Message-ID: <0JBD00D346YBM1S7@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available > From: Brent Hilpert > Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 01:29:50 -0800 > To: General at priv-edmwaa05.telusplanet.net, > "Discussion at priv-edmwaa05.telusplanet.net":On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > >Allison wrote: > >> >(And it confirmed that the AGC was constructed from a single gate/IC type.) >> >> That statement I believe is in error. While the logic used was RTL and a >> single family type the logic elements for that family by the mid 60s were >> more diverse than just a two input NOR. My junkbox contains parts from > >There are now two, perhaps three, sources from the period that indicate it was >a single gate/IC type: a dual 3-input NOR in 10-pin flat-pak. Read the >document Chuck ref'ed above (although there do seem to be some >mis-rememberings in there such as LCD instead of EL displays). I'm well aware >of the state of RTL/IC development at the time, but high-reliabiliy design >doesn't necessarily correlate with whats current in the rest of the industry. >Keep in mind the design started years before 1967/8. The IC spec sheets are >dated 1965. Around early '66 a friend that whose father worked for Grumman and NASA gave me several of the 10 pin flat packs with info. They were indeed 3input NOR but, he also provided a RS-FF in the same package. They sat in my collection for years until they were lost in a move. Shortly after that a neighbor that worked for Airborne and he brought me an engineering junk box that contained fairchild uL9xx parts galore plus a lot of aerospace qualified transistors. It was then I started working on understanding logic and how useful those RTL parts were. As to displays LEDs were indeed available in the mid 60s though they were not bright and the only color was red. I also have Burroughs Nixies from then and a 40 character selfscan from the era. I'd never seen EL used in anything other than backlight. There was also VF (vacuum florescent) displays as they were easily driven with available transistors. One of the problems then with transistors was low (usually less than 60V) breakdown voltage and most common devices were more like 25V. That complicates drivers for HV displays. Though for a price there were a lot of things available than were new or low volume. Allison From adamg at pobox.com Thu Jan 4 16:28:24 2007 From: adamg at pobox.com (Adam Goldman) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 17:28:24 -0500 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion Message-ID: <20070104222823.GA89145@silme.pair.com> Richard wrote: > Does anyone have a machine with an Clipper RISC cpu in it? Intergraph's Interpro series (such as the 225) had both a Clipper and an 80186, and could run CLIX as well as MS-DOS. IIRC, when running with the 186, the Clipper is programmed to act as an FPU! These machines were unusual for their time. The keyboard and mouse plug into the monitor, and the configuration system is mouse-driven. I'm not sure if it's in ROM or loaded from a reserved part of the hard drive. Their keyboard has a hard disk access LED and a bunch of extra keys. These machines seem to have been used mainly by government contractors, and they're not terribly common, but there are certainly some in the hands of collectors. -- Adam From billy.d.tucker at smithbarney.com Thu Jan 4 16:16:28 2007 From: billy.d.tucker at smithbarney.com (Tucker, Billy D [PVTC]) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 17:16:28 -0500 Subject: Ebay: HP 82045A Thermal Paper Message-ID: <42A8ECF5282C8543B245A0A1828E76AF14F272@EXRNJMB08.nam.nsroot.net> I am interersted in buying some thermal paper for a Hewlett Packard printer. Can you give me any help? My email at home is btu68 at aol.com. Billy T. -------------------------------------------------------------- Reminder: E-mail sent through the Internet is not secure. Do not use e-mail to send us confidential information such as credit card numbers, changes of address, PIN numbers, passwords, or other important information. Do not e-mail orders to buy or sell securities, transfer funds, or send time sensitive instructions. We will not accept such orders or instructions. This e-mail is not an official trade confirmation for transactions executed for your account. Your e-mail message is not private in that it is subject to review by the Firm, its officers, agents and employees. -------------------------------------------------------------- From gordon at gjcp.net Thu Jan 4 19:52:37 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 01:52:37 +0000 Subject: Missing Bits In-Reply-To: <01C72FA1.5591B100@MSE_D03> References: <01C72FA1.5591B100@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <459DAF65.3080608@gjcp.net> M H Stein wrote: > the old Amdahl buildings. I can visualize the people and systems but can't > remember the name. Getting old sucks. I bumped into one of my fiancee's best friends in the pub earlier (she and a friend had stopped in for one of their rather good pizzas). Went to introduce her to my friend, and couldn't remember her name. At all. Blank. Hadn't even had a single sip of my beer at that point. I carry my driving licence with me, in case anyone asks me my name. I have genuinely been asked my name, and just gone blank. I cannot remember names, sometimes not even my own. Worst of it is, I'm 33, not even old. I'm hoping I get better as I get older, or at least have more of an excuse... Gordon From derschjo at msu.edu Thu Jan 4 22:03:02 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:03:02 -0800 Subject: House cleaning! Everything must go! Message-ID: <459DCDF6.4000200@msu.edu> Ok, not _everything_ but rather an incredible simulation! I've managed to amass quite a bit of vintage-ish computer hardware that I haven't got much use for any longer -- I figure that someone out there can make better use of this stuff than I currently am. All of this stuff is free, unless otherwise noted -- I just want this stuff _gone_. At the moment I realllly prefer local pick-up (in the Seattle area) since I don't have a lot of time to be shipping stuff out. Unless otherwise noted, the items are in working condition (or were the last time I used them). A lot of these are listed sans RAM/hard disk/keyboard -- I have a lot of extra parts lying around and if you need one I'm happy to throw it in for you, if I have suitable spares. Some of these I don't remember all of the details of offhand (just did a quick perusal of my inventory), so if you have specific questions or need clarification, let me know and I'll figure it out for ya... And of course, since this stuff is free, you get what you pay for -- I've tried to do my best to be honest about the state of the below junk, but I haven't used some of it in years so I make no guarantees. Thanks! Josh The items are as follows: Computers: - Apple Network Server 700/200. 200Mhz 603 PPC, 128mb of ram, CD-ROM, tape drive, and a number of empty drive trays. Notable as the only Apple computer made after the original Mac that doesn't run MacOS. Makes a great Linux/NetBSD machine, or if you have a copy of AIX 4.1 for it... - SGI Octane, 200Mhz R10k, 512mb ram, no hard disk (or tray, unfortunately...). Cabinet is slightly scuffed in front. - SGI Indigo2, 250Mhz R4400, Solid Impact video, unknown RAM (fully populated). No hard disk (or trays... sigh...) - 2x Sun Sparcstation 10, framebuffer, 40Mhz CPU, sans RAM & hard disk. - Sun Ultra 5, 266Mhz UltraSparc. - Sun Ultra 1, Creator 3D video. - Sun SparcServer 670MP. 4x40Mhz, 64mb RAM (huge, good for an anchor, ballast, scrap iron, or if you have a lot of Sun VME boards...). CD-ROM, 2.0gb hard disk w/SunOS 4.1.4 installed. Missing rear cover, and missing wheels on bottom, which makes it fun to move. - 2x HP Apollo 715/75 -- not working, no ram, no hard disk, missing 1 CPU in one of them. Listing this just in case someone needs parts... - HP Apollo 735, 24mb ram (I think...), no hard disk. - HP Apollo 700, no hard disk. - Zenith luggable PC (no idea on the model, the label sticker on the back is unreadable). 2x5.25" floppy, 8088, 640k ram (all you'll ever need.) Missing keyboard, but takes standard XT keyboard. - Intergraph TD-310. Dual PPro-200Mhz, no RAM. - Sony "ViewSystem" VIW-5000. Is it a 286 PC? Is it a Laserdisc player? No, it's both! I have no idea what this was intended to be used for, but it sure is weird. And large. And free! - Apple G3 "All-In-One". 233Mhz G3, built in 15" CRT, no hard disk. Will run OS X 10.3, with some trickery. - Apple Powermac 8100/80av. Ugly as sin, but has 233Mhz G3 upgrade in PDS slot, which evens that out a bit. - PowerComputing PowerBase 200. - Unknown portable X-Terminal w/plasma display. No power supply or peripherals. I have no idea if it works. - Network Computing Devices X-Terminal. Misc parts: - Big box of 386, 486, and Pentium motherboards & expansion cards (serial/parallel/ide combo cards, video, etc...). Most have CPUs, and ignoring the inevitable CMOS battery failures, should still work fine. - Mac IIfx motherboard, sans RAM and ROM simm. Works, but ROM simm is missing. Monitors: - Intergraph Intervue 20". Multi-frequency (not multisync), works at standard VGA frequencies, higher resolutions are at specific frequencies only, and are somewhat oddball. If you have a Matrox video card, their "Powerdesk" drivers have special support for this monitor, which makes using it under Windows quite easy. Works fine under X with specialized timings. - Radius Portrait/15 Pivot. 15", portrait/landscape. Neat. - Mag 17" monitor. Works OK most of the time, but screen sometimes randomly changes width. A fun weekend project for someone! Printers & Peripherals: - HP Laserjet II. Non-working, but probably easy to fix (has trouble pulling paper out of the tray, otherwise works fine last time I tried it). Needs new toner cartridge. - TRS-80 DMP-120 printer, unknown condition, but seems complete. - HP PaintJet. Very early inkjet printer. Worked the last time I used it, no idea if you can still buy ink for it... - Kodak Photo CD burner (external SCSI box). This is a standard 2x CD-R drive, as far as I know... Other, sort of OT, but sort of computer related: - Sony LDP-1000A Laserdisc player (hey, it has an RS-232 port on the back!) - Pioneer LD-V4200 Laserdisc player (also w/RS-232 port) From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 5 01:18:31 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 23:18:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: House cleaning! Everything must go! In-Reply-To: <459DCDF6.4000200@msu.edu> from Josh Dersch at "Jan 4, 7 08:03:02 pm" Message-ID: <200701050718.l057IVZW009138@floodgap.com> > Computers: > - Apple Network Server 700/200. 200Mhz 603 PPC, 128mb of ram, CD-ROM, 604 actually. This message is being sent by a 500/200 :) > tape drive, and a number of empty drive trays. Notable as the only > Apple computer made after the original Mac that doesn't run MacOS. > Makes a great Linux/NetBSD machine, or if you have a copy of AIX 4.1 for > it... They are nice "big" servers, lots of drive bays. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "The Living Daylights" ----------------------------- From vax9000 at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 01:19:34 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 02:19:34 -0500 Subject: microprocessors in my vax 3800 Message-ID: Today I pulled out the boards in my vax 3800 and I found 7 microprocessors besides the CVAX. They are, 2x 68000, 8096, 80186, 2x 8086, Z80. Just a little discovery to share with you. vax, 9000 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jan 5 01:51:22 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:51:22 -0800 Subject: Parametron In-Reply-To: <459D82B8.21304.2CE386C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" > >On 4 Jan 2007 at 8:04, dwight elvey wrote: > > > Could someone please tell me how one uses a Parametron to > > make logic? Nothing that I see on the web actually explains > > the operation. All it says is that a 180 degree shift in phase > > could be treated as a 1 or a zero. > >Eichi Goto's basic patent is US Patent 2948818. > >Look it up here: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm > >The explanation is quite elegant. > >Cheers, >Chuck > Hi Chuck I see how the resonators work and can be both bistable in phase as well as amplify. I don't yet get the logic function but I skipped a lot of the text. I'll study it some more and it should sink in. It is similar to meg amps used for things like driving high power servos and such. Thanks for tracking this down. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Find sales, coupons, and free shipping, all in one place! ?MSN Shopping Sales & Deals http://shopping.msn.com/content/shp/?ctid=198,ptnrid=176,ptnrdata=200639 From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Jan 5 02:47:11 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 08:47:11 +0000 Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 5/1/07 00:04, "Tony Duell" wrote: >> I remember my parents having a Sharp amp plus Garrard record deck back in >> the 70s that had similar connections for the speakers, but that's a bit OT >> :) > > Are you sure you're not thinking of the 2 pin DIN speaker connector which > has one flat pin in the centre of the (cylinderical) plug and a round pin > alongside it? Very common... Ah, that's the one.... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jan 5 06:26:41 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:26:41 +0000 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: <459D2AB6.1000004@yahoo.co.uk> References: <459D2337.70804@bitsavers.org> <459D2AB6.1000004@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <459E4401.6070007@dunnington.plus.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Al Kossow wrote: > Pete wrote >> There were two Orions in >> the Computer Science machine room when I went to York, and I know where >> both went -- to a collector just along the road from me. >> >> Did either still have the original 2901 based processor? >> Apparently most HLH machines were upgraded to Clippers CPUs > > Pete will hopefully know. I'm starting to wonder about Jim's pair now; > the usenet posting I referred to earlier suggests they were Clippers, > but I've just been scanning past emails from Jim and he refers to them > as being microcoded. I haven't found the rest of the conversation yet, > though, which might shed some more light on things. I don't know, but there are a couple of people I can ask, who used the machines extensively when they were in mainstream use. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 5 07:48:21 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 07:48:21 -0600 Subject: Prime "Toons" hardware Message-ID: <459E5725.8030205@yahoo.co.uk> Dan's message about his Prime made me go glance at the Prime FAQ, and I noticed these few lines: * Prime had operational prototypes of the entire Toons system running in the lab when it was cancelled. * After the meeting to announce the closing of Prime, engineers returned to the lab and continued working on booting Primos on the Toons system. They were successful. The Toons hardware was the next generation, in development when Prime went under; I hadn't realised that it was essentially operational though. Does a complete example was ever rescued and now exists either in a museum or in private hands? cheers Jules From bpope at wordstock.com Fri Jan 5 07:55:21 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 08:55:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: Text-based UI... Message-ID: <20070105135521.0835358357@mail.wordstock.com> Since when is a text-based UI a bad thing?!! http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/05/0025241 Cheers, Bryan From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Fri Jan 5 08:13:38 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 09:13:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: Text-based UI... In-Reply-To: <20070105135521.0835358357@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20070105135521.0835358357@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Jan 2007, Bryan Pope wrote: > Since when is a text-based UI a bad thing?!! > > http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/05/0025241 I wrote (and still maintain) a network client that uses a ncurses-based interface as an alternative to a Java client for the same server. It's fast, and has most of the functionality of the Java client. All you have to do is open a ssh connection to a specific port on the (Unix) server, and instant client. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 5 08:11:16 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 08:11:16 -0600 Subject: Text-based UI... In-Reply-To: <20070105135521.0835358357@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20070105135521.0835358357@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <459E5C84.2030204@yahoo.co.uk> Bryan Pope wrote: > > Since when is a text-based UI a bad thing?!! > > http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/05/0025241 heh heh - I like the way almost every single reply advocates the use of a different development app/language. I bet the poor original poster is totally confused (which serves them right for not realising that text-based interfaces have their place too :-) I remember doing work to put Java / Web-based front ends onto AS/400 stuff back in the mid-90s (at the customer's request, I hasten to add - they wanted to "embrace the web", along with any other number of nauseating marketing-driven things). It was, by and large, utter hell. Interfacing between an OO language in a graphical, web-oriented client environment and the AS/400 way of doing things was "interesting" to say the least. (not that I'm knocking either - but the two just didn't mix well!) From fireflyst at earthlink.net Fri Jan 5 08:25:47 2007 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 08:25:47 -0600 Subject: Text-based UI... In-Reply-To: <459E5C84.2030204@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <000c01c730d5$64c8d880$920718ac@CLCILLINOIS.EDU> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson > Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 8:11 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Text-based UI... > > Bryan Pope wrote: > > > > Since when is a text-based UI a bad thing?!! > > > > http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/05/0025241 > > heh heh - I like the way almost every single reply advocates > the use of a different development app/language. I bet the > poor original poster is totally confused (which serves them > right for not realising that text-based interfaces have their > place too :-) > > I remember doing work to put Java / Web-based front ends onto > AS/400 stuff back in the mid-90s (at the customer's request, > I hasten to add - they wanted to "embrace the web", along > with any other number of nauseating marketing-driven things). > It was, by and large, utter hell. Interfacing between an OO > language in a graphical, web-oriented client environment and > the AS/400 way of doing things was "interesting" to say the > least. (not that I'm knocking either - but the two just > didn't mix well!) > >From what I've read, the need for AS/400 systems to be visible via the web hasn't gone unnoticed by IBM. OS/400 (as of at least V5R1) has a built in web server (HTTP Server, but it's really just Apache) The great part of that system is that you can use it alongside the text-based UI, and give the customer side whichever interface they want. Too bad it sounds like they just want to abandon their AS/400 setup, it might be easier just to stick with it. From kelly at catcorner.org Fri Jan 5 08:32:53 2007 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 09:32:53 -0500 Subject: GBC System 9 computer Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B1481@MEOW.catcorner.org> Just rescued one of these units from Craig's List. It's waiting for me a a friends house in Richmond, VA. Anyone know much about these? I think they're just a rebadged Northstar Advantage. It has a bunch of software and a manual or two. There doesn't seem to be a lot of information on these on the web. I did see the information at Dave Dunfield's site, and the disk archive there. Any manuals that have been scanned? I didn't see the Advantage line at bitsavers. Thanks for any help, Kelly From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 09:08:31 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:08:31 -0500 Subject: Missing Bits In-Reply-To: <459DAF65.3080608@gjcp.net> References: <01C72FA1.5591B100@MSE_D03> <459DAF65.3080608@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <459E69EF.2070504@gmail.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > M H Stein wrote: > >> the old Amdahl buildings. I can visualize the people and systems but >> can't >> remember the name. Getting old sucks. > > I bumped into one of my fiancee's best friends in the pub earlier (she > and a friend had stopped in for one of their rather good pizzas). Went > to introduce her to my friend, and couldn't remember her name. At all. > Blank. Hadn't even had a single sip of my beer at that point. > > I carry my driving licence with me, in case anyone asks me my name. I > have genuinely been asked my name, and just gone blank. I cannot > remember names, sometimes not even my own. I forget my own name all the time. Or my phone number. Or my address. Sometimes I forget where I am. > Worst of it is, I'm 33, not even old. I'm hoping I get better as I get > older, or at least have more of an excuse... I'm 29. 8-) Peace... Sridhar From bpritts at pritts.com Fri Jan 5 09:51:07 2007 From: bpritts at pritts.com (Brad Pritts) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:51:07 -0500 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics Message-ID: <459E73EB.60702@pritts.com> A long time ago I was involved with licensing databases (of new and used car price books-- e.g. Edmunds, Kelley Blue Book, etc.) They had the custom of salting the data with a few deliberate errors so that in the event of an infringement suit, they could prove that their data had been copied by the infringer, rather than independently created. I can't say whether the same purpose applies to schematics, but it just might be. Brad To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Message-ID: <459D59AD.3087.22DE923 at cclist.sydex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII To be certain, some errors/additions are deliberate; Rand McNally generally sprikles a few non-existent landmarks in their maps; Google satellite maps have "watermarks" that can be very confusing. I spied what looked to be clearing on some of my forested land and hiked to the very spot and found--trees, just like everywhere else. It took some conferring with a USGS employee to discover that what I thought was a clearing was a rather subtle watermark (viewed in just the right way, you can make out a "Go". From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 10:05:48 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 11:05:48 -0500 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: <459E73EB.60702@pritts.com> References: <459E73EB.60702@pritts.com> Message-ID: > I can't say whether the same purpose applies to schematics, > but it just might be. During the 1970s and 80s, you would see this sort of thing with projects in Radio Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. IN R-E, Optoelectronics and PAIA were the worst offenders. Sometimes that would even add (or delete) extra traces from the circuit board artwork. I suppose all of this was to make you pull your hair out, give up, and order the kit. -- Will From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Jan 5 11:30:20 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 12:30:20 -0500 Subject: GBC System 9 computer In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B1481@MEOW.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <200701051636.l05GaEc7032008@hosting.monisys.ca> > Just rescued one of these units from Craig's List. It's waiting for me a a friends house in > Richmond, VA. Anyone know much about these? I think they're just a rebadged Northstar Advantage. > > It has a bunch of software and a manual or two. > > There doesn't seem to be a lot of information on these on the web. I did see the information at Dave > Dunfield's site, and the disk archive there. Any manuals that have been scanned? I didn't see the > Advantage line at bitsavers. This is timely - I've just put up a number of Advantage disk images within the past few weeks. I do have a complete set of Advantage documentation which I will be scanning over time, but it's going to take a while. The GDOS/GBASIC, MBASIC and Fortran manuals are ring bound which makes them fairly easy to scan - they may be a bit too tattered for my auto-feeder, but I have a manual sheet fed scanner which goes fairly quickly if needed - but it's still going to take a fair bit of effort. The Advantage user manual is staple bound and not too thick, so I can unbind it and scan it - since it's double wide pages I'll need to do it on the flatbed, but since it's small it also shouldn't be too bad... Unfortunately both the System Software manual and the Technical/Service manuals are perfect bound - and both quite thick. This is where I really wish I had a book scanner. The System Software manual is just the N* DOS/BASIC manual - I have an older version of this already on my site which will probably do you fine. The technical/service manual is just going to have to wait a while. Assuming the GBC is a rebadged Advantage, I'd be interested in software/documentation that you have as well. Regards. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jan 5 10:45:58 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 09:45:58 -0700 Subject: Missing Bits In-Reply-To: <459E69EF.2070504@gmail.com> References: <01C72FA1.5591B100@MSE_D03> <459DAF65.3080608@gjcp.net> <459E69EF.2070504@gmail.com> Message-ID: <459E80C6.1000905@jetnet.ab.ca> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > I forget my own name all the time. Or my phone number. Or my address. > Sometimes I forget where I am. > Since I don't hear PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH WHOOSH CLICK I am guessing you are at some keyboard now rather than some key punch. :) > Peace... Sridhar > From ken at seefried.com Fri Jan 5 10:51:05 2007 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:51:05 -0500 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: <200701051356.l05DtdRe054914@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701051356.l05DtdRe054914@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20070105165105.466.qmail@seefried.com> I recall Opus made a AT bus plugin card with a Clipper. Think it ran Clix. From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 10:52:40 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 09:52:40 -0700 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:51:07 -0500. <459E73EB.60702@pritts.com> Message-ID: In article <459E73EB.60702 at pritts.com>, Brad Pritts writes: > They had the custom of salting the data with a few deliberate > errors so that in the event of an infringement suit, > they could prove that their data had > been copied by the infringer, rather than independently created. Yes, the only maps you can trust not to have intentionally fake data on them are those generated by the USGS. Delorme, National Geographic, etc., all add fake place names to the map to assist in proving theft of IP. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 10:48:44 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 09:48:44 -0700 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:24:45 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > > So noone has one of the Intergraph workstations? A pity. They were a > > dominant player, you'd have expected some of the machines to survive! > > There are quite a few in Rhode Island at both computer groups. You say this as if I should know what "both computer groups" means. Who has them? :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 11:12:33 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:12:33 -0700 Subject: govliq messages Message-ID: Govliquidation.com doesn't exactly have the best descriptions, pictures, or search engine, but it does have lots of interesting stuff popping up there from time-to-time. Because its such a pain to find things on there, when I stumble across something that someone here might find interesting, I post a note with the lot link. Does anyone find this useful? Does anyone find this annoying? If its more annoying than useful, I'll stop giving y'all a heads up on these items. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 11:28:51 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 12:28:51 -0500 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > You say this as if I should know what "both computer groups" means. > Who has them? :-) RCS/RI and RICM. Both groups are rather dormant and a bit introverted. Both groups need a swift kick in the ass, too. RICM actually has an absolutely huge collection, and both groups have a good number of real gems in the collections. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 11:31:25 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 12:31:25 -0500 Subject: govliq messages In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Does anyone find this useful? I find them useful from anyone (govliq or Ebay), providing the subject line states what is there. I do not like "Hey, look at this" subject lines. -- Will From doc at mdrconsult.com Fri Jan 5 11:35:18 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:35:18 -0600 Subject: govliq messages In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459E8C56.5010706@mdrconsult.com> Richard wrote: > > Because its such a pain to find things on there, when I stumble across > something that someone here might find interesting, I post a note with > the lot link. > > If its more annoying than useful, I'll stop giving y'all a heads up on > these items. I like it. It's not like you post 40 links a day, and they're always interesting if not relevant to my needs/wants. The best part is your posting format. You do describe the link, but you do it *briefly*. Easy to read, easy to evaluate, and easy to ignore if I don't care. My $0.02 for free. Doc From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 11:36:17 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:36:17 -0700 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:28:51 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > > You say this as if I should know what "both computer groups" means. > > Who has them? :-) > > RCS/RI and RICM. Sorry to be a pest, but these acronyms don't mean anything to me. Googling for RICM turns up "renewal in christ ministries" and a host of other non-computer related things. Do you have a URL or a full name? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jan 5 11:51:07 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 09:51:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: govliq messages In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 05, 2007 10:12:33 AM Message-ID: <200701051751.l05Hp7EX008812@onyx.spiritone.com> > Does anyone find this useful? Frustrating would be a better term, as it's not practical at this time for me to go for any of it :^) > Does anyone find this annoying? I don't find it the least bit annoying, some of those pictures on the links can be interesting. Plus it's interesting to see what's turning up, AND if a WIS Workstation ever shows up, I'd probably have to figure out how to go for it :^) Zane From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 11:57:04 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:57:04 -0700 Subject: DECmate I program loading via serial port Message-ID: According to the docs, by sending a special escape sequence you can download a program into the DECmate I over the serial terminal line. Has anyone done this? I have a DECmate I with no floppy drives although it has the interface card for the drives. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 5 12:04:43 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 12:04:43 -0600 Subject: govliq messages References: Message-ID: <005e01c730f3$fcb2f040$6500a8c0@BILLING> Richard wrote... > Does anyone find this useful? > > Does anyone find this annoying? > > If its more annoying than useful, I'll stop giving y'all a heads up on > these items. Re: govliq messages... I find it useful, long as it's done when something unique or of special interest shows up. As long as it doesn't turn into a "daily or weekly" summary type thing, I'm all for it. Just keep in mind that most of the listmembers here do scan ebay and govliq regularly... and we certainly don't want someone posting here every time any PDP-11 board goes up on ebay. But from time to time something neat shows up and isn't clearly labled or is in the wrong category so most of our searches don't find it. Those gems we're all too happy to hear about :) Jay From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 12:28:22 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:28:22 -0700 Subject: govliq messages In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:04:43 -0600. <005e01c730f3$fcb2f040$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <005e01c730f3$fcb2f040$6500a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > I find it useful, long as it's done when something unique or of special > interest shows up. I find that for ebay, its search mechanism is useful enough that getting a heads up on something is rarely necessary, unless its been miscategorized. However, with govliq I find that it really takes a lot of manual scraping through lots to find something interesting, even with their search agent. When I stumble across something vintage, I posted a link here because I know how much trouble it was for me to find it and I figure I'd save others the pain. > summary type thing, I'm all for it. Just keep in mind that most of the > listmembers here do scan ebay and govliq regularly... Hence my query. The consensus seems to be that I don't post links to ordinary crap and that some don't have the time to sift through govliq on any sort of regular basis and find the links I post interesting. I don't think the number of links I've posted has been excessive, at least noone's complained :-). So I'll continue the practice of occasionally posting links... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Jan 5 13:47:01 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 19:47:01 -0000 (GMT) Subject: not quite on topic but, classic analogue satellite tv decoding boxes Message-ID: <1853.192.168.0.4.1168026421.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Hello folks, I've got a pair of old UK SKY TV boxen (1997 era) that are pretty useless as analogue SKY TV was switched off in 2001; can the hardware be used for anything else or is it pretty much paperweight material? Ta, -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jan 5 13:54:51 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 11:54:51 -0800 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366AE@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: To be certain, some errors/additions are deliberate; Rand McNally generally sprikles a few non-existent landmarks in their maps; Google satellite maps have "watermarks" that can be very confusing. I spied what looked to be clearing on some of my forested land and hiked to the very spot and found--trees, just like everywhere else. It took some conferring with a USGS employee to discover that what I thought was a clearing was a rather subtle watermark (viewed in just the right way, you can make out a "Go". Cheers, Chuck ------------------------------------- Billy wrote: It also happens closer to home in our mutual field. In the 1970's, CDC was working hard on Russian alliances. They had to prove that Russian technology was as advanced as the products CDC wanted to ship. (The old DoD guideline.) So they bought some Russian 8080's and tested them. Everything was going good until they decapped the chip. Inside, under a microscope, they found an image of Mickey Mouse's head in the metal layer. Of course, put there by Intel engineers to spot copy cat reverse engineering. The Russians hadn't caught up in technology; they had bought masks under the table and made complete ripoffs. I know other IC vendors use similiar tricks to identify their IP. One I have seen is an entire section of circuitry that has no outputs - like the old famous write only logic. And it has been faithfully copied by several Asian suppliers. Billy From trag at io.com Fri Jan 5 13:35:39 2007 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 13:35:39 -0600 Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage In-Reply-To: <200701050731.l057VFuq051679@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701050731.l057VFuq051679@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:43:12 -0500 >From: Brad Parker >Jeff Walther wrote: >> >>Additionally, the Outbound Laptop is an interesting beast in that it >>uses 2.5" IDE hard drives. This is the first Macintosh to use an >>IDE device by many many years. I don't think any Apple Mac used >>them until the Quadra 630 and its performa and LC cousins. > >Perhaps true, but there were macs with 3.5" st-506 drives long before >that. There may have been Apple machines with ST-506s but unless my memory is much worse than I hope, there was never a Macintosh with an ST-506. Unless you're thinking of the "Macintosh Hard Disk 20"? But looking through old emails, that has a Rodime Model 552 drive inside with a mysterious 26 pin interface, not an ST-506. >Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 14:26:08 -0800 >From: "Billy Pettit" >I'm not familiar with the Outbound Laptop. What was the model number? Outbound was a company. So they were producing non-Apple Macintoshes by scavenging Apple ROMs from Apple machines. The model number in this case is the Laptop Model 125. A very cool machine with four SIMM sockets devoted to a "silicon disk"--that is a dedicated RAM Disk. You could install up to 16MB in there--at least. I have not tried 16 MB SIMMs yet. The keyboard was detachable and had an IR interface. It also had a trackbar ("isopoint") at the bottom of the keyboard. A ?-bus (not PS2, not ADB that other one used on PCs (required an ISA card) with a round connector) mouse could be plugged into the keyboard if one preferred a mouse. Additionally, using the optional SCSI adapter, the Laptop could be "docked" as an accessible SCSI device on any Macintosh with a SCSI interface. >I do know that I was supporting Apple at Quantum in early 1994 and qualified >an IDE 2.5 inch drive for their laptops. The Laptop 125 was around as early as February 1990. I'm not certain exactly when it was first released. It pred-dates the Powerbooks. So, e.g. the cool SCSI docking feature was available on an Outbound, long before it was a feature on the PowerBooks. Jeff Walther From roosmcd at dds.nl Fri Jan 5 14:34:44 2007 From: roosmcd at dds.nl (roosmcd at dds.nl) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 21:34:44 +0100 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion Message-ID: <20070105213444.ppd9lv4kocbowowk@webmail.dds.nl> > From: "William Donzelli" > Subject: Re: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion > >> So noone has one of the Intergraph workstations? A pity. They were a >> dominant player, you'd have expected some of the machines to survive! > > > There are quite a few in Rhode Island at both computer groups. Even an > Intergraph VAX, with weird disk controllers made to search for polygon > data in hardware. > I still have a 2020 and a 125 from a lot I traded some time ago . These were used as GIS systems by the government. Never got the 125 to work because of some bug in the installation procedure. The steel-encased Intergraph 21" color monitor was also very nice.... I also have a lot of documentation, cd-roms, tapes and floppies. If anyone is interested, I have Intergraph memory for sale for 2000 machines, sets of 4x4MB special Intergraph 30-pin simms; my machines already is at the 64MB max. I've tried a long time to sell those, so far no luck, so I don't think many people have Intergraph workstations :) . greetings, Michiel From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 14:45:11 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 12:45:11 -0800 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay In-Reply-To: <013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org> <013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com> On 12/13/06, Jay West wrote: > J Blaser wrote.... > >I don't know anything about HP minis, so I don't know what to look for, but > >for those on the list that have HPs and might be interested... > > > > The main unit: item # 320060663740 > > The FP unit: item # 320060663048 > > > > No bids yet. > And hopefully there won't be... unless you want parts - cause it's got > issues. > And the winner is... Warren. # 320067174880 # 320067174671 Looks like it was fairly well loaded with a complete set of memory cards and I/O cards. Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like it might even have the cable that connects the front panel to the two cards in the FPP box. I'm not sure if the FPP box will power up completely without the power in/out cable between the two boxes. I have never found a currently available connector shell part that will exactly mate with those 9-pin power supply connectors on the back. Maybe it doesn't matter if you power the boxes up in the right order. It's been a while since I bothered connecting the FPP box to my 2117F. -Glen From williams.dan at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 15:18:29 2007 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 21:18:29 +0000 Subject: Stuff to give away UK Message-ID: <26c11a640701051318p24484170qe802669bec2a1015@mail.gmail.com> I have some more stuff to get rid of now. There are: 3 Vaxstations Some Amstrad CPC's Manuals I don't have equipment for : Tektronix 475 oscilloscope calibration and diagram supplement la120 letter printer programmer ref guide tektronix 475 oscilloscope service manual beckmen industrial circuitmate 9020 osilloscope operaters manual x3 cosser instruments model 3122 oscilloscope operating manual cosser instruments model 3100 oscilloscope operating manual cosser instruments model 3102 oscilloscope operating manual some vt100's with no keyboards Lots of sparcstation IPC's Apart from the manuals anything not picked up will have to be skipped. Stuff not so free. I would like some cash for, anything sensible will be accepted. Would also accept storeage of other items for a year or two ;) vax 4000/500 with external 10x external drives (all with scsi->dssi convertors) (in half rack) vax 4000/705A with external 5x dssi drives. (In standard case) Dual head octane with 1gb memory. vaxstation 4000/90. The stuff is located in Soho at the moment. It could move to Kent if not picked up soon. Thanks Dan From williams.dan at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 15:23:42 2007 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 21:23:42 +0000 Subject: Stuff to give away UK In-Reply-To: <26c11a640701051318p24484170qe802669bec2a1015@mail.gmail.com> References: <26c11a640701051318p24484170qe802669bec2a1015@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640701051323qe92a953v42e33deec83fcc1f@mail.gmail.com> Sorry forgot also 2 monitors an SGI 20d11. In good condition great picture. DEC 19" very yellowed but picture fine. Dan From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jan 5 16:12:32 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:12:32 -0800 Subject: Arix (was Rational) Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366AF@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Al Kossow wrote: Did you mean Arete? We have one, and it ran a version of Unix called Arix. ------------------------------ Billy wrote: My memory is that the first few times I visited them, the company name was Arix. That was changed to Ar?te after some of the notoriety caught up with them. I'd love to meet somebody who worked at the location on Zanker road. There were things happening there that are unique in the industry. Does anybody on this list remember the room painted black? Billy From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 5 13:20:09 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 19:20:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Missing Bits In-Reply-To: <459DAF65.3080608@gjcp.net> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jan 5, 7 01:52:37 am Message-ID: > > I carry my driving licence with me, in case anyone asks me my name. I > have genuinely been asked my name, and just gone blank. I cannot > remember names, sometimes not even my own. I'm the same. I've been known to introduce people as '%person' (pronounced the obvious way). Gets some very odd looks. And I once had to stop and think when asked when my birthday was. On the other hand, I can remember details of machinery with no trouble at all. I can take something apart, make only minimal notes (say the order of wires on a terminal block) and have no trouble at all putting it back together. And I think the functions and pinouts of chips I grew up with are in ROM in my brain now. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 5 13:12:38 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 19:12:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: D-shell connector age? In-Reply-To: <20070105013630.LHXG8030.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> from "jpero@sympatico.ca" at Jan 4, 7 08:36:57 pm Message-ID: > Very common here also (chassis live) till mid 1990's then changed to > isolation via the flyback transformer, partial hot chassis till Interesting. There were sets over here (made by a company called Salora, I think) that had what was commanly known as the IPSALO circuit. That was an acronym for 'Integrated Power Supply and Line Output' (Line Output being what we call the Horizontal Output stage). IIRC, the horizontal yoke was on the live side of the power supply, the vertical yoke (and in fact the entire vertical deflection circuit) was on the isolated side. Hmmm.. > flyback transformer. Then SMPS for isolation. Some do double > isolation via SMPS then flyback transformer. Never seen that, > > Still, certain area of chassis (just a one board now) even on SMPS is > hot. Sure. > > Isolation transformer is a MUST when servicing any even brand new > set. No buts or ifs. And, indeed, for working on any SMPSU (which are common in classic computers, and therefore on-topic). I think I've mentioend the origianl Tandy Model 1 monitor before, but it's worth doing so again. it was based (as is well-known) on an RCA protable TV, the tuner and IF boards were removed and the latter replaced by a composite video input board. That TV was live chassis. US versions have a on opto-isolater on the video input board (that's the reason for the 5V power output on the model 1's video DIN socket, to power the input side of the opto-isolator circuit), every thing else inide the monitor is live!. European models have a step-down _isolating_ transformer inside the case (since the TV chassis was designed for 115V mains input only), the video input board is then little more than a transistor buffer stage. Of course with that version almost all the circuitry inside the monitor is isolated from the power line. But be _very_ careful if you work on the US version! -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 5 13:15:27 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 19:15:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ebay: HP 82045A Thermal Paper In-Reply-To: <42A8ECF5282C8543B245A0A1828E76AF14F272@EXRNJMB08.nam.nsroot.net> from "Tucker, Billy D [PVTC]" at Jan 4, 7 05:16:28 pm Message-ID: > > I am interersted in buying some thermal paper for a Hewlett Packard > printer. Can you give me any help? My email at home is btu68 at aol.com. What model of HP printer, and is there anything special about the paper (sproket holes, for example{ ? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 5 13:16:41 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 19:16:41 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: <200701050145.l051j775090197@keith.ezwind.net> from "Bob Bradlee" at Jan 4, 7 08:45:01 pm Message-ID: > Because in the good old days it was Federal law. The FTC or what ever they were called then > required manufacturers to provide schematics for all electronic devices marketed int the US. Had to > provide spare parts for something like 7 years too.... The lawyers changed all that years ago. How did HP get away with not releasing schematics for the 9100, then? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 5 16:21:14 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:21:14 +0000 (GMT) Subject: House cleaning! Everything must go! In-Reply-To: <459DCDF6.4000200@msu.edu> from "Josh Dersch" at Jan 4, 7 08:03:02 pm Message-ID: > - HP Laserjet II. Non-working, but probably easy to fix (has trouble > pulling paper out of the tray, otherwise works fine last time I tried > it). Needs new toner cartridge. It is normally an easy repair. You need to replace the (D-shapped) pickup roller. Eitehr the complete pickup shaft assembly, or if you want to save money and do a little more work, just the roller (the latter is what I always do). It's a common problem on SX printers. -tony From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 5 16:36:41 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 16:36:41 -0600 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org><013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING> J Blaser wrote.... >> >I don't know anything about HP minis,... >> > The main unit: item # 320060663740 >> > The FP unit: item # 320060663048 >> > No bids yet. To which I replied.... >> And hopefully there won't be... unless you want parts - cause it's got >> issues. And Glen wrote... > And the winner is... Warren. # 320067174880 # 320067174671 Hey, not the same machine I was referencing ;) The one Glen mentions looked pretty complete. > Looks like it was fairly well loaded with a complete set of memory > cards and I/O cards. I'd yank all those 64K cards and just run with one 256kw board, keeping the 2nd 256kw board for spare. All those "little" 64k boards just suck up power and don't give you much extra memory. I generally don't run things that would require more than a pittance of ram anyways.... so others here will certainly disagree with me on this point. I just recognized the "unknown" board at the top in slot 25, it's a PSI (Programmable Serial Interface) board (built on a 5180-1953). I think that's a 3rd party board. I would like more info on these boards if anyone has it. Sketchy info follows that may only be half-accurate: There are four Z80's? on board as I recall, and 3 proms to dump your z80 code in to. Thus, you can program this board to do all kinds of fun interesting things - IF you have the specifications as to what your code needs to do in Z80 to talk to the backplane or other chips on board. In the given configuration, it was used to control 4 serial ports I think, but may have been just 2 terminals (the ones I got were hooked up to a very odd very large graphics terminal that required 2 serial ports each). I still have a couple of these boards, the correct cables, and the back panel db25 mounting bracket. I have a manual for them, but it is the manual for the PSI implementation of the board and thus no details on coding your own Z80 stuff on it. If anyone has THOSE specs I'd love a copy. The other "unknown" board in slot 12, I have no clue, but I'd love to see a picture of it, from the ebay picture of it what I can see is intriguing. Warren... I'll gladly trade some of my HP boards in exchange for one or two of the microcircuit boards in there ;) > I'm not sure if the FPP box will power up completely without the power > in/out cable between the two boxes. I have never found a currently > available connector shell part that will exactly mate with those 9-pin > power supply connectors on the back. Maybe it doesn't matter if you > power the boxes up in the right order. It's been a while since I > bothered connecting the FPP box to my 2117F. You know, that's a good question. Can anyone answer that? Bob S. perhaps? My hunch given past experience is that the power in/out cable isn't required. I don't know though. I have looked for those 9 pin power supply connectors too, to no avail :( I'd love to find some of the new crimp pins at least!! AMP doesn't seem to remember making them. I would hazard a guess that the FPP box would need to be powered up before the cpu ;) Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 5 16:39:19 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 16:39:19 -0600 Subject: Missing Bits References: Message-ID: <013801c7311a$57049fa0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Tony wrote.... > And I once had to stop and think when asked when my birthday was. > > On the other hand, I can remember details of machinery with no trouble at > all. I believe that's what my wife (what's her name again?) refers to in a rather displeased manner as "selective memory" ;) Jay West From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 16:43:47 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 15:43:47 -0700 Subject: Missing Bits In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:39:19 -0600. <013801c7311a$57049fa0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <013801c7311a$57049fa0$6500a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > I believe that's what my wife (what's her name again?) refers to in a rather > displeased manner as "selective memory" ;) All human memory is selective. Its a feature, not a bug :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Fri Jan 5 17:14:01 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:14:01 -0500 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200701052314.l05NE6CU054428@keith.ezwind.net> On Fri, 5 Jan 2007 19:16:41 +0000 (GMT), Tony Duell wrote: >> Because in the good old days it was Federal law. The FTC or what ever they were called then >> required manufacturers to provide schematics for all electronic devices marketed int the US. Had to >> provide spare parts for something like 7 years too.... The lawyers changed all that years ago. >How did HP get away with not releasing schematics for the 9100, then? >-tony Good question, A deal was made with the TV / Radio industry where SamsPhotofact became the central clearing house. Even the HiFi and C/B radio industry feed the Sams Printing system with fresh fodder each month. Early Computers were exempt right from the start, because they were for the most part each unique. Then on Sept 12 1958, Jack Kilby successful demonstrated that first simple microchip in the laboratory and all the rules began to change, slowly at first. Then over the last 50 years, many concept have shifted. Today information has a resale value, that is not associated with extrortion or blackmail. Most largest lawfirms have Intellectual property departments, with enforcement quotas to meet. I have found that If I needed one bad enough I could purchase all the information I needed to fix something I wanted fixed. A few have required NDA's but in most cases a set of drawings were made for each system, as built, or were on file somewhere, Sometimes it was free, you just had to ask at time of order so a second set could be generated at system build time. Got to run ... no time to fix spelling .... Bob From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 17:34:25 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 15:34:25 -0800 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay In-Reply-To: <012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org> <013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com> <012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701051534l7df2c326m314ce92776df6e02@mail.gmail.com> On 1/5/07, Jay West wrote: > I'd yank all those 64K cards and just run with one 256kw board, keeping the > 2nd 256kw board for spare. All those "little" 64k boards just suck up power > and don't give you much extra memory. I generally don't run things that > would require more than a pittance of ram anyways.... so others here will > certainly disagree with me on this point. > Extra RAM is always good for making the self-test count higher on the blinkenlights. :-) > I just recognized the "unknown" board at the top in slot 25, it's a PSI > (Programmable Serial Interface) board (built on a 5180-1953). I think that's > a 3rd party board. I would like more info on these boards if anyone has it. > Sketchy info follows that may only be half-accurate: There are four Z80's? > on board as I recall, and 3 proms to dump your z80 code in to. That sounded similar to what I remembered about the 12792 8-Channel Mux, but I just looked at the manual and it has a single Z80, DMA, CTC, 4 SIO/2s, and 16K of DRAM. I wonder if there is anything interesting you could do with those with your own firmware. > Warren... I'll gladly trade some of my HP boards in exchange for one or two > of the microcircuit boards in there ;) > I have a few 12566 boards and some relay boards, forget their number. > I have looked for those 9 pin power supply connectors > too, to no avail :( I'd love to find some of the new crimp pins at least!! > AMP doesn't seem to remember making them. I'd like to make a real plug for the battery backup 820ohm thermistor bypass. I just have a resistor with its legs folded over wedged into the connector for now. -Glen From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 17:46:01 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:46:01 -0700 Subject: questions about Sphere-1 micro? email me. Message-ID: The Sphere-1 micro, the first personal computer, was created and built here in Utah. The creator, Mike Wise, died from complications of diabetes in December of 2004. However, one of his long-time business associates Arnold Grundvig of A-Systems is still around. I talked with Arnold on the phone and he says that Mike regaled him with many stories over the years about the Sphere and so-on. I was interested in interviewing Mike for a short peice about that early piece of Utah computing history. Arnold has agreed to be interviewed for such a purpose instead. So if any of you have questions about the Sphere or that period of microcomputing history, please email them to me off-list and I will collect them together with my own questions, conduct an interview and post the transcript. If any of you know any "old timers" that are getting on in years, it might be a good idea to conduct a recorded interview (don't rely on notes! record it!) to capture some of the "oral history" that will be lost when they pass on. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 5 18:00:31 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:00:31 -0600 Subject: not quite on topic but, classic analogue satellite tv decoding boxes In-Reply-To: <1853.192.168.0.4.1168026421.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> References: <1853.192.168.0.4.1168026421.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: <459EE69F.1000303@yahoo.co.uk> Witchy wrote: > Hello folks, > > I've got a pair of old UK SKY TV boxen (1997 era) that are pretty useless > as analogue SKY TV was switched off in 2001; can the hardware be used for > anything else or is it pretty much paperweight material? Paperweight, I would have thought - I've never heard of them being able to do anything 'clever' (unlike, say, some of Acorn's set top boxes which do resemble a computer closely enough to fire up a web browser on, talk to a few very specific hardware add-ons etc.). I doubt there's even many useful components that can be salvaged as it'll likely all be surface mount stuff and big shiny screened silver boxes inside. cheers Jules From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jan 5 19:11:05 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:11:05 -0300 Subject: House cleaning! Everything must go! References: Message-ID: <059001c7312f$fa8ff1f0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > It is normally an easy repair. You need to replace the (D-shapped) pickup > roller. Eitehr the complete pickup shaft assembly, or if you want to save > money and do a little more work, just the roller (the latter is what I > always do). It's a common problem on SX printers. Tony, do you have an EASY source for these rollers? I have 3 or 4 SX printers that I'd love to donate to some charity, but all have the same problem. All of them were rebuilt by me (I have some articles written on repairfaq.org about the HP2/3 and HP4/5) but these rollers are impossible to be found in Brazil. Most american suppliers - dunno why - do not ship to Brazil. :o( From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jan 5 18:17:08 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:17:08 -0800 Subject: Wire Rope ROMs (Was: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available) References: Message-ID: <459EEA84.C6CD3225@cs.ubc.ca> Hi Rick, sounds like we have been working along similar lines. I have a Wang 520 in bits: the logic/power supply base, display, keyboard, and (of course) the core rope ROM. Missing the case, cassette drive and printer, but it does work when the remaining bits are connected together. Initially I was just interested in the novelty/exercise of reading the core-rope ROM, but then figured might as well do a simulator to check the validity of the retrieved contents. More comments below: Rick Bensene wrote: > Speaking of Wang Calculator ROM's, I've recently built a fixture that > I'm successfully able to read Wang 700-series ROMs with. It's > unfortunately a non-automatic system...toggle switches and TIL-311 HEX > displays (can automate it later), and am in the (slow) process of > dumping a known good Wang 720C ROM. The ROM strobe signal timing is > very tight on the 700-series ROM...off even a little bit on the timing > (pulse width), and the readout gets real inconsistent. > > Still some tinkering to do. Still, I'm very sure that the fixture to > read the ROMs is working perfectly. All ROM locations return consistent > results, and other than the emulator running into all zero ROM content > (there are quite a few "unused" locations in the ROM), all of the > instructions decoded thus far are "valid" in terms of the allowed values > of the various microcode fields. To read the core rope I set up some TTL to produce the read-pulse-sequences for the core rope, interfaced to and under the control of a SWTPC 6800. The core rope contents gets dumped into the 6800 RAM and then uploaded to my main machine over serial line. Most of the 2048 locations read a consistent value, while 3 to 6 locations are flaky in a couple of bits. I did multiple dumps and tried all sorts of things to get them consistent: varying the read-pulse voltage, adjusting the read-pulse drive wires, randomising the read address sequence... nothing would get rid of those few errors. The read-pulse timing is derived from an integrated crystal oscillator unit and seemed to measure well in comparison to the original but I should probably try something with some variability. It would be interesting to see the pulsing circuit you came up with for comparison. One cute thing, if you haven't run across it already, is that the last locations contain test patterns: 07FC: 010101010101.. (hex 55555555..) 07FD: 101010101010.. (hex AAAAAAAA..) 07FE: 111111111111.. 07FF: .. (don't remember whether it could be an interrupt vector or might be a checksum) > Also trying to write a microcode execution engine in Perl to run the > code, but there are lots of interesting timing considerations that > require deep digging into the schematics (which is something that I have > little patience for...basically, I'm not very good at it) in terms of > the timing of all of the register transfers in the machine. On the > surface, it looks simple, just a basic 10-phase non-overlapping clock > (shift register), but there's a lot of combinatorial logic that derives > a lot of weird timing from the basic clock phases. > So far, my attempts to execute the code I've extracted so far lead to > execution of illegal instructions (all zero ROM locations), or infinte > loops, and the code execution doesn't seem to make much sense. There > are also some microcode instructions that aren't documented, and having > to dig through schematics to figure out what they do. On a similar note, when I execute the ROM contents in the simulation it does manage to initially execute a subroutine loop which looks like it clears a main register, but after returning from that it starts jumping around the ROM address space in a bizarre sequence. (It was almost 2 years ago that I was last working on it so I'm a little hazy on details.) This is one of the few occasions I wish I had a logic analyser to get a trace from the actual unit. > Wang is also > famous for purposefully putting errors into published schematics to > throw off competitors who would use such schematics to reverse-engineer > how the machines work. So, some of my problem could be that the > schematics are not necessarily an accurate representation of the actual > logic. Great.. and I thought I was lucky when the manuf. schematics turned up on the web so I wouldn't have to do a full board-level RE! So it may be the latter is still necessary. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 5 18:33:51 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 00:33:51 +0000 (GMT) Subject: House cleaning! Everything must go! In-Reply-To: <059001c7312f$fa8ff1f0$f0fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jan 5, 7 10:11:05 pm Message-ID: > > > It is normally an easy repair. You need to replace the (D-shapped) pickup > > roller. Eitehr the complete pickup shaft assembly, or if you want to save > > money and do a little more work, just the roller (the latter is what I > > always do). It's a common problem on SX printers. > > Tony, do you have an EASY source for these rollers? I have 3 or 4 SX I've always bought them (and other Cannon engine parts) from The PrinterWorks (http://www.printerworks.com). They ship to England, I have no idea if they ship to Brazil. Oh yes, if you change the roller, change the 'separation pad' (the little cork-looking pad that holds the paper against the pickup roller) too. -tony From jpero at sympatico.ca Fri Jan 5 14:13:28 2007 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 20:13:28 +0000 Subject: House cleaning! Everything must go! In-Reply-To: References: <459DCDF6.4000200@msu.edu> from "Josh Dersch" at Jan 4, 7 08:03:02 pm Message-ID: <20070106011258.VSJP8030.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:21:14 +0000 (GMT) > Subject: Re: House cleaning! Everything must go! > Reply-to: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > > - HP Laserjet II. Non-working, but probably easy to fix (has trouble > > pulling paper out of the tray, otherwise works fine last time I tried > > it). Needs new toner cartridge. > > > It is normally an easy repair. You need to replace the (D-shapped) pickup > roller. Eitehr the complete pickup shaft assembly, or if you want to save > money and do a little more work, just the roller (the latter is what I > always do). It's a common problem on SX printers. > > -tony Take care, look at the solid part of that is part of the paper pickup system, some have metal cover to help paper to slide/guide thru correctly from the paper pile where pick up roller is (D shape). I have a printer that had this piece missing and had a intermittent pickup. Replacing whole tray fixed this. this is on samsung printer btw. Cheers, Wizard From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 5 19:32:12 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:32:12 -0500 Subject: govliq messages In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 05 Jan 2007 10:12:33 MST." Message-ID: <200701060132.l061WCAW022737@mwave.heeltoe.com> Richard wrote: >Govliquidation.com doesn't exactly have the best descriptions, ... >Does anyone find this useful? I do. I consider it a benefit :-) -brad From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 5 19:35:40 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:35:40 -0500 Subject: Outbound Laptop; Was: Mac OS vintage In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:35:39 CST." Message-ID: <200701060135.l061ZerJ023118@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jeff Walther wrote: > >There may have been Apple machines with ST-506s but unless my memory >is much worse than I hope, there was never a Macintosh with an >ST-506. Unless you're thinking of the "Macintosh Hard Disk 20"? >But looking through old emails, that has a Rodime Model 552 drive >inside with a mysterious 26 pin interface, not an ST-506. I thinking of the Hyperdrive. Only relevant in the early days, say 1985-1987, but helpful at that time. There were several models, all with st-506 drives. -brad From bshannon at tiac.net Fri Jan 5 19:40:09 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 20:40:09 -0500 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. References: , <4597AA13.217.4A75473@cclist.sydex.com>, <45982249.7030506@jetnet.ab.ca> <4597C28E.25598.506F302@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> I've just found an interesting vintage system. The machine is an Edax 9100 / 70. It contains a PDP 11/23 with MMU and FPP chips installed running RT 11 V4, circa 1980. The Edax 9100 is a rather odd beast. Its a system that attached to a scanning electron microscope and used a cryogenic silicon sensor to measure the spectra of emissions from the microscopes target and calculated the elemental composition of the sample. This system consists of three main sections. Each section connects with fairly long sets of cables, so each section is designed to be seperated, built onto or into an existing scanning electron microscope. Main chassis: There is the main chassis, a very mice short roll-around 19-inch rack with a formica top. This holds the 11/23 minicomputer in a custom backplane. There are a number of Q-bus slots, and a large section of custom backplane holding some fancy custom ADC modules and a video display and memory subsystem. The Q-bus section holds the following boards M8186 KDF11 (revision unknown, probably an early one) M8044 DE (memory) M8028 (no idea) A Sigma Floppy Disk Controller (RX02 emulation? boots as DY:) A Dialog ST-506 disk controller M8016 YB (don't know this one either, I used to drive UNIBUS 11's) A DEC 4 SLU board, no M# on the handles. There is a Shugart 8-inch FDD, complete with the original shipping cardboard to protect the heads. There is a ST-506 drive in the chassis somewhere, I don't know the capacity, or if this is a 8 or 5.25 inch drive. There are a number of power supplies for the electronics, as well as a high voltage supply for the special silicon sensor that was attached to the SEM. I don't have the sensor, its still being used on the SEM with a newer EDAX controller box. Keyboard / Console unit: A very retro-looking, nice keyboard with extra function keys, and a row of alphanumeric LED display modules for programmable legends over the function keys. All apparently controlled by standard RS-232 links to the 11/23. The displays look like old Litronix DL-1414 modules. According to the documentation, the standard keyboard section is used to boot the RT-11 O/S. The EDAX application was driven by using the special function keys and programmable key legends on the LED displays. One function key dumps you back to the RT-11SJ prompt. Video Display unit: Uses a portrait-format CRT in a (then) futuristic tilt-swivel metal chassis. This interfaces to the special video display system in the main chassis. This monitor would be placed next to the normal display graphics of the scanning electron microscope and would display the spectra of the sample being tested along with text displays of the settings, elemental compositions, etc. This same display is also used to talk to the PDP/11, I'm thinking that the UART in the display section (I have full schematics) is used to emulate a dumb terminal with the ASCII keyboard section on the Keyboard / Console unit. Software: This thing ran RT-11 SJ V4, and uses a modified version of DEC's basic. Users could write programs in BASIC and CALL functions that ran all the analog front end and display systems. Custom analysis programs could be written and saved to disk. A sort of batch mode would run factory and user written programs to study and test samples. There is whatever is on the disk, and the original factory 8-inch floppys. There is even the original Dialog DSD ST-506 disk controller utility and diagnostic disk with the Dialog D7026A formatting program. Condition: This thing has been removed from service, and has been sitting in the room next to a working electron microscope in a top notch analysis lab since its been delivered from the factory in 1980 or thereabouts. Its never been moved, or stored in a non climate controlled space. The condition is excellent. There are full service schematics and some documentation of the software (like all the calls to run the front end and display stuff). The I/O addresses for the custom hardware appear to be well documented. The roll-around rack is quite short, maybe just under 3 feet high. With the display and keyboard sections the whole thing is a bit smaller than an Apollo DN660, but very similar in general layout. I do not have the (Hubble twist lock) power cable, and I've not tried to powe the thing up. Availability: This thing is in Massachusettes. Right now this thing is sitting in my office at work with scrap paperwork. There is a paperwork process I need to go through to take it out of the building, but I suspect that the disposal fees the company would have to pay are such that they would be very happy for me to remove this thing for them (free to me). Moving the thing (during the winter) will be a small pain however. It will fit into the back of a Jeep Wrangler with the back seat removed, so I can get this thing home but I cannot place it into heated storage. I can store it in my garage, but I'll have to rodent proof the thing (but it will be stored next to my Lotus). The little roll-around rack is very nice, so I have to admit I might part this thing out. So if someone really wants the Q-bus boards and the floppy and hard disks out of it, lets talk. Better still, if someone wants a little RT-11 box, and does not care if the DEC logo is nowhere to be found, this might be a fun and funky little box to hack around on. Its really got killer retro looks, the styling of the thing is really something (photos are possible). The keyboard / console section appears to have a standard serial interface, and its a very cool keyboard, nice feel, very vintage. That could be easily hacked onto whatever vintage machine you wish. As for the CRT display, given that its got a portrait oriented tube, probably uses some totally strange video format that is nearly useless without the Edax display hardware. Oh yes, there is a high voltage inhibit switch, so you can switch off the 1,000 volt bias supply to the sensor head if your just using the computer. A nice service feature thats essential if someone wants to keep this thing intact and use it as a conventional 11/23 box (but full the fuse for the HV section, just in case someone turns that switch back on, you don't want 1 kV hanging off the end of a disconnected cable) Trade offers are welcome, I'd love to have either a working printing terminal (like a LA34) or just a printer that can take green bar paper. Serial or parallel interface will do. Oh yes, if chopped up, parts can be shipped. If you want the whole thing you need to come and pick it up in MA. From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 19:48:35 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:48:35 -0700 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:40:09 -0500. <000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: It sounds sweet! I'd love to see some pictures! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 19:49:12 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 18:49:12 -0700 Subject: govliq messages In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:32:12 -0500. <200701060132.l061WCAW022737@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: OK, so people generally seem pleased with me posting the links. Now for the big question... Has anyone purchased any of the lots that I've posted? :) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From bshannon at tiac.net Fri Jan 5 19:58:11 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 20:58:11 -0500 Subject: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available References: <200612160241.kBG2fNG6087742@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <459B4AA3.DC016D9B@cs.ubc.ca> <459AE50C.13780.B7C77E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <002701c73136$1f980540$0100a8c0@screamer> The alternatives were too heavy. DSKY's (AGC 'terminals') in the LEM drove the weight equations. Numitrons might have been light enough, but probably would not survive the vibration stresses. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 2:04 AM Subject: Re: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available > On 2 Jan 2007 at 22:18, Brent Hilpert wrote: > >> Yes, I'm finding those references as well. Although it seems quite early >> for >> electroluminescent displays too, don't know of anything else that was >> using >> them at that time, esp. in 7-seg form. > > I recall a Popular Science (IIRC) article of around that same time > gushing about how EL was going to revolutionize the world and one of > the applications shown was a large 7 segment display. > > Work with EL generated quite a bit of interest back in the 60's, > including light amplification for radiography (make a sandwich of > dots of EL cells with CdS photoresistors and apply an AC voltage. > The dark cells will tend to stay dark, while those that fluoresce > under bombardment will form a feedback loop.) Reminds me of making a > code practice oscillator by sandwiching a carbon mic with an > earphone. I don't know if the technology ever made it to prime time. > > So that it used EL doesn't surprise me. The only other alternatives > (incandescent, plasma, mechanical) were probably too power-hungry > and/or fragile. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > From bshannon at tiac.net Fri Jan 5 20:28:08 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 21:28:08 -0500 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org><013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com> <012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <006001c7313a$4eee6920$0100a8c0@screamer> I've got a working 2117F, runs weekly, more or less. Great machine. Ok, yes, it will power up without the FP box attached, but it will fail the FPU self-test when the special op-code is run via 'instruction step'. All F-series machines were ~supposed~ to use fault control memory, I think this machine is setup that way. Don't pull the small boards until this is understood. Memory misconfigurations and missing backup battery bypass plugs are 99% of the problems people have with these machines. It will fail to pass power on self test with misconfigured memory. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 5:36 PM Subject: Re: HP HP-2117F on ebay >J Blaser wrote.... >>> >I don't know anything about HP minis,... >>> > The main unit: item # 320060663740 >>> > The FP unit: item # 320060663048 >>> > No bids yet. > > To which I replied.... >>> And hopefully there won't be... unless you want parts - cause it's got >>> issues. > > And Glen wrote... >> And the winner is... Warren. # 320067174880 # 320067174671 > Hey, not the same machine I was referencing ;) The one Glen mentions > looked pretty complete. > >> Looks like it was fairly well loaded with a complete set of memory >> cards and I/O cards. > I'd yank all those 64K cards and just run with one 256kw board, keeping > the 2nd 256kw board for spare. All those "little" 64k boards just suck up > power and don't give you much extra memory. I generally don't run things > that would require more than a pittance of ram anyways.... so others here > will certainly disagree with me on this point. > > I just recognized the "unknown" board at the top in slot 25, it's a PSI > (Programmable Serial Interface) board (built on a 5180-1953). I think > that's a 3rd party board. I would like more info on these boards if anyone > has it. Sketchy info follows that may only be half-accurate: There are > four Z80's? on board as I recall, and 3 proms to dump your z80 code in to. > Thus, you can program this board to do all kinds of fun interesting > things - IF you have the specifications as to what your code needs to do > in Z80 to talk to the backplane or other chips on board. In the given > configuration, it was used to control 4 serial ports I think, but may have > been just 2 terminals (the ones I got were hooked up to a very odd very > large graphics terminal that required 2 serial ports each). I still have a > couple of these boards, the correct cables, and the back panel db25 > mounting bracket. I have a manual for them, but it is the manual for the > PSI implementation of the board and thus no details on coding your own Z80 > stuff on it. If anyone has THOSE specs I'd love a copy. > > The other "unknown" board in slot 12, I have no clue, but I'd love to see > a picture of it, from the ebay picture of it what I can see is intriguing. > > Warren... I'll gladly trade some of my HP boards in exchange for one or > two of the microcircuit boards in there ;) > >> I'm not sure if the FPP box will power up completely without the power >> in/out cable between the two boxes. I have never found a currently >> available connector shell part that will exactly mate with those 9-pin >> power supply connectors on the back. Maybe it doesn't matter if you >> power the boxes up in the right order. It's been a while since I >> bothered connecting the FPP box to my 2117F. > You know, that's a good question. Can anyone answer that? Bob S. perhaps? > My hunch given past experience is that the power in/out cable isn't > required. I don't know though. I have looked for those 9 pin power supply > connectors too, to no avail :( I'd love to find some of the new crimp pins > at least!! AMP doesn't seem to remember making them. I would hazard a > guess that the FPP box would need to be powered up before the cpu ;) > > Jay West > > From bshannon at tiac.net Fri Jan 5 20:38:42 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 21:38:42 -0500 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org><013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com><012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701051534l7df2c326m314ce92776df6e02@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <006401c7313b$c8b42870$0100a8c0@screamer> Rather than just 'plug' a resistor into the back of the PSU, I like to get the regular cable to the battery backup box, and use that. Its a common cable, I may have spares. I pull the lead acid cells out of the battery boxes, and leave the stock thermistor in place. The advantage is that with the battery box in place (or even a blank rear plate) the airflow through the I/O cage is much better than when the back plate is missing. The same thing is true for the blank plate over the memory card cage. Early memory controllers will run much hotter without this plate in place. HP put these parts there for a reason it seems. My I/O slots are packed, so I try to keep them happy. Having lots of DMS memory can be a real advantage. I've got software that gives you up to 32 separate address spaces, so you can jump between totally incompatible programs on a single machine. This allows an IPL program to run HP Basic, and then return control back to the original IPL code, etc. Swapping the system map around is great fun! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Glen Slick" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 6:34 PM Subject: Re: HP HP-2117F on ebay > On 1/5/07, Jay West wrote: >> I'd yank all those 64K cards and just run with one 256kw board, keeping >> the >> 2nd 256kw board for spare. All those "little" 64k boards just suck up >> power >> and don't give you much extra memory. I generally don't run things that >> would require more than a pittance of ram anyways.... so others here will >> certainly disagree with me on this point. >> > > Extra RAM is always good for making the self-test count higher on the > blinkenlights. :-) > >> I just recognized the "unknown" board at the top in slot 25, it's a PSI >> (Programmable Serial Interface) board (built on a 5180-1953). I think >> that's >> a 3rd party board. I would like more info on these boards if anyone has >> it. >> Sketchy info follows that may only be half-accurate: There are four >> Z80's? >> on board as I recall, and 3 proms to dump your z80 code in to. > > That sounded similar to what I remembered about the 12792 8-Channel > Mux, but I just looked at the manual and it has a single Z80, DMA, > CTC, 4 SIO/2s, and 16K of DRAM. I wonder if there is anything > interesting you could do with those with your own firmware. > >> Warren... I'll gladly trade some of my HP boards in exchange for one or >> two >> of the microcircuit boards in there ;) >> > > I have a few 12566 boards and some relay boards, forget their number. > >> I have looked for those 9 pin power supply connectors >> too, to no avail :( I'd love to find some of the new crimp pins at >> least!! >> AMP doesn't seem to remember making them. > > I'd like to make a real plug for the battery backup 820ohm thermistor > bypass. I just have a resistor with its legs folded over wedged into > the connector for now. > > -Glen > From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 20:43:59 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 19:43:59 -0700 Subject: Onyx/Challenge skins wanted Message-ID: My two new Onyx machines are almost naked! One has a top, side and front skin. The other has a top skin only. So, I am looking for skins for the box so that I can make them pretty. The Challenge/L machines use the same enclosure, so the skins from those can be used. Can anyone help me out? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 5 20:48:51 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 18:48:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: the market is about to drop out on the Cat Message-ID: <20070106024851.77817.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> there's currently 10 on eBay right now. 9 of which are from the previous seller (the one that banged out at $1,926). Is the guy dopey? How could he reasonably expect to get that money for each when he dumps them all on the market at once??? I would think it would make the most sense to spread them out. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jan 5 20:52:19 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 18:52:19 -0800 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 6:48 PM -0700 1/5/07, Richard wrote: >It sounds sweet! I'd love to see some pictures! I'll second that (both parts)! Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 20:54:33 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 21:54:33 -0500 Subject: House cleaning! Everything must go! In-Reply-To: References: <059001c7312f$fa8ff1f0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: On 1/5/07, Tony Duell wrote: > > > It is normally an easy repair. You need to replace the (D-shapped) pickup > > > roller. Eitehr the complete pickup shaft assembly, or if you want to save > > > money and do a little more work, just the roller (the latter is what I > > > always do). It's a common problem on SX printers. > > > > Tony, do you have an EASY source for these rollers? I have 3 or 4 SX > > I've always bought them (and other Cannon engine parts) from The > PrinterWorks (http://www.printerworks.com). They ship to England, I have > no idea if they ship to Brazil. I have bought these parts from these guys and recall paying about $7 or $8 USD for the roller and a similar amount for the separation pad - about $35-$40 in parts for my $15 Uni-surplus 2-tray Postscript-upgraded LJ-IIISi. This was a few years ago, so the prices may have drifted a bit. Getting the roller bar out is a little bit of work (lots of case screws to drop, etc), but once you are that far, taking the roller bar apart to change only the D-shaped pickup roller isn't difficult. I'd rather pay $8 for the rubber bit than several times that for the entire roller assembly, especially since it's the only part of the assembly that has age/wear issues. > Oh yes, if you change the roller, change the 'separation pad' (the little > cork-looking pad that holds the paper against the pickup roller) too. Absolutely. Well worth it once you have the printer apart. It's easy to change the pad and a new one will help problems of a partial feed of the second-to-top sheet that will cause a jam on the next paper pick cycle. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 5 21:02:32 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:02:32 -0500 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. In-Reply-To: <000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <4597AA13.217.4A75473@cclist.sydex.com> <45982249.7030506@jetnet.ab.ca> <4597C28E.25598.506F302@cclist.sydex.com> <000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: On 1/5/07, Bob Shannon wrote: > I've just found an interesting vintage system. > > The machine is an Edax 9100 / 70. It contains a PDP 11/23 with MMU and FPP > chips installed running RT 11 V4, circa 1980... Interesting. > Keyboard / Console unit: > > A very retro-looking, nice keyboard with extra function keys, and a row of > alphanumeric LED display modules for programmable legends over the > function keys. All apparently controlled by standard RS-232 links to the > 11/23. The displays look like old Litronix DL-1414 modules. Nice. > Video Display unit: > > Uses a portrait-format CRT in a (then) futuristic tilt-swivel metal chassis. > This interfaces to the special video display system in the main chassis... > > This same display is also used to talk to the PDP/11, I'm thinking that the > UART in the display section (I have full schematics) is used to emulate > a dumb terminal with the ASCII keyboard section on the Keyboard / Console unit. That's an interesting way to do it. I'm curious how _dumb_ the emulated terminal is (VT52/VT100, totally dumb glass TTY, etc.) Portrait displays are quite unusual in vintage gear, and I'm curious to learn about any examples. > Better still, if someone wants a little RT-11 box, and does not care if > the DEC logo is nowhere to be found, this might be > a fun and funky little box to hack around on. I'm in Ohio, so I'll give this a pass to someone who is much closer, but it sounds cool. > Its really got killer retro looks, the styling of the thing is really > something (photos are possible). I'll "third" the request for photos, especially of the keyboard and display. -ethan From dbetz at xlisper.com Fri Jan 5 21:08:04 2007 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:08:04 -0500 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. References: <4597AA13.217.4A75473@cclist.sydex.com><45982249.7030506@jetnet.ab.ca><4597C28E.25598.506F302@cclist.sydex.com><000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <012901c7313f$f4816590$0b05020a@gmi.domain> >> Better still, if someone wants a little RT-11 box, and does not care if >> the DEC logo is nowhere to be found, this might be >> a fun and funky little box to hack around on. Hmmm... How *little* is little? I'd like a small desktop PDP-11. I just gave away a couple of floor models that were too big for the space I have available. From bshannon at tiac.net Fri Jan 5 21:18:59 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:18:59 -0500 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. References: <4597AA13.217.4A75473@cclist.sydex.com><45982249.7030506@jetnet.ab.ca><4597C28E.25598.506F302@cclist.sydex.com><000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> <012901c7313f$f4816590$0b05020a@gmi.domain> Message-ID: <009101c73141$7905b180$0100a8c0@screamer> Not desktop little. Its clearly a floor model machine, maybe a bit over 20 inches wide. Its maybe 3 feet deep. I don't think its nearly as heavy as a Symbolics box. ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Betz" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 10:08 PM Subject: Re: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. >>> Better still, if someone wants a little RT-11 box, and does not care if >>> the DEC logo is nowhere to be found, this might be >>> a fun and funky little box to hack around on. > > Hmmm... How *little* is little? I'd like a small desktop PDP-11. I just > gave away a couple of floor models that were too big for the space I have > available. > From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 5 21:23:40 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:23:40 -0700 Subject: cctalk frappr? (was: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available.) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 05 Jan 2007 22:02:32 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "Ethan Dicks" writes: > > Better still, if someone wants a little RT-11 box, and does not care if > > the DEC logo is nowhere to be found, this might be > > a fun and funky little box to hack around on. > > I'm in Ohio, so I'll give this a pass to someone who is much closer, > but it sounds cool. Speaking of locations... I know there are PDP8 owners PDP11 owner frappr maps. What other vintage computing frappr maps are out there? I think it would be very interesting to have a frappr map that represented all of the cctalkers. (Now if I could only figure out how to make frappr stop moving from place to place on the map but just *stay* in one place.) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 5 21:34:22 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 21:34:22 -0600 Subject: cctalk frappr? (was: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available.) References: Message-ID: <00f901c73143$8fefdd60$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Richard wrote... > I think it would be very interesting to have a frappr map that > represented all of the cctalkers. That is in the works. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 5 22:00:52 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:00:52 -0600 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org><013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com><012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING> <006001c7313a$4eee6920$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <013e01c73147$43c59610$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Bob wrote.... > All F-series machines were ~supposed~ to use fault control memory, I think > this machine is setup that way. Don't pull the small boards until this is > understood. Hummm doesn't appear to be any fault control array stuff in there to me. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 5 22:04:33 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:04:33 -0600 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org><013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com><012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING> <006001c7313a$4eee6920$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <014701c73147$c84ee080$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Bob wrote... > Ok, yes, it will power up without the FP box attached, but it will fail > the > FPU self-test when the special op-code is run via 'instruction step'. But that's not quite what I was wondering... What if the FP box *IS* attached, but the power interconnect (the power cable between cpu and ffp) cable isn't? This means the ribbon cable is connected, and the fpu is powered on, and then the cpu is powered on. Will this work... or is there some mechanism on the power side of the FPP unit that it will not come on unless the power interconnect cable is on too? I don't know how this works. Jay From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Fri Jan 5 22:11:58 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 23:11:58 -0500 Subject: cctalk frappr? (was: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available.) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070105230948.04e11540@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Richard may have mentioned these words: >Speaking of locations... I know there are > > PDP8 owners > > > PDP11 owner > > >frappr maps. > >What other vintage computing frappr maps are out there? There's a RS CoCo Frappr: http://www.frappr.com/radioshackcolorcomputer Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jan 5 22:49:18 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:49:18 -0800 Subject: the market is about to drop out on the Cat In-Reply-To: <20070106024851.77817.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi Gone now. I'd suspect it was that fellow that has been stealing peoples ID and then posting item an saying that he will only take buy it now purchases. I've seen him a couple of times now. He likes items that are in the multi $K range. Dwight >From: Chris M >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: talk >Subject: the market is about to drop out on the Cat >Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 18:48:51 -0800 (PST) > >there's currently 10 on eBay right now. 9 of which are >from the previous seller (the one that banged out at >$1,926). Is the guy dopey? How could he reasonably >expect to get that money for each when he dumps them >all on the market at once??? I would think it would >make the most sense to spread them out. > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around >http://mail.yahoo.com _________________________________________________________________ Dave vs. Carl: The Insignificant Championship Series. ?Who will win? http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://davevscarl.spaces.live.com/?icid=T001MSN38C07001 From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 6 00:48:03 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:48:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: ebay - mindset in los angeles area p/u only Message-ID: <636065.97007.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> I aint got the link handy, but its searcheable. At about a buck still I think. The catch - either the monitor or the unit is defective. Currently still a valu __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From geoffr at zipcon.net Sat Jan 6 00:51:43 2007 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoff Reed) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 22:51:43 -0800 Subject: House cleaning! Everything must go! In-Reply-To: <059001c7312f$fa8ff1f0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <68a501c7315f$208af420$0701a8c0@liberator> There's a product called Rubber Renu that works wonders with the pickup rollers, they get plugged/glazed with paperdust after a while, and the rubber renu cleans them up and leaves them just slightly tacky like when they shipped from the factory. Other feed problems are with the cork separator pads.... -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Alexandre Souza Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 5:11 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Re: House cleaning! Everything must go! > It is normally an easy repair. You need to replace the (D-shapped) pickup > roller. Eitehr the complete pickup shaft assembly, or if you want to save > money and do a little more work, just the roller (the latter is what I > always do). It's a common problem on SX printers. Tony, do you have an EASY source for these rollers? I have 3 or 4 SX printers that I'd love to donate to some charity, but all have the same problem. All of them were rebuilt by me (I have some articles written on repairfaq.org about the HP2/3 and HP4/5) but these rollers are impossible to be found in Brazil. Most american suppliers - dunno why - do not ship to Brazil. :o( From doc at mdrconsult.com Sat Jan 6 01:33:39 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 01:33:39 -0600 Subject: govliq messages In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459F50D3.5080609@mdrconsult.com> Richard wrote: > OK, so people generally seem pleased with me posting the links. > > Now for the big question... > > Has anyone purchased any of the lots that I've posted? :) Nothing you've posted that I've seen met the desire-over-distance quotient. :^) I'm sure soon enough something will. Doc From wizard at voyager.net Sat Jan 6 02:01:27 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 03:01:27 -0500 Subject: Lookee what I just got! Message-ID: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site> Hello, Jay, especially, but any other HP types, Well, I went and did it. I am now the proud owner of an HP-2117F, if I can identify it correctly, shown here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320067174880 ... and, FPU, shown here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320067174671 My experience with the HP 1000 series machines is, almost exclusively, programming them in TSB on HP-200B, C, and F systems, many moons ago. Jay, you seem to be an alpha geek when it comes to HP iron. (A term of respect, no offense intended...) So, could you look at the above auctions, and tell me what I need to make a good system. Obviously, a disk system comes to mind... but, if you could be specific, I would appreciate it. Also, what are the chances of this being a suitable machine to run Time-Share BASIC, or TSB? I imagine I would need microcode boards or ROM for the microcode boards already there, but, for all I know, it already *IS* a TSB machine. Thanks for your consideration. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From bbrown at harpercollege.edu Sat Jan 6 00:51:01 2007 From: bbrown at harpercollege.edu (Bob Brown) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 00:51:01 -0600 Subject: HP2000 & terminal fun In-Reply-To: <20070106024851.77817.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070106024851.77817.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I'm not fortunate enough to have any real hp-2000 class hardware to play with, but this evening I hooked an old ADM3A that I picked up a while back (on someone's curb) to my linux pc which runs vmware, which runs windows-NT which runs SIMH which runs my emulated HP2000 (mickey.ath.cx).... So, while I don't have the back-end hardware, I can sit at a nice classic terminal, running at 9600 baud (I may step it down to 300 baud just for memories), and play with my emulated hp. fun! (the only trouble with my ADM3A is the space bar is kida messed up...sticks a bit...not sure what's the fix for it yet)...even lowercase looks great! -Bob -- bbrown at harpercollege.edu #### #### Bob Brown - KB9LFR Harper Community College ## ## ## Systems Administrator Palatine IL USA #### #### Saved by grace From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sat Jan 6 03:15:20 2007 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 10:15:20 +0100 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. In-Reply-To: References: <4597AA13.217.4A75473@cclist.sydex.com> <45982249.7030506@jetnet.ab.ca> <4597C28E.25598.506F302@cclist.sydex.com> <000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <1168074920.11603.32.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 2007-01-05 at 22:02 -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote: > That's an interesting way to do it. I'm curious how _dumb_ the > emulated terminal is (VT52/VT100, totally dumb glass TTY, etc.) > Portrait displays are quite unusual in vintage gear, and I'm curious > to learn about any examples. Have you heard of the Facit "Twist"? Facit was, I believe, a Swedish company, made calculators, paper tape punches... some other miscellany, and this excellent terminal. The terminal when seen from the side was shaped like an L, with the CRT tube itself standing (in a plastic casing, of course) on the vertical part of it. You could grab the CRT and twist it 90 degrees. The terminal would send an escape code to the system, and the system would redraw the screen with the altered aspect ratio. It was an early terminal to use a white phosphor, and I believe it was scanned at 65Hz. On Tuesday I'm going to a museum which has one of these...somewhere... - I can try to get a picture of it, if you like. Norsk Data computers supported them natively in the USER-ENVIRONMENT and NOTIS office package. A friend of mine who spent time around the "Studio 54" (Named after the serial number of the NORD-10 they had been given) computer science student group at the University, walked in and saw two fellow students hacking away using a brand new Facit Twist donated to them by Norsk Data. "Oh, neat, a Twist!", he exclaimed, and immediately walked over and rotated the CRT. Unfortunately, they were in the kernel debugger, a decidedly non-screen-oriented program - the terminal sent its escape code, and (IIRC) the machine immediately crashed. -Tore :) From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jan 6 03:33:31 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 04:33:31 -0500 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. In-Reply-To: <1168074920.11603.32.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <4597AA13.217.4A75473@cclist.sydex.com> <45982249.7030506@jetnet.ab.ca> <4597C28E.25598.506F302@cclist.sydex.com> <000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> <1168074920.11603.32.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: On 1/6/07, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > On Fri, 2007-01-05 at 22:02 -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > That's an interesting way to do it. I'm curious how _dumb_ the > > emulated terminal is (VT52/VT100, totally dumb glass TTY, etc.) > > Portrait displays are quite unusual in vintage gear, and I'm curious > > to learn about any examples. > > Have you heard of the Facit "Twist"? Nope. > Facit was, I believe, a Swedish company, made calculators, paper tape > punches... some other miscellany, and this excellent terminal. I've heard of the company, but don't know the range of their products. I think I associate the name with paper tape punches mostly. > The terminal when seen from the side was shaped like an L, with the CRT > tube itself standing (in a plastic casing, of course) on the vertical > part of it. You could grab the CRT and twist it 90 degrees. The terminal > would send an escape code to the system, and the system would redraw the > screen with the altered aspect ratio. Nice. More than just aspect ratio - somehow, hardware or software, it would have to change how it renders its bits. I don't _think_ you can arbitrarily exchange horizontal and vertical deflectors on a CRT, but you could run a matrix transform on the bitmap in memory and change all the drawing routines to swap axes without too much trouble, I'd expect. > On Tuesday I'm going to a museum which has one of these...somewhere... - > I can try to get a picture of it, if you like. Please do. > A friend of mine who spent time around the "Studio 54" (Named after the > serial number of the NORD-10 they had been given) computer science > student group at the University, walked in and saw two fellow students > hacking away using a brand new Facit Twist donated to them by Norsk > Data. > > "Oh, neat, a Twist!", he exclaimed, and immediately walked over and > rotated the CRT. Unfortunately, they were in the kernel debugger, a > decidedly non-screen-oriented program - the terminal sent its escape > code, and (IIRC) the machine immediately crashed. Oops! The closest thing I had to that experience was working where they had some public machines set up for classes and casual non-work-related surfing. Most, if not all, of the machines had an HP LCD with a pivot feature. You turned the screen to portrait mode, and used the Windows screen preferences to tell the system what the orientation of the screen was (no slick little sensor like the "twist", unfortunately). I spotted the "rotate me" sticker on the LCD, did the dance and told the machine that it was in portrait orientation. I left in a bit of a hurry and didn't put it back to landscape mode before I left - someone came and tracked me down because nobody could figure out how to "fix it". :-/ I guess "modern" machines don't care which edge is up, but besides the twist, I don't know of any classic machine that can be used both ways. I know of the AT&T terminal with a portrait view CRT, and plenty of arcade machines have the CRT on its "side" (Gorf, PacMan, Tempest...), but once you get through the rather short list of oddball machines, you are left with a *huge* pile of landscape-oriented systems that scan from left to right fast, and top to bottom less fast. My mother had a "full page display" (portrait orientation) for her Mac SE, but due to driver/firmware version mismatches, I never got it working. I think it's somewhere in a closet waiting for me to dig it out. Love to see those pictures. Thanks, -ethan From bernd at kopriva.de Fri Jan 5 13:14:35 2007 From: bernd at kopriva.de (Bernd Kopriva) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:14:35 +0100 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: <20070105165105.466.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <20070105191408.DFA1DB1786@mac-mini.local> On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:51:05 -0500, Ken Seefried wrote: >I recall Opus made a AT bus plugin card with a Clipper. Think it ran Clix. I have such a card, but no software and docs :( ... Can anyone help ? Thanks Bernd From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sat Jan 6 04:18:15 2007 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:18:15 +0100 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. In-Reply-To: References: <4597AA13.217.4A75473@cclist.sydex.com> <45982249.7030506@jetnet.ab.ca> <4597C28E.25598.506F302@cclist.sydex.com> <000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> <1168074920.11603.32.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <1168078695.11603.35.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Sat, 2007-01-06 at 04:33 -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 1/6/07, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > > The terminal when seen from the side was shaped like an L, with the CRT > > tube itself standing (in a plastic casing, of course) on the vertical > > part of it. You could grab the CRT and twist it 90 degrees. The terminal > > would send an escape code to the system, and the system would redraw the > > screen with the altered aspect ratio. > > Nice. More than just aspect ratio - somehow, hardware or software, it > would have to change how it renders its bits. I don't _think_ you can > arbitrarily exchange horizontal and vertical deflectors on a CRT, but > you could run a matrix transform on the bitmap in memory and change > all the drawing routines to swap axes without too much trouble, I'd > expect. Yes, I believe that is what it did. Another bit of trivia was that it was apparently very susceptible to burn-in. > > On Tuesday I'm going to a museum which has one of these...somewhere... - > > I can try to get a picture of it, if you like. > > Please do. I'll do my best. No promises, though - not my camera. -Tore :) From jrr at flippers.com Fri Jan 5 16:59:03 2007 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 14:59:03 -0800 Subject: Ebay: HP 82045A Thermal Paper In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 7:15 PM +0000 1/5/07, Tony Duell wrote: > > >> I am interersted in buying some thermal paper for a Hewlett Packard >> printer. Can you give me any help? My email at home is btu68 at aol.com. > >What model of HP printer, and is there anything special about the paper >(sproket holes, for example{ ? > >-tony Indeed, if it does not have sprocket holes then take a roll of thermal FAX paper and get it cut to size... I had a bunch of rolls of plain 20 pound paper made for me for an application (Computerized Photobooth from the late 70's) - these needed to be perforated and a certain width - off-size. Was not TOO expensive ($700US) for ten rolls - 12.5" X 2000ft each as I recall. So if there is any demand for this thermal paper then he might want to consider having some made to order. Thermal paper does have a shelf life as well. Ten year old thermal FAX paper rarely works in my experience. John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out" From derschjo at msu.edu Fri Jan 5 01:30:13 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:30:13 -0800 Subject: House cleaning! Everything must go! In-Reply-To: <200701050718.l057IVZW009138@floodgap.com> References: <200701050718.l057IVZW009138@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <459DFE85.1090808@msu.edu> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> Computers: >> - Apple Network Server 700/200. 200Mhz 603 PPC, 128mb of ram, CD-ROM, >> > > 604 actually. This message is being sent by a 500/200 :) > Ah, mea culpa. Never could keep those numbers straight :). Josh From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Fri Jan 5 04:21:32 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 10:21:32 -0000 Subject: Purposefully fudged schematics Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D393D3D@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> I have seen a TV program on the one they built. It was beautifully made in brass and steel and what's more it worked! The program said he did not finish it because he simply ran out of money! Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Honniball Sent: 04 January 2007 21:15 To: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: Re: Purposefully fudged schematics woodelf wrote: > To get back on topic about babbage's drawings, from what I read it was > mechnical design that could not be produced with 18th century > mechanical enginering. I thought the Science Museum rebuild showed that it could be built with 19th century engineering? They deliberately didn't make it any more accurate than Babbage could have, and they only found a couple of minor difficulties. One was that it was too hard to turn the handle, so they geared it down. Surely something that, if Babbage had finished the Difference Engine, he'd have done himself? -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk From dan at decodesystems.com Fri Jan 5 12:59:08 2007 From: dan at decodesystems.com (Dan Veeneman) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:59:08 -0500 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: <20070105165105.466.qmail@seefried.com> References: <200701051356.l05DtdRe054914@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20070105165105.466.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20070105135744.0974c440@mail.marcal.com> At 11:51 AM 1/5/07, you wrote: >I recall Opus made a AT bus plugin card with a Clipper. Think it ran Clix. I've got one of these: http://decodesystems.com/help-wanted/opus.html If anyone has a pointer to documentation and/or software, that would be very helpful. Thanks! Cheers, Dan From gordon at gjcp.net Fri Jan 5 14:10:01 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:10:01 +0000 Subject: not quite on topic but, classic analogue satellite tv decoding boxes In-Reply-To: <1853.192.168.0.4.1168026421.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> References: <1853.192.168.0.4.1168026421.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: <459EB099.9080501@gjcp.net> Witchy wrote: > Hello folks, > > I've got a pair of old UK SKY TV boxen (1997 era) that are pretty useless > as analogue SKY TV was switched off in 2001; can the hardware be used for > anything else or is it pretty much paperweight material? Point the dish somewhere else; pick up other analogue satellite transmissions. IIRC the IF is about 2.5GHz. You might be able to use it to pick up wireless CCTV installations (and police "eye-in-the-sky" helicopters). Gordon From gordon at gjcp.net Fri Jan 5 14:38:25 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:38:25 +0000 Subject: govliq messages In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459EB741.10400@gjcp.net> Richard wrote: > Does anyone find this useful? > > Does anyone find this annoying? I hate it, because it's all really cool stuff that I can't afford to have shipped across the pond ;-) Gordon From sdc695 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 5 17:11:29 2007 From: sdc695 at yahoo.com (Tom Watson) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2007 15:11:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Keyboard question Message-ID: <638950.27215.qm@web60823.mail.yahoo.com> While not exactly computer directly related, since the silly box does have a computer in it, I'd thought I'd ask here. I've got an old TV Character generator, a Laird CG7000 to be exact. It has a nice standard 5 pin DIN connector on the front panel for its "keyboard". Now to me this looks just like a standard AT type keyboard, but alas it does nothing unless I beat on the keys then something might show up. Would anyone know what type of keyboard they use for this silly thing. It is a bit old, and I suspect it might be an XT (not an AT) keyboard (which are different). I'm going to attempt to trace out the connections to figure it out, but if someone on the list has a clue, it would be helpful to me. Not wanting to clog things up further, a response off list if probably the best. Thanks. -- Tom Watson tsw at johana.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From arcarlini at iee.org Sat Jan 6 06:24:06 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 12:24:06 -0000 Subject: New find, Edax PDP 11/23 system available. In-Reply-To: <000701c73133$9b4238d0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <004201c7318d$93735f30$9204010a@uatempname> Bob Shannon wrote: > I've just found an interesting vintage system. > M8028 (no idea) DPV11 > M8016 YB (don't know this one either, I used to drive UNIBUS 11's) KPV11 Antonio From bernd at kopriva.de Sat Jan 6 11:25:01 2007 From: bernd at kopriva.de (Bernd Kopriva) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:25:01 +0100 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: <20070105191408.DFA1DB1786@mac-mini.local> Message-ID: <20070106172436.8CD8AB1C37@mac-mini.local> On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:14:35 +0100, Bernd Kopriva wrote: >On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:51:05 -0500, Ken Seefried wrote: >>I recall Opus made a AT bus plugin card with a Clipper. Think it ran Clix. >I have such a card, but no software and docs :( ... >Can anyone help ? >Thanks Bernd i've checked the board again, it's a board manufactured by Zaiaz, probably it's not the same as the Opus board, so my request for software/docs is for that one ... Ciao Bernd From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 6 11:51:16 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 09:51:16 -0800 Subject: My second Mac Message-ID: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com> I picked up another Mac yesterday--a beige 300 Mhz G3 with 256MB, and a 15 GB hard disk. It's also got a USB adapter plugged into one of the PCI slots. It's running OS 9.something. Set me back $20. Were Zip drives a standard part of these things? On a side-by-side with a Win2K P1 225MHz system with the same amount of memory, I think the WIndoze box has snappier response and has better video. For you Mac addicts, what do you think should be my next step in getting the most out of this box? I don't care for the Mac monitor that came with it--has anyone tried hooking up a fixed-frequency SOG workstation monitor to it? I've got a nice HP/Sony model that might be a candidate. Cheers, Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 6 12:12:56 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 10:12:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac Message-ID: <410445.73732.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> ugh and here I was thinking someone sent him a fat Mac. WS monitors work readily with even the oldest Mac IIs w/an appropriate card. Never did it with a G3 but. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 6 12:19:08 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 10:19:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac Message-ID: <20070106181908.45982.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> ...and Macs only put out video as theyre set to, at the cable-vid card junction. Youll need a doohicky to initialize it 2 a proper vid mode 4 such a display. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 6 12:19:28 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 10:19:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac Message-ID: <582356.993.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> ...and Macs only put out video as theyre set to, at the cable-vid card junction. Youll need a doohicky to initialize it 2 a proper vid mode 4 such a display. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From medavidson at mac.com Sat Jan 6 13:44:50 2007 From: medavidson at mac.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 11:44:50 -0800 Subject: Pr1me boxes In-Reply-To: <013301c722e1$6fa133d0$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <013301c722e1$6fa133d0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: Count me in... Mark On Dec 18, 2006, at 12:16 PM, Jay West wrote: > I'm taking a straw poll here.... how many folks are interested in > obtaining a Prime 50-series computer (in general, not a specific > model) for their collection? > > I'm not really wanting to count anyone who thinks "yeah, I'd take > one if it showed up on my doorstep for free". I'm more interested > in a rough count of people who want one enough to actually drive a > ways, or pay shipping plus "token" amount, etc. Someone who would > seriously pursue one if it became available to them. > > If you meet that criteria, let me know! > > Jay > > > > > --- Mark Davidson medavidson at mac.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 6 14:09:52 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 12:09:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: garbled display Message-ID: <452825.57116.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> actually rows and columns of blocks of ascii chars, some blinking. To which Im greeted upon switching on a Tandy 2000. Typically what does this indicate? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jan 6 14:26:36 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 12:26:36 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: At 9:51 AM -0800 1/6/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: >I picked up another Mac yesterday--a beige 300 Mhz G3 with 256MB, >and a 15 GB hard disk. It's also got a USB adapter plugged into one >of the PCI slots. It's running OS 9.something. Set me back $20. >Were Zip drives a standard part of these things? That's probably about the model before my G4/450 AGP. If so a Zip drive could have been standard. Does it have a faceplate that matches the rest of the system? >On a side-by-side with a Win2K P1 225MHz system with the same amount >of memory, I think the WIndoze box has snappier response and has >better video. If this is the case there might be some sort of software problem with that Mac. A badly configured Mac could very well be having issues, but a well configured one should seem pretty snappy. Might also need the HD defragged. Though Mac OS 9 can be pretty sluggish on a G3. >For you Mac addicts, what do you think should be my next step in >getting the most out of this box? You could run Mac OS X on it, but that would likely be painful, especially with only 256MB. If you have the needed disks, I'd consider wiping the drive and putting either Mac OS 8.6 or 9.2 on there. Of course if you want to be able to surf from this system, Mac OS X is pretty much a requirement. There is no modern web browser for Mac OS 9. >I don't care for the Mac monitor that came with it--has anyone tried >hooking up a fixed-frequency SOG workstation monitor to it? I've got >a nice HP/Sony model that might be a candidate. Possibly, but I have my doubts. How hard would it be to hook that monitor up to a PC? That's about how hard it will be to hook it up to the Mac. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 6 14:41:35 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 12:41:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: 2nd mac Message-ID: <420186.36145.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> regarding the monitor issue, been there done that. If the G3 uses the same sense-pin scenario as earlier macs. then a dongle and a bnc cable will put u in biz __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jan 6 14:57:06 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 12:57:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 6, 7 09:51:16 am" Message-ID: <200701062057.l06Kv6k4022416@floodgap.com> > I picked up another Mac yesterday--a beige 300 Mhz G3 with 256MB, > and a 15 GB hard disk. It's also got a USB adapter plugged into one > of the PCI slots. It's running OS 9.something. Set me back $20. > Were Zip drives a standard part of these things? Zip drives were available. I have a beige G3 that is identical to yours, except that it does have a Zip drive installed in the secondary bay. > On a side-by-side with a Win2K P1 225MHz system with the same amount > of memory, I think the WIndoze box has snappier response and has > better video. The beige G3 has only a Rage II+ card by default. The later Revision 2 and 3 use Rage Pro. Thus, I think the video issue you're noticing is probably the accelerator. The original 300 is almost certainly Revision 1. You might as well get a Rage Orion and I think you'll find the performance much better. The Rage Orion is a 16MB Rage 128 PCI card, and I know from personal experience that it is Mac-compatible and has good performance. They're pretty cheap on the used market. > I don't care for the Mac monitor that came with it--has anyone tried > hooking up a fixed-frequency SOG workstation monitor to it? I've got > a nice HP/Sony model that might be a candidate. If you opt not to get a new video card, just get one of the Mac-VGA converters and use that with a standard multisync. I think you'll find that the easiest approach. The G3 can run up to 10.2.8 without help, or 10.3.9 with XPostFaco, but you will need a PCI video card if you choose to try that. There are also some issues with Revision 1 systems booting Mac OS X -- you must ensure that the boot partition is within the first 8GB. It's simplest just to partition the disk and install OS X into a new leading 8GB partition, but if you plan to use OS 9 exclusively this is irrelevant. ROM revision (something)40F2 is Revision 1 and the System Profiler should tell this to you. 45Fx is Revision 2 and 3. The G3 is notoriously difficult to install NetBSD on, and I think Linux has some similar problems varying with distribution. OS X Jaguar is your best bet for Unix. Despite this, it is a very nice machine for the generation. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Well done is better than well said. -- Benjamin Franklin ------------------- From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 6 15:21:41 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 13:21:41 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <459FA265.22439.B19F652@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2007 at 12:26, Zane H. Healy wrote: > That's probably about the model before my G4/450 AGP. If so a Zip > drive could have been standard. Does it have a faceplate that > matches the rest of the system? Yup--and the little tag on the back mentions the Zip drive, now that I have my near-see glasses on. This one also has 1MB cache and some sort of AV card in it. I understand that low-profile 256MB SIMMs can be installed, but that they need to be a special type, not the usual PC133 type. Is this true--and any guidelines to make sure that I'm picking up the right flavor? I found a version of Mozilla 1.3.1 that runs on it at http://www.wamcom.org. It seems to be adequate for casual browsing. I've used fixed-frequency WS monitors on PCs since the first 19" Daisy that I obtained, around 1988. It's only lately that I've begun using LCD monitors. I was concerned that there might be something REALLY funny about Mac video. (OT: Does anyone need the manual for the big Daisy monitor (the one made by Mitsubishi with a locking drawer in front) that details where all of the adjustments are? I have it and have no use for it). I guess Linux is the next step. Any favorite flavors? Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 6 15:06:52 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 21:06:52 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ebay: HP 82045A Thermal Paper In-Reply-To: from "John Robertson" at Jan 5, 7 02:59:03 pm Message-ID: > > At 7:15 PM +0000 1/5/07, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > >> I am interersted in buying some thermal paper for a Hewlett Packard > >> printer. Can you give me any help? My email at home is btu68 at aol.com. > > > >What model of HP printer, and is there anything special about the paper > >(sproket holes, for example{ ? > > > >-tony > > Indeed, if it does not have sprocket holes then take a roll of > thermal FAX paper and get it cut to size... FWIW, a normal thermal fax roll works fine in the 9866 printer (as used with 98x0 'calculators'). I have no idea if it puts more wear on the printhead than the genuine HP paper (HP used to make that sort of claim, I wonder how much of it was to sell their own paper :-)), but it's fine for the amount of use such a printer is likely to get today. It also works fine in the 2761, and I should perhaps tell you a little story about that. As you probably know, European paper is 210mm wide, US paper is 216 mm wide. I wnet to one branch of a well-known chain of stationery shops in London and they only had 210mm fax rolls. I bought one and found I could just get the 2761 to print on it if I positioned it just right (so that the head didn't move off the edge of the paper and then snarl up as it moved back). So I went out the garage and made a couple brss disks of the right thichness to fit over the paper roll spindle and hold the roll in the right place. It works fine. But boy was I annoyed when I went to another branch of the same chop and found they also sold 216mm wide rolls.... -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 6 15:38:49 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 13:38:49 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <200701062057.l06Kv6k4022416@floodgap.com> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 6, 7 09:51:16 am", <200701062057.l06Kv6k4022416@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <459FA669.29127.B29A31F@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2007 at 12:57, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > ROM revision (something)40F2 is Revision 1 and the System Profiler > should tell this to you. 45Fx is Revision 2 and 3. Profiler reports $77D:45F2, which apparently makes it a Rev C--and it does have a Rage Pro chip on the mobo. Thanks for all of the knowledge on these things. I've studiously avoided Macs for decades and thought I'd take the plunge now that they're going for less than the price of a haircut. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 6 15:47:36 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 13:47:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> Are you going to continue that exponential increase in your collection? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jan 6 17:33:35 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 15:33:35 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <459FA265.22439.B19F652@cclist.sydex.com> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <459FA265.22439.B19F652@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: At 1:21 PM -0800 1/6/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 6 Jan 2007 at 12:26, Zane H. Healy wrote: > >> That's probably about the model before my G4/450 AGP. If so a Zip >> drive could have been standard. Does it have a faceplate that >> matches the rest of the system? > >Yup--and the little tag on the back mentions the Zip drive, now that >I have my near-see glasses on. This one also has 1MB cache and some >sort of AV card in it. Sounds like this might have been the follow-on to the 8500/8600 models then. Somehow when I'd read your first post I'd read Beige as Blue and White, so your system is actually quite a bit older than I thought. >I understand that low-profile 256MB SIMMs can be installed, but that >they need to be a special type, not the usual PC133 type. Is this >true--and any guidelines to make sure that I'm picking up the right >flavor? Depends on how old the system is, as to how picky it is. I'd recommend checking out one of the old Mac HW sites. >I found a version of Mozilla 1.3.1 that runs on it at >http://www.wamcom.org. It seems to be adequate for casual browsing. Nice. >I've used fixed-frequency WS monitors on PCs since the first 19" >Daisy that I obtained, around 1988. It's only lately that I've begun >using LCD monitors. I was concerned that there might be something >REALLY funny about Mac video. As this isn't as new of a system as I was thinking, as a result it might be a bit more difficult than I'd indicated. As Cameron indicates you'll likely need a Mac-VGA converter, they used to be real easy to find as a lot of monitors shipped with them. >I guess Linux is the next step. Any favorite flavors? No clue here, I won't waste Mac Hardware on Linux (just like I won't run Unix on VAXen or Alpha's). You might look at Yellow-Dog, IIRC, it's a distro for Mac's. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jan 6 17:40:54 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:40:54 -0700 Subject: 2.5GB bigfoot drives on dovebid Message-ID: Wasn't there some discussion recently looking for < 10 GB drives? There's a bunch of 2.5GB drives on dovebid right now... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 6 17:51:22 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 17:51:22 -0600 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org><013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com><012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701051534l7df2c326m314ce92776df6e02@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <000001c731ed$caf0fe30$6500a8c0@BILLING> I had written.... >> Warren... I'll gladly trade some of my HP boards in exchange for one or >> two >> of the microcircuit boards in there ;) To which Glen replied... > I have a few 12566 boards and some relay boards, forget their number. That may or may not help, as "12566" means lots of different things and doesn't describe an exact board - GRD TRU, + TRU, Microcircuit Interface, Printer interface... all slightly different variations of the boards generically marked 12566. In other words, 12566 is not specific enough, you need the rest of the letters & numbers after it to know exactly what it is. Some of the variations are just different wirings (and in some cases I think a different chip or two) giving different electrical characteristics but the boards look almost identical to the naked eye. The 12566 boards that I desire, don't look anything like the "normal" 12566 boards. The ones I want are labled 12566-60032 and have boatloads of dip jumpers on them, no solder jumpers. I have lots of 12566 boards, but they aren't the 12566 boards I want. > I'd like to make a real plug for the battery backup 820ohm thermistor > bypass. I just have a resistor with its legs folded over wedged into > the connector for now. Yeah, I know just what you mean. Got a bunch of those 820o's folded just the way you describe. There is an AMP office close to me. I was wondering if I took one of my connectors in to them.... This could be a good project for home plastic molding maybe... but then the problem is finding the right pins. And most crimp pins for those type of connectors aren't just round pins you solder on, they have little latches & such on them. Ah well. Jay From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 6 17:58:23 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 15:58:23 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2007 at 13:47, Fred Cisin wrote: > Are you going to continue that exponential increase in your collection? Nope--the 6100 goes back into recycling next week--I've got no real use for it. I was curious about Macs and figured it might be time to actually play with one. I've written utilities (to run on PeeCee) for handling Mac media, but never actually owned a Mac. I do own a set of the "Inside Macintosh" books, however. Go figure. When I get my fill of fooling around I'll give the G3 away. I really miss the command prompt. One thing I didn't expect is the involved model and OS requirements for various bits of software. I thought that the idea was that one didn't have to engage in the upgrading game on a Mac like PC people do. From what I've seen thus far, if anything, the Mac world seems to be almost worse in that respect. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 6 18:03:04 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:03:04 -0800 Subject: 2.5GB bigfoot drives on dovebid In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <459FC838.14212.BADB3A8@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2007 at 16:40, Richard wrote: > Wasn't there some discussion recently looking for < 10 GB drives? > > There's a bunch of 2.5GB drives on dovebid right now... Quantum Bigfoot--bleah. Miserable things. The local computer recycler is selling 3.5" tested-and-scrubbed 4GB SCSI or IDE (take your pick), drives for a buck each; 6GB ones are two bucks. Smaller ones are name-a-price. They've got boxes and boxes of the things. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 6 18:16:30 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 16:16:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070106160805.E17290@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 6 Jan 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > handling Mac media, but never actually owned a Mac. I do own a set > of the "Inside Macintosh" books, however. Go figure. When they first came out (before they were published to the public), the only way to get a set was to become a "registered developer". I did, just to get the books. IIRC, the first set that they sent me was looseleaf. > One thing I didn't expect is the involved model and OS requirements > for various bits of software. I thought that the idea was that one > didn't have to engage in the upgrading game on a Mac like PC people > do. From what I've seen thus far, if anything, the Mac world seems > to be almost worse in that respect. Although the "Mac culture" denies it vehemently, and claims that "everything just works when you connect it", I think that it is pretty much identical to the PC world of that time. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 6 18:16:25 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:16:25 -0600 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A03BD9.8050401@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I thought that the idea was that one > didn't have to engage in the upgrading game on a Mac like PC people > do. From what I've seen thus far, if anything, the Mac world seems > to be almost worse in that respect. Maybe in the 1980s, but yes, things are just the same mid-1990's and later. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 6 18:17:45 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:17:45 -0600 Subject: 2.5GB bigfoot drives on dovebid In-Reply-To: <459FC838.14212.BADB3A8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <459FC838.14212.BADB3A8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A03C29.9070404@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > The local computer recycler is selling 3.5" tested-and-scrubbed 4GB > SCSI or IDE (take your pick), drives for a buck each; 6GB ones are > two bucks. Smaller ones are name-a-price. They've got boxes and > boxes of the things. Posts like this drive me nuts: Where can I find a "local computer recycler" in my area?! I'm in Illinois, near Chicago. I want deals like this! (acts like baby) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Jan 6 18:48:42 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:48:42 -0600 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <20070106160805.E17290@shell.lmi.net> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com> <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> <20070106160805.E17290@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070106184755.06c92ab0@mail> At 06:16 PM 1/6/2007, Fred Cisin wrote: >On Sat, 6 Jan 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> handling Mac media, but never actually owned a Mac. I do own a set >> of the "Inside Macintosh" books, however. Go figure. > >When they first came out (before they were published to the public), the >only way to get a set was to become a "registered developer". I did, just >to get the books. IIRC, the first set that they sent me was looseleaf. I still have all my old Mac and Amiga developer docs in storage. As years went by, I believe Apple put all the Inside Mac paper on CD. Searchable, even. - John From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Sat Jan 6 18:52:23 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 00:52:23 -0000 (GMT) Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <459FA265.22439.B19F652@cclist.sydex.com> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <459FA265.22439.B19F652@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1158.192.168.0.4.1168131143.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> On Sat, January 6, 2007 21:21, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Yup--and the little tag on the back mentions the Zip drive, now that > I have my near-see glasses on. This one also has 1MB cache and some > sort of AV card in it. The Zip was standard on most models aside from the 233, IIRC. Nice machine for Mac-based noodlings though others have already mentioned the lack of a modern web browser - iCab is the closest these days but it costs. Netscape is still a goer as is IE 5 for Mac. That machine will run early versions of OSX if you can find them, though I've no idea how fast it'll be; 10.4 struggles sometimes on my 733mhz G4 with a gig of RAM. > I understand that low-profile 256MB SIMMs can be installed, but that > they need to be a special type, not the usual PC133 type. Is this > true--and any guidelines to make sure that I'm picking up the right > flavor? I've got mixtures running in my older Macs, both PC133 and PC100. Even stuff from an old Dell server will run in a beige G3. Right now I've got a beige 266 that's happily running half a gig of standard PC133. There *were* restrictions on DIMM height but so far I haven't found a stick that doesn't work. > Daisy that I obtained, around 1988. It's only lately that I've begun > using LCD monitors. I was concerned that there might be something > REALLY funny about Mac video. I get by with a ukp10 video converter when I don't have a handy Mac monitor kicking around; it needs to be told the res and frequency via the gift of DIP switches but it works. Failing that get an ATI PCI card and use that instead, I think any RAGE series one will do. Happy Mac-ing :) -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jan 6 18:59:16 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 16:59:16 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <20070106160805.E17290@shell.lmi.net> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> <20070106160805.E17290@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: At 4:16 PM -0800 1/6/07, Fred Cisin wrote: >Although the "Mac culture" denies it vehemently, and claims that >"everything just works when you connect it", I think that it is >pretty much identical to the PC world of that time. It really depends a lot on how good of a company made the product you're trying to use. Plus if you by Pro software I think you'll have an easier go than with consumer grade software. I've owned a Mac since '95, and the except for a couple of OS updates that weren't worth running, everything has pretty much just worked, with a couple exceptions. Getting Professional Audio Hardware and software to work together, and the Kodak Camera's printer dock we got a few years ago. One really important thing to have a nice stable well behaved Mac has been to stay away from 3rd party OS extensions. I've done that for my last 3 systems, as a result they've been rock solid. I have yet to see things on the Windows side of the computer world be anywhere near as simple as with a Mac. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jan 6 19:01:01 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 17:01:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: my second Mac Message-ID: <200701070101.l07111bP011794@floodgap.com> > One thing I didn't expect is the involved model and OS requirements > for various bits of software. I thought that the idea was that one > didn't have to engage in the upgrading game on a Mac like PC people > do. From what I've seen thus far, if anything, the Mac world seems > to be almost worse in that respect. I assume by this you're referring to the particular constraints of running a particular OS on a particular hardware configuration. Just to put it into perspective, the first beige G3 was introduced in 1997, but the Public Beta was not released until 2000 and OS X 10.0 not until 2001. The hardware issues that affected OS X didn't become apparent, then, for several years. These were originally OS 8 machines, after all. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Honk if you're illiterate! ------------------------------------------------- From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 6 19:27:34 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 17:27:34 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070106160805.E17290@shell.lmi.net>, Message-ID: <459FDC06.9867.BFB122F@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2007 at 16:59, Zane H. Healy wrote: > It really depends a lot on how good of a company made the product > you're trying to use. Plus if you by Pro software I think you'll > have an easier go than with consumer grade software. I've owned a > Mac since '95, and the except for a couple of OS updates that weren't > worth running, everything has pretty much just worked, with a couple > exceptions. Getting Professional Audio Hardware and software to work > together, and the Kodak Camera's printer dock we got a few years ago. I grabbed the first thing that came to hand and read the requirements. This is for Sibelius 2.11 (released 2002), which is what would probably be classified as a pro-level music notation package (at least my publisher accepts scores written in it). It isn't cheap--about $500-600 and upgraded almost yearly--single-system use is enforced by a rather elaborate licensing scheme. Mac: G4/G3/Fast PowerMac, Mac OS 8.6 to 10.1 or later (not 10.0), 15MB+ free RAM (20+ recommended) CD-ROM, 80MB hard disk space. PC: Pentium or fast 486 (Pentium II or later recommended), Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/NT 4 or later, 32MB+ RAM, CD-ROM, 40MB hard disk space. Although I haven't tried it, I suspect that the package might run after a fashion under Win32S under Win3.1 on a 386, given sufficient RAM. This may be a chance exception, but it seems to me that the x86 requirements are a lot looser than the Mac ones. Cheers, Chuck From josefcub at gmail.com Sat Jan 6 19:37:28 2007 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 19:37:28 -0600 Subject: HP2000 & terminal fun In-Reply-To: References: <20070106024851.77817.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <9e2403920701061737p34506bdexe1a9f309420d58fb@mail.gmail.com> Bob, On 1/6/07, Bob Brown wrote: > I'm not fortunate enough to have any real hp-2000 class hardware to > play with, but this evening I hooked an old ADM3A that I picked up a > while back (on someone's curb) to my linux pc which runs vmware, > which runs windows-NT which runs SIMH which runs my emulated HP2000 > (mickey.ath.cx).... > That sounds like the arrangement I usually have, to run things. ;-) But you do know you can compile and/or run SIMH on Linux directly, without the slowdown of Windows NT and VMWare in the middle, right? If your distribution doesn't support compilation easily, I'm sure someone on the list would compile it for you if need be. :) > So, while I don't have the back-end hardware, I can sit at a nice > classic terminal, running at 9600 baud (I may step it down to 300 > baud just for memories), and play with my emulated hp. Sounds like loads of fun! I did the same thing, albeit with a Wyse terminal and a SIMH emulated VAX, until I'd gotten a real VAXstation bootstrapped using the same emulator. :-) Josef -- "I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke." -- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs, "The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Jan 6 21:35:45 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 19:35:45 -0800 Subject: My second Mac References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 6, 7 09:51:16 am", <200701062057.l06Kv6k4022416@floodgap.com> <459FA669.29127.B29A31F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A06A8A.A4AEF383@cs.ubc.ca> If you prefer to hack an adapter rather than go looking for one, the following diagram and notes may help: http://www3.telus.net/~bhilpert/tmp/MacVideoAdapt.gif This was derived from the two-stages of off-the-shelf adapters (Mac->VGA->13W3) I use on a similar beige G3 (with internal Zip drive BTW) to drive a Sun (OEM Sony) 17" monitor. www.everymac.com is pretty good for basic mac config & specs, i.e.: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g3/stats/powermac_g3_266_mt.html From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jan 6 21:41:24 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 19:41:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <459FDC06.9867.BFB122F@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 6, 7 05:27:34 pm" Message-ID: <200701070341.l073fPxs013472@floodgap.com> > I grabbed the first thing that came to hand and read the > requirements. This is for Sibelius 2.11 (released 2002), which is > what would probably be classified as a pro-level music notation > package (at least my publisher accepts scores written in it). It > isn't cheap--about $500-600 and upgraded almost yearly--single-system > use is enforced by a rather elaborate licensing scheme. > > Mac: G4/G3/Fast PowerMac, Mac OS 8.6 to 10.1 or later (not 10.0), > 15MB+ free RAM (20+ recommended) CD-ROM, 80MB hard disk space. > > PC: Pentium or fast 486 (Pentium II or later recommended), Windows > 95/98/Me/2000/XP/NT 4 or later, 32MB+ RAM, CD-ROM, 40MB hard disk > space. > > Although I haven't tried it, I suspect that the package might run > after a fashion under Win32S under Win3.1 on a 386, given sufficient > RAM. > > This may be a chance exception, but it seems to me that the x86 > requirements are a lot looser than the Mac ones. In what way? "Fast PowerMac" can refer to anything down to a high end 603e (it would suck as much as it would on a 486, but still). "G4/G3/Fast Power Mac" covers several generations of Power Mac right there, potentially as much latitude as the PC requirements. And while you say a 386 could run it, for that matter, a 601 might be able to too. A 601 can boot 8.6, after all. The software may even work okay on 8.1 given a fat enough extension set, very much analogous to Win32s on 3.1. So I don't see what's so restrictive about the Mac requirements at all, frankly. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- All the sensitive [men] get eaten. -- "Ice Age" ---------------------------- From oldcomp at cox.net Sat Jan 6 22:17:25 2007 From: oldcomp at cox.net (Bryan K. Blackburn) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 21:17:25 -0700 Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <459DCDF6.4000200@msu.edu> References: <459DCDF6.4000200@msu.edu> Message-ID: <45A07455.1090104@cox.net> Recently we have seen recreations of several vintage computers like the Mark-8 Minicomputer, the Apple 1, the IMSAI 8080 and most recently the Altair 8800, but wait till you see this!!! eBay item # 230051400851 The effort that must have went into this project...! Detailed construction photos here: http://www.lostinspacerobot.com/newsletter.html I confess that I have always wanted one of these! :) I have no connection with the seller etc. & etc. From evan at snarc.net Sat Jan 6 22:22:50 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 23:22:50 -0500 Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <45A07455.1090104@cox.net> Message-ID: <000001c73213$7f98db80$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> LOL ... it costs $24,500 ... I can think of better uses. -----Original Message----- From: Bryan K. Blackburn [mailto:oldcomp at cox.net] Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 11:17 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! Recently we have seen recreations of several vintage computers like the Mark-8 Minicomputer, the Apple 1, the IMSAI 8080 and most recently the Altair 8800, but wait till you see this!!! eBay item # 230051400851 The effort that must have went into this project...! Detailed construction photos here: http://www.lostinspacerobot.com/newsletter.html I confess that I have always wanted one of these! :) I have no connection with the seller etc. & etc. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jan 6 22:27:17 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 20:27:17 -0800 Subject: Sun plastics Message-ID: <566761d653d63dfcdd81c05e15788052@valleyimplants.com> Has anyone had success fixing the plastic "alloy" that Sun uses in their cases? MEK and cyanoacrylate turn it into a mushy grainy mess. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 6 22:49:28 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 20:49:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun plastics Message-ID: <20070107044928.67450.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> try something less potent. Testors, 2 part epoxy, gorilla glue, Goop... --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Has anyone had success fixing the plastic "alloy" that Sun uses in > their cases? > > MEK and cyanoacrylate turn it into a mushy grainy mess. > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From useddec at gmail.com Sat Jan 6 22:50:07 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 22:50:07 -0600 Subject: RL02 parts, controllers, etc. Message-ID: <624966d60701062050l70bb229fkf23a1e2c3f2d86b7@mail.gmail.com> I have 3 or 4 RL02 drives I am parting out. I also have Q-bus, Unibus, and > PDP8 controllers. If you have any interest, please contact me off list. Thanks, Paul From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Sat Jan 6 23:01:16 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 00:01:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <45A07455.1090104@cox.net> References: <459DCDF6.4000200@msu.edu> <45A07455.1090104@cox.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 6 Jan 2007, Bryan K. Blackburn wrote: > eBay item # 230051400851 > > The effort that must have went into this project...! Detailed construction > photos here: > > http://www.lostinspacerobot.com/newsletter.html > > I confess that I have always wanted one of these! :) I have no connection > with the seller etc. & etc. I've been a member of the B9 Robot Builders Club since I started working on my own replica, years back. I'm less than half way through construction, though, being easily distracted by classic computer projects. :-) The amount of research done (and available) on this particular robot is incredible, including direct pulls from some of the original molds. Club members can download detailed scale CAD drawings of the entire robot. You can either buy parts or make your own, or buy an assembled unit as you've seen. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us The B9 Robot Builders Club B9-0014 http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/B9/ Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jan 6 23:34:05 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 22:34:05 -0700 Subject: 2.5GB bigfoot drives on dovebid In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:03:04 -0800. <459FC838.14212.BADB3A8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: There are also lots of other lots for sale on dovebid with collections of hard drives... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Jan 6 23:22:54 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 23:22:54 -0600 Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: References: <459DCDF6.4000200@msu.edu> <45A07455.1090104@cox.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070106231402.06727f10@mail> At 11:01 PM 1/6/2007, you wrote: > I've been a member of the B9 Robot Builders Club since I started working on my own replica, years back. I'm less than half way through construction, though, being easily distracted by classic computer projects. :-) Back in late 1998, my buddy Sheldon Leemon (author of "Mapping the C-64") won the grand prize in an online sweepstakes. The prize was a full-size promotional version of the robot from the remake of "Lost in Space". It had been touring the USA and Japan. Doesn't look quite the same: http://www.robotoys.com/lis99.jpg 600 pounds, New Line Cinema valued it at $4,500. We debated what we might do with it, never coming to any good conclusions. I was tempted to store it in my barn. He never picked it up. It sat in a shipping yard for months. I think it eventually started running up charges and was sent back in mid-1999. I wonder where it went! - John From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sat Jan 6 23:46:28 2007 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 21:46:28 -0800 Subject: Upcoming Scrounge, Southern Cal. Message-ID: <200701062146280300.045F0D99@192.168.42.129> This is being posted to: TekScopes, HP, TestGear, and CCTech lists. Fellow techies, I'm going to have a day or so of opportunity to do some serious scrounging in the southern California region, specifically around Anaheim and vicinity, coming up in May of this year. Being that I haven't been near the area since 1993, I could really use some pointers on who's who in the electronic surplus arena that would be worth a look. My primary interests are in test gear (usually RF and telecommunications, but I keep an open mind), specialized hand tools for connector crimping (both mil-spec and commercial), and "legacy" telephone equipment from the Bell System/Western Electric heyday. So... Let the suggestions fly! ;-) Thanks much. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jan 7 00:38:27 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 22:38:27 -0800 Subject: Free stuff near Seattle WA Message-ID: More may come up, but here's the list for now 1x DEC DSSI tri-link connector 12-39921-02 Used to connect DSSI busses to beasties like HSD controllers. 1x either a Sun SPARCstation 5/110 256MB or a Tatung COMPstation 20 (SPARCstation 20 clone) 1x SM40, 128MB RAM. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 01:18:17 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 23:18:17 -0800 Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: <20070107044928.67450.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070107044928.67450.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45A02E39.10091.D3C295C@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2007 at 20:49, Chris M wrote: > try something less potent. Testors, 2 part epoxy, > gorilla glue, Goop... I'll second the gorilla (polyurethane) glue. I use Pro Bond, but it's basically the same stuff--sticks to almost anything without dissolving it. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 01:38:20 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 23:38:20 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <200701070341.l073fPxs013472@floodgap.com> References: <459FDC06.9867.BFB122F@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 6, 7 05:27:34 pm", <200701070341.l073fPxs013472@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <45A032EC.7614.D4E80DC@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2007 at 19:41, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > So I don't see what's so restrictive about the Mac requirements at all, > frankly. You're right, it's a matter of small degree. Mac OS 8 = 1997; Windows 95 = 1995. Intel 80486 = 1989; PPC 601 = 1992. It's pretty much a moot point anyway--everyone's going to be x86 by-and-by. Cheers, Chuck From stanb at dial.pipex.com Sun Jan 7 03:11:39 2007 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 09:11:39 +0000 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 06 Jan 2007 13:21:41 PST." <459FA265.22439.B19F652@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200701070911.JAA01896@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Chuck Guzis said: > I found a version of Mozilla 1.3.1 that runs on it at > http://www.wamcom.org. It seems to be adequate for casual browsing. Try iCab too: http://www.icab.de/ There are a few shell programs avaliable for MacOs 7,8 and 9 if you really _must_ have a prompt, such as MacShell. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sun Jan 7 04:12:40 2007 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 11:12:40 +0100 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <1168164760.11603.43.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 14:43 -0800, Eric J Korpela wrote: > On 1/3/07, woodelf wrote: > > Jay West wrote: > > > Just because a computer is 10 years old does not mean it's on topic. So > > > no, it's not officially vintage ;) > > We were thinking about auctioning off the original E450 that was the > SETI at home server as a fund raiser. (Actually the original server is > an Ultra-10 sitting on my desk. ellie aka jill nee sagan). > Unfortunately university rules don't allow departments or groups to > sell things and use the proceeds. University salvage sells them and > the university gets the money. :( How about donating them to a relevant institution, like the CHM? Just another E450 is unlikely to fetch much at a salvage auction, just like a U10... -Tore :) From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jan 6 13:24:36 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 19:24:36 +0000 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <20070106181908.45982.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070106181908.45982.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <459FF774.3020304@gjcp.net> Chris M wrote: > ...and Macs only put out video as theyre set to, at > the cable-vid card junction. Youll need a doohicky to > initialize it 2 a proper vid mode 4 such a display. Pardon? Gordon From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Sun Jan 7 02:06:22 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 08:06:22 -0000 Subject: not quite on topic but, classic analogue satellite tv decoding boxes Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D393D3E@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Hold on!!! I have a use for FM analogue Sat RX's.. We use them for amateur television (a branch of Amateur Radio) I'll take any you have and if they have manual tuning so much the better!! Rod Smallwood Email rodsmallwood at btconnect.com -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson Sent: 06 January 2007 00:01 To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: not quite on topic but, classic analogue satellite tv decoding boxes Witchy wrote: > Hello folks, > > I've got a pair of old UK SKY TV boxen (1997 era) that are pretty > useless as analogue SKY TV was switched off in 2001; can the hardware > be used for anything else or is it pretty much paperweight material? Paperweight, I would have thought - I've never heard of them being able to do anything 'clever' (unlike, say, some of Acorn's set top boxes which do resemble a computer closely enough to fire up a web browser on, talk to a few very specific hardware add-ons etc.). I doubt there's even many useful components that can be salvaged as it'll likely all be surface mount stuff and big shiny screened silver boxes inside. cheers Jules From mike at ambientdesign.com Sat Jan 6 22:33:12 2007 From: mike at ambientdesign.com (Mike van Bokhoven) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 17:33:12 +1300 Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <006601c73214$f0f0dc00$3c00a8c0@fluke> Hi all, I'm going to be in San Francisco for almost a week, from the 8th to the 14th, and I was hoping to find some Atari 800 bits to bring back to New Zealand with me. Specifically, I'm hoping to find an 810 drive or two, but other bits, or even a spare machine, wouldn't go amiss! Also, some Apple II or II+ mainboards would be very handy. Please let me know if you have anything available, by personal reply might be best? OT: Will be at MacWorld Expo promoting our product - www.artrage.com . If anyone on this list's going to be there, free to drop by and say hi! Ask for Mike, or be ready for confused looks when ranting about old hardware. Mike From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jan 7 06:34:42 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 09:34:42 -0300 Subject: My second Mac References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <088e01c73258$6ee6f890$f0fea8c0@alpha> > One thing I didn't expect is the involved model and OS requirements > for various bits of software. I thought that the idea was that one > didn't have to engage in the upgrading game on a Mac like PC people > do. From what I've seen thus far, if anything, the Mac world seems > to be almost worse in that respect. Macs are very stabile machines, for their era and software version. This is an advantage - doesn't lock-up as much as windows - but is an advantage - there aren't much things you can do with a classic mac beyond showing it up. I have a Mac 128 which is a nice conversation piece - you can do just nothing on that. There are no network, hard disk or like ports. But it is a nice puter anyways :) I have a 9500 upgraded to a G3 and I'm desperate in need of more memory for it, I'd exchange that for some exclusive brazilian gear if someone is interested. From cheri-post at web.de Sun Jan 7 07:06:49 2007 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:06:49 +0100 Subject: 2.5GB bigfoot drives on dovebid Message-ID: <1731575786@web.de> > On 6 Jan 2007 at 16:40, Richard wrote: > > > Wasn't there some discussion recently looking for < 10 GB drives? > > > > There's a bunch of 2.5GB drives on dovebid right now... > > Quantum Bigfoot--bleah. Miserable things. Yeah, I would'nt rely on Bigfoot drives, too. They are *very* low-cost and so is the quality and therefore reliability. We had several of these which gave up work quite quickly. One should try to avoid them. Regards, Pierre _______________________________________________________________________ Viren-Scan f?r Ihren PC! Jetzt f?r jeden. Sofort, online und kostenlos. Gleich testen! http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/freescan/?mc=022222 From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 7 07:51:16 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 07:51:16 -0600 Subject: 2.5GB bigfoot drives on dovebid In-Reply-To: <459FC838.14212.BADB3A8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <459FC838.14212.BADB3A8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A0FAD4.1010407@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > The local computer recycler is selling 3.5" tested-and-scrubbed 4GB > SCSI or IDE (take your pick), drives for a buck each; 6GB ones are > two bucks. Smaller ones are name-a-price. They've got boxes and > boxes of the things. I suspect you're lucky, there. The local place here won't sell anything that hasn't been wiped and tested either, which means it just isn't worth their while for anything under 30GB as the demand's too low to justify the time taken. The lower-capacity drives go straight to the crusher, no questions asked (same with entire classic machines, sadly). I suspect that's typical of most recycling places, as even if they're prepared to sell drives "as seen", they're still pretty much obliged to wipe any data off them if they want to keep their bigger "suppliers" happy. (30GB IDE drives are a tenner, and 36GB SCSI drives are either 15 or 20 pounds I think - which is probably a pretty reasonable for a soak-tested used drive) To Jim: drop an email to a few local companies that are likely to make use of recycling facilities; some of them will probably be friendly enough to let you know who they use. cheers Jules From glen.slick at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 09:40:30 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 07:40:30 -0800 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay In-Reply-To: <000001c731ed$caf0fe30$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org> <013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com> <012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701051534l7df2c326m314ce92776df6e02@mail.gmail.com> <000001c731ed$caf0fe30$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701070740u51deb084jabb4ec1996cfbffc@mail.gmail.com> On 1/6/07, Jay West wrote: > That may or may not help, as "12566" means lots of different things and > doesn't describe an exact board - GRD TRU, + TRU, Microcircuit Interface, > Printer interface... all slightly different variations of the boards > generically marked 12566. In other words, 12566 is not specific enough, you > need the rest of the letters & numbers after it to know exactly what it is. > Some of the variations are just different wirings (and in some cases I think > a different chip or two) giving different electrical characteristics but the > boards look almost identical to the naked eye. The 12566 boards that I > desire, don't look anything like the "normal" 12566 boards. The ones I want > are labled 12566-60032 and have boatloads of dip jumpers on them, no solder > jumpers. > I didn't realize there was much difference between the boards other than the obvious GRD TRUE vs +TRUE versions. I checked and I have some 12566-80024 +TRUE, some 12566-80024 GRD TRUE, but only one 12566-60032 Microcircuit. What makes that version specially suited to your applications? I also have some 12551-8001 Relay Out boards and then some 11629-6001 44 BIT GPO boards for which I cannot find any information. -Glen From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 7 11:01:01 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 09:01:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted Message-ID: <20070107170101.12232.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> I take it the 800 was the successor to the 400, the 1st unit my fingers ever typed on. Lol at typed on. You needed a ball peen hammer to do any serious coding. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 7 11:11:15 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 09:11:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac Message-ID: <20070107171115.90662.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> the stark reality is Im not all that confident using the term dongle. I think they may have been called that, but Im not sure :(. Some had dials by the way. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From pt at new.rr.com Sun Jan 7 11:46:36 2007 From: pt at new.rr.com (Paul Thompson) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:46:36 -0600 (CST) Subject: microprocessors in my vax 3800 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Jan 2007, 9000 VAX wrote: > Today I pulled out the boards in my vax 3800 and I found 7 microprocessors > besides the CVAX. They are, > 2x 68000, 8096, 80186, 2x 8086, Z80. > > Just a little discovery to share with you. > I had noticed similar with XMI and BI boards, where one might see combination of a couple of processors including a VAX chip along with an AMD x86 clone or a 68k or Zilog processor. I remember reading a description of the 'nexus' concept in some DEC unix sources which seemed to indicate a prediliction for 'smart' boards. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 12:00:26 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 10:00:26 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <200701070911.JAA01896@citadel.metropolis.local> References: >, <200701070911.JAA01896@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: <45A0C4BA.26258.F880D5C@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jan 2007 at 9:11, Stan Barr wrote: > Try iCab too: http://www.icab.de/ I saw iCab, but note that it's a $$$ product and I'm just too cheap to buy it. :) > There are a few shell programs avaliable for MacOs 7,8 and 9 if you > really _must_ have a prompt, such as MacShell. Another personal failing--somehow, without a text-based command language, a computer just doesn't feel like a computer to the grey mush between my ears. :) Cheers, Chuck From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jan 7 12:10:39 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 10:10:39 -0800 Subject: My Second Mac Message-ID: > Chuck wrote > On 6 Jan 2007 at 19:41, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > >> >> So I don't see what's so restrictive about the Mac requirements at >> all, >> frankly. > > You're right, it's a matter of small degree. Mac OS 8 = 1997; > Windows 95 = 1995. Intel 80486 = 1989; PPC 601 = 1992. It's pretty > much a moot point anyway--everyone's going to be x86 by-and-by. > > Cheers, > Chuck > My guess has to do with processors: i80486 binaries can run just fine on Pentium+ systems. The software probably can work just fine at 68040 speeds, but then when run on PowerPC systems you have the emulation overhead which drops speeds to around a IIci (25MHz 68030, think Sun-3) on a 8100/80 (80MHz PPC601) Some companies didn't want the bother of maintaining two versions (68k and PPC, especially after the PPC machines had been out a year or two), so they would compile PPC only- hence the higher system requirements. From lbickley at bickleywest.com Sun Jan 7 12:12:33 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 10:12:33 -0800 Subject: Use of HCL to dissolve severe corrosion from NiCad or Alkaline Batteries or oxidation Message-ID: <200701071012.33773.lbickley@bickleywest.com> In response to an offlist question, here's a bit more info on HCL use: 1. I've only been able to buy gallon sized containers of the 30% HCL (Muriatic Acid). That is very unwieldily to handle. A polyethelene containter with a small "spout" (available at drugstores) is an easy solution. Just be careful when transferring the acid from the gallon container to the poly container - use a poly funnel - HCL is "nasty" stuff. 2. Use as little acid as possible on a board/module/motherboard. Before applying the acid I look over the board - and discover the corroded/oxidized components and apply the acid directly to the components. The acid will flow to other, non-oxidized components, but it won't hurt them. A toothbrush can be used to scrub stubborn corrosion - but I've found it is rarely needed. 3. After applying the acid, rinse it off as soon as the "fizzling" stops. Use plenty of cold water to eliminate all traces of the acid. Then use a final rinse of distilled water. 4. I avoid putting acid on adjustable, semi-sealed components, such as potentiometers, variable capacitors, enclosed switches, etc. If they are badly corroded - replace them. 5. I use a hair dryer set at medium-heat/high-speed to dry the board and under chips, etc. Drying will also eliminate any traces of residual acid that may have been left behind. (HCL turns to a gas when it "drys out"). Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jan 7 12:23:19 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 10:23:19 -0800 Subject: From another list: 4D-series (POWER & Professional) SGI gear Message-ID: <545227bd0b86df0b59e9ee5daa69a4b4@valleyimplants.com> Can't remember if I sent this- found it on a different list and I can forward mail > EDIT Jan,7: No one's interested into old stuff anymore? If no one > claims them they will go in the trash real soon! It'd be a shame... If > you're not interested in taking them all there's loads of perfectly > working boards, IP7s, IO4s with plenty of SCSI, GTX graphic set, power > supplies, backplanes, skins, etc, etc. Anyway let me know. > > > Hi all, > > I have a few older Silicon Graphics systems up for grabs if anyone is > interested. There's three 4D Predator racks, a deskside 4D/70GT and a > Challenge XL. All the machines are complete except for the Challenge > which is missing the CPU and memory boards. Except for that everything > is there. They also come with a few boxes of parts, cables, keyboards > and such. A 17" SGI monitor is also part of the lot. > > Pictures here: > http://web.newsguy.com/AlexPhotos/sgi.html > > Everything is free if you take them as is. If you only want boards or > other parts, I'll charge a small fee for the packaging material and > for my time. > The machines are located in Montreal, Canada. Looks like the Challenge might not have processor boards, but the other systems seem to. The 4D/70 is a Twin Tower From williams.dan at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 12:58:32 2007 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 18:58:32 +0000 Subject: rt-11 Documentation Message-ID: <26c11a640701071058y67f48df8n7d8f93cd2062a4be@mail.gmail.com> I'm sure someone on the list asked a while back, but I couldn't find it. I have the complete rt-11 docs printed out. They are too heavy to post but can be picked up from here (Soho UK). Dan From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 13:20:22 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 11:20:22 -0800 Subject: Use of HCL to dissolve severe corrosion from NiCad or Alkaline Batteries or oxidation In-Reply-To: <200701071012.33773.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200701071012.33773.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <45A0D776.5048.FD142E1@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jan 2007 at 10:12, Lyle Bickley wrote: > 1. I've only been able to buy gallon sized containers of the 30% HCL (Muriatic > Acid). That is very unwieldily to handle. A polyethelene containter with a > small "spout" (available at drugstores) is an easy solution. Just be careful > when transferring the acid from the gallon container to the poly container - > use a poly funnel - HCL is "nasty" stuff. Another caution--DO NOT STORE THE CONTAINER IN YOUR WORKSHOP OR WHEREVER YOU KEEP YOUR EQUIPMENT! Muriatic acid is hydrogen chloride gas dissolved in water and tends to "fume". Which means that if the cap on the container is slightly loose or the container is cracked, you'll be in for an eventual surprise. I kept a gallon of muriatic stored in my workshop and thought the cap was screwed on tightly (it wasn't). After about 2 weeks, I noted that all of my cast-iron shop equpment was coated with a fine dappling of rust. My HCl is now stored in a weatherproof container out-of-doors. I can't imagine what such fumes might do to the innards of a disk drive. For a somewhat tamer substitute, one might try sulfamic acid--a powder dissolved in water and normally used for cleaning masonry (as is muriatic acid). You can often find it at stores that deal in ceramic tile supplies. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 13:28:59 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:28:59 -0500 Subject: Use of HCL to dissolve severe corrosion from NiCad or Alkaline Batteries or oxidation In-Reply-To: <45A0D776.5048.FD142E1@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701071012.33773.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <45A0D776.5048.FD142E1@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A149FB.2080708@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7 Jan 2007 at 10:12, Lyle Bickley wrote: > >> 1. I've only been able to buy gallon sized containers of the 30% HCL (Muriatic >> Acid). That is very unwieldily to handle. A polyethelene containter with a >> small "spout" (available at drugstores) is an easy solution. Just be careful >> when transferring the acid from the gallon container to the poly container - >> use a poly funnel - HCL is "nasty" stuff. > > Another caution--DO NOT STORE THE CONTAINER IN YOUR WORKSHOP OR > WHEREVER YOU KEEP YOUR EQUIPMENT! Muriatic acid is hydrogen chloride > gas dissolved in water and tends to "fume". Which means that if the > cap on the container is slightly loose or the container is cracked, > you'll be in for an eventual surprise. > > I kept a gallon of muriatic stored in my workshop and thought the cap > was screwed on tightly (it wasn't). After about 2 weeks, I noted > that all of my cast-iron shop equpment was coated with a fine > dappling of rust. My HCl is now stored in a weatherproof container > out-of-doors. I can't imagine what such fumes might do to the > innards of a disk drive. > > For a somewhat tamer substitute, one might try sulfamic acid--a > powder dissolved in water and normally used for cleaning masonry (as > is muriatic acid). You can often find it at stores that deal in > ceramic tile supplies. You can store hydrochloric acid dilute without worrying about it fuming. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 13:30:07 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:30:07 -0500 Subject: Use of HCL to dissolve severe corrosion from NiCad or Alkaline Batteries or oxidation In-Reply-To: <45A0D776.5048.FD142E1@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701071012.33773.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <45A0D776.5048.FD142E1@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A14A3F.5070704@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7 Jan 2007 at 10:12, Lyle Bickley wrote: > >> 1. I've only been able to buy gallon sized containers of the 30% HCL (Muriatic >> Acid). That is very unwieldily to handle. A polyethelene containter with a >> small "spout" (available at drugstores) is an easy solution. Just be careful >> when transferring the acid from the gallon container to the poly container - >> use a poly funnel - HCL is "nasty" stuff. > > Another caution--DO NOT STORE THE CONTAINER IN YOUR WORKSHOP OR > WHEREVER YOU KEEP YOUR EQUIPMENT! Muriatic acid is hydrogen chloride > gas dissolved in water and tends to "fume". Which means that if the > cap on the container is slightly loose or the container is cracked, > you'll be in for an eventual surprise. > > I kept a gallon of muriatic stored in my workshop and thought the cap > was screwed on tightly (it wasn't). After about 2 weeks, I noted > that all of my cast-iron shop equpment was coated with a fine > dappling of rust. My HCl is now stored in a weatherproof container > out-of-doors. I can't imagine what such fumes might do to the > innards of a disk drive. > > For a somewhat tamer substitute, one might try sulfamic acid--a > powder dissolved in water and normally used for cleaning masonry (as > is muriatic acid). You can often find it at stores that deal in > ceramic tile supplies. I don't believe it'll fume when stored under mineral oil too. Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 13:36:29 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 11:36:29 -0800 Subject: Use of HCL to dissolve severe corrosion from NiCad or Alkaline Batteries or oxidation In-Reply-To: <45A149FB.2080708@gmail.com> References: <200701071012.33773.lbickley@bickleywest.com>, <45A0D776.5048.FD142E1@cclist.sydex.com>, <45A149FB.2080708@gmail.com> Message-ID: <45A0DB3D.20848.FE0028B@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jan 2007 at 14:28, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > You can store hydrochloric acid dilute without worrying about it fuming. But, but--didn't the original post state that the 30% stuff was required for the application? 30% HCl does fume. Cheers, Chuck From frajkp at netscape.net Sun Jan 7 13:35:56 2007 From: frajkp at netscape.net (frajkp at netscape.net) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:35:56 -0500 Subject: Old D.E.C. Software and Hardware Manuals Available Message-ID: <8C900AA2FC35A02-14A4-2092@WEBMAIL-MC08.sysops.aol.com> Hi, I have a few old Digital Equipment Corp. manuals. If anyone is interested in them they are yours for shipping costs (I'm in Ontario, Canada). They are as follows: - DEC System 10 - Mathematical Languages Handbook - DEC System 10 - Assembly Language Handbook - DEC System 10 - Users Handbook - KW11-L line time clock manual - ME11-L core memory system manual - Decscope User's Manual - RK611/RK06 Disk Susbsystem user's manual - DR11-C general device interface manual - AR11 User's guide - DL11-W serial iine unit/real time clock option maintenance manual - DL11 asynchronous line interface manual - RK11-D and RK11-E moving head disk drive controller manual - Rk611/RK06 disk subsystem installation manual - DZ11 user's guide Thanks ________________________________________________________________________ Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 7 13:40:07 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:40:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Use of HCL to dissolve severe corrosion from NiCad or Alkaline Batteries or oxidation Message-ID: <20070107194007.14964.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> can you buy it in powder form? You mean you all apply hcl to a circuit board??? Aint there a less caustic substance for the job? --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 7 Jan 2007 at 10:12, Lyle Bickley wrote: > > > >> 1. I've only been able to buy gallon sized containers of the 30% HCL (Muriatic > >> Acid). That is very unwieldily to handle. A polyethelene containter with a > >> small "spout" (available at drugstores) is an easy solution. Just be careful > >> when transferring the acid from the gallon container to the poly container - > >> use a poly funnel - HCL is "nasty" stuff. > > > > Another caution--DO NOT STORE THE CONTAINER IN YOUR WORKSHOP OR > > WHEREVER YOU KEEP YOUR EQUIPMENT! Muriatic acid is hydrogen chloride > > gas dissolved in water and tends to "fume". Which means that if the > > cap on the container is slightly loose or the container is cracked, > > you'll be in for an eventual surprise. > > > > I kept a gallon of muriatic stored in my workshop and thought the cap > > was screwed on tightly (it wasn't). After about 2 weeks, I noted > > that all of my cast-iron shop equpment was coated with a fine > > dappling of rust. My HCl is now stored in a weatherproof container > > out-of-doors. I can't imagine what such fumes might do to the > > innards of a disk drive. > > > > For a somewhat tamer substitute, one might try sulfamic acid--a > > powder dissolved in water and normally used for cleaning masonry (as > > is muriatic acid). You can often find it at stores that deal in > > ceramic tile supplies. > > You can store hydrochloric acid dilute without worrying about it fuming. > > Peace... Sridhar __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From stephane.tsacas at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 13:44:27 2007 From: stephane.tsacas at gmail.com (Stephane Tsacas) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 20:44:27 +0100 Subject: Old D.E.C. Software and Hardware Manuals Available In-Reply-To: <8C900AA2FC35A02-14A4-2092@WEBMAIL-MC08.sysops.aol.com> References: <8C900AA2FC35A02-14A4-2092@WEBMAIL-MC08.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: Hi, I' ll take them all. Thanks St?phane On 1/7/07, frajkp at netscape.net wrote: > > Hi, I have a few old Digital Equipment Corp. manuals. > If anyone is interested in them they are yours for shipping costs (I'm in > Ontario, Canada). > They are as follows: > > - DEC System 10 - Mathematical Languages Handbook > - DEC System 10 - Assembly Language Handbook > - DEC System 10 - Users Handbook > - KW11-L line time clock manual > - ME11-L core memory system manual > - Decscope User's Manual > - RK611/RK06 Disk Susbsystem user's manual > - DR11-C general device interface manual > - AR11 User's guide > - DL11-W serial iine unit/real time clock option maintenance manual > - DL11 asynchronous line interface manual > - RK11-D and RK11-E moving head disk drive controller manual > - Rk611/RK06 disk subsystem installation manual > - DZ11 user's guide > > Thanks > > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading > spam and email virus protection. > -- Stephane Paris, France. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 7 13:52:58 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 11:52:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? Message-ID: <20070107195258.23448.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> not seemingly likely w/the current crop of usb units, but would it be possible to get a 5.25 to work in say an older lt w/an integral 3.5? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 13:56:46 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 11:56:46 -0800 Subject: Use of HCL to dissolve severe corrosion from NiCad or Alkaline Batteries or oxidation In-Reply-To: <20070107194007.14964.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070107194007.14964.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45A0DFFE.23018.FF29332@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jan 2007 at 11:40, Chris M wrote: > can you buy it in powder form? You mean you all apply > hcl to a circuit board??? Aint there a less caustic > substance for the job? I've not tried it, but you might look at a retail product called "CLR"--it's a calcium, lime and rust remover/cleaner. Available in quart sizes at most home improvement and some supermarkets. I don't know if it's strong enough for the job, however. Cheers, Chuck From dmabry at mich.com Sun Jan 7 14:41:42 2007 From: dmabry at mich.com (Dave Mabry) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 15:41:42 -0500 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070107195258.23448.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070107195258.23448.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45A15B06.50007@mich.com> Chris M wrote: >not seemingly likely w/the current crop of usb units, >but would it be possible to get a 5.25 to work in say >an older lt w/an integral 3.5? > > Not sure exactly what you are asking, but I have a few Zenith SupersPort series of laptops. The have internal 3.5" floppy drives and a port for an external floppy drive. Zenith sold an external 5.25" floppy drive, 360K variety, for them. I have also made a 1.44MB version 5.25" floppy drive work from that port. Does that answer your question? From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Sun Jan 7 14:50:36 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 15:50:36 -0500 Subject: garbled display In-Reply-To: <452825.57116.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070107154519.039430f0@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Chris M may have mentioned these words: >actually rows and columns of blocks of ascii chars, >some blinking. To which Im greeted upon switching on a >Tandy 2000. Typically what does this indicate? Darned near anything, but the first things I'd do is: 1) crack the case and make sure there's no "foreign objects" in there that shouldn't be. 2) Whilst I'm in there, I'd pull and reseat any chips (RAM, ROM, CPU, etc.) that are in sockets, and/or cards (Video, interface, etc.) in slots. You could also remove any cards unnecessary to the basic function of the machine during testing. 3) Also pull and reseat any cables (floppy, etc.) that exist. Hope this helps, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From lbickley at bickleywest.com Sun Jan 7 14:56:17 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 12:56:17 -0800 Subject: Use of HCL to dissolve severe corrosion from NiCad or Alkaline Batteries or oxidation In-Reply-To: <20070107194007.14964.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070107194007.14964.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200701071256.18162.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Sunday 07 January 2007 11:40, Chris M wrote: > can you buy it in powder form? You mean you all apply > hcl to a circuit board??? Aint there a less caustic > substance for the job? HCL is an acid, not a caustic. Caustic is strongly alkaline - as in Sodium Hydroxide (Caustic Soda), Calcium Oxide (Caustic Lime), etc. Leaking NiCad and Alkaline batteries have a very strong alkaline content which can dissolve traces, edge connectors, components, etc. One uses an acid such as HCL to dissolve the strong hydroxide and other products of the alkaline "corrosion". Cheers, Lyle > --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > wrote: > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > On 7 Jan 2007 at 10:12, Lyle Bickley wrote: > > >> 1. I've only been able to buy gallon sized > > containers of the 30% HCL (Muriatic > > > >> Acid). That is very unwieldily to handle. A > > polyethelene containter with a > > > >> small "spout" (available at drugstores) is an > > easy solution. Just be careful > > > >> when transferring the acid from the gallon > > container to the poly container - > > > >> use a poly funnel - HCL is "nasty" stuff. > > > > > > Another caution--DO NOT STORE THE CONTAINER IN > > YOUR WORKSHOP OR > > > > WHEREVER YOU KEEP YOUR EQUIPMENT! Muriatic acid > > is hydrogen chloride > > > > gas dissolved in water and tends to "fume". Which > > means that if the > > > > cap on the container is slightly loose or the > > container is cracked, > > > > you'll be in for an eventual surprise. > > > > > > I kept a gallon of muriatic stored in my workshop > > and thought the cap > > > > was screwed on tightly (it wasn't). After about 2 > > weeks, I noted > > > > that all of my cast-iron shop equpment was coated > > with a fine > > > > dappling of rust. My HCl is now stored in a > > weatherproof container > > > > out-of-doors. I can't imagine what such fumes > > might do to the > > > > innards of a disk drive. > > > > > > For a somewhat tamer substitute, one might try > > sulfamic acid--a > > > > powder dissolved in water and normally used for > > cleaning masonry (as > > > > is muriatic acid). You can often find it at > > stores that deal in > > > > ceramic tile supplies. > > > > You can store hydrochloric acid dilute without > > worrying about it fuming. > > > Peace... Sridhar > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 7 14:56:36 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 12:56:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: My Second Mac In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070107125111.M50840@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 7 Jan 2007, Scott Quinn wrote: > My guess has to do with processors: i80486 binaries can run just fine > on Pentium+ systems. so can 8088 binaries. (With occasional exceptions that don't typically show up in common usage (such as PUSH SP)) But not all Pentium+ binaries will run on 8088, or even i80486. There seemed to have been a cultural difference between Motorola and intel. Motorola would design each major generation from scratch, thus producing a much better processor, but without legacy software. intel, OTOH, would bend over backwards to try to maintain 4004 compatibility. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 7 15:09:48 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 13:09:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? Message-ID: <863759.87842.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> no actually. I should have specified no older then a 486. For creating/dumping images and whatnot. Some early lt floppies were just slender versions of dt units __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 7 15:19:43 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 13:19:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: garbled display Message-ID: <20070107211943.83700.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> it only helps if youre going to swing by and unseat the 80186 from its bizarre cage. I aint touching one ever again. But thanks all the same Roger :) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jan 7 16:05:11 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 14:05:11 -0800 Subject: My Second Mac Message-ID: <41411fa87d3e31c0477039986aa96a9b@valleyimplants.com> > On Sun, 7 Jan 2007, Scott Quinn wrote: > > My guess has to do with processors: i80486 binaries can run just fine > > on Pentium+ systems. > > so can 8088 binaries. (With occasional exceptions that don't typically > show up in common usage (such as PUSH SP)) > But not all Pentium+ binaries will run on 8088, or even i80486. > > > There seemed to have been a cultural difference between Motorola and > intel. > > Motorola would design each major generation from scratch, thus > producing a > much better processor, but without legacy software. > > intel, OTOH, would bend over backwards to try to maintain 4004 > compatibility. We're talking about two slightly different things here, though- 68000 (while it did not have provisions for easily running 6800 code) had a common-mode so that programs built on the 68040 could run on the 68000, but you can also have code that requires instructions (or other things) added on later 68000-series processors, similar to Intel (variable 286-style segments, the copy-on-write provision of the 80486, etc.). The transition between 68000 and PPC was more like the Intel gap between the x86 and the 960 - they are completely different processors with no common heritage (the common heritage piece was provided by Apple in firmware). I haven't worked with them, but AFAIK the new embedded versions of the 68000 (ColdFire?) maintain the tradition of working with earlier 68ks (except in a few cases). From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 7 16:14:24 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 16:14:24 -0600 (CST) Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! Message-ID: <200701072214.l07MEMe5071502@keith.ezwind.net> --- John Foust wrote: **>> snip <<** > > Back in late 1998, my buddy Sheldon Leemon (author > of "Mapping the C-64") > won the grand prize in an online sweepstakes. The > prize was a full-size > promotional version of the robot from the remake o f > "Lost in Space". > It had been touring the USA and Japan. Doesn't lo ok > quite the same: > > http://www.robotoys.com/lis99.jpg > > 600 pounds, New Line Cinema valued it at $4,500. We > debated what we > might do with it, never coming to any good > conclusions. I was tempted > to store it in my barn. He never picked it up. I t > sat in a shipping > yard for months. I think it eventually started > running up charges and > was sent back in mid-1999. I wonder where it went ! > > - John > Urghh!!!! Why would you want that piece of trash?!!! Sorry, but I think it's the worst designed robot in the history of films! Robbie the robot (Forbidden Planet, 3 or 4 eps of Lost In Space 60's tv series, background in Gremlins 1 (or 2?) and even in a Columbo film from the 70's!), Gort (Day The Earth Stood Still), Maximillion (The Black Hole) and more modern robot's such as Robocop, ED-209 and Caine (all from the Robocop films), plus the T-1000 (Terminator), are much better designed to be menacing and/or cool looking. When I saw the one from the Lost In Space film (from 90's) I just laughed. To be honest, going from the picture, it looks like a cross between the robot's from Short Circuit and Caine from Robocop 2. Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 16:20:14 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 17:20:14 -0500 Subject: My Second Mac In-Reply-To: <41411fa87d3e31c0477039986aa96a9b@valleyimplants.com> References: <41411fa87d3e31c0477039986aa96a9b@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <45A1721E.7010208@gmail.com> Scott Quinn wrote: > We're talking about two slightly different things here, though- 68000 > (while it did not have provisions for easily running 6800 code) had a > common-mode so that programs built on the 68040 could run on the 68000, > but you can also have code that requires instructions (or other things) > added on later 68000-series processors, similar to Intel (variable > 286-style segments, the copy-on-write provision of the 80486, etc.). The > transition between 68000 and PPC was more like the Intel gap between the > x86 and the 960 - they are completely different processors with no > common heritage (the common heritage piece was provided by Apple in > firmware). I haven't worked with them, but AFAIK the new embedded > versions of the 68000 (ColdFire?) maintain the tradition of working with > earlier 68ks (except in a few cases). Earlier revisions of ColdFire weren't compatible with older 68K. The latest revisions are now compatible enough to work as replacements for the 68060. If memory serves, the ColdFire chips that work for replacing an '060 are latest two revisions. I've seen a ColdFire upgrade board for the Amiga 4000. It's blazing fast. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 16:21:28 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 17:21:28 -0500 Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <200701072214.l07MEMe5071502@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200701072214.l07MEMe5071502@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <45A17268.8020408@gmail.com> aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk wrote: > Why would you want that piece of trash?!!! > Sorry, but I think it's the worst designed robot > in the history of films! > Robbie the robot (Forbidden Planet, 3 or 4 eps > of Lost In Space 60's tv series, background in > Gremlins 1 (or 2?) and even in a Columbo film > from the 70's!), Gort (Day The Earth Stood > Still), Maximillion (The Black Hole) and more > modern robot's such as Robocop, ED-209 and > Caine (all from the Robocop films), plus the > T-1000 (Terminator), are much better designed > to be menacing and/or cool looking. Are you sure you're not talking about the T-800? The T-1000 is the liquid-metal jobbie. Peace... Sridhar From curt at atarimuseum.com Sun Jan 7 16:24:02 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 17:24:02 -0500 Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted In-Reply-To: <006601c73214$f0f0dc00$3c00a8c0@fluke> References: <459F7114.10599.A595038@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070106134710.P12278@shell.lmi.net> <459FC71F.8636.BA9695C@cclist.sydex.com> <006601c73214$f0f0dc00$3c00a8c0@fluke> Message-ID: <45A17302.7040008@atarimuseum.com> You may want to swing by Weird Stuff if you don't mind taking a bit of a ride, they occassionally have some Atari stuff, there are always used computer sales going on all over the Bay area and if you're willing to make a day of it, I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for and for the most part, at decent prices. Curt Mike van Bokhoven wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm going to be in San Francisco for almost a week, from the 8th to the > 14th, and I was hoping to find some Atari 800 bits to bring back to New > Zealand with me. Specifically, I'm hoping to find an 810 drive or two, but > other bits, or even a spare machine, wouldn't go amiss! Also, some Apple II > or II+ mainboards would be very handy. Please let me know if you have > anything available, by personal reply might be best? > > OT: Will be at MacWorld Expo promoting our product - www.artrage.com . If > anyone on this list's going to be there, free to drop by and say hi! Ask for > Mike, or be ready for confused looks when ranting about old hardware. > > Mike > > > From bshannon at tiac.net Sun Jan 7 16:27:48 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 17:27:48 -0500 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org><013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com><012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701051534l7df2c326m314ce92776df6e02@mail.gmail.com><000001c731ed$caf0fe30$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701070740u51deb084jabb4ec1996cfbffc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <005401c732ab$10b67d60$0100a8c0@screamer> The 12551 relay board is a great item. You get 16 isolated contacts, on opposite sides of the PCB. Write a word to the I/O slot and you close the relay contacts for each bit set. There are also slightly complicated signals for the command and flag flip flops. I can get you the pin-outs and specifics on these if needed. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Glen Slick" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 10:40 AM Subject: Re: HP HP-2117F on ebay > On 1/6/07, Jay West wrote: >> That may or may not help, as "12566" means lots of different things and >> doesn't describe an exact board - GRD TRU, + TRU, Microcircuit Interface, >> Printer interface... all slightly different variations of the boards >> generically marked 12566. In other words, 12566 is not specific enough, >> you >> need the rest of the letters & numbers after it to know exactly what it >> is. >> Some of the variations are just different wirings (and in some cases I >> think >> a different chip or two) giving different electrical characteristics but >> the >> boards look almost identical to the naked eye. The 12566 boards that I >> desire, don't look anything like the "normal" 12566 boards. The ones I >> want >> are labled 12566-60032 and have boatloads of dip jumpers on them, no >> solder >> jumpers. >> > > I didn't realize there was much difference between the boards other > than the obvious GRD TRUE vs +TRUE versions. I checked and I have > some 12566-80024 +TRUE, some 12566-80024 GRD TRUE, but only one > 12566-60032 Microcircuit. What makes that version specially suited to > your applications? > > I also have some 12551-8001 Relay Out boards and then some 11629-6001 > 44 BIT GPO boards for which I cannot find any information. > > -Glen > From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 16:28:34 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:28:34 -0800 Subject: Use of HCL to dissolve severe corrosion from NiCad or Alkaline Batteries or oxidation In-Reply-To: <200701071256.18162.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <20070107194007.14964.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com>, <200701071256.18162.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <45A10392.3630.107D9002@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jan 2007 at 12:56, Lyle Bickley wrote: > HCL is an acid, not a caustic. Caustic is strongly alkaline - as in Sodium > Hydroxide (Caustic Soda), Calcium Oxide (Caustic Lime), etc. Well, as long we're picking nits...here we get into the area of "Chemistry vocabulary" versus "Everyday vocabulary". While "caustic" generally connotes "corrosively basic" when talking about reagents in the lab, strictly speaking, "caustic" implies only corrosive or burning; either strongly acidic or basic, or even neither (see, for example "lunar caustic"). The biological sense is "anything that destroys living tissue". When I was young, the treatment for canker sores was cauterization (same root as "caustic") of the sore with a stick of lunar caustic (it didn't work all that well, but the result looked better than the alternative of applying a gentian violet solution, which didn't work either). Middle English caustik, from Latin causticus, from Greek kaustikos, from kaustos, from kaiein, kau-, to burn. Google "define: caustic" and see what pops up. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 16:37:55 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:37:55 -0800 Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <45A17268.8020408@gmail.com> References: <200701072214.l07MEMe5071502@keith.ezwind.net>, <45A17268.8020408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <45A105C3.9762.10861DC2@cclist.sydex.com> What?! No one mentioned the robot from "Devil Girl from Mars"? Michael Carter: Mrs. Jamieson, may I introduce your latest guest. Miss Nyah. She comes from Mars. Mrs. Jamieson: Oh, well, that'll mean another bed. Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 7 16:41:44 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:41:44 -0600 Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <45A105C3.9762.10861DC2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701072214.l07MEMe5071502@keith.ezwind.net>, <45A17268.8020408@gmail.com> <45A105C3.9762.10861DC2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A17728.7080205@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > What?! No one mentioned the robot from "Devil Girl from Mars"? And Marvin the paranoid android... :-) Actually, having seen various clips of 60's science shows regarding robots, the one in Lost in Space was probably pretty close to what people generally thought robots of the future would look like. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 7 16:47:54 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 14:47:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <45A105C3.9762.10861DC2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701072214.l07MEMe5071502@keith.ezwind.net>, <45A17268.8020408@gmail.com> <45A105C3.9762.10861DC2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070107144710.O50840@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 7 Jan 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > What?! No one mentioned the robot from "Devil Girl from Mars"? What was the [Ed Wood?] movie with the robot that was a gorilla suit and a diving helmet? From yakowenk at yahoo.com Sun Jan 7 16:47:53 2007 From: yakowenk at yahoo.com (Bill Yakowenko) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 14:47:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: TRS-80 stuff available in Stockton CA for pickup Message-ID: <287693.52601.qm@web52308.mail.yahoo.com> Hey, all, I've got mail from some guy with a bit of TRS-80 stuff available for pickup: 3 TRS-80 computers, a TRS-80 5 Meg Disk System, manuals, flopppies, etc. If you can rescue it, let me know. I'll forward replies to him. He's in Stockton CA, and I've told him we can probably arrange a pick-up and save him the hassle of shipping. BTW, I've been slacking on this for about two weeks now, so I'll have to double-check that the items are still available. But I wanted to send this to the list now, rather than checking with him first and running the risk of falling into procrastination-land again... Cheers, Bill. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sun Jan 7 16:51:49 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 16:51:49 -0600 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: <20070106172436.8CD8AB1C37@mac-mini.local> Message-ID: In a similar note, I had a board set called Graphlex, it was a PC-AT 3 board hadware add on for Versacad. 640x480 256 colors, 68000 sun 3 eqivalent, ran the sun version of Versacad. It came with Richard Stallmans gnu tools too, if you wanted to do SW development. This was about 1988... I think it just used the PC for the power supply, and got the keyboard off the AT bus. The mouse/tablet and video plugged into the board set. Versacad was blowing doors in 3d in thosed days, way better than autocad. From: "Bernd Kopriva" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Subject: Re: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion >Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:25:01 +0100 > >On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:14:35 +0100, Bernd Kopriva wrote: > > >On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 11:51:05 -0500, Ken Seefried wrote: > > >>I recall Opus made a AT bus plugin card with a Clipper. Think it ran >Clix. > > >I have such a card, but no software and docs :( ... > > >Can anyone help ? > > >Thanks Bernd > >i've checked the board again, it's a board manufactured by Zaiaz, probably >it's not >the same as the Opus board, so my request for software/docs is for that one >... > >Ciao Bernd > > > _________________________________________________________________ Get live scores and news about your team: Add the Live.com Football Page www.live.com/?addtemplate=football&icid=T001MSN30A0701 From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 16:58:40 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 14:58:40 -0800 Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <20070107144710.O50840@shell.lmi.net> References: <200701072214.l07MEMe5071502@keith.ezwind.net>, <45A105C3.9762.10861DC2@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070107144710.O50840@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45A10AA0.26936.10991D8C@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jan 2007 at 14:47, Fred Cisin wrote: > What was the [Ed Wood?] movie with the robot that was a gorilla suit and a > diving helmet? You must mean "Robot Monster". Not an Ed Wood production, though. Cheers, Chuck From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 7 17:09:02 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 17:09:02 -0600 (CST) Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! Message-ID: <200701072309.l07N923i074056@keith.ezwind.net> --- Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk wrote: > > Why would you want that piece of trash?!!! > > Sorry, but I think it's the worst designed robot > > in the history of films! > > Robbie the robot (Forbidden Planet, 3 or 4 eps > > of Lost In Space 60's tv series, background in > > Gremlins 1 (or 2?) and even in a Columbo film > > from the 70's!), Gort (Day The Earth Stood > > Still), Maximillion (The Black Hole) and more > > modern robot's such as Robocop, ED-209 and > > Caine (all from the Robocop films), plus the > > T-1000 (Terminator), are much better designed > > to be menacing and/or cool looking. > > Are you sure you're not talking about the T-800? > The T-1000 is the > liquid-metal jobbie. > > Peace... Sridhar > Ooops. Yeah, I meant the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Whilst double-checking the T-number, I came across this huge list of goof's (page is around 200KB's): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/goofs Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 17:11:15 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 18:11:15 -0500 Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <45A105C3.9762.10861DC2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701072214.l07MEMe5071502@keith.ezwind.net>, <45A17268.8020408@gmail.com> <45A105C3.9762.10861DC2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A17E13.6050405@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > What?! No one mentioned the robot from "Devil Girl from Mars"? > > Michael Carter: Mrs. Jamieson, may I introduce your latest guest. > Miss Nyah. She comes from Mars. > > Mrs. Jamieson: Oh, well, that'll mean another bed. What about Box from Logan's Run? Peace... Sridhar From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 7 17:14:37 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 15:14:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: garbled display Message-ID: <20070107231437.88536.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> and I should also point out some of the screen is reverse video, some is blinking. Anyone know what happened to John Allain? --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > it only helps if youre going to swing by and unseat > the 80186 from its bizarre cage. I aint touching one > ever again. But thanks all the same Roger :) > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 7 17:17:17 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 17:17:17 -0600 (CST) Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! Message-ID: <200701072317.l07NHHME074333@keith.ezwind.net> --- "Bryan K. Blackburn" wrote: > Recently we have seen recreations of several vinta ge > computers like the > Mark-8 Minicomputer, the Apple 1, the IMSAI 8080 a nd > most recently the > Altair 8800, but wait till you see this!!! > > eBay item # 230051400851 > > The effort that must have went into this project.. .! > Detailed > construction photos here: > > http://www.lostinspacerobot.com/newsletter.html > > I confess that I have always wanted one of these! :) > I have no > connection with the seller etc. & etc. > My dad has got 2 plastic models from Lost In Space. One had the giant holding a boulder above his head with John and Don below him and the other one was a 6" (or thereabouts) tall model of the Robinson robot. Not sure where they are now though. If he had the money I'm sure he would want the replica of the Robinson robot :) Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 7 17:42:55 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 15:42:55 -0800 Subject: Stunning recreation work: Danger Will Robinson! In-Reply-To: <45A17E13.6050405@gmail.com> References: <200701072214.l07MEMe5071502@keith.ezwind.net>, <45A105C3.9762.10861DC2@cclist.sydex.com>, <45A17E13.6050405@gmail.com> Message-ID: <45A114FF.31190.10C1A0D4@cclist.sydex.com> Another really notable movie: "The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy" Mexican production, Spanish dubbed into English. Shows what one can do with a bit of cardboard and aluminum paint. Cheers, Chuck From teoz at neo.rr.com Sun Jan 7 17:49:22 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 18:49:22 -0500 Subject: My Second Mac References: <41411fa87d3e31c0477039986aa96a9b@valleyimplants.com> <45A1721E.7010208@gmail.com> Message-ID: <007c01c732b6$74c47fe0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sridhar Ayengar" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 5:20 PM Subject: Re: My Second Mac > > Earlier revisions of ColdFire weren't compatible with older 68K. The > latest revisions are now compatible enough to work as replacements for > the 68060. If memory serves, the ColdFire chips that work for replacing > an '060 are latest two revisions. > > I've seen a ColdFire upgrade board for the Amiga 4000. It's blazing fast. > > Peace... Sridhar The 68060 was quite a bit different then the 680x0 that were released before it (they started taking things out of the hardware at that point). A 68060 will not boot Mac OS (even with the voltage adapter board used in 040 to 060 conversions for the Amiga) and from what I recall needed emulation done in software to work correctly on the Amiga as well. From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 7 18:58:53 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 16:58:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: My Second Mac In-Reply-To: from Scott Quinn at "Jan 7, 7 10:10:39 am" Message-ID: <200701080058.l080wrwH014514@floodgap.com> > My guess has to do with processors: i80486 binaries can run just fine > on Pentium+ systems. > The software probably can work just fine at 68040 speeds, but then when > run on PowerPC systems you have the emulation overhead which drops > speeds to around a IIci (25MHz 68030, think Sun-3) on a 8100/80 (80MHz > PPC601) Some companies didn't want the bother of maintaining two > versions (68k and PPC, especially after the PPC machines had been out a > year or two), so they would compile PPC only- hence the higher system > requirements. All true, but "PPC" is still a very wide gulf. For that particular package to specify all the way up to a G4, the earliest it could have emerged was after the Yikes! G4, so we'll say at the *earliest* the software emerged in late 1999. Similarly, "fast PPC" can be defined any way you like, but if we take a fairly reasonable point and say a second-generation 603e like a Performa 6360 (160MHz), that's late 1996. So, at its most *restrictive*, this covers three years of Macs, and odds are the software came out a bit later than the first generation of G4s. That's not a very cramped set of Macs that can run it, and even larger if you're prepared to put up with the performance of, say, a suckier 603e like a (kill-me-now) 6200 series Performa, or a first-generation 601. I don't think this had much to do with 68K, and given that it had to come out in 1999 or later, 68K would have been a very distant blip on the radar by then. I write 68K-compatible software where possible, but I'm a classic Mac weirdo after all. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- People who buy computers from TV commercials *deserve* PCs. ---------------- From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 20:17:17 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 21:17:17 -0500 Subject: My Second Mac In-Reply-To: <007c01c732b6$74c47fe0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <41411fa87d3e31c0477039986aa96a9b@valleyimplants.com> <45A1721E.7010208@gmail.com> <007c01c732b6$74c47fe0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45A1A9AD.7090504@gmail.com> Teo Zenios wrote: >> Earlier revisions of ColdFire weren't compatible with older 68K. The >> latest revisions are now compatible enough to work as replacements for >> the 68060. If memory serves, the ColdFire chips that work for replacing >> an '060 are latest two revisions. >> >> I've seen a ColdFire upgrade board for the Amiga 4000. It's blazing fast. > > The 68060 was quite a bit different then the 680x0 that were released before > it (they started taking things out of the hardware at that point). A 68060 > will not boot Mac OS (even with the voltage adapter board used in 040 to 060 > conversions for the Amiga) and from what I recall needed emulation done in > software to work correctly on the Amiga as well. From what I understand, Motorola made the line simpler and simpler as time went on. I think they did it so that they could get the clock speeds up. Peace... Sridhar From trag at io.com Sun Jan 7 20:41:38 2007 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 20:41:38 -0600 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <200701071113.l07BCrXR087684@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701071113.l07BCrXR087684@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 09:51:16 -0800 >From: "Chuck Guzis" >I picked up another Mac yesterday--a beige 300 Mhz G3 with 256MB, >and a 15 GB hard disk. It's also got a USB adapter plugged into one >of the PCI slots. It's running OS 9.something. Set me back $20. >Were Zip drives a standard part of these things? > >On a side-by-side with a Win2K P1 225MHz system with the same amount >of memory, I think the WIndoze box has snappier response and has >better video. > >For you Mac addicts, what do you think should be my next step in >getting the most out of this box? My experience with the Beige G3 is that the stock hard drives are slow as molasses. The built-in IDE bus is only 16.7 MB/s (whichever ATA that is) but the hard drive doesn't even perform up to that level--at least mine did not. Once I installed a more modern hard drive (faster media rate, i.e. faster data from platters to heads) the machine showed a marked improvement in performance. Beyond that, you can easily spend more upgrading than a faster newer machine would cost you on the used market. That said... A faster IDE card would improve things as well. Acard makes a very nice two channel ATA-133 card however, it will set you back about twice what you paid for the machine. Some years ago VST Tech sold an ATA-66 card based on the Promise UltraTek 66 card. If you move three or four SM resistors, possibly pull the half-size metal can oscillator (there are different versions of the UT66 and some have the Osc. and others don't) and desolder and reprogram the Winbond Flash chip, you can convert a cheap (<$5) Promise UltraTek66 into a VST UltraTek66. If you care, I'll try to hunt up the conversion instructions. The Promise cards were apparently OEM in DELL machines or some such, so there are a bunch of them on the used market. The bus speed and bus-CPU multiplier are controlled by a jumper block on the front left of the motherboard. You can change the bus speed from 66MHz to 75 (IIRC) or 83 MHz by moving jumpers. However, many of the Beige G3s won't operate at 83 MHz and tests show that this doesn't really make a big difference in performance. The 300 MHz CPU can often be run at around 366 MHz, so you can speed your CPU a bit by changing the bus-CPU ratio. Many folks have done this reliably, but my experience was that it caused problems after a while. CPU replacements up to 1.1 GHz are also available but the manufacturer's (PowerLogix) retail outlet (OWC, macsales.com) seems to be out of them. See above about spending more money than a newer used computer would cost... There's a gap in speeds between 500 MHz and 900 MHz having to do with the version history of the PPC750. The machine used PC66 SDRAM but PC100 or PC133 will also work. DIMM capacities up to 256 MB are supported but some addressing modes are not. So you need (I think) 16 chip DIMMs on the 256 MB capacity. IIRC eight chip 256 MB DIMMs will not work or will only be seen as 128 MB. 512 MB DIMMs won't work because of limitations of the Motorola/Freescale MPC106 memory/PCI controller/bridge. For the things where my memory is hazy (indicated by a ? or "I think") check the articles on G3 computers at xlr8yourmac.com. Also, there's a link from the FAQ there to the jumper settings for the Beige G3 motherboard clock and ratio settings. >I don't care for the Mac monitor that came with it--has anyone tried >hooking up a fixed-frequency SOG workstation monitor to it? I've got >a nice HP/Sony model that might be a candidate. Mac DB15 to VGA adapters are common and cheap (=<$4, I sell a multi-rez model for $4 shipped in USA). If the monitor will work with a VGA output, it should be possible to make it work on the built-in video of the Beige G3. However, the Beige G3 and earlier Macs rely on sense codes in the monitor cable to indicate what resolutions are supported. When an adapter is used the sense codes are provided by the adapter. Some adapters are fixed-resolution coded so it's tough to get anything but the adapter's fixed resolution out of the Mac if you use a fixed resolution adapter. Other adapters are "universal" and have DIP switches to support many resolutions, and one of the resolution code choices is "21" multi-resolution". Jeff Walther From trag at io.com Sun Jan 7 21:28:11 2007 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 21:28:11 -0600 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <200701071113.l07BCrXR087684@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701071113.l07BCrXR087684@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2007 12:57:06 -0800 (PST) >From: Cameron Kaiser >> I picked up another Mac yesterday--a beige 300 Mhz G3 with 256MB, >> On a side-by-side with a Win2K P1 225MHz system with the same amount >> of memory, I think the WIndoze box has snappier response and has >> better video. > >The beige G3 has only a Rage II+ card by default. The later Revision 2 and >3 use Rage Pro. Thus, I think the video issue you're noticing is probably >the accelerator. The original 300 is almost certainly Revision 1. The video chip can be visually examined, although the "Wings" card (AV card) may be in the way. It will have Rage II or Rage Pro (or Rage Turbo?) printed on it. You may also be able to get this information from Apple system Profiler in the Apple menu. If the ROM DIMM has not been switched out, you can determine your revision by looking at the ROM revision in the first page of Apple System Profiler. Under "Production Information" look at "ROM Revision". If it is $77D.40F2 then you have a Revision A ROM. If this ROM shipped with this motherboard then you also have a revision 1 motherboard. However, the ROM DIMM is pretty easy to switch so there's no guarantee that the machine contains the ROM it originally shipped with and all of the ROM revisions work with all of the motherboard revisions. If the ROM revision is $77D.45F1 it is a revision B. If it is $77D.45F2 it is a revision C and absent ROM swapping the machine probably has a RAGE Pro video chip. If you have a Rev. A ROM, then the built-in IDE channels in the machine will only support 1 device per channel. You need Rev. B or C ROM for two device support per channel. You can also determine your ROM revision by looking at the Apple part number on the two ROM chips on the ROM DIMM. However, I don't remember the numbers. It's something like 341S0409 and 0408 is Rev. A, 341S0494 adn 0495 is Rev. C and I've never seen a Rev. B with the part numbers on it so I can't say, but I imagine it's 341S04xx with xx up close to 90. No matter which motherboard you have, switching to a B or C ROM will enable two device support on the IDE channels. >You might as well get a Rage Orion and I think you'll find the performance >much better. The Rage Orion is a 16MB Rage 128 PCI card, and I know from >personal experience that it is Mac-compatible and has good performance. >They're pretty cheap on the used market. Rage Orion was ATI's name for one of the Macintosh versions of the Rage 128. PC versions of the Rage 128 won't work. (I am not contradicting Cameron, just restating his information a bit.) It may be possible to do a conversion from PC version to Mac version, but I don't think anyone has ever reported a successful modification. The Radeon 7000 works well in the Beige and the Sapphire version of the PCI card with DDR memory is easily converted to Macintosh use. It is also just $30 at Newegg. Simply remove the eight pin SOIC serial flash chip and replace it with a blank ST Micro M25P10. It should then either flash with the current Mac firmware updater from ATI or it may require the R7000-ROM-208 version. It's been a while. I know the latter will work. I'm not sure about the former. Whichever way, update to the latest firmware afterwards, because there are some Sleep issues with earlier versions. 3D driver support is only official after OS 9.2 but if you install the Open GL 1.22 or 1.24 extensions by hand into OS 9.1 it works fine. Jeff Walther From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 7 21:32:18 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 19:32:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: from Jeff Walther at "Jan 7, 7 09:28:11 pm" Message-ID: <200701080332.l083WI1h013492@floodgap.com> > > You might as well get a Rage Orion and I think you'll find the performance > > much better. The Rage Orion is a 16MB Rage 128 PCI card, and I know from > > personal experience that it is Mac-compatible and has good performance. > > They're pretty cheap on the used market. > > Rage Orion was ATI's name for one of the Macintosh versions of the > Rage 128. PC versions of the Rage 128 won't work. (I am not > contradicting Cameron, just restating his information a bit.) No, it's a good clarification to make. I said the Orion specifically because I have experience with that card, but yes, it was targetted and specifically for Mac systems. > It may be possible to do a conversion from PC version to Mac version, > but I don't think anyone has ever reported a successful modification. I've seen flasher utilities for Radeons, but I don't know if there was any made for a PCI Rage 128. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- NEWS ITEM: Energizer Bunny arrested, charged with battery ------------------ From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jan 7 23:07:59 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 00:07:59 -0500 Subject: microprocessors in my vax 3800 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/7/07, Paul Thompson wrote: > On Fri, 5 Jan 2007, 9000 VAX wrote: > > Today I pulled out the boards in my vax 3800 and I found 7 microprocessors > > besides the CVAX. They are, > > 2x 68000, 8096, 80186, 2x 8086, Z80. > > I had noticed similar with XMI and BI boards, where one might see > combination of a couple of processors including a VAX chip along with an > AMD x86 clone or a 68k or Zilog processor. > > I remember reading a description of the 'nexus' concept in some DEC unix > sources which seemed to indicate a prediliction for 'smart' boards. Given what it takes to make the BIIC (the DEC chip in the corner of *all* VAXBI boards) work, unlike older CSR-based boards, I don't think it's feasible (or perhaps possible) to have a dumb VAXBI board. At the very least, you'd need some form of state engine to handle ticking the board-side of the BIIC so that the board tells the host VAX that it passed self test. In the era that folks were building VAXBI boards (like our COMBOARD-BI), for communication interfaces, at least, a 68000-family processor was a reasonable way to implement the board smarts - check the DMB32 for one example. -ethan From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 7 23:37:26 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 00:37:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: <566761d653d63dfcdd81c05e15788052@valleyimplants.com> References: <566761d653d63dfcdd81c05e15788052@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200701080539.AAA15879@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Has anyone had success fixing the plastic "alloy" that Sun uses in > their cases? I don't know what Sun made their cases out of after they switched to PCI. But the plastic they used in the -3/80-to-U2 era, I just use ordinary epoxy on. It's worked well in every instance I've tried (which is some four or five by now, generally machines that suffered case damage before they reached my hands). /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 8 01:04:19 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 23:04:19 -0800 Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: References: <200701071113.l07BCrXR087684@dewey.classiccmp.org>, Message-ID: <45A17C73.1196.1255B980@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jan 2007 at 20:41, Jeff Walther wrote: > My experience with the Beige G3 is that the stock hard drives are > slow as molasses. The built-in IDE bus is only 16.7 MB/s (whichever > ATA that is) but the hard drive doesn't even perform up to that > level--at least mine did not. The G3 now has 768MB of memory and it helps quite a bit. The hard drive's a Fujitsu and not the original. > Beyond that, you can easily spend more upgrading than a faster newer > machine would cost you on the used market. That said... Nah, I'm just trying to figure out the Mac "culture". I want to get my currently unused workstation monitor on the G3 and poke around a bit. I ran across a web page giving the hookup and resolutions for the Monitor ID pins on the display connector. I can take it from there. I'll poke around the recycling place for interesting widgets pertaining to Macs, but I don't intend to spend too much time on this, given that new Macs are x86-based. Thanks, Chuck From chuck.patten at verizon.net Sun Jan 7 15:23:15 2007 From: chuck.patten at verizon.net (Chuck Patten) Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007 13:23:15 -0800 Subject: Motorola 6800D2 Message-ID: Hi Allison, it was directed at the person who might have an excess 6800D2 unit. Unfortunately I never received your reply before today (I found it in a Google search...) cheers, chuck... Allison ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Aug 15 21:30:44 CDT 2005 * Previous message: volunteers wanted for list help :) * Next message: Compaq SLT/286 * Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] _____ This is aimed at whom? Allison > >Subject: Motorola 6800D2 > From: "Chuck Patten" > > Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 22:05:00 -0700 > To: > > >Noticed you had collected one from an old thread. Are you interested in >parting with it? > > > >cheers, > >chuck. > > _____ * Previous message: volunteers wanted for list help :) * Next message: Compaq SLT/286 * Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] _____ More information about the cctalk mailing list From wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu Sun Jan 7 18:40:08 2007 From: wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu (Martin Scott Goldberg) Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 18:40:08 -0600 (CST) Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted In-Reply-To: <20070107170101.12232.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jan 07, 2007 09:01:01 AM Message-ID: <200701080040.l080e8Px005195@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> >I take it the 800 was the successor to the 400, the >1st unit my fingers ever typed on. No, the 800 was released at the same time as the 400. 400 was the "lower end games computer", 800 was the "more serious" higher end computer. Marty From gmanuel at gmconsulting.net Mon Jan 8 01:32:29 2007 From: gmanuel at gmconsulting.net (G Manuel (GMC)) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 02:32:29 -0500 Subject: 2.5GB bigfoot drives on dovebid In-Reply-To: <1731575786@web.de> Message-ID: >> On 6 Jan 2007 at 16:40, Richard wrote: >> >> > Wasn't there some discussion recently looking for < 10 GB drives? >> > >> > There's a bunch of 2.5GB drives on dovebid right now... >> >> Quantum Bigfoot--bleah. Miserable things. > >Yeah, I would'nt rely on Bigfoot drives, too. They are *very* low-cost and so is the quality and therefore >reliability. >We had several of these which gave up work quite quickly. >One should try to avoid them. > >Regards, >Pierre > Has anyone checked http://www.pcliquidator.com for smaller hard drives. Some things they sell are a bit over priced but most are pretty good. They have a bunch of under 10GB drives for sale, both SCSI and IDE, plus check the bulk section for assorted "pot luck" drives all tested and cleaned. I have no affiliation with them but have bought a bunch of stuff from them in the past for older system repairs. Greg http://www.gmconsulting.net From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 8 05:56:31 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 03:56:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted Message-ID: <832667.1701.qm@web61018.mail.yahoo.com> but what were the differences besides the keyboard? They must have had similar internals. --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > >I take it the 800 was the successor to the 400, the > >1st unit my fingers ever typed on. > > > No, the 800 was released at the same time as the 400. 400 was the "lower > end games computer", 800 was the "more serious" higher end computer. > > > Marty __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From teoz at neo.rr.com Mon Jan 8 06:07:35 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 07:07:35 -0500 Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted References: <832667.1701.qm@web61018.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001e01c7331d$95b05d20$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris M" To: Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 6:56 AM Subject: Re: Re: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted > but what were the differences besides the keyboard? > They must have had similar internals. Expansion options I would think. A friend of mine in highschool had both the 400 and 800 units , but we only used the 800 when we had groups over to play Ultima III and IV. I snooped around and remember that there were card slots for RAM and ROM carts under the hood of the 800 but never looked in the 400. This site shows the expansion bays (and differences) in the 2 units: http://www.silicium.org/atari/800.htm http://www.silicium.org/atari/400.htm It looks like the 400 was stuck with its 16K? RAM while the 800 can be expanded more and it has an extra ROM port it seems. The original series was built like a tank, the XL and later models were not as good from what I remember. From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 8 08:26:36 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 08:26:36 -0600 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay References: <45807C35.3040307@rogerwilco.org><013c01c71f0d$11c35b80$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701051245w133d45abxd6775fc00c19438d@mail.gmail.com><012401c73119$fb00de30$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701051534l7df2c326m314ce92776df6e02@mail.gmail.com><000001c731ed$caf0fe30$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701070740u51deb084jabb4ec1996cfbffc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <006001c73331$02790c50$6500a8c0@BILLING> Glen wrote.... > I didn't realize there was much difference between the boards other > than the obvious GRD TRUE vs +TRUE versions. I checked and I have > some 12566-80024 +TRUE, some 12566-80024 GRD TRUE, but only one > 12566-60032 Microcircuit. It gets even more convoluted because some of the complete part numbers (12566-XXXXX) refer to the "same" board but later field replacement vs. original issue. So two boards with different part #'s may be the "same" board. My CE handbook has some of these new vs. field replacement board translations, but certainly not all of them plus it changed over time. You mention GRD true & + true both being 12566-80024... I suspect you're looking at the pca assy # rather than the part number or vice versa. They are both on the same spot on the board. These two boards would not have the same part number I don't think. I THINK from foggy memory that the original issue boards for grd tru were 12566-6001 and + true were 12566-6002. I'd have to dig to be sure... maybe the + true version was ordered as 12566 option 001? I don't recall. > What makes that version specially suited to your applications? As I said in a previous post... there's a fair number of jumpers on the older style 12566 boards, and all those jumpers are solder-type. Several of those jumpers are four post jumpers (central jumper with 3 option selections) and the options aren't mutually exclusive. I imagine many people use a 12566 for a single specific thing, so they set (solder) the jumpers a certain way and they never need to change the jumpers again. I however tend to bounce 12566 boards around in lots of different configurations for different things in different machines on a regular basis. Back when I was messing with my HP boxes a lot it wasn't uncommon for me to want to change the jumpers on a 12566 several times a day. It's rather irritating to have to get out a soldering iron just to try a 3 second "what if I set it this way" scenario. There's another reason - I don't remember the exact specifics... but the diagnostics for the 12566 board require certain of the jumpers to be set a certain way I think. One of my applications (TSB interconnect kit I think) required those same jumpers a different way. So to run diags, I had to break out a soldering iron and then put them back to use the board. Not a huge deal, but irritating. And no, I'd rather not mount a custom switch to my board unless I absolutely had to. Well, the later model 12566 boards that I prefer (Microcircuit/12566-60032) have plug jumpers instead of solder jumpers. So I can change jumper settings in a second or two and put them back quickly a moment later. In addition, I recall there being some extra features on the -60032 boards that looked like they would be handy if one was building a custom device... Jay West From Watzman at neo.rr.com Mon Jan 8 09:32:24 2007 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 10:32:24 -0500 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <200701080737.l087avk3001023@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <004001c7333a$325046b0$6500a8c0@barry> Re: "would it be possible to get a 5.25 to work in say an older laptop w/an integral 3.5?" Maybe. Quite a few Toshiba laptops have an external floppy drive port. It is a true floppy port, designed to interface to a 34-pin floppy interface. Two different connectors were used, the "standard" Toshiba floppy port connector used in every model computer except the Tecra 8000, and a slightly different connector used in the Tecra 8000 series. These connectors are found in the Satellite 400 series laptops (two distinctly different sets of laptops, the "early" 400 series (400 to 435, Pentium I's) and the "late" 400 series, 440 to 490, Pentium MMX and even a Pentium II). They are also found in the Tecra 8000 (different connector), which used both Pentium II and Pentium III CPU (266MHz to about 500MHz). I think that there are other Toshiba laptops that have a similar connector as well, in the Tecra and Portege line (and also the libretto models). Note, since this port was used for the 3.5" floppy drive, you generally won't be able to have both 3.5" and 5.25" drives installed at the same time (but, on some of these, the very reason for the port was that there was an internal drive bay that could either contain the floppy drive internally, or a CD-ROM drive. Not sure if you could use an internal and an external floppy concurrently in those models). Also, Toshiba assumed that the external drive was 3.5" and there is no provision in the BIOS to configure the bios and software for any other floppy drive format. Finally, the hardware reconfiguration (cable) will be a bitch to figure out, although it is conceptually possible. While the external floppy has the 34-pin electrical interface, mechanically it's not a standard 34-pin IDC connector, it's a flat "flex cable", and reworking the cable to connect to a 34-pin standard interface will take some effort. The good news is that you can buy entire laptops in this series for as little as $15, and you can find the external floppy caddies for $5 (source of the cable and connector that mates with the laptop). From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 8 10:59:14 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:59:14 -0700 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 08 Jan 2007 08:26:36 -0600. <006001c73331$02790c50$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <006001c73331$02790c50$6500a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > [...] My CE handbook has some of these new vs. field replacement board > translations, but certainly not all of them plus it changed over time. Fortunately for you, the set of translations is now complete and fixed :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 8 11:01:00 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:01:00 -0700 Subject: rt-11 Documentation In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 07 Jan 2007 18:58:32 +0000. <26c11a640701071058y67f48df8n7d8f93cd2062a4be@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <26c11a640701071058y67f48df8n7d8f93cd2062a4be at mail.gmail.com>, "Dan Williams" writes: > I'm sure someone on the list asked a while back, but I couldn't find > it. I have the complete rt-11 docs printed out. They are too heavy to > post but can be picked up from here (Soho UK). "Too heavy to post"? Hey, I just recently bought a complete set of VAX/VMS documentation -- 12 boxes stuffed to the gills. Nothing is too heavy to post! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 8 11:09:25 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:09:25 -0800 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <004001c7333a$325046b0$6500a8c0@barry> References: <200701080737.l087avk3001023@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <004001c7333a$325046b0$6500a8c0@barry> Message-ID: <45A20A45.720.147FB46D@cclist.sydex.com> At the expense of stating the obvious, there's always the MicroSolutions 5.25 Backpack drive, if your laptop has a parallel printer port. But they're getting hard to find. Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 8 11:15:36 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 11:15:36 -0600 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Warren wrote... > Well, I went and did it. I am now the proud owner of an HP-2117F, if I > can identify it correctly, Oh yes, you identified it correctly. Congrats on a nice box! > My experience with the HP 1000 series machines is, almost exclusively, > programming them in TSB on HP-200B, C, and F systems, many moons ago. Woohoo! Another TSB'er, and one getting real hardware no less. Awesome! > Jay, you seem to be an alpha geek when it comes to HP iron. Old HP 21xx/21MX iron... there's a few others lurking on the list far more competant than I on that gear, but I'm not a complete idiot (usually) on the topic :) I do seem to be one of the few that really focuses on TSB. > (A term of respect, no offense intended...) None taken :) > So, could you look at the > above auctions, and tell me what I need to make a good system. > Obviously, a disk system comes to mind... but, if you could be > specific, I would appreciate it. What you need depends on what OS you are going to run. Bear in mind that my first love is TSB and always will be. BUT... do yourself a favor (and I HIGHLY recommend anyone else messing with HP 21xx/21MX gear do the same) and take a look at HP-IPL/OS. This is a small but incredibly useful and powerful OS written recently (comparatively) by list member Bob Shannon and Terry Newton. Think of it as a sort-of Forth-like development system - the learning curve to get it up and running and start really using it productively is measured in minutes, not hours - and there is some real meat/capability there for those who want it. Folks, I'm telling you - HP-IPL/OS is hella cool. See: http://www.infionline.net/~wtnewton/oldcomp/hp2100/ I'll detail some "off the top of my head" OS & hardware choices below, or at least generalizations to consider before digging into things deeper. > Also, what are the chances of this > being a suitable machine to run Time-Share BASIC, or TSB? Good, with additional hardware ;) See below... > I imagine I > would need microcode boards or ROM for the microcode boards already > there, but, for all I know, it already *IS* a TSB machine. Special microcode is needed for 2000/Access only. The other versions of TSB don't need it. The microcode used to be something of a holy grail... but over the years I have located it for most all the different HP machines (no small amount of thanks for that should also go to Al Kossow, Eric Smith, and Bob Shannon). It should no longer be considered an obstacle at all. For most of the "more fun" versions of TSB, you'll need two cpus though so be on the lookout for another 21MX :) But continue reading below before giving up hope if two cpu's isn't in your future... Ok... where to begin.... There are three likely candidates that pop into my head. HP-IPL/OS, TSB, and RTE. There are other choices that I know exist, but I haven't done the legwork to find media/docs and try them out. Some of us HP inclined people need to spearhead some of these less common OS's like DOS, MTOS, DACE... they need to be preserved and I'm not aware of anyone actively working on locating them and running them. Twould be a shame if they vanish into the bitbucket... Oh, there's also the standalone stuff... the early HP's didn't run OS's, there was standalone fortran, apl, linkers, editors, etc... much like the early PDP8 stuff. The standalone setups shouldn't be totally discounted. HP-IPL/OS - I'm not going to go into any detail on this one here. It rocks. Nuff said. See the URL above which speaks for itself. It will run on the tinyest of configurations, up to the largest setup you can imagine. I'll let Bob fill in any details people want to know, he's way more qualified than I to speak on HP-IPL/OS requirements. This absolutely should be the first OS anyone runs when getting into HP gear, because you'll get your machine doing something interesting and fun with little hardware right away. RTE - I need others on the list to speak to this. I don't run it currently, although I have booted up a few different versions a couple times. To my own way of thinking, it's an odd non-intuitive OS. That's my own (somewhat uninformed) subjectivity though, many other HP'ers will strongly disagree and their points are no less valid than mine (since they run it, probably more valid than mine). I can say that running this OS is very attainable, it's well documented and available. There is no doubt that it is by far the most common OS on the HP 21xx/2100/21MX product line, and definitely the reason it flourished for so many years. Pretty much any HP box you find in the wild was last running RTE. RTE is like TSB in that there are different variations or flavors of it, and each one has very different hardware requirements (some versions require special microcode). I have some good documentation about what hardware was required for which variant of RTE, but I have both forgotten the specifics and where I pigeonholed those docs. I do know that it ran on fairly small systems with little memory, up to the biggest boxes/setups possible. In my biased opinion, the biggest advantage of running RTE is hardware support - since it was the most common OS for these boxes by far, almost any hardware you have will be supported. There's much less worry about things like "I have to have a 7900A drive and 13210A controller" because RTE will support the old 13210A drives, the later 13037 subsystems (7905/7906/7920/7925) as well as HP-IB drives (7906H, 7912, etc. etc.), and wasn't SCSI done too? It is likely that I will be taking one of my machines and making it run RTE permanently, if for no other reason than to run large assembly's of HP code. Not to mention that I feel a little guilty not being super-familiar with the flagship OS of these machines. TSB - This is the most fun choice to me, or maybe I mean nostalgic. I (and a suprising number of others) cut my teeth on HP 2000 TimeShared BASIC. It was suprisingly popular in high schools and colleges as a teaching machine - so it was many peoples first experience programming. The versions that were produced were 2000A, 2000B, 2000C, 2000C' (2000C "prime" or "high speed"), 2000E, 2000F, 2000F' (2000F "prime" or "high speed"), and 2000/Access. I would dismiss A and B out of hand (with regards to what you should try to run nowdays). They required certain specific hardware that is highly unlikely to be found and were fairly primitive with regards to features like the later versions were. For the purposes of discussion I'll lump 2000C & 2000C' together, and then separately lump 2000F & 2000F' together. I tend to dismiss C and F as not worthy of pursuing, but only because 2000/Access has every feature of C & F plus more. Used to, when the special microcode for 2000/Access was unobtanium - 2000C and F were certainly good candidates to run since they didn't need the microcode. But now that the microcode is found and easy to replicate, I see no real reason to build a C or F system. Note that when I dismiss A, B, C, and F.... I wouldn't do that so easily if there was a different look & feel to those systems. I realize someone may want A, B, C, or F for nostalgia. But keep in mind that Access has all the same commands and syntax (with VERY minor exceptions) as A, B, C, and F. So if someone wants to feel the nostalgia of running that old 2000B system, they will certainly feel the exact same nostalgia on an E or Access system. It's unlikely they would notice a difference (even if the person's memory of the A, B, C, or F machine was as fresh as yesterday). So that leaves us with 2000/E and 2000/Access as good candidates. 2000/E is a fairly stripped down version of TSB. As fas as capabilities go, it's a bit more like 2000A and B. It requires a single cpu. I am not sure about memory, but I suspect it needed 32kw (definitely not more than that, since DMS wasn't supported or needed). It probably needed the floating point option. The system console must be a 12531 board, TSB never supported any other boards for the console (foggy memory, there may have been a high speed "crt" board, something like 12880? that looked to the system just like a 12531, this would be ok). The BACI board (which is by far the most common serial interface) will not work. The only disc drive supported is a 7900A, which means you need a 7900A disc drive and a 13210A disc controller interface (2 card set). These drives are not all that common but do show up from time to time. You also need a paper tape reader, 2748B, which uses the 12597-6001 interface board (usually marked "8 bit dupr" for 8 bit duplex register board). You also need a Time Base Generator (TBG) board. A mag tape drive is very handy (7970B or 7970E, E prefered), which uses a 13181 controller (2 card set) - but this is NOT required. Lastly, what is required and seems to be very hard to find... is the 16 channel multiplexor used to hook up user terminals. This was 12921-60002, 12921-60001, and 12922-60001 (a 3 board set, generally called a "mux set" or "12920/21/22" set). These three boards hook up to an external printed circuit board (don't have the number handy) which presented 16 db25 ports. If you don't have the external board, you CAN build your own RS232 cables with DB25 on one end and connect them to the right spots on the mux set boards instead. So in a nutshell, to your 2117F cpu, you need to add a 12531 console board, 7900A disc drive & 13210 controller set, 2748B paper tape reader & 12597 interface, and 12920/21 mux set. The major differences between 2000/E and 2000/Access... the basic language has no "system" statement, nor formatted printing (no print using or image), and no timed input. There are no group libraries, only system and user. It also doesn't support MRJE to IBM or CDC mainframes. Some disagree, but I think 2000/E is a very nice and very usable system. 2000/Access is the last/best version of TSB. It's very close to 2000C and F, but with group libraries and IBM/CDC MRJE. For this (as well as 2000C and 2000F) you must have TWO cpu's, not just one. About the only cpu you CANT use is the short 21MX/M designated 2105 (2108 and 2112 are fine) - this is just due to space reasons. The main cpu needs 32kw of memory and the floating point option. The slave cpu needs anywhere from 16kw to 32kw depending on how you gen your system and the 2000/Access special microcode. Paper tape is not required (unless you are using 2100A/2100S cpu's). For disc, you can use 7900A or 7901A drives which use the 13210 controller set, or you can use the 13037 subsystem (that's a single 13037 card in the master cpu, and a small rackmount 13037 controller box) which lets you use 7905(7906) and 7920 drives. You can use both 13210 and 13037 setups on the same system. Note, the last access as released didn't support 7906 drives directly. It supported 7905's though, and the system has no way of telling a 7906 drive isn't a 7905, you just don't get the extra capacity. If you have a 7906 just tell the system it's a 7905 and it'll work fine. The 7920 drive also works and is supported on the 13037. The 7925 drive works on the 13037, but I do not know for sure that TSB can use it partially or at all. On the bright side, most any HP 21xx/21MX cpu found in the wild will meet the above spec (sans microcode), and 7906 drives are common as dirt - still! A mag tape unit (7970B or 7970E plus 13181 controller) is not optional, it's required (they aren't super rare fortunately). The 12920/21/22 mux set is also required (these are rare). TBG board is required. Console must be a 12531. The 2000/Access microcode is required (I can burn a set for you). The extra requirement here (besides 7970 and 2nd cpu and microcode) is the processor interconnect kit. This is a set of two 12566 boards in each cpu (4 total) along with two big cables that ties the two cpu's together. Fortunately, 12566 boards aren't uncommon - the cables are, but those can be fabricated yourself. So, there you have it. If I were you, I'd focus on HP-IPL/OS first, while at the same time looking around for the remaining gear to get RTE and Access up. As I recall, any hardware that will run Access will most definitely run some form of RTE, but the reverse isn't necessarily true. Welcome to the HP crowd, congrats on your system... If I can help just drop me a line. Best regards, Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 8 11:17:17 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 11:17:17 -0600 Subject: HP HP-2117F on ebay References: Message-ID: <012701c73348$dd3f6610$6500a8c0@BILLING> I had written.... >> [...] My CE handbook has some of these new vs. field replacement board >> translations, but certainly not all of them plus it changed over time. To which Richard replied... > Fortunately for you, the set of translations is now complete and fixed Yes, it is. But unfortunately for me, my collection of different vintage CE handbooks is not complete ;) Jay West From wbblair3 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 8 12:30:02 2007 From: wbblair3 at yahoo.com (William Blair) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 10:30:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted In-Reply-To: <200701081717.l08HGuh7006555@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20070108183002.3683.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> > > but what were the differences besides the keyboard? > > They must have had similar internals. > > Expansion options I would think. A friend of mine in highschool had both > the 400 and 800 units , but we only used the 800 when we had groups over to > play Ultima III and IV. I snooped around and remember that there were card > slots for RAM and ROM carts under the hood of the 800 but never looked in > the 400. > > This site shows the expansion bays (and differences) in the 2 units: > > http://www.silicium.org/atari/800.htm > http://www.silicium.org/atari/400.htm > > It looks like the 400 was stuck with its 16K? RAM while the 800 can be > expanded more and it has an extra ROM port it seems. > > The original series was built like a tank, the XL and later models were not > as good from what I remember. The cast aluminum internal case was for EMI reasons. They were being extremely conservative to the point of overkill since, at that time, the less restrictive FCC ratings specifically for digital devices in homes weren't yet in existence. The 400 sold for US $549.95 while exactly the same hardware (with respect to custom processors and processing power) with more expansion capability and a real keyboard went for US $999.95 in the Atari 800. That $450 merely for more _easy_ expandability and a real rather than membrane keyboard wasn't enough to me to justify the additional cost, so I bought the 400 and wired up internally more memory and a real keyboard later on (for FAR less than $450). Byte magazine did a highly complimentary two-part (IIRC) series of articles on the powerful (for then) custom sound and graphics chips in the Atari machines. This was what led me to buy the Atari 400 a few years before the Commodore 64 became available. Jay Miner was the lead designer for those custom chips and he would later design the Amiga custom chips after leaving Atari. http://oldcomputers.net/atari400.html http://oldcomputers.net/atari800.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 8 12:26:30 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:26:30 -0700 Subject: govliq: mux and 26MB BAE/xerox hard drives Message-ID: I don't recognize the hard drives depicted here; they look like cartridge drives? Govliq says they're all in brand new condition. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 8 12:37:10 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:37:10 -0800 Subject: My second Mac Message-ID: <45A28F56.3020501@bitsavers.org> >> Beyond that, you can easily spend more upgrading than a faster newer >> machine would cost you on the used market. That said... > > Nah, I'm just trying to figure out the Mac "culture". I want to get > my currently unused workstation monitor on the G3 and poke around a > bit. Forget about OS X then, and think about the evolution of a computer from a 128K 68000 through a G4 with a gigabyte of memory. There are still applications that will run on the last version of OS 9 that were written for the original Mac. Mac users would typically have many times the number of applications than a Windows user, mostly because most had no installation requirements other than dragging the app onto the system. Drivers and system extensions were easily added by putting them in the Extensions folder inside of System. The way some of them worked (patching into system calls) sometimes resulted in system conflicts. The biggest problem in the 68K Mac world was a holdover from the earliest days of trying to fit into a tiny memory footprint. The flat 68K address space was segmented to create position independent code chunks that could move around as the system compacted memory. Unfortunately, the data space was also segmented, so the APIs often had 64K restrictions on data areas. PPC Macs got rid of that, and went to a flat memory model, which made programming applications with large code/data footprints MUCH easier. The big problem with the MacOS was there really was no architecture. Features were tacked on, including things like two different shared library architecutres on PPC because they evolved through two different devlopment groups. In the end the API was a "Mactintosh Mystery House", with dead-end APIs, and APIs that were bloated and ridiculously over-engineered (Comm Toolbox, for instance). Adherence to backwards compatibility really was why it was impossible for Apple to come up with a replacement for MacOS until someone (Jobs) finally cut the cord. This was impossible from the bottom up, no one at the top was willing to have old applications break en mass. From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 8 12:40:06 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 12:40:06 -0600 Subject: govliq: mux and 26MB BAE/xerox hard drives References: Message-ID: <017301c73354$6b365220$6500a8c0@BILLING> Richard wrote... >I don't recognize the hard drives depicted here; they look like > cartridge drives? Govliq says they're all in brand new condition. > > Woah :) Nice find :) DEC RK03 (or workalike) I believe, looks to be in minty fresh condition :) Jay West From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 8 12:36:55 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:36:55 -0700 Subject: govliq: HP servers -- does anyone recognize these? Message-ID: LOT (2) HP SPP31 SERVERS, PRODUCT NO A5081A/ A4830-63001. SN US10076726, US10076544. I don't recognize the cabinet, but it appears to have been stripped of all skins. Beefy power inputs though! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 8 12:57:59 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:57:59 -0800 Subject: govliq: mux and 26MB BAE/xerox hard drives Message-ID: <45A29437.4040101@bitsavers.org> > DEC RK03 (or workalike) I believe, looks to be in minty fresh > condition :) Diablo series 30 would be 2.5mb. Can't really tell from the pic of the box, but if they are in the 20mb range they would be Diablo series 40 5440 style with one fixed, one removable. 24 sector would work on TI and Interdata. From mtapley at swri.edu Mon Jan 8 13:02:46 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:02:46 -0600 Subject: Mac OS 9- browsers In-Reply-To: <200701070428.l074Sx3l082910@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701070428.l074Sx3l082910@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 22:28 -0600 1/6/07, Zane wrote: > Of course if you want to be able to surf from this system, >Mac OS X is pretty much a requirement. There is no modern web >browser for Mac OS 9. Were it not for the adjective "modern", I'd say: http://www.icab.de/ (as has been mentioned) http://www.opera.com/ (find Version 6.0.3 on their website) With the "modern" it becomes a bit more debateable. They do still run, though. -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 8 13:03:12 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 12:03:12 -0700 Subject: govliq: mux and 26MB BAE/xerox hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:57:59 -0800. <45A29437.4040101@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <45A29437.4040101 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > > DEC RK03 (or workalike) I believe, looks to be in minty fresh > > condition :) > > Diablo series 30 would be 2.5mb. Can't really tell from the pic of the > box, but if they are in the 20mb range they would be Diablo series 40 > 5440 style with one fixed, one removable. 24 sector would work on TI and > Interdata. Not that you can trust the description (they're often inaccurate on govliq), but it says "SINGLE DISC REMOVABLE CARTRIDGE,406 TRACKS,24 SECTORS PER TRACK,224 MILLION BITS CAPACITY,DISC ROTATION,1500 RPM,AVERAGE LATENCY" I was using 26MB from the "224 MILLION BITS CAPACITY" remark. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Mon Jan 8 13:11:12 2007 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:11:12 -0600 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A20A45.720.147FB46D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: There are a number of NIB PCMCIA 3.5" floppy drives on eBay now, generally $10 or less. Just search for "PCMCIA Floppy Drives". I don't know if they can be converted for use with a 5.25" drive, though. Bob >From: "Chuck Guzis" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Subject: Re: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? >Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:09:25 -0800 > >At the expense of stating the obvious, there's always the >MicroSolutions 5.25 Backpack drive, if your laptop has a parallel >printer port. But they're getting hard to find. > >Cheers, >Chuck > > _________________________________________________________________ Type your favorite song.? Get a customized station.? Try MSN Radio powered by Pandora. http://radio.msn.com/?icid=T002MSN03A07001 From jwest at ezwind.net Mon Jan 8 13:17:32 2007 From: jwest at ezwind.net (Jay West) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:17:32 -0600 Subject: getting started with your new HP 21xx Message-ID: <018601c73359$a7f8e100$6500a8c0@BILLING> It just dawned on me something that might be helpful... a quick list of the most relevant documents to look at first when you get your first HP 21xx box. Fortunately, Al at bitsavers has made a concerted effort to put up docs for these boxes, there's a lot of good info there - probably everything you'd ever need. Here are the manuals I'd suggest getting first.... For the hardware..... If you read nothing else, here's the one to read even for folks just curious what these boxes are. Very short (50 pages), quick read, but informative: Whoops... wow, apparently there's no 21MX E or 21MX F short user guide on bitsavers. Wierd! So there's no step by step tutorial on how to use the front panel, etc. My best suggestion - skim the 2100A user guide. The front panel is much different, but the instruction set (a subset), I/O architecture, etc. is pretty much the same. The main difference to keep in mind... the MX's have a store button. Use it :) 2100's autostore if you incM or decM or select a different register (select the register you're already viewing to revert contents). The 2100 doesn't have loader roms cause it's core (so MX's have a IBL button to load a given rom into upper ram). I need to get Al a 21MX E or F short user guide to put up on bitsavers, that's a big omission. The 2100 variant is here: http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/21xx/02100-90001_2100refManDec71.pdf this will get you the basics of your machine. Next essential reading to learn about setting up & configuring your machine... http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/12992-90001_loaderRomsApr86.pdf describes what loader roms are, what they do, how to install them, including source code listings. Essential for learning all about booting your machine. http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/12791-90001_fwInstRef_Feb86.pdf describes what firmware exists, what boards exist for you to install firmware in to, and how to do so. Includes not just firmware options, but base set firmware as well. You'll need this, it's the second thing to check if your machine doesn't boot. http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/5955-4310_stdPerfMem_Apr79.pdf describes the different memory boards & controllers & accesories, how to configure/jumper them and how to install them. Standard Performance memory only. One of the first things to check and change. http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/5955-4311_highPerfMem_Dec83.pdf same as above, but for High Performance memory. For any interface boards in the rear of the computer, see the manuals here: http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/21xx/interfaces/ Now... the heavy duty everything you could possibly need in the future definitive reference.... http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/1000_MEF_EngrRef/ For diagnostics: http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/Diagnostics/02100-90157_Oct-1980.pdf This is the diagnostic configurator manual. It's the program used to load all other diagnostics. Learn this one well. Note - older diagnostics exist that are standalone. Some (not all) standalones CAN run under the diagnostic configurator. I'd suggest just learning the configurator and sticking to the diagnostics which run under it (all are available). http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/Diagnostics/ is the main directory of diagnostic manuals. Each diagnostic has it's own manual. Note: HP diagnostics are (apparently) unlike DEC diagnostics for the 11/45 (my own experience, not neccessarily universal fact). The HP diagnostics work, and work well/right/AsDocumented. They are extremely thorough. They ARE the best and recommended test for if a given card is working properly before proceeding to attempt running anything else. If a card doesn't pass diags, DONT bother trying to use an OS/application to test it. If the card doesn't seem to work with the application, the diags ARE the best way to troubleshoot. They often tell you what section (or chip) on a card is suspect. The diag manuals on bitsavers aren't the complete set, nor the latest set. I have been working for some time on putting together a CD that contains the entire latest (last) diagnostic library for HP1000 stuff, including all manuals, source code, object code, and assembler output listings (with memory addresses). That will fix the above lack of info :) Once you have general 2100/21MX knowledge under your belt from the above, if there is just one manual you should keep handy... it's the ce handbook. It's a quick-reference cheat sheet on most of the above manuals. At least in the CE handbooks I have, little attempt is made to explain anything. It's just quick reference for jumpers, installation, etc. Note that it also includes quick reference information for many operating systems & software. The link is: http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/5950-3767_M-E-F_CEhbk_Jul84.pdf For operating systems: TSB: http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/2000TSB/ contains the starting point for the documentation you'll need/want. RTE: http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/RTE-IV/ http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/RTE-IVB/ http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/RTE-6VM/ HP-IPL/OS: http://www.infionline.net/~wtnewton/oldcomp/hp2100/ Hope this all helps! Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 8 13:30:11 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:30:11 -0600 Subject: govliq: HP servers -- does anyone recognize these? References: Message-ID: <01bf01c7335b$6b5d8500$6500a8c0@BILLING> Richard wrote... > > LOT (2) HP SPP31 SERVERS, PRODUCT NO A5081A/ A4830-63001. SN > US10076726, US10076544. > > I don't recognize the cabinet, but it appears to have been stripped of > all skins. Beefy power inputs though! That would appear to be a Superdome or parts thereof. HP's million$-a-piece minimum cost supercomputer. Was their ultimate top of the line a few years back, may even still be. Simply awesome box :) Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 8 13:32:11 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:32:11 -0600 Subject: govliq: mux and 26MB BAE/xerox hard drives References: <45A29437.4040101@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <01d701c7335b$b3dc0590$6500a8c0@BILLING> I had written... > > DEC RK03 (or workalike) I believe, looks to be in minty fresh > > condition :) To which Al replied... > Diablo series 30 would be 2.5mb. Can't really tell from the pic of the > box, but if they are in the 20mb range they would be Diablo series 40 5440 > style with one fixed, one removable. 24 sector would work on TI and > Interdata. Hey, I have seen these on PDP-11/03 boxes. Can someone tell me if the DEC RK03 was actually a rebadged Diablo 30? Jay West From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 8 14:08:08 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 12:08:08 -0800 Subject: RK02/RK03 Message-ID: <45A2A4A8.1070409@bitsavers.org> > Can someone tell me if the DEC > RK03 was actually a rebadged Diablo 30? RK02 == Diablo 31 with 1100bpi heads (1.25mb) RK03 == Diablo 31 with 2200bpi heads (2.5mb) There was also an RK01, used with the RK8 contoller but it is not a Diablo drive. From mnusa2 at hotmail.com Mon Jan 8 14:25:32 2007 From: mnusa2 at hotmail.com (Matti Nummi) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 22:25:32 +0200 Subject: MVME parts in Philadelphia and elsewhere Message-ID: Hi All, I'm going to Philadelphia, PA for two weeks. I collect Motorola MVME computers and I would like to find some spares to take back to Europe. Do You know any places near and good places even far to find classic computer parts. I have a weekend to spare and I have a car. BR, Matti. _________________________________________________________________ Uutiset ja kasvot uutisten takaa. MSN Search, t?yden palvelun hakukone. http://search.msn.fi From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jan 8 14:37:52 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 12:37:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: My second Mac In-Reply-To: <45A28F56.3020501@bitsavers.org> from Al Kossow at "Jan 8, 7 10:37:10 am" Message-ID: <200701082037.l08KbqV9022400@floodgap.com> > There are still applications that will run on the last version of OS 9 > that were written for the original Mac. Heck, I have a game I remember playing on the Mac Plus that works fine on my G5 under Classic. That's compatibility! (ZeroGravity, a game I spent hours playing -- still need to port this to the Commodore 64.) > Adherence to backwards compatibility really was why it was impossible > for Apple to come up with a replacement for MacOS until someone (Jobs) > finally cut the cord. This was impossible from the bottom up, no one at > the top was willing to have old applications break en mass. Even so, backwards compatibility is extraordinarily good, even for apps that are not Carbon. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- This manual has been carefully for errors to make sure correct. -- classiccmp From gklinger at gmail.com Mon Jan 8 14:59:00 2007 From: gklinger at gmail.com (Golan Klinger) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 15:59:00 -0500 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: References: <45A20A45.720.147FB46D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: What about taking an external USB 3.5" floppy drive and connecting a 5.25" drive to the interface that is being used for the 3.5" drive? It seems like it should work. -- Golan Klinger Dark is the suede that mows like a harvest. From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 8 15:08:30 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:08:30 -0700 Subject: govliq: HP servers -- does anyone recognize these? In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:30:11 -0600. <01bf01c7335b$6b5d8500$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <01bf01c7335b$6b5d8500$6500a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > Richard wrote... > > > > LOT (2) HP SPP31 SERVERS, PRODUCT NO A5081A/ A4830-63001. SN > > US10076726, US10076544. > > > > I don't recognize the cabinet, but it appears to have been stripped of > > all skins. Beefy power inputs though! > > That would appear to be a Superdome or parts thereof. HP's million$-a-piece > minimum cost supercomputer. Was their ultimate top of the line a few years > back, may even still be. Simply awesome box :) Is this some sort of outgrowth of the Convex acquisition, or is it homebrew business built within HP? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 8 15:11:23 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:11:23 -0700 Subject: govliq: mux and 26MB BAE/xerox hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:32:11 -0600. <01d701c7335b$b3dc0590$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: By the way, if someone buys this lot for the drives I would be interested in learning about the MUXes :-). It looks like they might be serial communications line multiplexors and I would be interested in that. Cool looking enclosure, at least. I always liked that military style cable connector where you know the cable isn't coming loose short of a direct hit to the equipment :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 8 15:12:21 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:12:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <702972.65317.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> > What about taking an external USB 3.5" floppy drive > and connecting a > 5.25" drive to the interface that is being used for > the 3.5" drive? It > seems like it should work. Maybe I didn't dismantle my usb unit (Mad-dog) enough. I only see 4 wires. I was lead to believe most of these things are indeed "real" floppies anyway, but I'll have to do more inspection. "At the expense of stating the obvious, there's always the MicroSolutions 5.25 Backpack drive, if your laptop has a parallel printer port. But they're getting hard to find." But that's an entirely different interface (I'm thunking). I do remember trying Teledisk or ImageDisk w/the usb unit and it was a no-go. "There are a number of NIB PCMCIA 3.5" floppy drives on eBay now, generally $10 or less. Just search for "PCMCIA Floppy Drives". I don't know if they can be converted for use with a 5.25" drive, though." Right, but again I doubt these things would even respond to INT 10h and 27h, much less a lower level of access. Even my piddly little hacked up utilities from by gone days would be useless with such a unit. Correct me if I'm wrong though. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 8 15:16:09 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:16:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070108131510.G95546@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Robert Feldman wrote: > There are a number of NIB PCMCIA 3.5" floppy drives on eBay now, generally > $10 or less. Just search for "PCMCIA Floppy Drives". I don't know if they > can be converted for use with a 5.25" drive, though. I think that we've been there before. Has anybody seen a PCMCIA or USB drive that IS convertible? From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Jan 8 15:22:40 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:22:40 -0800 Subject: getting started with your new HP 21xx In-Reply-To: <018601c73359$a7f8e100$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <018601c73359$a7f8e100$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701081322q2febc0b7sa2d0a73e22d0eff3@mail.gmail.com> >From my own 2117F experience, one if the first things to check is whether or not the 21MX power supply has the battery backup option. If it does and you don't have a battery backup box attached the CPU will not start without a battery box eliminator plug, which is just an 820ohm resistor across two of the pins in the battery connector plug. I believe the symptom is that all of the front panel LEDs are lit and state lit on power on with the battery backup option installed and with no battery box connected. If the CPU does power up ok and there is memory installed, the low bits of the display should count for every 32kw of memory that is installed and tested. One of the manuals explains that, and what to toggle in to run the test again and in loop mode. Jay, if you do get a collections of diags on CD I would very much like a copy. I have some diags on 2645A tapes, but they have almost all fallen about now. -Glen From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 8 15:25:02 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:25:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted In-Reply-To: <20070108183002.3683.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <252553.16185.qm@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> yep, I used the 400 in high school also. Hated those things. Utterly turned me off to computers until I left hs altogether. They may have had some 800's too. I would like an 800 if anyone has one surplus to their needs. Come to think of it I'd like the 130 also, plus any 520/1040 units (working or not) that I could find. Were these software compatible with the later 800xl and those? What about cartridge compatible? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 8 15:27:39 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (dave06a at dunfield.com) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 16:27:39 -0500 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <702972.65317.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> References: Message-ID: <200701082130.l08LUsvh023515@mail1.magma.ca> > But that's an entirely different interface (I'm > thunking). I do remember trying Teledisk or ImageDisk > w/the usb unit and it was a no-go. ImageDisk controls (and expects) a 765 family diskette controller directly - via corresponding hardware I/O addresses, DMA channels and interrupts - This is necessary in order to be able to analize, read and write non-DOS format disks. It will *NOT* communicate with a "smart" device connected via USB or any other non-765 interface - it would be quite likely that such a device would not be able to understand non-FAT formats, formats where the sector size is not 512, formats where sectors are not numbered 1-(expected number for media), or sector/head numbers recorded on the disk don't correspond to what PCs think they should be.... I have a Eurocom laptop with a connecter to which connects an external 5.25" drive enclosure - this appears as a standard floppy drive connected via the FDC - such an arrangement should work OK with ImageDisk - I'm pretty sure there are other older laptops with similar external drive schemes. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 8 15:48:18 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:48:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: References: <45A20A45.720.147FB46D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070108134603.K95546@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Golan Klinger wrote: > What about taking an external USB 3.5" floppy drive and connecting a > 5.25" drive to the interface that is being used for the 3.5" drive? It > seems like it should work. We have been there before. It seems reasonable that the USB circuitry would then connect to the SA400 like circuitry of the drive. BUT,... USB drives have "fully integrated" circuitry, with one board for both the USB interface AND the floppy, and do NOT contain a normal drive. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 8 15:48:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:48:21 -0800 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <702972.65317.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> References: , <702972.65317.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45A24BA5.12968.157F19FB@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2007 at 13:12, Chris M wrote: > Right, but again I doubt these things would even > respond to INT 10h and 27h, much less a lower level of > access. Even my piddly little hacked up utilities from > by gone days would be useless with such a unit. > Correct me if I'm wrong though. Hmmm, I don't know of a single floppy drive that responds to the video interrupt (10H) or Terminate-and-Stay-Resident (27H). I assume you mean INT 13H (BIOS Read/Write) and INT 25H and 26H (MS-DOS read/write logical sector). We did a special project for the backpack that gave one low level access to the drive under both DOS and Win9x, but never received much of a demand for it, except for a few custmers needing to read NEC 9801 CP/M formats on their laptops. As far as USB drives--forget low-level access. These things have firmware that understands 512x9x2x80, 512x18x2x80 and 1024x8x77 "conventional" formats, but nothing else. Conversation with the drive resembles ATAPI or SCSI protocols; i.e. relative sector (LBA) addressing. While there are USB MS-DOS drivers, don't expect anything like INT 13H access. Some very old USB drives had a separate controller board that talked to a conventional drive; depending on the firmware, they might be able to talk to 5.25" 1.2MB drives, but don't hold your breath. All later 3.5" drives have the interface integrated with the drive electronics, so no hope there. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 8 15:52:37 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:52:37 -0800 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <200701082130.l08LUsvh023515@mail1.magma.ca> References: , <702972.65317.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com>, <200701082130.l08LUsvh023515@mail1.magma.ca> Message-ID: <45A24CA5.13524.15830311@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2007 at 16:27, dave06a at dunfield.com wrote: > I have a Eurocom laptop with a connecter to which connects > an external 5.25" drive enclosure - this appears as a standard > floppy drive connected via the FDC - such an arrangement > should work OK with ImageDisk - I'm pretty sure there are other > older laptops with similar external drive schemes. That Grid 1040 I sold on ePay had such an interface. However, the hard drive interface was like nothing I'd ever seen before or since. I wonder how many modern laptop/notebooks even have the FDC controller inside. As I mentioned, the Backpack can be talked to (if you've got the right driver) at low level--it has a NSC 8477, a bit of SRAM and a microcontroller in it that does nothing but relay the commands and data to the 8477. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 8 15:59:22 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:59:22 -0800 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070108131510.G95546@shell.lmi.net> References: , <20070108131510.G95546@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45A24E3A.11719.158930D5@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2007 at 13:16, Fred Cisin wrote: > I think that we've been there before. > Has anybody seen a PCMCIA or USB drive that IS convertible? I think some of the very first USB drives that came out had the interface electronics on a separate board--at least I think I've some chip docs here for such a controller. But I've not seen one of these in person. Cheers, Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 8 16:03:14 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 14:03:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A24BA5.12968.157F19FB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <88696.5476.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 8 Jan 2007 at 13:12, Chris M wrote: > > > Right, but again I doubt these things would even > > respond to INT 10h and 27h, much less a lower > level of > > access. Even my piddly little hacked up utilities > from > > by gone days would be useless with such a unit. > > Correct me if I'm wrong though. > > Hmmm, I don't know of a single floppy drive that > responds to the > video interrupt (10H) or Terminate-and-Stay-Resident > (27H). Hmmm, well let's just say there's still a few things out there you haven't seen yet LOL LOL. As an aside, what would it take to alter a *much referably* HD 5.25" drive to work as a GCR drive? I know I'm oversimplifying the issues, but the basic difference is that the spindle motor is driven at different speeds in a gcr unit, while only 1 speed in a standard drive. And this is according to what cylinder it's reading/writing to. Hmm, what about some sort of sensor to indicate where the head is, and the voltage to the motor is bumped up accordingly? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 8 16:04:31 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 16:04:31 -0600 Subject: getting started with your new HP 21xx References: <018601c73359$a7f8e100$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701081322q2febc0b7sa2d0a73e22d0eff3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <02e101c73370$fabf1910$6500a8c0@BILLING> Glen wrote... > From my own 2117F experience, one if the first things to check is > whether or not the 21MX power supply has the battery backup option. Glen is spot on... that's the number one most common reason a system won't power up (or I should say, won't run - it'll still power up). Number two reason is probably incorrectly configured memory (controller, memory boards, or MEM module), including the very likely possibility that the large ribbon cable which connects memory to the controller isn't seated well or making good contact. Third reason is missing or improperly configured microcode (FAB, FEM, WCS, UCS, or mainboard jumpers), including the possibility that the FAB/mainboard/FEM cable isn't seated well or making good contact. If the system was delivered exactly as it was previously used without having been scrounged for parts or poked at by non-HPaware playbabies, the above list is wrong, there are more likely causes of failure. > If it does and you don't have a battery backup box attached the CPU > will not start without a battery box eliminator plug, which is just an > 820ohm resistor across two of the pins in the battery connector plug. Viewing the battery connector plug from the rear, there are three rows of three pin sockets. You want your 820 ohm resistor across the outer pins of the middle row. Another thing I should mention... remove the power supply before you power up the machine. Very simple/quick to do, it was made for quick/easy replacement. Inside the supply was the ubiquitous black foam. It has probably crumbled and/or turned to goo. Take off the cover of the power suppy after removal and get rid of all that foam with a vacuum cleaner. Clean any messes (contact cleaner, toothbrush, etc.) up. Some advise just closing it back up at this point. I don't - that foam was glued to the top lid for very good reason. Those 4 or 5 power supply cards inside the supply - you do NOT want them touching the top of the metal cover :) Less impressive but equally destructive is if they come loose which the foam also prevents. I cut a piece of foam from air conditioner filter material (either 1/8 inch thick or 1/4 thick or maybe 1/2?, I forget what the power supply foam is but I think it's the thicker stuff) to replace it. I scrape off the old foam on the cover with a putty knife and clean to bare metal with goo-gone. Then I tape off the right size area and spray with adhesive spray. Remove the tape then press the air filter on. After it dries, button up the supply and reinstall it - you're good for another 20+ years :) > I believe the symptom is that all of the front panel LEDs are lit and > state lit on power on with the battery backup option installed and > with no battery box connected. I'd need to dig into the microcode test routines, but there MAY be other diagnostic selftests that could display before the battery backup check error (which is exactly as Glen states). > If the CPU does power up ok and there is memory installed, the low > bits of the display should count for every 32kw of memory that is > installed and tested. One of the manuals explains that, and what to > toggle in to run the test again and in loop mode. 21MX M or E reference guide, which I can't find on bitsavers :) However, here's the scoop. In microcode there is a power up self test, and (separately) tests for FPP and SIS microcode. Let's deal with the self test microcode first. There's 3 self tests. Test 1 tests basic registers and functions, no memory. If this test fails, all display register bits, all indicator bits, and the over flow register will be on. Test 2 is a basic (read, doesn't catch many errors) memory test but ONLY the first 32kw of memory. This test is nondestructive. Errors usually show a parity error light, set all display registers and indicator bits, and clears the overflow register. A register is expected data, B register is bad data, M register is failing address. Note that the cpu front panel lights do NOT increment/count up like Glen mentioned during this test. Test 3 is a more comprehensive memory test, and it tests all memory installed not just 32kw. Each 32kw passing the test gets the display register incremented by one. Errors are reported the same as test 2, except the S register shows which 32kw block failed. Note that upon cold powerup, tests 1 and 3 are run automatically. That's it. No other tests. Note also, that kinda behind the scenes - anytime you press the IBL button to load a loader rom into ram, tests 1 and 2 are automatically run first. That's why it's labled IBL/TEST. You can also run tests 1 and 3 manually without powering on/off the machine. Set P register to 0, A register to 100000. Set the S register to whatever value you want memory filled with. Press PRESET. If you want to loop the diagnostic, set the LOCK/OPERATE switch under the front panel to LOCK, otherwise continue on. Press INSTR STEP and the diagnostic runs (and loops if lock switch set). If diag is looping, stop it by putting LOCK/OPERATE switch to OPERATE. To test the FPP, set 105004 in A register. Put 0 in P register and press PRESET. If overflow is on now, stop and go directly to the FPP installation/service manual. If overflow is not on, press INSTR STEP. A display of 102077 means all is well with FPP. To test the SIS, set 105477 in A register, 0 in P register. PRESET, then INSTR STEP. 102077 is good pass. FYI - these addresses/procedures aren't magic, they are just loading A register with an instruction from the user instruction group (used to call microcode). Then setting the P register to address 0 - the A register is addressible as memory address zero, and starting execution. > Jay, if you do get a collections of diags on CD I would very much like > a copy. I have some diags on 2645A tapes, but they have almost all > fallen about now. Actually, I have this project all done eons ago... except for just one or two or three diagnostics aren't in absolute format! There's just 3 or less I think that are actually in relocatable format. Yes, I know how bizarre that is. But what it means is that the assembler listing for just those few diagnostics isn't particularly helpful. On all other diags, you can look at the halting address (or single step) and then look as the asm listing and see exactly what's going on. Not so if the program is relocatable. One of the listmembers took the diag source for these oddball relocatable ones and assembled it for me and produced a load map. This makes it fairly easy (with the extra step of adding the map's offset to the relocatable (from address zero) listing) to figure out where you are. So, this compilation of "the ultimate diagnostic cd reference" should be available soon. Jay From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 8 16:12:04 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 14:12:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A24E3A.11719.158930D5@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070108221205.18662.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> is anyone familiar with the P1/P2 Thinkpads? My *busted* 560e has an external...well everything actually. It probably has close to 34 pins on the floppy connector. The 380z *also busted* has an internal unit. I wouldn't be adverse to going inside and routing the connections to the outside world. But even if a suitable controller/drive combination were to be found, there's still the possibility that it will be very discriminating w/it's affections. I tried, and tried, to get ID to work with 2 boxes over the weekend (the ones I had on hand). It didn't like neither a generic 486 (although that controller could have been flaky), nor a generic Cyrix MII which has never let me down otherwise. My frustrations led me to ask the question... If anyone has a small batch of working ISA floppy/ide controllers they don't want to hang onto, I'm interested. --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 8 Jan 2007 at 13:16, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > I think that we've been there before. > > Has anybody seen a PCMCIA or USB drive that IS > convertible? > > I think some of the very first USB drives that came > out had the > interface electronics on a separate board--at least > I think I've some > chip docs here for such a controller. > > But I've not seen one of these in person. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 8 16:14:36 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 14:14:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <88696.5476.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> References: <88696.5476.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070108140812.F95546@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > > Hmmm, I don't know of a single floppy drive that > > responds to the > > video interrupt (10H) or Terminate-and-Stay-Resident > > (27H). > > Hmmm, well let's just say there's still a few things > out there you haven't seen yet LOL LOL. When it comes to floppy drives, if neither Chuck nor I have EVER SEEN one, then you are not going to find one available. > As an aside, what would it take to alter a *much > referably* HD 5.25" drive to work as a GCR drive? I > know I'm oversimplifying the issues, but the basic > difference is that the spindle motor is driven at > different speeds in a gcr unit, while only 1 speed in > a standard drive. THAT is the LEAST important difference! You need different "encoding" circuitry for the disk controller. > And this is according to what > cylinder it's reading/writing to. Hmm, what about some > sort of sensor to indicate where the head is, and the > voltage to the motor is bumped up accordingly? You don't even need to play silly games with motor speed (especially NOT "bumping up voltage"!) You can handle the same differences by altering the data transfer rate (which ALSO will not respond well to "bump up the voltage".) From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 8 16:40:03 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 14:40:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070108140812.F95546@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <725090.21240.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > When it comes to floppy drives, if neither Chuck nor > I have EVER SEEN one, > then you are not going to find one available. sure sure. You just wait. I'll find you one. > You need different "encoding" circuitry for the disk > controller. I should have mentioned I wasn't intending to use such a monster with a pc. Macs do the gcr thing, but they don't usually have 5.25" drives. I did a bit or reading, and am led to ask if the encoding couldn't be handled in software. > You don't even need to play silly games with motor > speed > (especially NOT "bumping up voltage"!) O man what are you telling me. I have a desktop cnc mill that has a variable speed dc motor. If I want more rpms I just pump in more emfs. 70, 80, 90 volts. That kind of juice will get that puny drive to comply LOL LOL LOL LOL __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 8 16:43:22 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (dave06a at dunfield.com) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:43:22 -0500 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A24CA5.13524.15830311@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701082130.l08LUsvh023515@mail1.magma.ca> Message-ID: <200701082246.l08MkaPU004252@mail3.magma.ca> > As I mentioned, the Backpack can be talked to (if you've got the > right driver) at low level--it has a NSC 8477, a bit of SRAM and a > microcontroller in it that does nothing but relay the commands and > data to the 8477. Are there any available specs for this ...? Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From bshannon at tiac.net Mon Jan 8 16:46:56 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:46:56 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site> <011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <000b01c73376$e7af4790$0100a8c0@screamer> Thanks for the HP-IPL/OS plugs Jay, Here is the fastest known method to bootstrap something useful on any HP1000 series CPU, be that a 2114 with 4K of core up to a 2117F with maximum memory: First off you need to identify your loader ROM's, there are up to 4 of them on a 21MX processor. Core memory machines of course do not use loader roms, you toggle the loader code directly into memory. Hopefully you will have either the 264x terminal loader, or (better, but less common) the paper tape loader. Some documentation claims that the paper tape loader was standard on all E-series machines. Not true, that was written by Engineering before Marketroids started talking with customers. If you don't have the loader rom's you want, no big problem they are available from list members. Ok, next look at what I/O boards you have. The paper tape reader can be used with: Microcircuit I/F GND TRUE I/O + TRUE I/O +8 bit duplex register +16 bit duplex register And several other less common interface boards as well. The 264x 'terminal' boot rom can be used with the super-common BACI board, but it cannot be used with any 12521-series serial interface boards. Now you should have some combination of loader rom and interface board that will talk to each other. Maybe you have no peripherals for your box, frankly that's not a problem. How the machine boots, the EASY way... The simplest bootable software is stored in HP's "ABS" format. This is a series of 8-bit bytes that holds an absolute binary program with memory address, block length, and checksum data. If your booting through the paper tape loader the HP will request a byte with a hardware strobe and wait for an 'ack' signal, read and process the byte, and either request another byte or halt with an error or success code in the S-register. Bytes will be read until the end of the ABS file is reached, or there is an address or checksum error. So the paper tape loader wants a string of 8-bit bytes, using a simple request-acknowledge protocol. The hardware signal DEVICE_COMMAND asserted requests a byte, setting the DEVICE_FLAG signal on the I/O board acknowledges the request, clearing the device command signal until another byte is requested. A simple hack could tie a TTL-level parallel I/O board to a PC's printer port, or a simple microcontroller can emulate a paper tape reader using an EPROM, flash, EEPROM, etc. Booting ABS files from an 8-bit parallel data source is exceedingly fast. It is in fact the single fastest way to load large ABS images, and you can stuff an O/S into memory faster than HP's own disk drives (given a fast source of bytes to read). If you happen to have the 264x loader and BACI interface combo you have a much simpler hardware job, but the loading process is a little more complex. Your still going to need to send a series of 8-bit bytes, but this time over a RS-232 interface. The 264x loader rom sets up the BACI board, then transmits an escape, then a lower case 'e'. This escape sequence tells an HP terminal to begin an 8-bit read of an ABS image stored on those little micro-cassette tapes. But the BACI board is a bit of a beast, there are lots of wires that need to be jumpered correctly in the I/O hood, and the board even has the ability to stall the CPU based on an external signal line. Exactly how this is all configured in an actual HP installation is slightly unclear to me at this time, however it is possible to send RS-232 data into the board slowly without any hardware handshaking. Normally 264x terminals use the handshaking lines, and the loader rom does set some control bits that suggest the booting process expects this to take place. But if the BACI board has been 'strapped' for a basic 3-line RS-232 interface without any handshaking you can listen for the escape-e and then start sending data in the serial format that's set by the I/O board jumpers (in the I/O hood, not on the board!). Pace the serial data so you don't overrun the CPU, and you will eventually halt at the end of the ABS file. This serial method is slow, and at some point someone needs to really poke around inside the code and the BACI interface manuals and figure out exactly what interface strapping and handshaking was used by HP when the loaded field diags and other software using this cute little tape drives (that almost never work anymore, until you fix the rollers and find that good media is unobtainium). With that work done, it may be practical to boot your HP over a serial port at a reasonable speed, but loading a large ABS file this way can take a very long time (as things are). I generally don't recommend the serial boot method due to its poor performance. Then again, I think its nothing to throw together a PIC and some I2C eeprom and build little paper tape reader and punch emulators, and I can burn copies of any loader rom you wish. All that aside, one of my HP's boots from a custom loader rom and an 8-gig IDE drive using a custom controller (so I clearly prefer the hardware solution, build your own peripheral devices). All the others have the ability to boot from an emulated tape reader. One can also boot from CS/80 disks, another has a 7960E. Ok, that's ~how~ to get these things up and running, now the hard part. What to run? If you have less than 8K words of memory: I recommend OCTAPUS-C. Stripped down IPL kernels exist for 4K machines, but its not very practical with less than 8K. IF you have 8K words only: I recommend HPBASIC. This is the 1968 stand-alone interpreter. Has very simple I/O requirements, and its possible to rebuild HP BASIC for non-standard I/O configurations. It supports a 'TTY' console, as well as a high speed paper tape reader, punch, and a printer. Requires a 12521-series console interface (HS TERM), does not support a BACI (well, yes, it will, when patched and run from virtual memory under IPL on a 21MX machine). If you have a 21MX machine. I recommend IPL (HP-IPL/OS). It was designed to bootstrap HP's lacking original peripherals, and its quite powerful. Its a (threaded) interpreter, a compiler, and has an assembler as well. Ideal for blinking lights and reverse engineering device drivers and undocumented I/O boards, etc. It supports all HP1000 CPU's up to, but not including the A-series. Modular and extensible, its even got file systems for disk and mag tape, even F-series floating point extensions, 12555 point-plot graphics via DCPC transfers, etc, etc. Or, you can run RTE, etc. Personally, I've never had the chance to run RTE, TSB, or any of the multi-user time share systems. The only reason I don't recommend these is due to my own lack of knowledge and experience. I 'cut my teeth' on HP's by pulling them out of scrap heaps and bootstrapping them with switches and lights. I've usually found HP1000's in automated test setups, and virtually never is 'data center' applications, so I tend to see these machines as being computers for Engineers. But clearly a lot of people had very different exposures to these machines, and see them through very different eyes. My high school had a PDP-8E that ran a 4-user stand-alone BASIC booted from paper tape, not some dual CPU HP rig! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 8 16:45:21 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:45:21 -0600 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070108221205.18662.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070108221205.18662.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45A2C981.7000702@yahoo.co.uk> Chris M wrote: > is anyone familiar with the P1/P2 Thinkpads? My > *busted* 560e has an external...well everything > actually. Yes, I recently gave up my Thinkpad for a much faster, more modern laptop and am sort-of regretting it. The extra memory and CPU speed sure is nice, but I miss all those useful ports that the Thinkpad had :-( (modern system has no serial, no parallel, no floppy, and only one card slot - oh, and one of those God-awful touchpad things, and a keyboard that's about as good as a Sinclair Spectrum) > It probably has close to 34 pins on the floppy connector. My memory of when I was thinking of hacking a drive onto this is that it's a 'proper' floppy connector just with less ground lines, but that one of the control lines is the inverse of what would normally be expected (there's a hack in the Linux kernel I think to cope with this). Can't remember what the FDC reports itself to Linux as, but I don't think it'd be hard to add a 5.25" floppy drive to the machine - IBM seem to be far more compatible with equivalent desktop systems than most laptop manufacturers do. I gave up purely because I couldn't find a source of a plug to fit that tiny floppy connector. cheers Jules From bshannon at tiac.net Mon Jan 8 16:54:52 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:54:52 -0500 Subject: getting started with your new HP 21xx References: <018601c73359$a7f8e100$6500a8c0@BILLING><1e1fc3e90701081322q2febc0b7sa2d0a73e22d0eff3@mail.gmail.com> <02e101c73370$fabf1910$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <001301c73378$02d7fcf0$0100a8c0@screamer> All F-series machines did ship with battery backup power supplies. These can be replaced by the non-battery backup version, but its not 'stock' that way. If you don't have the battery backup box attached, you will not be able to select registers, the one sideways button will be inoperative. THE sign of life for a 21MX after power-up is the ability to select A, B, PC, etc using that switch. If that works you have at least 32K words of memory and a working CPU. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 5:04 PM Subject: Re: getting started with your new HP 21xx > Glen wrote... >> From my own 2117F experience, one if the first things to check is >> whether or not the 21MX power supply has the battery backup option. > Glen is spot on... that's the number one most common reason a system won't > power up (or I should say, won't run - it'll still power up). Number two > reason is probably incorrectly configured memory (controller, memory > boards, or MEM module), including the very likely possibility that the > large ribbon cable which connects memory to the controller isn't seated > well or making good contact. Third reason is missing or improperly > configured microcode (FAB, FEM, WCS, UCS, or mainboard jumpers), including > the possibility that the FAB/mainboard/FEM cable isn't seated well or > making good contact. If the system was delivered exactly as it was > previously used without having been scrounged for parts or poked at by > non-HPaware playbabies, the above list is wrong, there are more likely > causes of failure. > >> If it does and you don't have a battery backup box attached the CPU >> will not start without a battery box eliminator plug, which is just an >> 820ohm resistor across two of the pins in the battery connector plug. > Viewing the battery connector plug from the rear, there are three rows of > three pin sockets. You want your 820 ohm resistor across the outer pins of > the middle row. Another thing I should mention... remove the power supply > before you power up the machine. Very simple/quick to do, it was made for > quick/easy replacement. Inside the supply was the ubiquitous black foam. > It has probably crumbled and/or turned to goo. Take off the cover of the > power suppy after removal and get rid of all that foam with a vacuum > cleaner. Clean any messes (contact cleaner, toothbrush, etc.) up. Some > advise just closing it back up at this point. I don't - that foam was > glued to the top lid for very good reason. Those 4 or 5 power supply cards > inside the supply - you do NOT want them touching the top of the metal > cover :) Less impressive but equally destructive is if they come loose > which the foam also prevents. I cut a piece of foam from air conditioner > filter material (either 1/8 inch thick or 1/4 thick or maybe 1/2?, I > forget what the power supply foam is but I think it's the thicker stuff) > to replace it. I scrape off the old foam on the cover with a putty knife > and clean to bare metal with goo-gone. Then I tape off the right size area > and spray with adhesive spray. Remove the tape then press the air filter > on. After it dries, button up the supply and reinstall it - you're good > for another 20+ years :) > >> I believe the symptom is that all of the front panel LEDs are lit and >> state lit on power on with the battery backup option installed and >> with no battery box connected. > I'd need to dig into the microcode test routines, but there MAY be other > diagnostic selftests that could display before the battery backup check > error (which is exactly as Glen states). > >> If the CPU does power up ok and there is memory installed, the low >> bits of the display should count for every 32kw of memory that is >> installed and tested. One of the manuals explains that, and what to >> toggle in to run the test again and in loop mode. > 21MX M or E reference guide, which I can't find on bitsavers :) However, > here's the scoop. In microcode there is a power up self test, and > (separately) tests for FPP and SIS microcode. Let's deal with the self > test microcode first. There's 3 self tests. Test 1 tests basic registers > and functions, no memory. If this test fails, all display register bits, > all indicator bits, and the over flow register will be on. Test 2 is a > basic (read, doesn't catch many errors) memory test but ONLY the first > 32kw of memory. This test is nondestructive. Errors usually show a parity > error light, set all display registers and indicator bits, and clears the > overflow register. A register is expected data, B register is bad data, M > register is failing address. Note that the cpu front panel lights do NOT > increment/count up like Glen mentioned during this test. Test 3 is a more > comprehensive memory test, and it tests all memory installed not just > 32kw. Each 32kw passing the test gets the display register incremented by > one. Errors are reported the same as test 2, except the S register shows > which 32kw block failed. Note that upon cold powerup, tests 1 and 3 are > run automatically. That's it. No other tests. Note also, that kinda behind > the scenes - anytime you press the IBL button to load a loader rom into > ram, tests 1 and 2 are automatically run first. That's why it's labled > IBL/TEST. You can also run tests 1 and 3 manually without powering on/off > the machine. Set P register to 0, A register to 100000. Set the S register > to whatever value you want memory filled with. Press PRESET. If you want > to loop the diagnostic, set the LOCK/OPERATE switch under the front panel > to LOCK, otherwise continue on. Press INSTR STEP and the diagnostic runs > (and loops if lock switch set). If diag is looping, stop it by putting > LOCK/OPERATE switch to OPERATE. To test the FPP, set 105004 in A register. > Put 0 in P register and press PRESET. If overflow is on now, stop and go > directly to the FPP installation/service manual. If overflow is not on, > press INSTR STEP. A display of 102077 means all is well with FPP. To test > the SIS, set 105477 in A register, 0 in P register. PRESET, then INSTR > STEP. 102077 is good pass. FYI - these addresses/procedures aren't magic, > they are just loading A register with an instruction from the user > instruction group (used to call microcode). Then setting the P register to > address 0 - the A register is addressible as memory address zero, and > starting execution. > >> Jay, if you do get a collections of diags on CD I would very much like >> a copy. I have some diags on 2645A tapes, but they have almost all >> fallen about now. > Actually, I have this project all done eons ago... except for just one or > two or three diagnostics aren't in absolute format! There's just 3 or less > I think that are actually in relocatable format. Yes, I know how bizarre > that is. But what it means is that the assembler listing for just those > few diagnostics isn't particularly helpful. On all other diags, you can > look at the halting address (or single step) and then look as the asm > listing and see exactly what's going on. Not so if the program is > relocatable. One of the listmembers took the diag source for these oddball > relocatable ones and assembled it for me and produced a load map. This > makes it fairly easy (with the extra step of adding the map's offset to > the relocatable (from address zero) listing) to figure out where you are. > So, this compilation of "the ultimate diagnostic cd reference" should be > available soon. > > Jay > > From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 8 16:59:27 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:59:27 -0800 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <725090.21240.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070108140812.F95546@shell.lmi.net>, <725090.21240.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45A25C4F.28401.15C031DD@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2007 at 14:40, Chris M wrote: > I should have mentioned I wasn't intending to use > such a monster with a pc. Macs do the gcr thing, but > they don't usually have 5.25" drives. I did a bit or > reading, and am led to ask if the encoding couldn't be > handled in software. That's why God made Catweasels. > O man what are you telling me. I have a desktop cnc > mill that has a variable speed dc motor. If I want > more rpms I just pump in more emfs. 70, 80, 90 volts. > That kind of juice will get that puny drive to comply There are three other good reasons to vary the data clock rate and not the spindle speed (bear with me here). The first is that keeping the spindle at the same RPM is much less likely to produce problems with ISV (instantaneous speed variation; an oxymoron if there ever was one) as the motor changes its speed to match the zone. The second is that the signal level induced in the read head is proportional to the square of the linear velocity of the medium. You're best off setting the motor to run where the signal level-vs- head characteristcs is best. The third is that tachometer design is much simpler. You have a fixed-frequency reference, such as a crystal or a ceramic resonator to work with, not some software approximation. And GCR doesn't imply varaible data rate or spindle speed. That Durango that I posted a web page on used GCR to good advantage without fooling with spindle speed (almost a 1MB on a 360K 5.25" diskette). I believe that Microtech marketed a PC that worked similarly (although I'd have to check to make sure). I think someone's written a Catweasel driver that fits almost 4MB on a 1.44MB diskette... Cheers, Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 8 16:59:38 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 14:59:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: useful 286 docs for OS creation? Message-ID: <327190.19874.qm@web61016.mail.yahoo.com> http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-80286-Operating-Systems-Writers-Guide_W0QQitemZ270075876872QQihZ017QQcategoryZ1247QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I'm trying to think if I have one of these in my stash. I ain't paying $20 for it regardless. Anyone have one? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From bshannon at tiac.net Mon Jan 8 16:59:51 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:59:51 -0500 Subject: Photos of the EDAX PDP-11/23 box have been taken. References: <004201c7318d$93735f30$9204010a@uatempname> Message-ID: <001701c73378$b51e1c50$0100a8c0@screamer> I've taken photos of the Edax box. They are very large (~3.6 meg each), I have a dial-up connection (out here in the boonies). Can someone host these for all interested parties? I managed to dig deeper into this things chassis. The DIALOG controller does indeed have a half-height ST-506 hard disk drive attached. From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 8 17:01:47 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 15:01:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <725090.21240.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> References: <725090.21240.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070108144500.T95546@shell.lmi.net> > > When it comes to floppy drives, if neither Chuck nor > > I have EVER SEEN one, > > then you are not going to find one available. On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > sure sure. You just wait. I'll find you one. I hope so! Those rare beasts can be a lot of fun > > You need different "encoding" circuitry for the disk > > controller. > I should have mentioned I wasn't intending to use > such a monster with a pc. Macs do the gcr thing, but > they don't usually have 5.25" drives. I did a bit or > reading, and am led to ask if the encoding couldn't be > handled in software. IFF you have access to the drive between the drive and the disk controller. Regular, ordinary, standard 360K drives can be used to read and write Apple ][ diskettes when used with appropriate controllers, such as flux transition boards that interrupt the cable between the controller and drive. For PC, those include "Apple Turnover", "Matchpoint"?, Central Point "Option board", and "Catweasel". Read an entire track of pulses into a buffer, and write some relatively trivial software to "de-nibblize" the data into bytes. "Beneath Apple Dos" has some simple explanations of that particular GCR pattern. Macintosh GCR diskettes (400K/800K) require a wider range of data transfer rates, but can be done with the "DELUXE Option Board" or the "Catweasel". For Commodore diskettes, it is easiest to interface the Commodore external drive, with its built-in controller circuitry, to your computer. I'm partial to the MSD external after-market drive, because it also supports IEEE-488. Sirius/Victor 9000 diskettes should be doable with the flux transition boards, but last time that I needed to, there was a Victor 9000 handy, so we just shoved the data through the serial port. > O man what are you telling me. I have a desktop cnc > mill that has a variable speed dc motor. If I want > more rpms I just pump in more emfs. 70, 80, 90 volts. > That kind of juice will get that puny drive to comply > LOL LOL LOL LOL OK You just need to blow out the pesky motor speed control circuitry on the drive, without damaging the data circuitry. Shouldn't be TOO hard. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From peter.hofmann at chello.at Mon Jan 8 09:39:02 2007 From: peter.hofmann at chello.at (peter.hofmann at chello.at) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 16:39:02 +0100 Subject: ET-3400/ETA-3400 ROMs 444-24/444-51 Message-ID: <20070108153902.DIKJ18937.viefep20-int.chello.at@localhost> Hallo Paul, Found your link in a discussion forum on >> From: "James E Cosper" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2004 7:00 PM Subject: Heathkit ETA-3400 Modifications I am searching very hard the images of ET-3400/ETA-3400 ROMs 444-24/444-51. I would be very happy to find someone, who has these equipment and can make a dump/punch to a file from the ROM address ranges 1400-23FF and F800-FFFF (MON>P 1400,23FFcr + MON>P F800-FFFFcr). May be you have any info for me? Many thanks in advance and best regards from Austria peter peter.hofmann at chello.at From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Jan 8 10:42:50 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 11:42:50 -0500 Subject: Motorola 6800D2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A2748A.9060108@bellatlantic.net> Chuck Patten wrote: > Hi Allison, > > it was directed at the person who might have an excess 6800D2 unit. It was so long ago I had to wade through all the threads to see what it was about. I have a -D1 (rs232/20ma IO), if memory serves the D2 had a keypad and Leds for IO and experimentation? Never got heavy into Motorola CPUs. Allison > Unfortunately I never received your reply before today (I found it in a > Google search...) > > cheers, > chuck... > > > Allison ajp166 > at > bellatlantic.net > Mon Aug 15 21:30:44 CDT 2005 > > > * Previous message: volunteers > wanted > for list help :) > > * Next message: Compaq > SLT/286 > > > * Messages sorted by: [ > > date ] [ > > thread ] [ > > subject ] [ > > author ] > > _____ > > This is aimed at whom? > > > > > > > > Allison > > > > >> Subject: Motorola 6800D2 > >> From: "Chuck Patten" > > >> Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 22:05:00 -0700 > >> To: > > > >> Noticed you had collected one from an old thread. Are you interested in > >> parting with it? > > > > >> cheers, > > >> chuck. > > > > > > > _____ > > > > * Previous message: volunteers > wanted > for list help :) > > * Next message: Compaq > SLT/286 > > > * Messages sorted by: [ > > date ] [ > > thread ] [ > > subject ] [ > > author ] > > _____ > > More information about > the cctalk mailing list > > From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Mon Jan 8 11:35:40 2007 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 10:35:40 -0700 (MST) Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: <200701080539.AAA15879@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <566761d653d63dfcdd81c05e15788052@valleyimplants.com> <200701080539.AAA15879@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: I've used a product called plastic epoxy which includes a solvent to eat into the items being bonded for a better bond. I've had the best luck placing a small piece of metal (paperclip) across the break and spreading an 1/8" thick layer over that. Clint On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, der Mouse wrote: >> Has anyone had success fixing the plastic "alloy" that Sun uses in >> their cases? > > I don't know what Sun made their cases out of after they switched to > PCI. But the plastic they used in the -3/80-to-U2 era, I just use > ordinary epoxy on. It's worked well in every instance I've tried > (which is some four or five by now, generally machines that suffered > case damage before they reached my hands). > > /~\ The ASCII der Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 8 17:05:34 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:05:34 -0800 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <200701082246.l08MkaPU004252@mail3.magma.ca> References: <200701082130.l08LUsvh023515@mail1.magma.ca>, <45A24CA5.13524.15830311@cclist.sydex.com>, <200701082246.l08MkaPU004252@mail3.magma.ca> Message-ID: <45A25DBE.6638.15C5C9F6@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2007 at 17:43, dave06a at dunfield.com wrote: > Are there any available specs for this ...? Fat chance. Even though we were buying Backpacks by the case, we couldn't get MS to part with any information. I had to reverse- engineer the thing to write the driver. IMOHO, our driver worked better than theirs. :) I forgot to mention that there's a little bit of serial NOVRAM in the thing too where configuration information is kept. All Backpack floppy drives used the same controller board--and each board will support 2 floppy drives. Cheers, Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 8 17:15:16 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 15:15:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A2C981.7000702@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <129149.47836.qm@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jules Richardson wrote: > Yes, I recently gave up my Thinkpad for a much > faster, more modern laptop and > am sort-of regretting it. The extra memory and CPU > speed sure is nice, but I > miss all those useful ports that the Thinkpad had > :-( (modern system has no > serial, no parallel, no floppy, and only one card > slot - oh, they do have those usb to serial port contraptions, and I even see a usb to parallel port version on the shelves at Walmart (no I don't typically buy any gear there). I've to date only tried the serial thing, and didn't have alot of success, though it probably had nothing to do with it, just my funky cellphone or software that supposedly allows you to connect to the internet. All hope is not lost. > and one of those > God-awful touchpad things, and a keyboard that's > about as good as a Sinclair > Spectrum) And you don't find that preferable to that blasted track-point thing? The keyboard on my "old" Sony is better (i.e. bigger) then this Toshiba's, but there's no way I am ever going to pay that kind of money for anything ever again. Of course that was my first new lt, and in some way of looking at it first "new" computer, so I opted for the latest and greatest. A rather sweet 16" (non-panoramic) lcd. But it's in the pile at the moment waiting for a rainy day. Or make that week. Probably just a bad regulator board though. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 8 17:20:35 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:20:35 -0700 Subject: Photos of the EDAX PDP-11/23 box have been taken. In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 08 Jan 2007 17:59:51 -0500. <001701c73378$b51e1c50$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: In article <001701c73378$b51e1c50$0100a8c0 at screamer>, "Bob Shannon" writes: > I managed to dig deeper into this things chassis. The DIALOG controller > does indeed have a half-height > ST-506 hard disk drive attached. Is it really DIALOG? I thought it was DILOG? (no 'A') -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jan 8 17:25:11 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 17:25:11 -0600 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070108134603.K95546@shell.lmi.net> References: <45A20A45.720.147FB46D@cclist.sydex.com> <20070108134603.K95546@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070108172134.06b11580@mail> At 03:48 PM 1/8/2007, Fred Cisin wrote: >We have been there before. >It seems reasonable that the USB circuitry would then connect to the >SA400 like circuitry of the drive. >BUT,... >USB drives have "fully integrated" circuitry, with one board for both the >USB interface AND the floppy, and do NOT contain a normal drive. The recent thread titled "Archive your Apple floppies at the W6TRW swap meet, January 2007" was from Adam Goldman . He's making a USB device that will handle 5 1/4 formats and plans to handle 3 1/2, too. I exchanged a few messages with him and the answers were interesting. I'll refrain from quoting the private exchange, though. - John From bshannon at tiac.net Mon Jan 8 17:45:32 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 18:45:32 -0500 Subject: Photos of the EDAX PDP-11/23 box have been taken. References: Message-ID: <002d01c7337f$16c4d510$0100a8c0@screamer> Right, DILOG, my bad. I've got seven good digital photos, each 3.6 mb. One shows the keyboard and alpha-led console thingy. Another shows the front of the complete system stacked up. There is a photo of the rear of the main chassis, with all the I/O connectors, etc. One photo shows the EDAX side of the card cage, all built on DEC format quad SPC style boards down to the metal rib and extractors. There is a lot of hardware here, shielded ADC's, several memories for spectra and analysis, then the display boards, and the Q-bus interface. Another photo shows the PDP 11/23 section with the 50 pin FDD cable and the 34-pin and 26-pin ST506 interface and an assortment of DEC boards. A hi-res photo of the rear of the main chassis with the door open shows some serious hacking potential! Just over half the card cage is taken up by the special EDAX hardware, quad height modules. The 11/23 sits off to the side at the bottom of the backplane, you can see the Q-bus section clearly. Lots of room for more toys, AND the dual height backplane above the Q-bus is uncommitted, with a ground plane. Care to add another Q-bus? The last photo is a close-up of the rear of the disk drive bay, you can see part of the back of a full height 8-inch floppy, and a half height 5.25 inch HDD. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 6:20 PM Subject: Re: Photos of the EDAX PDP-11/23 box have been taken. > > In article <001701c73378$b51e1c50$0100a8c0 at screamer>, > "Bob Shannon" writes: > >> I managed to dig deeper into this things chassis. The DIALOG controller >> does indeed have a half-height >> ST-506 hard disk drive attached. > > Is it really DIALOG? I thought it was DILOG? (no 'A') > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jan 8 19:53:35 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 22:53:35 -0300 Subject: REPOSTING: Fw: an ADM-3A cam in tod...ay (Why this message hadn't shown up???) Message-ID: <0e0b01c73391$04cd33e0$f0fea8c0@alpha> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexandre Souza" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 2:01 PM Subject: Re: an ADM-3A cam in tod...ay >> Mac portrait displays are presumably similarly difficult to get >> replacement CRTs for, at least without realigning the yoke (I gather that >> most CRTs don't like a change in orientation, although I used to run a >> Sun colour display on its side a few years ago with no obvious >> ill-effects) >> For more conventional equipment I suspect that a swap is possible, >> providing knowledge of how to tweak the old circuits with the new tube is >> known. > > There is a very simple way of doing that. I though you all knew that, > and didn't want to be redundant, but here we go: > > - For mac portrait displays, I don't know. But I always had run tubes > on vertical on...ARCADE MACHINES! :D There is no problem on running B/W or > colour tubes on vertical, trust me. > > - Tube swap is very simple. You can assume that if the neck connector > fits, it will work. There are not many different tubes around, the problem > is the yoke. On B/W tubes you just take the yoke of the fried tube off and > put that on the new. No special alignment/convergence procedure necessary. > Just line up the text on screen moving the yoke cw/ccw and you are set. > For colour tubes, there are differences, here we go. > > - There are mainly three types of colour tubes: Mini-neck (the neck is > the diameter of a fat finger), Low focus and High focus. Of course, I'm > talking about inline masks. That Delta tubes (the RGB triad is a delta of > points, instead of three lines one besides other) I've never seen that > used in anything beyond televisions. If you have a monitor using a delta > mask tube, forget it! The adjustments you're going to do are too difficult > even to a profissional. > > - Low focus and High focus: You can see what kind is, looking at the > tube socket or the neck end of the tube. The high focus tube has a plastic > ring inserted on the pins, with a pin isolated from all the others. You > can see the same in the socket. Low focus doesn't have that, the end of > the tube has only pins, no plastic separator. > > - If you change colour tubes (talking about high focus and low focus), > usually it is just a matter of changing the tube and using the same > deflection set (yoke, convergence rings et al). E.G.: You have a monitor > like the Amiga 1084/S which uses a philips or samsung tube, Low focus > type, 15KHz yoke. Just buy any (!) television with the same > chacarteristics (low focus) and change it. Yes, you can use the same yoke. > Almost always the paramenters of the yoke are **the same**. The same > happens for VGA monitors. Usually, all vga monitors uses the same type of > yokes. YMMV, but this is the rule here. Please note: Yokes of 15 KHz > monitors and 31 KHz monitors (vga and above) are NOT intechangeable. But > the tubes ARE! > > - If you need to change the tube of, as an example, an EGA monitor, > you'll not find a complete set from a television of from an old vga > monitor, you'll have to change only the tube, keeping the deflection parts > (yoke, convergence ring) and will have to do all the convergence procedure > yourself. It is boring, it is hard, it is boring. But if you have no way > to find a suitable replacement tube, there you are. > > Ok, too much words, here we go for a simple list: > - If you have a B/W monitor, you can change the tube for ANY tube with > the same neck size and that fits phisically in place. Keep the yoke from > the old tube and put it on the new. You'll be only changing the glass > tube. > - If you have a COLOUR monitor, if the pixels are inline (sets of three > bars, RGB on screen), you can change for any tube of the SAME type, paying > attention if it is low focus or high focus. You can go some sizes above > and beyond. E.G: A 14" monitor can use a 17" or even a 20" tube, the > reverse is true. > - If you have a VGA or HIGHER frequency monitor, you need a tube with > yoke from a monitor of SIMILAR frequencies. Same as above > - If you have a 15 KHz monitor and only have a VGA tube, and > vice-versa, you can change THE TUBE, but will have to change the > deflection set (yoke/convergence rings) and do all the convergence > procedure yourself. Samsung manuals are great for teaching that, get the > Syncmaster III service manual and be free. > > Any questions, feel free to write me > > Greetings from Brazil, > Alexandre Souza > www.tabajara-labs.com.br From steerex at mindspring.com Mon Jan 8 18:58:44 2007 From: steerex at mindspring.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 19:58:44 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) Message-ID: <01C7335F.67922850@MAGGIE> With that work done, it may be practical to boot your HP over a serial port at a reasonable speed, but loading a large ABS file this way can take a very long time (as things are). I generally don't recommend the serial boot method due to its poor performance. Then again, I think its nothing to throw together a PIC and some I2C eeprom and build little paper tape reader and punch emulators, and I can burn copies of any loader rom you wish. I found that serial booting the system to be the easiest way to get started. I don't recall which one but, one of the loader ROMS will work with the "high speed serial" card and read data off a serial link. There's no handshaking or error correction but, with a short RS232 link, passing data is not a problem. The ABS data format does provide checksum error detection so data errors will be detected. On many occasions, I have loaded HPBASIC and other programs over a serial link with absolutely no problem. The advantage to the serial link is that the only hardware required is a RS232 serial cable. Admittedly, it is not as fast as a parallel link but, who cares ;-) I had to write a PERL script to format the data before passing it to the 1000 but, that was fairly trivial. SeeYa, SteveRob From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 8 19:14:13 2007 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:14:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: HP 1000 systems empty rack on ebay. In-Reply-To: <000b01c73376$e7af4790$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <685935.44173.qm@web82709.mail.mud.yahoo.com> There's an HP 1000 system rack up on ebay right now, (290068544027). Just thing to hold all of those 21MX type systems in the last few posts. Bob From rescue at hawkmountain.net Mon Jan 8 19:26:15 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:26:15 -0500 Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted In-Reply-To: <200701080040.l080e8Px005195@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> References: <200701080040.l080e8Px005195@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> Message-ID: <45A2EF37.6000509@hawkmountain.net> Martin Scott Goldberg wrote: >> I take it the 800 was the successor to the 400, the >> 1st unit my fingers ever typed on. >> > > > No, the 800 was released at the same time as the 400. 400 was the "lower > end games computer", 800 was the "more serious" higher end computer. > > > Marty > The difference being RAM (16K 'non expandable for the 400, 16K expandable to 48K for the 800 (and even 64K via only 3rd party)), keyboard (membrane on the 400, real keyboard on the 800), and 1 cartridge slot on the 400 vs 2 on the 800 (although few cartridges ever exploited the 2nd slot). Other than that they had the same chips, same SIO, same # of joystick ports, etc. Oh... the 400 may not have had an external monitor connector (it has been a while since I used mine, but I know I never used it on a monitor, only a TV)... the 800 definately had one... plus some of the Atari's (can't recall if the 800 did or not) had separate chroma/luma on the monitor port (so, you could build a connection to s-video if you wanted to). My first home computer was a 400 (family couldn't afford the 800)... complete with 410 cassette unit (upgraded to 810 disk drive 6 mos to a year later). Had only 16K... but later went to 32K then 48K. Got a 1050 drive later. Had a Archiver chip in the 810, and a US Doubler in the 1050 (true double density and high speed drive transfers with SpartaDOS and MyDOS). Much later obtained an ATR8000 second hand too. Have fond memories of the 8bits... always wanted an Amiga... but didn't end up with one of those till a few years ago).... I like Jay Miner's work :-) (and Chuck Peddle's too). If your looking for a computer, I'd recommend an 800 with expanded RAM (a 3rd party 48K board is better than 3 Atari 16K modules... and if you end up with 3 Atari 16K modules, I've heard it is a good idea to remove the plastic casings from them for cooling if that has not already been done). After that I'd probably recommend an 800XL (although I have a fondness for 1200XLs too... anyone have one they care to part with) or even a 130XE. If you like the idea of some early 4 player games though... a 400 or 800 is required. -- Curt From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Mon Jan 8 19:32:00 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 19:32:00 -0600 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A2C981.7000702@yahoo.co.uk> References: <20070108221205.18662.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> <45A2C981.7000702@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45A2F090.3030003@brutman.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Yes, I recently gave up my Thinkpad for a much faster, more modern > laptop and am sort-of regretting it. The extra memory and CPU speed sure > is nice, but I miss all those useful ports that the Thinkpad had :-( > (modern system has no serial, no parallel, no floppy, and only one card > slot - oh, and one of those God-awful touchpad things, and a keyboard > that's about as good as a Sinclair Spectrum) To be fair, that's all available via the port replicator. And to get floppy, you have to swap out the CD-ROM - that's a good compromise for a laptop. From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 8 21:25:36 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 21:25:36 -0600 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <01C7335F.67922850@MAGGIE> Message-ID: <00d301c7339d$d813b240$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Steve wrote.... >I found that serial booting the system to be the easiest way to get >started. I don't recall which one but, one of the loader ROMS will work >with the "high speed serial" card and read data off a serial link. I don't recall any loader rom working with a 12531 HS TERM board. I could well be wrong though, it's been WAY too long since I had my head firmly in HP-world. You CAN do it with a 264x (terminal) loader rom and a BACI board - as Bob S. said. If there is a loader rom that happens to work with the 12531 (ie, if the 12531 happens to have the same programmatic interface as say... the paper tape board...) I'd like to know. I just don't have time to go test it :) > There's no handshaking or error correction but, with a short RS232 link, > passing data is not a problem. The ABS data format does provide checksum > error detection so data errors will be detected. Careful there... checksum (mod256) does NOT catch transposition of bytes/words, missing all zero words/bytes, extra all zero words/bytes, and identical bits swapped between words/bytes. There is a length field included in the ABS format so that will catch missing or extra nulls. But it still won't catch the other errors. Jay From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 8 21:51:00 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:51:00 -0700 Subject: shelving storage solution Message-ID: A little while back I asked about shelving. Noone suggested anything. I found what seems to be a good solution at about half the cost of the next nearest offering, so I thought I'd share. I had been looking at wire rack shelving. Some nice wire racks on casters had been purchased at work from Costco, so I started looking at those. Costco had Safco "LAN Management System" racks 72"Wx29"Dx73"H for $340, 48"Wx29"Dx73"H for $250, 30"Wx29"Dx73"H for $205. (Casters were extra.) They also had Safco wire shelving: 4-shelf 36"Wx18"Dx72"H for $120. Online I could find racks for comparable prices or a little better (like $5) and comparable shelving for $80. I found nice 5-shelf wire racks at Walmart for $40 ea. 36"Wx16"Dx72"H, black finish. Each shelf is rated for 200 lbs evenly distributed. They have levelling screwcaps on the feet. "5 Shelf Multi-Purpose Rack" by NSF is what the box says. UPC 0 34886 00012 Using this shelving, I can stack 10 terminals vertically, 2 per shelf for 5 shelves, which is a tremendous space savings. I had to go to several Walmart locations in order to get enough shelving units, so I don't know if these are end of inventory "priced to move" units or not. This shelving is not currently listed on Walmart's web site, but each store in the Salt Lake City valley had the units. There is also a 4-shelf unit standing 52" high with 14" deep shelves. Most of the stores had these, with fewer having the taller 5-shelf variety. The shelf heights are adjustable in 1" increments and no tools are required for assembly or disassembly. They seem sturdy enough when fully loaded, but I wouldn't want to trip and fall into them and put a big transverse load on the whole system. It would most likely fall over and have a danger of crushing you with what I've got loaded into them. I certainly wouldn't want to have 10 13" CRTs dumped on me. I should probably secure them in case of earthquake... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jan 8 22:37:10 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 20:37:10 -0800 Subject: shelving storage solution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >A little while back I asked about shelving. Noone suggested anything. >I found what seems to be a good solution at about half the cost of the >next nearest offering, so I thought I'd share. What I use is some wooden racks from "Fred Meyers". They're probably about 5' tall, and the best part is that they can used as "Racks" for running computers, or you can take multiple and build a row of shelves for storage. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 8 22:56:56 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:56:56 -0800 Subject: shelving storage solution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A2B018.5427.170778D6@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2007 at 20:51, Richard wrote: > I found nice 5-shelf wire racks at Walmart for $40 ea. 36"Wx16"Dx72"H, > black finish. Each shelf is rated for 200 lbs evenly distributed. > They have levelling screwcaps on the feet. "5 Shelf Multi-Purpose Rack" > by NSF is what the box says. UPC 0 34886 00012 I didn't volunteer any information because it's been a few years since I acquired mine.at Costco (it doesn't seem to be in their online catalog now) and I've not seen any offered at any of the big- box stores locally. It's termed "Double Rivet Shelving". You put it together with a hammer--no bolts. Mine was purchased as two sections 36"Hx18"Dx36"W, and you join them with a shelf beam to form a 72"H unit. 5/8" HD particle board shelves. I don't recall the ratings, but I'd be surprised if it was less than 500 lbs per shelf. Here's some: http://nexel.superiorshelving.com/pages/rivetDouble.shtml These things are heavy, BTW; probably about 60+ lbs for each unit. Indestructible by way of normal human endeavor. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 8 23:04:41 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 21:04:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: shelving storage solution In-Reply-To: <45A2B018.5427.170778D6@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45A2B018.5427.170778D6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070108210137.S12350@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > These things are heavy, BTW; probably about 60+ lbs for each unit. ISTR 128 lbs per box > Indestructible by way of normal human endeavor. I'm a little concerned about how the graham cracker would handle high humidity. I still use a bunch of those units. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 8 23:07:23 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 00:07:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Old D.E.C. Software and Hardware Manuals Available In-Reply-To: <8C900AA2FC35A02-14A4-2092@WEBMAIL-MC08.sysops.aol.com> References: <8C900AA2FC35A02-14A4-2092@WEBMAIL-MC08.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <200701090508.AAA06886@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Hi, I have a few old Digital Equipment Corp. manuals. > If anyone is interested in them they are yours for shipping costs > (I'm in Ontario, Canada). They are as follows: Where in Ontario? I get to Ottawa regularly. I have no particular use for anyu of them, but I'd take them to save them from the shredder if we can arrange an in-person pickup. (I'm not sure I care enough to pay postage to save them.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 8 23:25:02 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:25:02 -0800 Subject: shelving storage solution In-Reply-To: <20070108210137.S12350@shell.lmi.net> References: , <45A2B018.5427.170778D6@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070108210137.S12350@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45A2B6AE.24109.17213126@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2007 at 21:04, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > These things are heavy, BTW; probably about 60+ lbs for each unit. > > ISTR 128 lbs per box Probably so--I know that I unloaded them by pulling the box straight off of the pickup bed; I didn't try to lift them out. Cut the box open and carry the parts to the assembly area. > I'm a little concerned about how the graham cracker would handle high > humidity. I still use a bunch of those units. I've had a few sets in my (fairly humid and occasionally wet from Oregon winters) garage now for 16 years; the shelves look just the way they did when they were new--except for the one that a quart can of shellac leaked onto--It's got a nice glossy, but lumpy, coating, but it didn't swell at all. You can fabricate extra shelves with nothing more than some 2x4s as the horizonal members (attach them with bolts and T-nuts) and 5/8" plywood for the shelf. Or you *could* break down and buy extra shelves... Cheers, Chuck From Watzman at neo.rr.com Mon Jan 8 23:36:32 2007 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 00:36:32 -0500 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives In-Reply-To: <200701082319.l08NJalc014554@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <00ad01c733b0$1f05e850$6500a8c0@barry> Re: "What about taking an external USB 3.5" floppy drive and connecting a 5.25" drive to the interface that is being used for the 3.5" drive? It seems like it should work." Won't work. ALL of the USB 3.5" floppy drives that I've taken apart (over 100) are fully integrated USB devices. They are NOT a standard floppy drive (with a 34-pin floppy drive interface) and a USB-to-floppy controller. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jan 9 00:06:25 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:06:25 -0600 Subject: shelving storage solution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A330E1.1010500@msm.umr.edu> Richard wrote: > > >It would most likely fall >over and have a danger of crushing you with what I've got loaded into >them. I certainly wouldn't want to have 10 13" CRTs dumped on me. I >should probably secure them in case of earthquake... > > We had wire shelving with simple wall braces survive some earthquakes in Irvine Ca, so you don't need much but a top level (probably high enough you don't have to duck when walking behind, if you have them out from the wall) braces to studs on the wall. I have also seen very a very nice installation with a 2 x 6 secured to the studs on the walls, and the shelves braced to the studs. Also ran power in conduits, and wire wire guides for the cabling out from that. I also built up a couple of rollarounds from 2 x the 6' kits, but using all the shelving spaced at 6" intervals to hold plastic bin boxes, and I can take all my material and work to any place by relocating those units on rollers. Jim From vax9000 at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 00:14:29 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 01:14:29 -0500 Subject: Intel component data catalog 1982 on epay Message-ID: item 150077784822 Not my auction I post it here because the is near the end but only 8 people have viewed it! Maybe due to bad title or bad category. vax, 9000 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jan 9 00:21:30 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 22:21:30 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <45A330E1.1010500@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: Hi For those that might be interested in an Olivetti M20, there is one on eBay. This was one of the few machines made with a Z8000 processor. I think the only personal computer. If someone on this list gets one, contact me and I'll help you get it up and running. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ >From photos to predictions, The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes has it all. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/?icid=nctagline1 From wizard at voyager.net Tue Jan 9 01:18:42 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 02:18:42 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) In-Reply-To: <011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site> <011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <1168327122.4220.191.camel@linux.site> On Mon, 2007-01-08 at 11:15 -0600, Jay West wrote: > Warren wrote... > > Well, I went and did it. I am now the proud owner of an HP-2117F, if I > > can identify it correctly, > > Oh yes, you identified it correctly. Congrats on a nice box! Aren't YOU the cheeky one... > > My experience with the HP 1000 series machines is, almost exclusively, > > programming them in TSB on HP-200B, C, and F systems, many moons ago. > > Woohoo! Another TSB'er, and one getting real hardware no less. Awesome! I'm alternating between being outrageously excited, and wondering if I'm a complete idiot. A disturbing sign is the original subject... Normally, upon seeing an utterly uninformative subject like that, I will waste a minute or two deciding if the author should be pistol-whipped or just pimp-slapped, with a warning. *SIGH* > > Jay, you seem to be an alpha geek when it comes to HP iron. > > Old HP 21xx/21MX iron... there's a few others lurking on the list far more > competant than I on that gear, but I'm not a complete idiot (usually) on the > topic :) I do seem to be one of the few that really focuses on TSB. ... and then there were two. > > So, could you look at the > > above auctions, and tell me what I need to make a good system. > > Obviously, a disk system comes to mind... but, if you could be > > specific, I would appreciate it. > > What you need depends on what OS you are going to run. Bear in mind that my > first love is TSB and always will be. BUT... do yourself a favor (and I > HIGHLY recommend anyone else messing with HP 21xx/21MX gear do the same) and > take a look at HP-IPL/OS. This is a small but incredibly useful and powerful > OS written recently (comparatively) by list member Bob Shannon and Terry > Newton. Think of it as a sort-of Forth-like development system - the > learning curve to get it up and running and start really using it > productively is measured in minutes, not hours - and there is some real > meat/capability there for those who want it. Folks, I'm telling you - > HP-IPL/OS is hella cool. See: > http://www.infionline.net/~wtnewton/oldcomp/hp2100/ First off, let me say thank you for the incredibly rich set of information you gave me. As I said when I joined this list, it's kind of tiresome to NEVER have anyone around who knows more than I do. No, I'm not overly egocentric, but I am not now employed in programming or hardware (I work repairing high speed data circuits for the telephone company) and I am everybody's expert. I have worked in several places where there were more savvy people than myself, and I find I like that better. Sometimes, it's good to punt... Certainly, this list is that kind of place. I've seen a great deal of expertise float past my screen, some in areas which are not even familiar territory for me. I'm enjoying it. And, using it... So, I will no doubt give HP-IPL/OS a try. I always thought Forth got a great deal of attention LESS than it deserved. I halfway expected Forth to become a de facto common assembly language equivalent for most machines. So, it's interesting. On the other hand, the reason I bought this beastie is so that I can set up a machine and run TSB. That is the goal, albeit I may have to exhibit a bit of patience in achieving it. > HP-IPL/OS - I'm not going to go into any detail on this one here. It rocks. > Nuff said. See the URL above which speaks for itself. It will run on the > tinyest of configurations, up to the largest setup you can imagine. I'll let > Bob fill in any details people want to know, he's way more qualified than I > to speak on HP-IPL/OS requirements. This absolutely should be the first OS > anyone runs when getting into HP gear, because you'll get your machine doing > something interesting and fun with little hardware right away. Okay, you talked me into it. No harm done in any case, and I love to poke around and experiment with new computer environments. > RTE - I need others on the list to speak to this. I don't run it currently, > although I have booted up a few different versions a couple times. To my own > way of thinking, it's an odd non-intuitive OS. That's my own (somewhat > uninformed) subjectivity though, many other HP'ers will strongly disagree > and their points are no less valid than mine (since they run it, probably > more valid than mine). I can say that running this OS is very attainable, Not my cup of tea. I've used it, and find it, as you say, unintuitive. There's also no BEAUTY to it, if you catch my drift. I'm not sure I can define it, but I know it when I see it. > TSB - This is the most fun choice to me, or maybe I mean nostalgic. I (and a > suprising number of others) cut my teeth on HP 2000 TimeShared BASIC. It was > suprisingly popular in high schools and colleges as a teaching machine - so > it was many peoples first experience programming. You're talking my language here... > I see no real reason to build a C or F system. > Note that when I dismiss A, B, C, and F.... > I wouldn't do that so easily if there was a > different look & feel to those systems. I > realize someone may want A, B, C, or F for > nostalgia. But keep in mind that Access has > all the same commands and syntax (with VERY > minor exceptions) as A, B, C, and F. Yep. I never used the Access system myself, but have noted the continuation of the same look and feel, and personality of the system. It's a nostalgia thing, true... but I'm into the idea of UPGRADED nostalgia. As a matter of fact, at the risk of offering offense, I was considering trying to produce new plug-compatible devices for the machine, if the necessaries are not available. > So if someone wants to feel the nostalgia of running that old 2000B system, > they will certainly feel the exact same nostalgia on an E or Access system. > It's unlikely they would notice a difference (even if the person's memory of > the A, B, C, or F machine was as fresh as yesterday). So that leaves us with > 2000/E and 2000/Access as good candidates. Indeed. I follow your logic, and agree with it. [ Model number hardware discussion snipped, but saved ] > So, there you have it. If I were you, I'd focus on HP-IPL/OS first, while at > the same time looking around for the remaining gear to get RTE and Access > up. As I recall, any hardware that will run Access will most definitely run > some form of RTE, but the reverse isn't necessarily true. Welcome to the HP > crowd, congrats on your system... If I can help just drop me a line. That sounds like a plan. If any partially lobotomized CPU will work as the secondary, I probably will just wait around for one to present itself. There ARE a couple of things I recognize as unlikely, but which I'd just love to do... o Can a TSB system be connected to an Ethernet and be useful? o If so, what cards are needed? o Is there any way to get TSB connected to an IP network? I'd love to offer TSB ports on a real machine. The 2000B TSB system I used in high school had 64 phone lines and ports. I'd like to do the same, but NOT by buying 64 phone lines... Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From waisun.chia at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 03:22:57 2007 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:22:57 +0800 Subject: rt-11 Documentation In-Reply-To: References: <26c11a640701071058y67f48df8n7d8f93cd2062a4be@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/9/07, Richard wrote: > > Nothing is too heavy to post! Try a complete 8-node VAXcluster with VAX9000s with the accompanying storage, starcouplers, printers, VTs, networking gear.... etc. You get the idea. :-) I'm sure the old-iron fanatics would be able to give much better examples... :-) From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 9 08:10:35 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:10:35 -0600 Subject: shelving storage solution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070109071716.057c4d88@mail> At 09:51 PM 1/8/2007, Richard wrote: >The shelf heights are adjustable in 1" increments and no tools are >required for assembly or disassembly. They seem sturdy enough when >fully loaded, but I wouldn't want to trip and fall into them and put a >big transverse load on the whole system. It would most likely fall >over and have a danger of crushing you with what I've got loaded into >them. There's that. I find particle board and OSB untrustworthy. As Fred suspected, the rivet-lock ones with particle-board shelves do tend to change over time. In a decade in a basement even with a dehumidifier, heavy objects easily distort the shelves. They may be fine for light-duty. I've tried some of the plastic ones, too, 2" thick shelves with corrugation and struts that would give the impression of strength - but over time, even with objects only as heavy as monitors and computers, they've sagged an inch in the middle of a yard-wide span. - John From curt at atarimuseum.com Tue Jan 9 08:27:33 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:27:33 -0500 Subject: Atari 800, 810 parts (or Apple II) wanted In-Reply-To: <252553.16185.qm@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> References: <252553.16185.qm@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45A3A655.5090100@atarimuseum.com> The software for the Atari 400/800, XL/XE systems will all work together (some older 400/800 software will only run on the later XL/XE's with a "Translator Disk" which essentially overrides the XL/XE OS and copies the 800 OS into memory for compatibility. Some later software would only run on the XL/XE's due to memory and OS specific reasons. The 520/1040 "ST" series is a different architecture and OS (68000 CPU, GEM Based OS) and that software is not compatible with he 6502 based 400/800, XL/XE systems. Curt Chris M wrote: > yep, I used the 400 in high school also. Hated those > things. Utterly turned me off to computers until I > left hs altogether. They may have had some 800's too. > I would like an 800 if anyone has one surplus to > their needs. Come to think of it I'd like the 130 > also, plus any 520/1040 units (working or not) that I > could find. > Were these software compatible with the later 800xl > and those? What about cartridge compatible? > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > > From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jan 9 08:47:42 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 09:47:42 -0500 Subject: rt-11 Documentation In-Reply-To: References: <26c11a640701071058y67f48df8n7d8f93cd2062a4be@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200701090947.42871.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 09 January 2007 04:22, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > On 1/9/07, Richard wrote: > > Nothing is too heavy to post! > > Try a complete 8-node VAXcluster with VAX9000s with the accompanying > storage, starcouplers, printers, VTs, networking gear.... etc. > > You get the idea. :-) > > I'm sure the old-iron fanatics would be able to give much better > examples... :-) Perhaps too heavy for the "postal service", but then there's always Freight companies. It's even possible to ship buildings if you cut them into sections small enough to fit on a flatbed truck. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 08:53:13 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:53:13 -0500 Subject: rt-11 Documentation In-Reply-To: <200701090947.42871.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <26c11a640701071058y67f48df8n7d8f93cd2062a4be@mail.gmail.com> <200701090947.42871.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <45A3AC59.5090102@gmail.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Tuesday 09 January 2007 04:22, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: >> On 1/9/07, Richard wrote: >>> Nothing is too heavy to post! >> Try a complete 8-node VAXcluster with VAX9000s with the accompanying >> storage, starcouplers, printers, VTs, networking gear.... etc. >> >> You get the idea. :-) >> >> I'm sure the old-iron fanatics would be able to give much better >> examples... :-) > > Perhaps too heavy for the "postal service", but then there's always > Freight companies. > > It's even possible to ship buildings if you cut them into sections small > enough to fit on a flatbed truck. Sometimes you can even ship a building without satisfying that requirement. Sometimes you can get clearance to take up an entire highway in the middle of the night and use a Mammoet to transport your building onto a rail car. Especially if your local rail line has a particularly large loading gauge. Peace... Sridhar From austin at ozpass.co.uk Tue Jan 9 09:19:38 2007 From: austin at ozpass.co.uk (Austin Pass) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:19:38 +0000 Subject: Manchester Baby. Message-ID: Hello all! I?m a long time ?list lurker? but felt it was perhaps time to contribute. I?ve just spent the morning being shown a working replica of the Manchester Small-Scale Experimantal Machine (SSEM), also commonly referred to as the ?Manchester Baby?. It?s located in the ?1830 Warehouse? at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. One of the curators is (by lucky chance) my Uncle Michael and he?s personally written a number of programs for this old beast. The replica is fantastic, with incredible attention to period detail. For example, the switchgear is proper 1940?s vintage (salvaged from RAF aircraft) and the frames upon which the replica is built are from former GPO telecoms exchanges. Apparently the donor of said frames was using them to prevent his garden subsiding into a nearby river! The computer itself, for anyone unaware of it is regarded as the world?s first stored program computer. It ran its first program on June 21st 1948, jointly designed by Frederic C. Williams and Tom Kilburn at the University of Manchester, UK. The stored memory is in the form of a ?Williams Tube? - a cathode ray tube capable of storing 32 X 32bit words. It?s an extremely limited bit of kit (as one might imagine!) with an instruction set of only 7, and no adder (addition achieved by negating numbers during their move to the accumulator). It?s a great exhibit if anyone?s in this part of the world on a Tuesday with nothing to do. No charge for entry into the museum. Here are some informative links, including a beautifully crafted ?Manchester Baby Emulator? (in Java). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Baby http://www.computer50.org/ http://www.davidsharp.com/baby/index.html Regards, Austin. P.S. The guys at the museum have hooked it up to a PC, so that programs written on the emulator can be loaded into the baby to be run. Does this qualify it as the world?s most ancient add-on / peripheral / co-processor? ;-) From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 9 10:05:39 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 10:05:39 -0600 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site><011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1168327122.4220.191.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <005e01c73408$01eeabf0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Warren wrote... > So, I will no doubt give HP-IPL/OS a try. I always thought Forth > got a great deal of attention LESS than it deserved. As Bob will no doubt point out quickly, HP-IPL/OS is not Forth. But it is very much in that vein as far as design & philosophy. > Okay, you talked me into it. No harm done in any case, and I love > to poke around and experiment with new computer environments. Don't view IPL as a distraction from TSB. View it as a complement... sometimes you just want to boot something up quick and experiment with a new card or peripheral and don't want to wait 5 minutes and mount tapes to boot the machine. You just want to "get at" the card, or test some theory with regards to how DMS works to further your understanding of it, etc. Or maybe you want to poke around at how TSB lays things out on the disk. TSB doesn't offer you assembler, and no low level access to the machine. Boot up IPL and read a few sectors, toss together a WORD to dump the disk intelligently (ie. list programs in a user account for example), etc. IPL is awesome for just that quick "whatif/how" scenario. > Not my cup of tea. I've used it, and find it, as you say, > unintuitive. There's also no BEAUTY to it, if you catch my drift. I'm > not sure I can define it, but I know it when I see it. I agree... today. I must admit I haven't given it enough of a chance to sink into my head. I will give it a fair shake and dig into it deeply when I get back to my HP boxes. But I know what you mean... TSB is spartan and simple compared to most other environments. But there is definitely a particular elegance to it's simplicity.... > As a matter of fact, at the risk of offering offense, I was > considering trying to produce new plug-compatible devices for the > machine, if the necessaries are not available. No offense at all. Bob Shannon took the first step by creating the IDE interface. I'd have to hack up TSB to get it to see that drive as a 7900/05/06/20, but that is certainly doable (and not difficult really). You should take the second step... and that is building a modern replacement for the 12920/21/22 mux set. That is the last part that is fairly rare and is the single biggest thing keeping most HP folks from running TSB. There's another approach... I have done some initial digging in to the source for TSB to see about making some changes that would both improve the OS and make it run on hardware that is easier to find. There are two key things that have to change.... 1) implement DMS support (memory over 32kw) and 2) make the number of ports configurable... then it may be possible that the code could be revamped to run in just one cpu. Gone would be the dual cpu requirement, gone would be the microcode requirement, gone would be the need for the rare mux set. The number of ports is already configurable (16 or 32)... but it would need to be granular in units of 1. Then you could gen your machine for say... 4 user ports. One of the key requirements to make this possible would be switching to use BACI boards for serial ports. If you look at the programming api that BACI boards offer, it's pretty incredible. I've never seen a serial interface with quite so many programmatic features. It seems to be extremely adept at keeping the load off the cpu. I'd also want to enhance the system console code to allow use of a BACI instead of the harder to find 12531 boards (the api isn't compatible). I am not positive that all this is possible, wouldn't know till I tried. But from a brief glance at the code I think it might be doable. I did set up the 2000/Access source code in a CVS repository... :) But then, I seem to never have any time to really dig in to projects like this :\ > That sounds like a plan. If any partially lobotomized CPU will work > as the secondary, I probably will just wait around for one to present > itself. Best choice - and most common - get yourself a 2109 or 2113 (21MX/E). You'll need 32kw of ram... but heck, you could easily pull one of your 64k boards from your F and be all set. You'd also need floating point roms... was that standard on the E? I forget, and no books around at the moment. But I think it was standard on the E. Lastly, you'd want to make sure it had a FAB board (a daughterboard underneath the cpu - most E's have it). The 2000/Access IOP firmware (special microcode) comes in a chip size that can only go on a FAB, not a FEM. It would be possible to rip the data from those chips, re-organize it, and stuff it into the larger formfactor chips that will go on a FAB *OR* a FEM.... but those larger chip blanks seem to be unobtanium. > o Can a TSB system be connected to an Ethernet and be useful? > > o If so, what cards are needed? > > o Is there any way to get TSB connected to an IP network? TSB certainly has no IP support, and without DMS, the memory map is awfully cramped - little room for new code. However - just cheat: put a terminal server in front of it and away you go! > I'd love to offer TSB ports on a real machine. The 2000B TSB system > I used in high school had 64 phone lines and ports. I'd like to do the > same, but NOT by buying 64 phone lines... 32 lines was the max. Perhaps they had two machines :) I opened mine up for a few folks to telnet in to for a short time. I didn't use a terminal server. I had a FreeBSD pc with a wireless internet card to my home cablemodem network. The PC also had a digiboard PC8e (8 port serial card). People could telnet to the PC and get a script which picked an open line from the 8 and cu'd them to the first available port on the HP. I never kept it up for more than a few hours, by arrangement only. I stopped doing it after the novelty wore off... I don't like leaving the dual 2100's running unattended. Jay West From jdbryan at acm.org Tue Jan 9 10:26:50 2007 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:26:50 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) In-Reply-To: <011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200701091627.l09GQtJX020955@mail.bcpl.net> On 8 Jan 2007 at 11:15, Jay West wrote: > RTE...To my own way of thinking, it's an odd non-intuitive OS. In what way? -- Dave From jdbryan at acm.org Tue Jan 9 10:26:54 2007 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:26:54 -0500 Subject: getting started with your new HP 21xx In-Reply-To: <018601c73359$a7f8e100$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200701091627.l09GQtJV020955@mail.bcpl.net> On 8 Jan 2007 at 13:17, Jay West wrote: > wow, apparently there's no 21MX E or 21MX F short user guide on > bitsavers. They're available from the HP Computer Museum: http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2374 (M-Series) http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2398 http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2399 (E-Series) http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2400 (F-Series) The Operating and Reference Manuals are separate for the M-Series and combined for the E/F-Series. > The diag manuals on bitsavers aren't the complete set, nor the latest > set. http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/1000/Diagnostics/ contains the complete set of manuals from the four HP binders (24396-14001 through 004) that accompanied the 24396-13601 Rev. 2040 tape. What do you believe is missing? > I have been working for some time on putting together a CD that contains > the entire latest (last) diagnostic library.... What revision is the latest (last) library? -- Dave From jdbryan at acm.org Tue Jan 9 10:29:09 2007 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:29:09 -0500 Subject: HP 2100A vs. 2100S Message-ID: <200701091629.l09GTAWS021585@mail.bcpl.net> Would anyone know the difference between a 2100A and a 2100S? Is it just packaging (such as, e.g., the "13246A Printer Subsystem," which was simply a 9866A printer and a 2640A terminal duplex card that were sold together)? Or is there something fundamentally different in the hardware? -- Dave From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 10:43:23 2007 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 16:43:23 +0000 Subject: rt-11 Documentation In-Reply-To: References: <26c11a640701071058y67f48df8n7d8f93cd2062a4be@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640701090843q4566f6ffp27203bcaddbd19f1@mail.gmail.com> > > Hey, I just recently bought a complete set of VAX/VMS documentation -- > 12 boxes stuffed to the gills. > > Nothing is too heavy to post! > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > I was more a combination of too heavy for me to want to carry to the post office and the fact that it would probably be cheaper to print them out yourself. Dan From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 9 10:59:12 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:59:12 -0700 Subject: rt-11 Documentation In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:43:23 +0000. <26c11a640701090843q4566f6ffp27203bcaddbd19f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <26c11a640701090843q4566f6ffp27203bcaddbd19f1 at mail.gmail.com>, "Dan Williams" writes: > I was more a combination of too heavy for me to want to carry to the > post office and the fact that it would probably be cheaper to print > them out yourself. a) not all of the documentation is available online b) if you print them out yourself, you don't get the binders. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 9 11:26:58 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 10:26:58 -0700 Subject: shelving storage solution In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:10:35 -0600. <6.2.3.4.2.20070109071716.057c4d88@mail> Message-ID: In article <6.2.3.4.2.20070109071716.057c4d88 at mail>, John Foust writes: > There's that. I find particle board and OSB untrustworthy. > [...] > > I've tried some of the plastic ones, too, 2" thick shelves with corrugation > and struts that would give the impression of strength - but over time, even > with objects only as heavy as monitors and computers, they've sagged an > inch in the middle of a yard-wide span. Yeah, I've already had bookshelves of particle/OSB construction sag from the weight of the books -- and I live in a desert. I looked at the plastic shelving units and decided they were OK for buckets and potted plants, but not for terminals. That's ultimately why I decided to go with the wire shelving. I did notice one thing after I loaded them up -- if your terminals or whatever have feet on them that don't stick through the wire mesh, then all the load of the unit is pressing on wherever the feet are touching only. For these units I'm considering going to home depot and buying some 1/8" thick plywood that I cut into pieces to rest on top of the wire. Then the load will be more evenly distributed across the shelf. So far, no sagging on the shelves themselves, just a little pushing of individual wires with the feet. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 11:31:09 2007 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:31:09 +0000 Subject: rt-11 Documentation In-Reply-To: References: <26c11a640701090843q4566f6ffp27203bcaddbd19f1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640701090931l735ad700wd12c90ba6b82f7a4@mail.gmail.com> On 09/01/07, Richard wrote: > > In article <26c11a640701090843q4566f6ffp27203bcaddbd19f1 at mail.gmail.com>, > "Dan Williams" writes: > > > I was more a combination of too heavy for me to want to carry to the > > post office and the fact that it would probably be cheaper to print > > them out yourself. > > a) not all of the documentation is available online > > b) if you print them out yourself, you don't get the binders. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > As I said in my original post they are print-outs. Dan From irisworld at mac.com Tue Jan 9 11:31:59 2007 From: irisworld at mac.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 12:31:59 -0500 Subject: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion In-Reply-To: <20070105213444.ppd9lv4kocbowowk@webmail.dds.nl> References: <20070105213444.ppd9lv4kocbowowk@webmail.dds.nl> Message-ID: <037EF5C2-A5A7-4930-9298-18EC9C79F75A@mac.com> On Jan 5, 2007, at 3:34 PM, roosmcd at dds.nl wrote: >> From: "William Donzelli" >> Subject: Re: Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion >> >>> So noone has one of the Intergraph workstations? A pity. They >>> were a >>> dominant player, you'd have expected some of the machines to >>> survive! >> >> >> There are quite a few in Rhode Island at both computer groups. >> Even an >> Intergraph VAX, with weird disk controllers made to search for >> polygon >> data in hardware. >> > > I still have a 2020 and a 125 from a lot I traded some time ago . > These were used as GIS systems by the government. Never got the 125 > to work because of some bug in the installation procedure. The > steel-encased Intergraph 21" color monitor was also very nice.... > I also have a lot of documentation, cd-roms, tapes and floppies. > > If anyone is interested, I have Intergraph memory for sale for > 2000 machines, sets of 4x4MB special Intergraph 30-pin simms; my > machines already is at the 64MB max. I've tried a long time to > sell those, so far no luck, so I don't think many people have > Intergraph workstations :) . > > greetings, > Michiel > I have an Intergraph 6700 (C400I Clipper Server). If anyone is in the michigan area, I'll give them the machine. Never really had any time to fool with it. Rob From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 9 11:44:01 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:44:01 -0600 Subject: rt-11 Documentation In-Reply-To: References: <26c11a640701071058y67f48df8n7d8f93cd2062a4be@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <45A3D461.2040207@yahoo.co.uk> Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > On 1/9/07, Richard wrote: > >> >> Nothing is too heavy to post! > > Try a complete 8-node VAXcluster with VAX9000s with the accompanying > storage, starcouplers, printers, VTs, networking gear.... etc. For certain classes of things, the problem's not in the weight or size, but in retaining (and having on-tap at either end) the knowledge to dismantle and put back together again, I suppose. I remember with our Marconi that it took several days for the trained site engineers to label everything up, dismantle it, and properly pack it - then another whole day at the other end to put everything back together properly and recommission it. That's without the effort to physically move the thing across country, which easily filled an entire truck what with the machine itself, documentation, software (large cabinet of paper tape), spares, and the control desk. It's a similar story for any big installations, I suspect - DEC's just something of an exception to a certain extent because there's so much of their stuff about and so much knowledge within the collecting community. Even then I'd think twice about entrusting the bigger hardware to a freight company without some sort of supervision from people who know the hardware. cheers Jules From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 9 12:19:58 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 12:19:58 -0600 Subject: HP 2100A vs. 2100S References: <200701091629.l09GTAWS021585@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <011001c7341a$c6b0d460$6500a8c0@BILLING> Dave wrote.... > Would anyone know the difference between a 2100A and a 2100S? Is it just > packaging (such as, e.g., the "13246A Printer Subsystem," which was simply > a 9866A printer and a 2640A terminal duplex card that were sold together)? > Or is there something fundamentally different in the hardware? My apologies :( Dave asked me this offlist a while back and I hadn't gotten to it yet. On responding to personal (offlist) email, lets just say I will never die. I tend to respond quickly to things I know off the top of my head, and take eons to respond to anything that I have to dig up in a manual or look up or actually perform some task. On to the info... There are the differences "as they were sold", and then there are the "real" differences. The differences "as they were sold" are more of a packaging thing - those really aren't differences as the computer was certainly capable of having or not having the packaged options, they just were only orderable/sold a certain way at time of initial order. Then you get to the real hardware differences. According to sales price lists... 2100A Computer programmers panel, extended arithmetic instructions, memory parity check with interrupt, power fail interrupt with automatic restart, and memory protect Options: -008 8K memory -012 12K memory -016 16K memory -024 24K memory -032 32K memory 2100S computer programmers panel, extended arithmetic instructions, memory parity check with interrupt, power fail interrupt with automatic restart, memory protect, 16K words of memory, floating point instructions, DMA, time base generator, and tty interface Options: -024 24K memory -032 32K memory So, according to "as they were sold", a 2100A could have 8, 12, 24, or 32kw of core while a 2100S could only have 16, 24, or 32kw. This is pure packaging, the memory controllers in both 2100A and S both have clear jumper settings for 8, 12, 16,24, or 32. As they were sold, the A didn't have the floating point option roms while the S did. Of course the floating point roms were perfectly installable in an A as an option (but see below). The S came with the cards for DMA, TBG, and TTY while the A did not. Of course, you could easily order DMA, TBG, and TTY cards for an A too. So in effect, the only difference between the two is the paint and lettering on the front panel. As a result - it is best to disregard ALL of the above and just consider the machines identical. In other words, just because it's an A doesn't mean it doesn't have FP or FPP... many, perhaps most - did. BUT... see below... One exception. There is some disparity between the two (given certain date codes... given other date codes there is NO disparity between the two) with regards to their capacity to hold add-on firmware roms EASILY. I do not have the exact info at my fingertips, but it basically goes something like this: On the 2100 computers (A&S), addon firmware can go on circuit board A1 and A2. I forget which modules 0-4 go on which boards, but long story short firmware goes on boards A1 & A2. On early models of the A, there are no sockets in some of the locations where you would put addon roms. The etching is there, just no sockets. I don't think the jumper setting to enable those sockets is present. On the S, all microcode module locations have sockets and can be enabled by jumpers. What I can't recall is if the older 2100A boards had zero sockets past the base instruction set, or had some but less than the maximum. I think it was the latter. However, later 2100A machines did (I think) come with A1 and A2 boards that were fully socketed for all modules. And to add to that... I don't remember where, but I definitely remember seeing somewhere (perhaps in the 2100A schematics) that there was a note in the user manual by HP sanctioning user modifications to the A1 &| A2 boards to upgrade it to allow all microcode modules. They basically said - if you want to add microcode in modules X... you must either trade in your A1 & A2 boards for the newer version, OR, you must cut this trace, add this jumper, and solder in chip sockets for the remaining spots on the board. Again - correctness warning - I do not have manuals or systems in front of me as I write this, I'm going from memory. I may well have made errors as to specifics above, but I am sure that the general idea is correct as to the differences. So, that all being said... if you have a later A with all microcode modules socketed or an earlier A that someone added the sockets to, or an earlier A that someone traded in the A1 & A2 boards, there is no difference between the A and the S. If you have an earlier version of A that has fewer microcode sockets, some may say that the fact you have to install sockets means they are different, but others may say that's no difference at all. Your call. Jay West From Watzman at neo.rr.com Tue Jan 9 12:29:12 2007 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 13:29:12 -0500 Subject: USB 5.25" floppy (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: <200701091756.l09HubU4030650@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <002201c7341c$0f91a3c0$6500a8c0@barry> Link to a possible USB 5.25" floppy drive: http://silme.pair.com/~goldman/deviceside/ From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 9 12:39:50 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 12:39:50 -0600 Subject: RTE References: <200701091627.l09GQtJX020955@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <014601c7341d$8d181490$6500a8c0@BILLING> I had written.... >> RTE...To my own way of thinking, it's an odd non-intuitive OS. To which Dave held my feet to the fire... > In what way? *grin* I have no sound logical basis for this. Purely subjective gut reaction to the admittedly tiny amount of exposure I've had to it. Most OS's that I first look at... because I've had lots of exposure to lots of other OS's... there is some amount of "oh, yeah, that makes sense, I bet I know where they are heading, I suspect they implemented this THAT way...". I do not get that sense with RTE for some reason. Every time I've started digging in to it by reading in manuals, I find myself raising an eyebrow a lot and muttering "huh?". This is more a statement about me than the OS probably ;) That does not mean RTE is a bad or hard to grasp OS, that's not what I'm saying. I'm merely saying that for ME, the way MY brain is wired (peanut gallery - shup)... I don't just intuitively "get it" with RTE like I do many other OS's. When I approach a new OS, often when I am familiar with one area I can at least make educated guesses about other areas of it and "slide right in" to get productive right away. I just don't get that "transitional familiarity" with RTE. This could be a deficiency in my wiring ;) This could be that I really haven't spent enough time with RTE for the light bulb to go off. Could be both! Hopefully no one will take what I said for myself as a reason THEY should shy away from RTE. What I can say, is that I will be delving in to RTE at some point in the future in detail. Sooner or later, I've decided to make time for it and give it a real chance. Perhaps then the light bulb will go off and I will radically change my tune :) Jay From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 9 12:32:20 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:32:20 -0700 Subject: Fwd: Microvax IIs in BA123s Message-ID: FYI... I'm just passing this along, please contact the original poster. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:19:01 GMT Groups: comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms,comp.sys.dec.micro,alt.sys.pdp11,vmsnet .pdp-11 From: Jeff Shirley Reply-To: spamalot at mindspring.com Subject: MicroVAX IIs/BA123s in Demand? Id: <9zyoh.8847$w91.8571 at newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net> --------- Greetings. I have a couple of MicroVAX II systems in BA123 boxes I would like to sell, hopefully to hobbyists rather than the local scrap guy. My question is whether it might make more sense to just pull the boards and cabinet kits, and scrap the BA123 enclosures. The first system has fairly standard components, a KA630 (M7606-AF), two 4MB boards (M7608-BP), a pair of DHV11s (M3104), a DELQA (M7516), RQDX3 (M7555), TQK50 (M7546), RD53, TK50, and a pair of boards from Ultimate Computer Corporation. I think the second system has some more interesting parts, like a pair of ESDI dives and a Pertec tape drive interface. The first system weighed in at 125 pounds, which would cost upwards of $150 to ship across the country from (from the Los Angeles area). I just do not know if there is any demand for the old BA123s in the hobbyist community. Opinions? Jeff. P.S. Apologies to the PDP-11 groups for the crossposts. P.P.S. This old DEC hardware amazes me. I hooked a VT220 to the first system described above, and powered it up. It booted right up with MicroVMS V4.7, circa 1987. -- Jeff Shirley spamalot at mindspring.com "Bill Gates is filthy rich, but that doesn't mean I want to be married to him." From sellam at vintagetech.com Tue Jan 9 12:36:06 2007 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 10:36:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Yet another bounty: CompuServe software ($$$) Message-ID: Hey All. Does anyone have this software by chance? Compuserv professional connection plus. Message management with forms. Compuserv, Inc. 1988 (PC3-Mail System) If so, it's worth some bucks to you. Please contact me directly (I'm not subscribed and won't get replies here). Thanks! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 9 12:43:27 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 10:43:27 -0800 Subject: USB 5.25" floppy (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) Message-ID: <45A3E24F.70307@bitsavers.org> Link to a possible USB 5.25" floppy drive: http://silme.pair.com/~goldman/deviceside/ -- I spoke to him at VCF, and was unimpressed by how closed he intends to keep the HW/SW. A USB floppy interface will be part of the fallout from the 'wizl' development that I'm doing, though the hardware is going to be in the $100+ range. http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/diskwizl/ I'm going to spend this next quarter concentrating on developing the wizl. Was looking back and it's been six years since I started looking at getting an analog 7-track tape reader running, and I need to get this project finished. From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 9 12:47:06 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 12:47:06 -0600 Subject: getting started with your new HP 21xx References: <200701091627.l09GQtJV020955@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <014d01c7341e$93835730$6500a8c0@BILLING> Dave wrote... > They're available from the HP Computer Museum: > > http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2374 (M-Series) > http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2398 > > http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2399 (E-Series) > > http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2400 (F-Series) Aha... perfect. Thank you Dave! I have the manuals, but it's nice to know where I can now point folks looking for that info. Much appreciated! Belay my previous link to the 2100 manual and go straight to the E or F series ones above! I had written... >> The diag manuals on bitsavers aren't the complete set, nor the latest >> set. To which Dave replied.... > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/1000/Diagnostics/ contains the complete > set > of manuals from the four HP binders (24396-14001 through 004) that > accompanied the 24396-13601 Rev. 2040 tape. What do you believe is > missing? Ahhh you aren't looking at the same spot I was. I had wandered in to this URL: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/21xx/diag/ Which is decidedly not the same thing :) >> I have been working for some time on putting together a CD that contains >> the entire latest (last) diagnostic library.... > > What revision is the latest (last) library? You and I had talked about this... going from memory... I think I had 2040, but you had supplied the one single upgraded diagnostic that made the collection effectively 2326? To answer this completely I need to go dig on my laptop :) Jay From curt at atarimuseum.com Tue Jan 9 12:46:49 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:46:49 -0500 Subject: USB 5.25" floppy (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: <45A3E24F.70307@bitsavers.org> References: <45A3E24F.70307@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45A3E319.1040003@atarimuseum.com> Al, Would your interface allow for multiple format reads? (PC Fat, Apple ProDos, Amiga, C64) Essentially a USB version of the Catweasel??? But with format drivers developed? Curt Al Kossow wrote: > Link to a possible USB 5.25" floppy drive: > > http://silme.pair.com/~goldman/deviceside/ > > -- > > I spoke to him at VCF, and was unimpressed by how closed he intends to > keep the HW/SW. > > A USB floppy interface will be part of the fallout from the 'wizl' > development that I'm doing, though the hardware is going to be in the > $100+ range. > > http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/diskwizl/ > > I'm going to spend this next quarter concentrating on developing the > wizl. Was looking back and it's been six years since I started looking > at getting an analog 7-track tape reader running, and I need to get this > project finished. > > > > > From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 9 12:58:09 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 10:58:09 -0800 Subject: USB 5.25" floppy (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) Message-ID: <45A3E5C1.9010306@bitsavers.org> > Essentially a USB version of the Catweasel??? That's exactly what it is. A flux-tranistion interface daughter card for a fpga4fun SAXO board (USB2 chip and Altera FPGA). http://www.fpga4fun.com/board_Xylo.html This is probably similar to what the Device Side Data board is, but the intention that I have is to make the entire design, including the tool chain and host/device side code freely available. The tape wizl is a multichannel preamp and A/D converter attached to the same board. Cost could be driven down by designing a single board, but right now I'm only worrying about the boards needed for tape/disc interfacing. From jdbryan at acm.org Tue Jan 9 12:59:12 2007 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:59:12 -0500 Subject: HP 2100A vs. 2100S In-Reply-To: <011001c7341a$c6b0d460$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200701091859.l09IxECG017510@mail.bcpl.net> On 9 Jan 2007 at 12:19, Jay West wrote: > As a result - it is best to disregard ALL of the above and just consider > the machines identical. Just what I needed to know, thanks. Much appreciated. > One exception. There is some disparity between the two (given certain > date codes... This is not uncommon with the 1000 machines either. For example, regarding the F-Series machines being discussed in another thread, machines before date code 1920 are missing a fair number of instructions (four-word floating-point instructions, double-integer instructions, and a few SIS codes). The manual at the HP Computer Museum I cited in that thread was for the earlier machine. If you have the same manual for the post-1920 machine, I'd love to scan it. :-) Similarly, regarding RTE, M- and E-Series machines with CPU boards prior to about date code 1730 required massive hardware upgrades to run RTE-IV or later. CPU board, DMS ROMs, memory controller, memory protect, I/O backplane (!), etc. had to be exchanged for newer versions. So it's quite true that the name on the front of the box isn't the whole story as to what's in the box.... -- Dave From useddec at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 13:11:06 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 13:11:06 -0600 Subject: MicroVAX IIs in BA123s In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000b01c73421$ee2c8a50$4200a8c0@main> Hi Richard, I tried to email Jeff, and it keeps coming back. Do you have another email address or phone number for him? Thanks, Paul -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 12:32 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Fwd: Microvax IIs in BA123s FYI... I'm just passing this along, please contact the original poster. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:19:01 GMT Groups: comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms,comp.sys.dec.micro,alt.sys.pdp11,vmsnet .pdp-11 From: Jeff Shirley Reply-To: spamalot at mindspring.com Subject: MicroVAX IIs/BA123s in Demand? Id: <9zyoh.8847$w91.8571 at newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net> --------- Greetings. I have a couple of MicroVAX II systems in BA123 boxes I would like to sell, hopefully to hobbyists rather than the local scrap guy. My question is whether it might make more sense to just pull the boards and cabinet kits, and scrap the BA123 enclosures. The first system has fairly standard components, a KA630 (M7606-AF), two 4MB boards (M7608-BP), a pair of DHV11s (M3104), a DELQA (M7516), RQDX3 (M7555), TQK50 (M7546), RD53, TK50, and a pair of boards from Ultimate Computer Corporation. I think the second system has some more interesting parts, like a pair of ESDI dives and a Pertec tape drive interface. The first system weighed in at 125 pounds, which would cost upwards of $150 to ship across the country from (from the Los Angeles area). I just do not know if there is any demand for the old BA123s in the hobbyist community. Opinions? Jeff. P.S. Apologies to the PDP-11 groups for the crossposts. P.P.S. This old DEC hardware amazes me. I hooked a VT220 to the first system described above, and powered it up. It booted right up with MicroVMS V4.7, circa 1987. -- Jeff Shirley spamalot at mindspring.com "Bill Gates is filthy rich, but that doesn't mean I want to be married to him." From wizard at voyager.net Tue Jan 9 13:17:21 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:17:21 -0500 Subject: HP 1000 systems empty rack on ebay. In-Reply-To: <685935.44173.qm@web82709.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <685935.44173.qm@web82709.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1168370241.4220.227.camel@linux.site> On Mon, 2007-01-08 at 17:14 -0800, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > There's an HP 1000 system rack up on ebay right now, > (290068544027). Just thing to hold all of those 21MX > type systems in the last few posts. Kind of a long drive for me. I'd LOVE to buy it, but... anybody have any ideas for shipping that I can contact QUICKLY? Thanks in advance. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From glen.slick at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 13:42:03 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 11:42:03 -0800 Subject: Are there M4 9914 9-track tape driver users on the list? Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701091142u4581b231y24d2b032b7d15edd@mail.gmail.com> I acquired a couple of M4 9914 9-track tapes drives a while ago and finally got around to trying to do something useful with them. Never having used one before the first thing I did was just see if it would mount a tape ok. The first brand new tape I tried was sucked into the take-up reel ok and wound a few turns, then sucked all of the way back out, then the drive tried again before giving up with a N T U (No Take Up) error. I then tried a second brand new tape from a different vendor and got the same results. Then I went back into the garage and hefted (it's a workout) the second 9914 drive into my work area and tried both tapes on the second drive with the same result. Then I tried manually threading a tape onto the take-up reel while the drive was powered off and making sure that winding the take-up reel caused the supply reel to turn, then powered on the drive and got the same N T U error again. I looked in the manual and it said something about the N T U error occurring due to a lack of tach pulses. Then I looked at the tape path for what might be the tach sensor and guessed it was probably a metal roller near the take-up reel. I used a marker to put a dot on the top of the reel and noticed that it wasn't rotating when the tape was moving past it. I tried rotating this roller by hand and I could feel detents while rotating it and I assume it is attached to some type of rotary encoder. Now to the point posting this here, my questions are does anyone know if this roller/encoder needs any lubrication? If so, how? It felt somewhat stiff when I first tried rotating it and got a little easier to rotate the more I kept at it. And secondly, this roller did have a thin rubber coating which had turned to goo. I cleaned the goo off of the roller. If anyone else has seen this on a 9914 drive (I assume so, it was goo on both of mine) did they do anything about it? Is there a good way to re-rubber this roller? After cleaning the goo off of the tach roller and getting it to rotate a little more freely I did see it rotate when the tape was moving past it (wasn't sure if it would without the rubber) and now the 9914 will mount a tape most of the time. -Glen From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 9 13:49:20 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 13:49:20 -0600 Subject: HP 1000 systems empty rack on ebay. References: <685935.44173.qm@web82709.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1168370241.4220.227.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <001c01c73427$43f55930$6500a8c0@BILLING> Bob wrote.... >> There's an HP 1000 system rack up on ebay right now, >> (290068544027). Just thing to hold all of those 21MX >> type systems in the last few posts. That's exactly the correct period rack :) Appears to maybe be missing one of the antitip feet, but no huge deal. I have one identical to that, holds two 2113's, 2748B, 7900A, and a I2C paper tape reader/punch emulator (THANK YOU BOB!). > Kind of a long drive for me. I'd LOVE to buy it, but... anybody > have any ideas for shipping that I can contact QUICKLY? Thanks in > advance. I believe an empty rack of that style is around 105 pounds. Typical dimensions, figure around 21 wide by 72 tall by maybe 30 deep. Secure front door with duct tape, metal band it to pallet (with a piece of cardboard on top - the top is painted/textured like the sides), wrap in plastic, then ship out the door. See if the seller will band it to a pallet & such, from the looks of where the rack is they may have that capability. When you call a shipper, see if they will let you do a ship to terminal, instead of ship to residence. If you can do that on both ends, it saves a LOT. From one end... still helps. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 9 14:30:49 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 14:30:49 -0600 Subject: HP 2100A vs. 2100S References: <200701091859.l09IxECG017510@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <007901c7342d$0f7b25d0$6500a8c0@BILLING> David wrote.... > This is not uncommon with the 1000 machines either. For example, > regarding > the F-Series machines being discussed in another thread, machines before > date code 1920 are missing a fair number of instructions (four-word > floating-point instructions, double-integer instructions, and a few SIS > codes). Most interesting, I had no idea! Wouldn't those missing instructions be strictly due to different microcode sets? Or is it something else in the micromachine? Hummm... I had found a statement in the MEF Engineering Reference docs that the E & F cpu boards (sans roms) were not interchangeable before a certain datecode, but after a certain datecode they were. I'm guessing this was done so they only had one board to manufacture. But I'm curious if this is the same thing that you mention above, and what exactly changed besides microcode if so? > Similarly, regarding RTE, M- and E-Series machines with CPU boards prior > to > about date code 1730 required massive hardware upgrades to run RTE-IV or > later. CPU board, DMS ROMs, memory controller, memory protect, I/O > backplane (!), etc. had to be exchanged for newer versions. Uh oh... holy cow. I had NO idea. I believe all my machines are after that date code, but you can bet I'll be keeping an eye out for that. Do you have any good docs on what to look for besides the cpu date code (with regards to RTE compatability) such as on the memory controller, MEM PRT, etc.? And the I/O backplane even? Yikes, that's a bit unsettling - seeing as I know for sure I replaced an I/O backplane in one of my boxes cause the connectors were cracked. I just grabbed a backplane from a spare junk machine.... :/ Jay From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 9 14:41:39 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:41:39 -0700 Subject: rt-11 Documentation In-Reply-To: <200701090947.42871.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <26c11a640701071058y67f48df8n7d8f93cd2062a4be@mail.gmail.com> <200701090947.42871.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <45A3FE03.1090608@jetnet.ab.ca> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Perhaps too heavy for the "postal service", but then there's always > Freight companies. Hmm... You don't ship by air. :) > It's even possible to ship buildings if you cut them into sections small > enough to fit on a flatbed truck. So what about the buildings made of molded cement! > Pat I suspect most of the the time it is *too* *heavy* for the person selling the product to move it out his/her door. From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 9 14:46:59 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 14:46:59 -0600 Subject: Are there M4 9914 9-track tape driver users on the list? References: <1e1fc3e90701091142u4581b231y24d2b032b7d15edd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <008901c7342f$4f1a7630$6500a8c0@BILLING> Glen wrote... >I acquired a couple of M4 9914 9-track tapes drives a while ago and > finally got around to trying to do something useful with them. Glen, do we just collect all the same gear? ;) I have two 9914's, both having problems. One of them the problem is the ADP board for sure. The other one I THINK the problem is the ADP board. There are really good docs on these drives available... service manuals, schematics I seem to recall too... but I just haven't had a chance to dig back in to mine for a long time. > Never having used one before the first thing I did was just see if it > would mount a tape ok. The first brand new tape I tried was sucked > into the take-up reel ok and wound a few turns, then sucked all of the > way back out, then the drive tried again before giving up with a N T U > (No Take Up) error. I then tried a second brand new tape from a > different vendor and got the same results. Did you try inputting the CE unlock code and running the recalibration? May help, certainly won't hurt at this point. > And secondly, this > roller did have a thin rubber coating which had turned to goo. I > cleaned the goo off of the roller. If anyone else has seen this on a > 9914 drive (I assume so, it was goo on both of mine) did they do > anything about it? Is there a good way to re-rubber this roller? On my rollers, the rubber is perfectly fine. I lucked out I guess. Jay From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 9 14:52:09 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:52:09 -0700 Subject: Manchester Baby. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A40079.6030506@jetnet.ab.ca> Austin Pass wrote: > P.S. The guys at the museum have hooked it up to a PC, so that programs > written on the emulator can be loaded into the baby to be run. Does this > qualify it as the world?s most ancient add-on / peripheral / co-processor? > ;-) I say dump the PC ... go for better I/O as we all know the PC has more software/hardware down time than the Baby. I consider this a good way to demo a computer system ... in this case a PDP 8. http://www.pdp8.net/ . The main problem with machines like the Baby is that they need to be seen live rather than some emulation on a PC to get the real feel for what was done at the time. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 9 13:24:47 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 19:24:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: from "cctech@porky.vax-11.org" at Jan 8, 7 10:35:40 am Message-ID: > > > I've used a product called plastic epoxy which includes a solvent to eat > into the items being bonded for a better bond. I've had the best luck > placing a small piece of metal (paperclip) across the break and spreading > an 1/8" thick layer over that. For plastics that it will disolve (if you see what I mean), I've had great success using a liquid called 'Plastic Weld' available from good model shops. It's basically dicholoromethane (methylene chloride). What you do is put the plastic parts together and run a brush dipped in the solvent along the crack. For a stronger join, I cut a piece of cotton frabric to fit over the hack of the repair, put it in place and 'paint' it with the solvent. Then push the cotton into the softened plastic. -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 9 15:08:03 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 13:08:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: shelving storage solution In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20070109071716.057c4d88@mail> References: <6.2.3.4.2.20070109071716.057c4d88@mail> Message-ID: <20070109130346.Y57263@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, John Foust wrote: > There's that. I find particle board and OSB untrustworthy. > As Fred suspected, the rivet-lock ones with particle-board shelves > do tend to change over time. In a decade in a basement even with a > dehumidifier, heavy objects easily distort the shelves. They may > be fine for light-duty. Current graham cracker is a lot different than the earlier materials. It may be worth re-trying some forms of it. If it's the same one as I think that it might be, . . . for a little while, Costco had a very nice heavy version. It has recesses in the shelf supports, such that each shelf is supported around its entire perimeter (and a brace), and the graham cracker is recessed enough that its edges are protected. I have been a little surprised at how well it has held up. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 9 14:56:59 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:56:59 -0700 Subject: MicroVAX IIs in BA123s In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:11:06 -0600. <000b01c73421$ee2c8a50$4200a8c0@main> Message-ID: In article <000b01c73421$ee2c8a50$4200a8c0 at main>, "Paul Anderson" writes: > Hi Richard, > > I tried to email Jeff, and it keeps coming back. Do you have another email > address or phone number for him? You could try posting to the newsgroup... I was just passing along the message "as is" since I don't know the guy. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Tue Jan 9 15:18:40 2007 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:18:40 -0600 Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more Message-ID: Jobs has announced a name change: "SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday made the company's long-awaited jump into the mobile phone business and renamed the company to just "Apple Inc.," reflecting its increasing focus on consumer electronics. He said the name change is meant to reflect the fact that Apple has matured from a computer manufacturer to a full-fledged consumer electronics company." I wonder if "devolved" or "degraded" might better describe the change than "matured". Bob _________________________________________________________________ Get live scores and news about your team: Add the Live.com Football Page www.live.com/?addtemplate=football&icid=T001MSN30A0701 From evan at snarc.net Tue Jan 9 15:23:33 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 16:23:33 -0500 Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003001c73434$6ab09690$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Interesting, Dell did the same change a few years ago. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Feldman [mailto:r_a_feldman at hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 4:19 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more Jobs has announced a name change: "SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday made the company's long-awaited jump into the mobile phone business and renamed the company to just "Apple Inc.," reflecting its increasing focus on consumer electronics. He said the name change is meant to reflect the fact that Apple has matured from a computer manufacturer to a full-fledged consumer electronics company." I wonder if "devolved" or "degraded" might better describe the change than "matured". Bob _________________________________________________________________ Get live scores and news about your team: Add the Live.com Football Page www.live.com/?addtemplate=football&icid=T001MSN30A0701 From g at kurico.com Tue Jan 9 15:36:08 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:36:08 -0600 Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A40AC8.1000400@kurico.com> Robert Feldman wrote: > Jobs has announced a name change: > > "SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday made > the company's long-awaited jump into the mobile phone business and > renamed the company to just "Apple Inc.," reflecting its increasing > focus on consumer electronics. > > He said the name change is meant to reflect the fact that Apple has > matured from a computer manufacturer to a full-fledged consumer > electronics company." > > I wonder if "devolved" or "degraded" might better describe the change > than "matured". > > Bob > Actually I disagree about "devolved" being a better description. Having used computers for a good while now (like most of us here), I am constantly frustrated by the fact that even though they are faster and cheaper, they are not necessarily "better". They, for the most part, have refused to integrate smoothly into our lives and instead remain temperamental little beasties that have to be carefully taken care of and handled. Anyone who can help drive them into devices that we can spend as much time using vs maintaining IMHO is making progress. Now the proof is in the pudding and we'll see if it lives up to the hype, but it certainly appears to be a step in the right direction. I wonder if Apple (the former computer company) paved the way for the name change in the last round of negotiations it had with Apple (the record label) as one of Apple's major arguments (hey, we're a computer company, no one would get confused) is now officially gone. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 9 16:00:41 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:00:41 -0700 Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: <45A40AC8.1000400@kurico.com> References: <45A40AC8.1000400@kurico.com> Message-ID: <45A41089.3020603@jetnet.ab.ca> George Currie wrote: > I wonder if Apple (the former computer company) paved the way for the > name change in the last round of negotiations it had with Apple (the > record label) as one of Apple's major arguments (hey, we're a computer > company, no one would get confused) is now officially gone. I wonder that too, since Apple (comp) makes Ipods that could get confused with Apple (music). ??? From glen.slick at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 16:03:35 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 14:03:35 -0800 Subject: Are there M4 9914 9-track tape driver users on the list? In-Reply-To: <008901c7342f$4f1a7630$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <1e1fc3e90701091142u4581b231y24d2b032b7d15edd@mail.gmail.com> <008901c7342f$4f1a7630$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701091403x2f7a7424l9c649145e5b8ecb6@mail.gmail.com> On 1/9/07, Jay West wrote: > Did you try inputting the CE unlock code and running the recalibration? May > help, certainly won't hurt at this point. > After I got a tape to load ok by fiddling with the tach roller for a while the drive does seem to work. I was able to use a linix machine to dd the 2.11BSD files to a tape in the 9914, and then used dos machine to read the tape back from the 9914 into a tap file using st, then verify that I could boot the tape image into a 2.11BSD installation using the demo version of Ersatz-11. So it would appear that the 9914 can write and read a tape now. > On my rollers, the rubber is perfectly fine. I lucked out I guess. > The rubber on the tach roller on my 9914 might have been ok if I didn't start rotating the roller for a while with my finger to see if I could get it to rotately more freely. Now that the rubber goo has been removed, I wonder if that has changed the diameter enough that the linear tape speed is different enough to cause interchange issues with tape written on other drives. Or is that not an issue? Is the timing information recovered from the data on the tape regardless of the tape speed, within reasonable tolerances? I still would like to know if I should lubricate the tach roller somehow, and re-rubber it somehow. But now I'm stumped on getting a real 11/73 box to boot from the 2.11BSD tape on the 9914 drive. Does anyone have a manual for the Dilog SQ703, or has anyone got one running in one of their systems? That's what I'm trying to use to connect the 9914 to the 11/73 box without much luck in trying to boot from the tape. This is the first time I have tried doing anything with a real 11/73 box so I'm new to this all around. Has anyone used a 9914 drive through the Pertec interface instead of the SCSI interface? It appears you could do that by removing the SCSI interface board and the access covers over the Pertec connectors in the back of the drive. I have a DQ142 (anyone have manuals for that? DU142 is on bitsavers, DQ142 is not) and wonder if that might be workable alternative to using the SQ703 with the 9914 if I can come up with some cables to hook the two together. -Glen From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 9 16:31:46 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:31:46 -0700 Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:36:08 -0600. <45A40AC8.1000400@kurico.com> Message-ID: In article <45A40AC8.1000400 at kurico.com>, George Currie writes: > [...] Anyone who can help drive them into devices that we can > spend as much time using vs maintaining IMHO is making progress. Computers aren't toasters. Attempts to make them act and behave like toasters will mutate them into toasters and they will stop being computers. What you're asking for has already happened, its just that because you don't know the computers are in there that they are functioning as designed. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 9 16:42:47 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:42:47 -0700 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 Message-ID: Is anyone else using this machine? I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 9 16:59:47 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 14:59:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070109145554.A65849@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Richard wrote: > Computers aren't toasters. Attempts to make them act and behave like > toasters will mutate them into toasters and they will stop being > computers. "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone." - Bjarne Stroustrup > What you're asking for has already happened, its just that because you > don't know the computers are in there that they are functioning as > designed. Lau Tzu postulated that the best government is invisible; if you notice it, it is because something is wrong. If you never notice it, then that means that it is working correctly. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 9 17:04:52 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 15:04:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: <45A40AC8.1000400@kurico.com> References: <45A40AC8.1000400@kurico.com> Message-ID: <20070109150215.A65849@shell.lmi.net> > > Jobs has announced a name change: > > "SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday made > > the company's long-awaited jump into the mobile phone business and > > renamed the company to just "Apple Inc.," reflecting its increasing > > focus on consumer electronics. > > He said the name change is meant to reflect the fact that Apple has > > matured from a computer manufacturer to a full-fledged consumer > > electronics company." > Robert Feldman wrote: > > I wonder if "devolved" or "degraded" might better describe the change > > than "matured". On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, George Currie wrote: > Actually I disagree about "devolved" being a better description. Having > used computers for a good while now (like most of us here), I am > constantly frustrated by the fact that even though they are faster and > cheaper, they are not necessarily "better". "matured" v "devolved" v "degraded" has NOTHING to do with whether computers are getting better or worse. It is ENTIRELY about the transition from being a computer company into being a consumer electronics company. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 9 17:19:02 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 15:19:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <311545.88787.qm@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tony Duell wrote: > What you do is put the plastic parts together and > run a brush dipped in > the solvent along the crack. For a stronger join, I > cut a piece of cotton > frabric to fit over the hack of the repair, put it > in place and 'paint' > it with the solvent. Then push the cotton into the > softened plastic. For parts that mate on the flat, you can always bond a strip of whatever over the area where 2 parts join, just where a viewer can't see it. Same basically applies if the crack spans an area where the case has angles. Something like that... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 9 17:32:11 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 15:32:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A2F090.3030003@brutman.com> Message-ID: <297605.11905.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> >That's why God made Catweasels. Yeah, one of those would be nice I suppose. I'm just too cheap. "And GCR doesn't imply varaible data rate or spindle speed. That Durango that I posted a web page on used GCR to good advantage without fooling with spindle speed (almost a 1MB on a 360K 5.25" diskette). I believe that Microtech marketed a PC that worked similarly (although I'd have to check to make sure). I think someone's written a Catweasel driver that fits almost 4MB on a 1.44MB diskette..." Yeah and what was the point of making that chick suspend the thing in air while they snapped the picture? I think the picture would have been just as alluring if they set it on a table and had her embellish it that manner. The Victor 9000 places 1.2 megs (how conveniently deceptive) on a DD floppy. I know it uses GCR encoding, and yes that doesn't equate to a variable speed spindle, just that commonly they go together (it seems anyway). I'm not sure if it does, but my guess is yes > Macintosh GCR diskettes (400K/800K) require a wider > range of data transfer > rates, but can be done with the "DELUXE Option > Board" or the "Catweasel". Now that's good news, because I know the Macs have variable spindle rates (that was my whole point about getting a REAL vintage Mac! You get to hear the whir-WHIR-whir-whir-WHIR-whir). I have an apparently early version of the "Deluxe" Option Board (were all them designated Deluxe?). It uses all discrete logic. I was pointed to a site that had all or most of the associated warez, but I've yet to try it out. If it wasn't obvious, the underlying subject of this part of thread is how to deal with the lack of a Victor 9000 boot floppy. > Sirius/Victor 9000 diskettes should be doable with > the flux transition > boards, but last time that I needed to, there was a > Victor 9000 handy, so > we just shoved the data through the serial port. It's been a while *obviously* but aren't the means to format individual tracks embedded in the rom-bios? Or were those dos services? I have a few books out in the shed, maybe I should just look it up! I had envisioned a scheme by which I could hack onto the bios so a blank floppy could be formatted in a V9000, and subsequently the date/image from a normal floppy could be transferred to it (I have a whole boatload of images for the machine, but I'm not quite sure how they created the image of a boot floppy...or why if it can't be created w/o a bootable V9000). *went out to the shed. Yes there is present in the BIOS a service to format tracks. Not all clones comply in this way though (but where would the routine to do this be if not in the bios?). I noticed in the docs for my NEC APC III that DOS function calls were more or less the same as a vanilla pc, but I don't recall seeing mention of the equivalent BIOS calls. Anyone know?* __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 9 17:35:06 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:35:06 -0700 Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A426AA.6030104@jetnet.ab.ca> Richard wrote: > What you're asking for has already happened, its just that because you > don't know the computers are in there that they are functioning as > designed. I don't need a puter in *my* toaster. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 9 17:38:23 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:38:23 -0700 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A4276F.8000505@jetnet.ab.ca> Richard wrote: > Is anyone else using this machine? > I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. You can do that with a PDP-8. :) So what was the typical usage for a average user on a PDP-10 back then? Word processing? Computer Science? Acounting? Fortran programs? From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 9 17:47:49 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:47:49 -0700 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:38:23 -0700. <45A4276F.8000505@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: In article <45A4276F.8000505 at jetnet.ab.ca>, woodelf writes: > > I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. > You can do that with a PDP-8. :) Well, it would be a royal PITA for me. The only PDP-8 that I have is a DECmate I w/out the RX floppy drives. But this wasn't a question of *what* machines I can use to run ADVENT. The question was: is anyone else using a login on Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 or TOAD? I think the most I ever did with the DEC-10 at UDel was play ADVENT on it :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jan 9 18:01:18 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 16:01:18 -0800 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: <45A4276F.8000505@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <45A4276F.8000505@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: At 4:38 PM -0700 1/9/07, woodelf wrote: >So what was the typical usage for a average user on a >PDP-10 back then? Word processing? Computer Science? >Acounting? Fortran programs? Probably the largest PDP-10 userbase would have been Compuserve. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 9 18:30:02 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 16:30:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: wtd: Televideo TS-1603 (TS-803 lookalike) Message-ID: <475053.66425.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> but has an 8088 instead of the z80. Preferably the color model, but monochrome is nice too. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 9 18:44:46 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 16:44:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: senseless rants was Re: garbled display In-Reply-To: <474971.60624.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <835863.64201.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> It's not my intention to exacerbate the situation, being that this lists already has a rather high drama index, but concerning the previous rant, I don't at all see the point of such non constructive criticism. If your "needs" aren't being met, simply move on. I for one find it to be unique and often useful exchange. The old adage sure applies here that if you can't say anything nice... And it wasn't that I found the reply funny, but rather laughable. Nearly comic. Just my 2 farthings. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From frajkp at netscape.net Tue Jan 9 18:44:43 2007 From: frajkp at netscape.net (frajkp at netscape.net) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:44:43 -0500 Subject: Old DEC Software and Hardware Manuals Message-ID: <8C90267A7721B06-908-9AC4@WEBMAIL-MC11.sysops.aol.com> Hi, these have all been taken. Thanks ________________________________________________________________________ Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection. From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 9 18:55:16 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 16:55:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <297605.11905.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> References: <297605.11905.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070109165115.V71253@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > early version of the "Deluxe" Option Board (were all > them designated Deluxe?). No > It uses all discrete logic. That would be the non-deluxe. It doesn't handle as wide a range of data transfer rate as the Deluxe. Sorry. > I was pointed to a site that had all or most of the > associated warez, but I've yet to try it out. The programming data that is there is not completely accurate, some of the reasons for which I will not go into now. > If it wasn't obvious, the underlying subject of this > part of thread is how to deal with the lack of a > Victor 9000 boot floppy. Yikes. > It's been a while *obviously* but aren't the means to > format individual tracks embedded in the rom-bios? Sure. If you can boot the Victor, then you can format disks with it, and even make a boot disk. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 9 19:02:07 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:02:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070109165115.V71253@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <539975.37788.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > > It's been a while *obviously* but aren't the > means to > > format individual tracks embedded in the rom-bios? > > Sure. > If you can boot the Victor, then you can format > disks with it, and even > make a boot disk. Yeah but that's laying an egg somehow w/o the chicken. What I was thinking was tacking some code into a rom chip. After POST/before bootstrapping, cause it to format a floppy. Umm the rest I haven't figured out yet... I'm not sure that a Vic can read IBM disks, but I would think so. If those images I downloaded 5000 years ago are useful after a fashion...ummm the rest I haven't figured out yet. :@ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 9 19:06:51 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:06:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: looking for an old ad (Dimension 68000) Message-ID: <20070110010651.54004.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> I probably have at least 1 issue of Byte that features advertisements for this computer, but a whole big box became unexpectedly drenched, and I don't have the heart to look at it. If perchance anyone has a scan of this ad, and you'll know what I'm talking about if you've seen it, it would be awful nice to get a scan of it. I bought one of those kits to make your own T-shirts a while back (especially since it was free after the rebate) and I thought a shirt with the D68K logo would look sick. (Trouble is I have to send for different transfer material. The stuff that came in the box is only for light colored shirts, and I thought black would be a better deal). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 9 19:12:50 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:12:50 -0800 Subject: (Fwd) Re: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? Message-ID: <45A3CD12.7497.1B60A36C@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jan 2007 at 15:32, Chris M wrote: > *went out to the shed. Yes there is present in the > BIOS a service to format tracks. Not all clones comply > in this way though (but where would the routine to do > this be if not in the bios?). I noticed in the docs > for my NEC APC III that DOS function calls were more > or less the same as a vanilla pc, but I don't recall > seeing mention of the equivalent BIOS calls. Anyone know?* I believe that the APC follows the NEC 9801 convention, but I'm not certain. The BIOS calls are very diffierent from the PC version. A Google should turn something up; I know the calls are mentioned in Ralf Brown's interrupt list--and there was a rundown in one of the PC rags--maybe DOS/Windows Developer? I probably also have a list in my files. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 9 19:13:49 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:13:49 -0800 Subject: (Fwd) Re: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more Message-ID: <45A3CD4D.26227.1B618AED@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jan 2007 at 15:04, Fred Cisin wrote: > "matured" v "devolved" v "degraded" has NOTHING to do with whether > computers are getting better or worse. It is ENTIRELY about the > transition from being a computer company into being a consumer electronics > company. Probably a very shrewd move, too. Computers are a commodity item now; just the thing you don't want if you're trying to run a high- profit margin operation. Better to produce new widgets that folks will pay a premium to own. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 9 19:14:26 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:14:26 -0800 Subject: (Fwd) Re: Sun plastics Message-ID: <45A3CD72.2405.1B621A6A@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jan 2007 at 19:24, Tony Duell wrote: > What you do is put the plastic parts together and run a brush dipped in > the solvent along the crack. For a stronger join, I cut a piece of cotton > frabric to fit over the hack of the repair, put it in place and 'paint' > it with the solvent. Then push the cotton into the softened plastic. The faceplates of Overland Data tape drives are like that--try any "regular" solvent such as xylene or MEK or (worst) acetone and the plastic just crumbles away. Methylene chloride does seem to work better--and any gaps can be filled in with auto-body resin filler (Bondo) and the whole mess painted to match. Cheers, Chuck From ken at seefried.com Tue Jan 9 19:17:50 2007 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 20:17:50 -0500 Subject: HP 21xx In-Reply-To: <200701092302.l09N1nEx035273@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701092302.l09N1nEx035273@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20070110011750.11536.qmail@seefried.com> Marathon HP Mini knowledge dump makes me want one. Very much. This cannot end well... From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 9 19:22:03 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:22:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: (Fwd) Re: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A3CD12.7497.1B60A36C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070110012203.52189.qmail@web61018.mail.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > I believe that the APC follows the NEC 9801 > convention, but I'm not > certain. The BIOS calls are very diffierent from > the PC version. Was the 9801 sold in this country? It appears not. There's 2 issues of Byte probably '83ish that highlight some of the Japanese pc's, if you want to call them that. Totally freaky gorgeous stuff. Like the Mitsubishi MyBrain. I'm not sure about that one offhand, but there were several that had 8086's and 68000's. Anyone pay any attention to ePay Japan? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jan 9 19:37:14 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:37:14 -0800 Subject: (somewhat OT) "Apple Computer, Inc." no more Message-ID: <2c9905e7a0917a23c18369f94e997689@valleyimplants.com> George Currie wrote: > I wonder if Apple (the former computer company) paved the way for the > name change in the last round of negotiations it had with Apple (the > record label) as one of Apple's major arguments (hey, we're a computer > company, no one would get confused) is now officially gone. > Especially interesting given the scorn that the DEC-VAX agreement from the '70s had. The "why" question still remains on a technical level, given that all of their "consumer" products still are data processing equipment, predominantly based around microprocessors. They may not be intended to be general purpose computing machines, but then again neither was the PlayStation 2 et al, and look what's been done with them. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jan 9 19:43:06 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:43:06 -0800 Subject: Sun plastics Message-ID: >> I've used a product called plastic epoxy which includes a solvent to >> eat >> into the items being bonded for a better bond. I've had the best luck >> placing a small piece of metal (paperclip) across the break and >> spreading >> an 1/8" thick layer over that. > > For plastics that it will disolve (if you see what I mean), I've had > great success using a liquid called 'Plastic Weld' available from good > model shops. It's basically dicholoromethane (methylene chloride). > > What you do is put the plastic parts together and run a brush dipped in > the solvent along the crack. For a stronger join, I cut a piece of > cotton > frabric to fit over the hack of the repair, put it in place and 'paint' > it with the solvent. Then push the cotton into the softened plastic. > > -tony Sun seems to use some odd plastic compound or alloy with two different types. I usually use MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) for welding plastics, and usually it either has no effect or works well, but with the Sun-type (I've seen it elsewhere, but first on Suns) plastics it dissolves one component but not the other, and the plastic turns into this yucky granular stuff with no strength to speak of (the bond will hold, but only until you move it). The epoxy kind of worked (it was one of the trim pieces off of a SPARCstation 20 (one of the $1 Boeing specials- thanks for the heads-up) it holds together O.K., but it's a little loose now (epoxy is much slower than MEK, and stuff moved). From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 9 19:45:42 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:45:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: (somewhat OT) "Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: <2c9905e7a0917a23c18369f94e997689@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <788007.58920.qm@web61018.mail.yahoo.com> way off topic kind of, but there was an article in some Mac magazine way back, I want to say written by John Dvorak, but I'm not sure if he was writing for them yet (he did write for a Mac magazine, didn't he?), which stated there was talk on the table of changing the company's name to PowerMac corporation, and that anyone made mention of the company's former name would be jettisoned. Would make you think twice about offering someone the fruity portion of your lunch. If anyone reasonably near New Jersey, poor soul, happens to have one of the Motorola PPC clones, I might be interested. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jan 9 19:57:03 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:57:03 -0800 Subject: Another Interesting Site Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366CD@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Multics History Site - includes a few software notes. Gotta be a few people on thie list who remember.... Billy http://www.multicians.org/multics.html From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 9 20:16:46 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:16:46 -0700 Subject: (somewhat OT) "Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:37:14 -0800. <2c9905e7a0917a23c18369f94e997689@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: In article <2c9905e7a0917a23c18369f94e997689 at valleyimplants.com>, Scott Quinn writes: > George Currie wrote: > > > I wonder if Apple (the former computer company) paved the way for the > > name change in the last round of negotiations it had with Apple (the > > record label) as one of Apple's major arguments (hey, we're a computer > > company, no one would get confused) is now officially gone. > > > > Especially interesting given the scorn that the DEC-VAX agreement from > the '70s had. Come again? That reads like a total non sequitur to me. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From glen.slick at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 20:32:46 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 18:32:46 -0800 Subject: Another Interesting Site In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366CD@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366CD@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701091832p3c3055f4q535c56afc5637962@mail.gmail.com> On 1/9/07, Billy Pettit wrote: > Multics History Site - includes a few software notes. Gotta be a few people > on thie list who remember.... > > Billy > > http://www.multicians.org/multics.html > I probably only used a SIPB Multics account a handful of times. Using TOPS-20 on DEEP-THOUGHT was much more interesting. I had no appreciation of the history of Multics at the time. That sites makes for some interesting reading now. -Glen From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 9 20:35:23 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:35:23 -0800 Subject: (Fwd) Re: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070110012203.52189.qmail@web61018.mail.yahoo.com> References: <45A3CD12.7497.1B60A36C@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070110012203.52189.qmail@web61018.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45A3E06B.28440.1BAC3929@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jan 2007 at 17:22, Chris M wrote: > Was the 9801 sold in this country? It appears not. Not as such, although it was embedded in plenty of Japanese machine tools and lab and medical equipment that wound up in the US. During the late 80's and early 90's, there was a NEC "outreach" effort operating out of (IIRC) San Diego, where one could get information and equipment. Not at a good price, however--I was quoted something like $350 for a floppy drive. I don't know when they ceased operation. At one time, the NEC 98xx PCs had more than 70 percent of the Japanese market. You'll sometimes see the term "DOS-V" for the NEC flavor of MS-DOS. Windows was offered in the same NEC-type flavor right up to XP. As far as floppy drives went, one remarkable thing was that the 8", 5.25" and 3.5" models wrote disks in exactly the same format-- 1024x8x2 (1.3MB). Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 9 21:11:01 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 21:11:01 -0600 Subject: senseless rants was Re: garbled display References: <835863.64201.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00b001c73464$f6e8e2e0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written.... > It's not my intention to exacerbate the situation, > being that this lists already has a rather high drama > index, You wont exacerbate it, I'll just start dropping subscriptions to the list by people who repeatedly contribute "drama". There's no place for it here. > but concerning the previous rant, Apparently I have totally missed it. I need to have spies in each thread to let me know when the KIDS are acting up. Dont make me go back and chase this thread down in the archives. If people were ranting inappropriately, just police yourselves and grow out of it ;) Jay From geneb at simpits.com Tue Jan 9 21:11:58 2007 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:11:58 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A4597E.4040302@simpits.com> dwight elvey wrote: > Hi > For those that might be interested in an Olivetti M20, there is one > on eBay. This was one of the few machines made with a Z8000 processor. > I think the only personal computer. > If someone on this list gets one, contact me and I'll help you get > it up and running. > Dwight That's cool. I just posted PDFs of the CP/M for Z8000 manuals on the Retroarchive site. :) g. From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 9 21:15:07 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 21:15:07 -0600 Subject: HP 21xx References: <200701092302.l09N1nEx035273@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20070110011750.11536.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <00b901c73465$8a7a4a80$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Ken wrote.... > Marathon HP Mini knowledge dump makes me want one. Very much. This > cannot end well... I suspect I will be taking a very nice, tested, working... and WARRANTED 2108B (21MX - M series) to ebay shortly. I need the cash particularly badly at the moment for other acquisitions :) The M series is not common really, if Ebay is any indicator - more rare than the 2100A or S. I have a few M series I'm keeping, but this one is excess. If I do put it on ebay I'll email to the list. Jay West From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jan 9 21:19:23 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 22:19:23 -0500 Subject: (somewhat OT) "Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701092219.23630.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 09 January 2007 21:16, Richard wrote: > In article <2c9905e7a0917a23c18369f94e997689 at valleyimplants.com>, > > Especially interesting given the scorn that the DEC-VAX agreement > > from the '70s had. > > Come again? That reads like a total non sequitur to me. He's probably referring to the agreement that DEC had with the company that makes VAX vacuum cleaners, for both of them to be able to use the "VAX" name for their respective products, in each other's country. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 22:10:55 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 23:10:55 -0500 Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/9/07, Tony Duell wrote: > For plastics that it will disolve (if you see what I mean), I've had > great success using a liquid called 'Plastic Weld' available from good > model shops. It's basically dicholoromethane (methylene chloride). Does anyone know where to get MEK or methylene chloride in the US cheaper than buying a 50-100ml bottle at a hobby store? The base chemical isn't all that expensive, but when you package it in tiny amounts and sell it in a specialty shop, the price tends to go up dramatically (i.e. - "Dow Conformant Compound" sold by the kilo vs "Silly Putty" sold by the egg). -ethan From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jan 9 22:21:33 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 20:21:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 1/9/07, Tony Duell wrote: > > For plastics that it will disolve (if you see what I mean), I've had > > great success using a liquid called 'Plastic Weld' available from good > > model shops. It's basically dicholoromethane (methylene chloride). > > Does anyone know where to get MEK or methylene chloride in the US > cheaper than buying a 50-100ml bottle at a hobby store? The base > chemical isn't all that expensive, but when you package it in tiny > amounts and sell it in a specialty shop, the price tends to go up > dramatically (i.e. - "Dow Conformant Compound" sold by the kilo vs > "Silly Putty" sold by the egg). You should easily find it in pint cans, gallon cans, and 5-gallon pails where paints are sold. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 22:28:29 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 23:28:29 -0500 Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/9/07, David Griffith wrote: > On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > Does anyone know where to get MEK or methylene chloride in the US > > cheaper than buying a 50-100ml bottle at a hobby store? > > You should easily find it in pint cans, gallon cans, and 5-gallon pails > where paints are sold. Thanks. I'll check the next time I'm at a place that does. -ethan From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jan 9 22:36:17 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:36:17 -0600 Subject: Another Interesting Site In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90701091832p3c3055f4q535c56afc5637962@mail.gmail.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366CD@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> <1e1fc3e90701091832p3c3055f4q535c56afc5637962@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <45A46D41.2010208@msm.umr.edu> Glen Slick wrote: > On 1/9/07, Billy Pettit wrote: > >> Multics History Site - > Tom Van Vleck has done a fantastic job on the multicians.org site. Also, he is looking for work (shameless and possibly bad plug), but he has done so much for the history of Multics it is something that should be done for him. There is also a yahoo groups mailing list associated with Multics, multicians at yahoogroups.com if anyone wishes to join it. Jim From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 9 23:01:47 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 21:01:47 -0800 Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: References: , , Message-ID: <45A402BB.30829.1C323DF2@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jan 2007 at 23:10, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Does anyone know where to get MEK or methylene chloride in the US > cheaper than buying a 50-100ml bottle at a hobby store? In this neck of the woods, it depends. If I head north to the "big city" (Eugene), there's nary a drop to be found anywhere. On the other hand, if I go south about the same distance to the little rabbit hutch of Creswell, it's easy to find--at least at stores that don't also have a Eugene branch. It turns out that it's due to a toxics reporting law in Eugene. Most stores just don't want to be bothered with it, so don't carry things such as MEK (or pretty much any organic solvent stronger than acetone). Like the ad says, your mileage may vary. Cheers, Chuck From bpritts at pritts.com Tue Jan 9 23:16:30 2007 From: bpritts at pritts.com (Brad Pritts) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 00:16:30 -0500 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: <200701100438.l0A4c3FU040231@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701100438.l0A4c3FU040231@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45A476AE.6070204@pritts.com> Well, we used lots of PDP-10's in the timesharing (oops, marketing calls it REMOTE COMPUTING) business in the '70's and '80's. By the late '80's this business was dying fast. But it was fun. Yes, Compuserve was a big player. I worked with ADP Network Services (originally Cypernetics Corporation); we had quite a few PDP-10's. (about 25). Also, we probably had 100 - 200 PDP8's and PDP-11's as network nodes. When DEC released its KS10 processor (minicomputer architecture), we ported TOPS-10 to run on it. We ran about 75 or 100 of these as dedicated mini's for individual clients. As I recall DEC only sold the KS10 with TOPS-20. For better or worse this machine was superceded by the VAX. What were these users doing? Mostly interactive management applications - financial models (think of Fortran meets Excel); stock analysis; engineering analysis; statistical analysis & forecasting. It really was "personal computing". Regards, Brad remembering those good old days... > Richard wrote: > > > > So what was the typical usage for a average user on a > PDP-10 back then? Word processing? Computer Science? > Acounting? Fortran programs? > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:47:49 -0700 > From: Richard > Subject: Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Message-ID: > > > In article <45A4276F.8000505 at jetnet.ab.ca>, > woodelf writes: > > >>> I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. >>> >> You can do that with a PDP-8. :) >> > > Well, it would be a royal PITA for me. The only PDP-8 that I have is > a DECmate I w/out the RX floppy drives. > > But this wasn't a question of *what* machines I can use to run ADVENT. > > The question was: is anyone else using a login on Paul Allen's > DECsystem-10 or TOAD? > > I think the most I ever did with the DEC-10 at UDel was play ADVENT on > it :-). > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 23:23:39 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 00:23:39 -0500 Subject: 36-bits, no waiting (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Brad Pritts wrote: > Well, we used lots of PDP-10's in the timesharing... business in > the '70's and '80's. By the late '80's this business was dying fast. But it was fun. Indeed. > Yes, Compuserve was a big player... There are still 36-bit machines (Systems Concepts SC-40s, IIRC) running in Columbus at what _used_ to be called CompuServe Headquarters (now just another AOL campus :-/ ) They got rid of the DEC-manufactured machines well over 10 years ago, but still run their endlessly hacked version of TOPS-10 on real (not emulated) 36-bit hardware. I haven't seen them since 2003, but at that time, there were more SC machines at the WorldCom data center in Hilliard, OH (at what was _going to be_ CompuServe Headquarters before the company was bought and divided). I was told that WorldCom had to keep them running for some obscure billing app that was written in FORTRAN and couldn't be ported (or at least had been the subject of several failed attempts to port). Given the history of things, I would think it was full of CompuServe extensions, perhaps what they called XF4, perhaps something descended from that. So in Central Ohio, at least, 36-bits survived into the 21st Century for commercial usage. Personally, the last "productive" thing I did was to run Zork under the Panda distro of klh10/TOPS-20. I used to have a 36-bit account when I worked at CompuServe, but they'd cleaned all the old "service" menus and items off before I started there - it was an empty shell of its former glory by 2001. -ethan From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 23:34:39 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 00:34:39 -0500 Subject: 36-bits, no waiting (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > So in Central Ohio, at least, 36-bits survived into the 21st Century > for commercial usage. Shhh....don't tell Unisys. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 9 23:38:30 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 00:38:30 -0500 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: <45A4276F.8000505@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <45A4276F.8000505@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > So what was the typical usage for a average user on a > PDP-10 back then? Word processing? Computer Science? > Acounting? Fortran programs? Screwing around. Other than the educational market, and the relatively small online timesharing market (Compuserve), the only other big win in PDP-10 land I can think of was with ADP. I assume they moved off PDP-10s years ago. ADP KS10s were modified and painted brown. -- Will From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jan 9 23:46:39 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 00:46:39 -0500 Subject: 36-bits, no waiting (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) References: Message-ID: <011b01c7347a$b324b410$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ethan Dicks" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 12:23 AM Subject: 36-bits, no waiting (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) > On 1/10/07, Brad Pritts wrote: > > Well, we used lots of PDP-10's in the timesharing... business in > > the '70's and '80's. By the late '80's this business was dying fast. But it was fun. > > Indeed. > > > Yes, Compuserve was a big player... > > There are still 36-bit machines (Systems Concepts SC-40s, IIRC) > running in Columbus at what _used_ to be called CompuServe > Headquarters (now just another AOL campus :-/ ) They got rid of the > DEC-manufactured machines well over 10 years ago, but still run their > endlessly hacked version of TOPS-10 on real (not emulated) 36-bit > hardware. > > I haven't seen them since 2003, but at that time, there were more SC > machines at the WorldCom data center in Hilliard, OH (at what was > _going to be_ CompuServe Headquarters before the company was bought > and divided). I was told that WorldCom had to keep them running for > some obscure billing app that was written in FORTRAN and couldn't be > ported (or at least had been the subject of several failed attempts to > port). Given the history of things, I would think it was full of > CompuServe extensions, perhaps what they called XF4, perhaps something > descended from that. > > So in Central Ohio, at least, 36-bits survived into the 21st Century > for commercial usage. Personally, the last "productive" thing I did > was to run Zork under the Panda distro of klh10/TOPS-20. I used to > have a 36-bit account when I worked at CompuServe, but they'd cleaned > all the old "service" menus and items off before I started there - it > was an empty shell of its former glory by 2001. > > -ethan Speaking of CompuServe, what happened to all the files those online services used to have (like hardware drivers and software upgrades) before the internet took over as a source of file distribution? From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jan 10 00:09:41 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 22:09:41 -0800 Subject: (somewhat OT) "Apple Computer, Inc." no more Message-ID: <57beb9608ae178400963b947dc06c59c@valleyimplants.com> Pat wrote: > On Tuesday 09 January 2007 21:16, Richard wrote: >> In article <2c9905e7a0917a23c18369f94e997689 at valleyimplants.com>, >>> Especially interesting given the scorn that the DEC-VAX agreement >>> from the '70s had. >> >> Come again? That reads like a total non sequitur to me. > > He's probably referring to the agreement that DEC had with the company > that makes VAX vacuum cleaners, for both of them to be able to use > the "VAX" name for their respective products, in each other's country. As I understand it, DEC agreed not to make consumer goods, and VAX agreed not to make computers. To an adolescent mind back in the mid '90s it seemed a bit absurd and a waste of time, but maybe not so much anymore. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jan 10 00:49:27 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:49:27 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <45A4597E.4040302@simpits.com> Message-ID: >From: Gene Buckle > >dwight elvey wrote: >>Hi >>For those that might be interested in an Olivetti M20, there is one >>on eBay. This was one of the few machines made with a Z8000 processor. >>I think the only personal computer. >>If someone on this list gets one, contact me and I'll help you get >>it up and running. >>Dwight > >That's cool. I just posted PDFs of the CP/M for Z8000 manuals on the >Retroarchive site. :) > >g. > > Hi Gene I would suspect that the one on eBay isn't ready for CP/M8000 right out of the box. I'm sure it'll handle PCOS, at least version 2.0f. The problem is that most machines didn't come with enough memory for CP/M8000. Although, the manual for CP/M8000 states that one can run in a machine with 128K of memory, because of a number of allocation issues in the M20, you really need 384K. The M20's comes with 128K on the mother board and usually have two 32K expansion memory cards. Even with three of these 32K cards, your only up to 224K. Still not enough. When I first got CP/M8000 running on my machine, I modified two of my memory cards to take 64K DRAM chips. This brings it to 384K. I was always going to increase it to 512K, the most that the M20 decodes, but I don't see the need any more. A fellow in Italy had thought that it might be easier to take two 1 meg simm's and use those ( you need at least 2 because it does access 8 bit or 16 bit and needs the separate selects ). We talked it over and came up with a way to wire them up such that they can provide 384K with a minimum of external hardware( total of 512K with the mother boards memory). The only painful issue is that the M20 normally has a select for either 32K or 128K at each board position. The first solution used three board edges to connect the two other connectors selects. Another fellow built one that he made a header to go under the NAND gate chip that normally sent out the selects. This did require lifting one part and putting it on a socket. It also seems that some of the memory boards came with sockets and could be configured for either 32K or 128K by jumpers but none of my board were that easy. There are two main memory board types. One is for B/W monitors while the other is for Color. The only difference in the systems to run color is the expansion memory cards. The color cards had a parallel to serial shift register added to be used for the color bits rather then the memory mapped DMA that the B/W monitor used. For color, depending on how many memory expansion cards one had, one could have 2,4 or 8 colors. The video takes 16K from each card. It doesn't cause holes in the memory map because the M20 had a PROM to map the physical memory into specific locations in the logical memory. They did one other thing that was different than done on other machines. It decodes intruction memory different than data memory. This is part of the reason it can't have the full memory that the Z8000 would otherwise be able to address. It did have the advantage that for the setup for some of the segments, one could address 128K at one time ( 64K instruction space and 64K of data space ). This meant that this instruction space needed to be mapped into some other segment as data memory or one couldn't write to that space from disk. This causes confusion for those working with the debugger or looking at how the images are loaded from disk to memory for these dual mapped physical memory areas. Who ever gets the unit on eBay, make sure to have them send the monitor. It uses some unusual vertical and horizantal rates that may not be easy to find in other monitors. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Fixing up the home? Live Search can help http://imagine-windowslive.com/search/kits/default.aspx?kit=improve&locale=en-US&source=hmemailtaglinenov06&FORM=WLMTAG From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 9 17:49:03 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 23:49:03 +0000 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A429EF.30805@gjcp.net> Richard wrote: > Is anyone else using this machine? > > I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. I'd like to find out more. Gordon From sieler at allegro.com Tue Jan 9 19:01:21 2007 From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:01:21 -0800 Subject: WTB: Nokia 9000 and HP OmniGo 700 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <45A3CA61.6463.600D0BE@localhost> Re: > Does anyone have a Nokia 9000 (not 9000i) or HP OmniGo 700? Oh yeah? > Want to sell them? ;) I've got an HP OmniGo 700, and will email you offline. Stan -- Stan Sieler sieler at allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 10 01:05:52 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 23:05:52 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: References: <45A330E1.1010500@msm.umr.edu>, Message-ID: <45A41FD0.15468.32EE79@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2007 at 22:21, dwight elvey wrote: > For those that might be interested in an Olivetti M20, there is one > on eBay. This was one of the few machines made with a Z8000 processor. > I think the only personal computer. > If someone on this list gets one, contact me and I'll help you get > it up and running. Take a look inside a Cipher 99x tape drive. Usually at least one or two Z8000s in there. Does anyone remember the AMD-Siemens cooperative venture called AMC (Advanced Micro Computers)? Does anyone own one of their development systems? I've got the manuals for the assembler and the Z80-Z8000 translator packages (maybe something more, I don't know). The assembler's one of more interesting varieties for the time. Cheers, Chuck From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 10 06:20:01 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 07:20:01 -0500 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:42:47 MST." Message-ID: <200701101220.l0ACK16V008678@mwave.heeltoe.com> Richard wrote: >Is anyone else using this machine? > >I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. do you just have a tops-20 .sav or sources? i've searched everywhere for mdl sources but have not not found any. (but typing that I'm having dejavu all over again. has this topic come up before?) now that i think about it the tops-20 version was in fortran, right? -brad From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 10 07:12:54 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:12:54 -0500 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:57:03 PST." <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366CD@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <200701101312.l0ADCsXY015077@mwave.heeltoe.com> Anyone know if I can update an RQDX3 from v2 firmware to v4 firmware just just by replacing the eeprom? if so, anyone have an image files(2) of v4 firmware? (an rqdx3 is as pdp-11 qbus disk controller for mfm disk drives) -brad From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 10 07:20:00 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:20:00 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <01C7335F.67922850@MAGGIE> <00d301c7339d$d813b240$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <000f01c734ba$08d13c00$0100a8c0@screamer> The paper tape loader ROM will actually 'work', if your 12531 interface board happens to power-up in receive mode. Or if you run a small program to write a control word to the 12531 prior to running the loader ROM code (without pressing PRESET) you could put the board into receive mode and run the loader. But 12531 boards are slow, and not the most reliable. They often drop characters when jumpered for higher baud rates. But small program can indeed be loaded this way, at least sometimes! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 10:25 PM Subject: Re: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) > Steve wrote.... >>I found that serial booting the system to be the easiest way to get >>started. I don't recall which one but, one of the loader ROMS will work >>with the "high speed serial" card and read data off a serial link. > > I don't recall any loader rom working with a 12531 HS TERM board. I could > well be wrong though, it's been WAY too long since I had my head firmly in > HP-world. You CAN do it with a 264x (terminal) loader rom and a BACI > board - as Bob S. said. If there is a loader rom that happens to work with > the 12531 (ie, if the 12531 happens to have the same programmatic > interface as say... the paper tape board...) I'd like to know. I just > don't have time to go test it :) > >> There's no handshaking or error correction but, with a short RS232 link, >> passing data is not a problem. The ABS data format does provide checksum >> error detection so data errors will be detected. > > Careful there... checksum (mod256) does NOT catch transposition of > bytes/words, missing all zero words/bytes, extra all zero words/bytes, and > identical bits swapped between words/bytes. There is a length field > included in the ABS format so that will catch missing or extra nulls. But > it still won't catch the other errors. > > Jay > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 08:07:10 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:07:10 -0600 Subject: HP serial loader roms References: <01C7335F.67922850@MAGGIE><00d301c7339d$d813b240$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <000f01c734ba$08d13c00$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <004201c734c0$a0515b40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Bob wrote... > The paper tape loader ROM will actually 'work', if your 12531 interface > board happens to power-up in receive mode. Noted... with your caveats. Interesting. This thread jostled a memory cell in my brain... I do remember one of my machines having a loader room with a sticker on the top that said "12531". I should locate it and dump the contents and see whats up there. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 08:40:19 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:40:19 -0600 Subject: KLESI-UA cable help? Message-ID: <007b01c734c5$4331fe60$6500a8c0@BILLING> I'm looking for the cable that goes from a KLESI-UA card (M8739) to the I/O bulkhead on the back of an 11X44. In the absence of that, would anyone know for sure the part number for said cable? I would think it would be in the KLESI manual, but I don't seem to see one on bitsavers (other than prints for the Qbus version). Thanks in advance! Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 09:02:34 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:02:34 -0600 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint Message-ID: <007f01c734c8$5d4e61f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> I have the top panel of an 11X44 that is pretty scuffed up and needs some paint. That's the white/beige/creame color on the DEC "corporate cabinets" (not H960's). It is also the same color as the front of an RL01, RL02, RAxx, etc. Before someone says "just mount the RL0x at the top", that wouldn't be appropriate since this is an 11X44 configuration (11/44 cpu at the top with a full length door under it that has an opening for two TU58 tapes). The scuffs on the top panel are pretty bad so just a "paint stick" type of approach won't help. I'm going to be looking at wax & grease remover, sanding, self-etching primer, chipguard, and paint. What fun. In addition, I also have a lot of tiny touchup spots on various boxes - mostly the front of RL0x's - that needs just a tiny "paint stick" type of approach. So I took the panel into a metal paint shop in town well known for their expertise to see about getting the paint matched. They said that since the top is textured, the peaks & valleys will look brighter/darker and thus you can't put a piece like that on one of those optical scanners and get a good color match. They said it may give a starting point but it'd have to be matched by hand (eye) because of the type of textured surface the panel has. To come up with an exact match paint (done by hand/eye), I could get a quart for $50.00 USD. Then from that quart I could have spray cans made (they put custom paint in spray cans) at $7.00 each. I would envision having perhaps a can or two made for spraying, and leave the rest in the quart container for "paint stick" type of touchups - when there's a small scratch that just needs to be dabbed with a matchstick, etc. Since I know absolutely NOTHING about paint/painting, I wanted to toss this out on the list to see if what this place is suggesting sounds right, and if the prices seem reasonable. If so, then I also wanted to offer some spray cans of the paint to other listmembers to help defray the cost for myself. I know that one can probably buy a color that is sortof close right off the shelf, but I'd rather have an exact match... Thoughts? Jay West From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 10 09:20:00 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 07:20:00 -0800 Subject: refurb qic capstans on eBay Message-ID: <45A50420.8010101@bitsavers.org> fyi http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200037680044 From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 09:17:40 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:17:40 -0700 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 07:20:01 -0500. <200701101220.l0ACK16V008678@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: In article <200701101220.l0ACK16V008678 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, Brad Parker writes: > Richard wrote: > >Is anyone else using this machine? > > > >I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. > > do you just have a tops-20 .sav or sources? > There was a site that gave the "original" TOPS-10 fortran source for it. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Wed Jan 10 09:45:44 2007 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B. DiGriz) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:45:44 -0500 Subject: 36-bits, no waiting (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) In-Reply-To: <011b01c7347a$b324b410$0b01a8c0@game> References: <011b01c7347a$b324b410$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45A50A28.6010007@dragonsweb.org> Teo Zenios wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ethan Dicks" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 12:23 AM > Subject: 36-bits, no waiting (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) > > >> On 1/10/07, Brad Pritts wrote: >>> Well, we used lots of PDP-10's in the timesharing... business in >>> the '70's and '80's. By the late '80's this business was dying fast. > But it was fun. >> Indeed. >> >>> Yes, Compuserve was a big player... >> There are still 36-bit machines (Systems Concepts SC-40s, IIRC) >> running in Columbus at what _used_ to be called CompuServe >> Headquarters (now just another AOL campus :-/ ) They got rid of the >> DEC-manufactured machines well over 10 years ago, but still run their >> endlessly hacked version of TOPS-10 on real (not emulated) 36-bit >> hardware. >> >> I haven't seen them since 2003, but at that time, there were more SC >> machines at the WorldCom data center in Hilliard, OH (at what was >> _going to be_ CompuServe Headquarters before the company was bought >> and divided). I was told that WorldCom had to keep them running for >> some obscure billing app that was written in FORTRAN and couldn't be >> ported (or at least had been the subject of several failed attempts to >> port). Given the history of things, I would think it was full of >> CompuServe extensions, perhaps what they called XF4, perhaps something >> descended from that. >> >> So in Central Ohio, at least, 36-bits survived into the 21st Century >> for commercial usage. Personally, the last "productive" thing I did >> was to run Zork under the Panda distro of klh10/TOPS-20. I used to >> have a 36-bit account when I worked at CompuServe, but they'd cleaned >> all the old "service" menus and items off before I started there - it >> was an empty shell of its former glory by 2001. >> >> -ethan > > Speaking of CompuServe, what happened to all the files those online services > used to have (like hardware drivers and software upgrades) before the > internet took over as a source of file distribution? > I don't know about the software libraries, I'd have to check the archives of the yahoo group "TI99-4A", where this subject came back last year some time. It seems the old service was still available at least that recently. IIRC you could still access it via telnet with your old CIS account ID and password. I'll see if I can find the cite. jbdigriz From dundas at caltech.edu Wed Jan 10 09:54:15 2007 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 07:54:15 -0800 Subject: KLESI-UA cable help? In-Reply-To: <007b01c734c5$4331fe60$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <007b01c734c5$4331fe60$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: Jay, >I'm looking for the cable that goes from a KLESI-UA card (M8739) to >the I/O bulkhead on the back of an 11X44. In the absence of that, >would anyone know for sure the part number for said cable? I would >think it would be in the KLESI manual, but I don't seem to see one >on bitsavers (other than prints for the Qbus version). I bought an RC25 (desktop) several years ago. However I don't have the maintenance prints or any Unibus information either. You can see pictures of the drive, cable (70-18652-00), and cabinet kit here: My interface catalog is: while the device catalog is: John From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 10 10:04:17 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:04:17 -0600 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: <007f01c734c8$5d4e61f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <007f01c734c8$5d4e61f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45A50E81.9080805@yahoo.co.uk> Jay West wrote: > The scuffs on the top panel are pretty bad > so just a "paint stick" type of approach won't help. I'm going to be > looking at wax & grease remover, sanding, self-etching primer, > chipguard, and paint. What fun. If it's a flat panel (or a panel with no curves < about 120 degrees) then a suitable wire brush attachment on an angle grinder can work wonders (just be careful as too choice of brush as too hard and you'll scuff the metal too much for a 'simple' respray). Personally I'm not a fan of solvents for this kind of thing as it's difficult to be sure that all the residue's been removed afterwards (and hence that something left behind won't magically attack the new paint from below). Washing and drying can cause its own problems (surface rust, water deposits etc.) > So I took the panel into a metal paint shop in town well known for their > expertise to see about getting the paint matched. They said that since > the top is textured, the peaks & valleys will look brighter/darker and > thus you can't put a piece like that on one of those optical scanners > and get a good color match. I've always been told too that it's just not worth it on old panels as uneven sun-fading will result in a match that isn't "original" and won't match every other panel anyway. Matching by eye's a better bet (although personally I find it difficult, but doubtless it's a lot easier for the professionals who do this kind of thing every day!) > Since I know absolutely NOTHING about paint/painting, I wanted to toss > this out on the list to see if what this place is suggesting sounds > right, and if the prices seem reasonable. Seems cheap to me, based on some of the quotes I've had before on this side of the pond. I've been told before not to mess around with aerosols though and to use a proper spray gun as the end result will be a lot nicer. I've zero experience of using a proper gun though, and have no idea how easy it is or how much it would be to rent / buy one along with suitable compressor... Note that all of this advice has been from automotive paint specialists; we don't seem to have such a thing as "public general-purpose paint specialists" around here. I'm willing to bet that it's just as sound for computer panels as it is for cars, though. cheers Jules From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 10:11:15 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:11:15 -0600 Subject: KLESI-UA cable help? References: <007b01c734c5$4331fe60$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <00ab01c734d1$f70508e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> John wrote... > I bought an RC25 (desktop) several years ago. However I don't have the > maintenance prints or any Unibus information either. You can see pictures > of the drive, cable (70-18652-00), and cabinet kit here: > > Thanks for the pointers John! That cable (70-18652-00) appears to be almost what I need. The connectors are right, and it even looks like the plate on the end would match up to the I/O bulkhead on the 44. The only problem - wayyy too short. A cable that would go from the 44 in the top of the 11X44 setup to the I/O bulkhead at the bottom of the cabinet... would probably need to be on the order of 6 feet long? Surely the right part number wouldn't be as simple as 70-18652-06? Jay From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 10:12:55 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:12:55 -0800 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: <200701101312.l0ADCsXY015077@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366CD@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> <200701101312.l0ADCsXY015077@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701100812p4d2767fbn48c332605541d31@mail.gmail.com> On 1/10/07, Brad Parker wrote: > > Anyone know if I can update an RQDX3 from v2 firmware to v4 firmware just > just by replacing the eeprom? > > if so, anyone have an image files(2) of v4 firmware? > I don't know the answer to your first question. I have two M7555's in front of my right now. One has 243E5 / 244E5 and the other has 285E5 / 286E5. These are listed as issue 2 and issue 3 here: http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs/ROMlist It lists issue 4 as 339E5 and 340E5. BIN files are there. My first board (243E5 / 244E5) does not have two jumper headers between the two osc cans. My second board (285E5 / 286E5) does have two jumper headers between the two osc cans, both with jumpers across them. -Glen From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 10:17:26 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:17:26 -0500 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: <200701101220.l0ACK16V008678@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701101220.l0ACK16V008678@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Brad Parker wrote: > > Richard wrote: > >I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. > > i've searched everywhere for mdl sources but have not not found > any. (but typing that I'm having dejavu all over again. has this topic > come up before? > > now that i think about it the tops-20 version was in fortran, right? ADVENT was always FORTRAN (until it was ported to BASIC in the 8-bit-micro era, and C as well for UNIX, then 16-bit micros). When you say "MDL", you are probably thinking of Dungeon/Zork. The sources are not lost (there's a copy on Bob Supnik's pages), neither are compiled versions for at least TOPS-20 (it's on the Panda distro), but what _is_ lost, AFAIK, is the MDL compiler and environment. So one can inspect the source (at least one version, anyway), and one can play the game (two versions for 36-bit that I've personally run), but not turn source into a playable game. -ethan From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Wed Jan 10 10:22:26 2007 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B. DiGriz) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:22:26 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine Message-ID: <45A512C2.3080300@dragonsweb.org> The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 jbdigriz From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 10:24:15 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:24:15 -0500 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: References: <200701101220.l0ACK16V008678@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <45A5132F.7030704@gmail.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 1/10/07, Brad Parker wrote: >> >> Richard wrote: >> >I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. >> >> i've searched everywhere for mdl sources but have not not found >> any. (but typing that I'm having dejavu all over again. has this topic >> come up before? >> >> now that i think about it the tops-20 version was in fortran, right? > > ADVENT was always FORTRAN (until it was ported to BASIC in the > 8-bit-micro era, and C as well for UNIX, then 16-bit micros). When > you say "MDL", you are probably thinking of Dungeon/Zork. The sources > are not lost (there's a copy on Bob Supnik's pages), neither are > compiled versions for at least TOPS-20 (it's on the Panda distro), but > what _is_ lost, AFAIK, is the MDL compiler and environment. So one > can inspect the source (at least one version, anyway), and one can > play the game (two versions for 36-bit that I've personally run), but > not turn source into a playable game. Are there enough specs around that you could write a work-alike? Peace... Sridhar From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 10 10:31:38 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:31:38 -0800 Subject: 36-bits, no waiting (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 12:34 AM -0500 1/10/07, William Donzelli wrote: >>So in Central Ohio, at least, 36-bits survived into the 21st Century >>for commercial usage. > >Shhh....don't tell Unisys. For that matter, what is GCOS-8 running on these days? I know it's still around, though it looks like they might be moving to 64-bit Itanium 2. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From dundas at caltech.edu Wed Jan 10 10:32:38 2007 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:32:38 -0800 Subject: KLESI-UA cable help? In-Reply-To: <00ab01c734d1$f70508e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <007b01c734c5$4331fe60$6500a8c0@BILLING> <00ab01c734d1$f70508e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: At 10:11 AM -0600 1/10/07, Jay West wrote: >would probably need to be on the order of 6 feet long? Surely the >right part number wouldn't be as simple as 70-18652-06? -06 is likely correct. John From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 10:34:01 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:34:01 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A512C2.3080300@dragonsweb.org> References: <45A512C2.3080300@dragonsweb.org> Message-ID: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com> James B. DiGriz wrote: > The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the > old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 I *so* wish I could remember mine. Peace... Sridhar From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 10 10:41:21 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:41:21 -0500 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:12:55 PST." <1e1fc3e90701100812p4d2767fbn48c332605541d31@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200701101641.l0AGfLwA027672@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Glen Slick" wrote: > >I don't know the answer to your first question. I have two M7555's in >front of my right now. One has 243E5 / 244E5 and the other has 285E5 >/ 286E5. These are listed as issue 2 and issue 3 here: > >http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs/ROMlist > >It lists issue 4 as 339E5 and 340E5. BIN files are there. I just finished buring 339 & 340 into 27128A's. I plan to try them as replacements for 243/244. I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping this will solve my problem. and on a related note... -brad From ken at seefried.com Wed Jan 10 10:42:48 2007 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:42:48 -0500 Subject: (somewhat OT) "Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: <200701101636.l0AGZeRG049124@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701101636.l0AGZeRG049124@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20070110164248.31198.qmail@seefried.com> From: Scott Quinn >Pat wrote: > > On Tuesday 09 January 2007 21:16, Richard wrote: >> In article <2c9905e7a0917a23c18369f94e997689 at valleyimplants.com>, >>> Especially interesting given the scorn that the DEC-VAX agreement >>> from the '70s had. >> >> Come again? That reads like a total non sequitur to me. > > He's probably referring to the agreement that DEC had with the company > that makes VAX vacuum cleaners, for both of them to be able to use > the "VAX" name for their respective products, in each other's country. > >As I understand it, DEC agreed not to make consumer goods, and VAX >agreed not to make computers. To an adolescent mind back in the mid >'90s it seemed a bit absurd and a waste of time, but maybe not so much >anymore. See: Apple Computer v Apple Corp From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 10 10:44:30 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:44:30 -0500 Subject: replacing a dc005? (qbus chip) Message-ID: <200701101644.l0AGiUVg027838@mwave.heeltoe.com> One of my rqdx3 boards suffered a trauma in a previous life and one of the "DC005" chips at the bottom cracked in half. Needless to say the board does not work. I removed the old chip, but what now? Does anyone have a spare DC005 or know of a suitable replacement? I assume this is one of the magic DEC chips for qbus. I suppose I could try extracting one from another board, but that is pretty painful... dips are easier to get out if you can snip their leads. -brad From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 10 10:58:19 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:58:19 -0500 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:17:26 EST." Message-ID: <200701101658.l0AGwJ7L028767@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Ethan Dicks" wrote: >When >you say "MDL", you are probably thinking of Dungeon/Zork. yes, sorry. I ment zork. >The sources >are not lost (there's a copy on Bob Supnik's pages), neither are >compiled versions for at least TOPS-20 (it's on the Panda distro), but >what _is_ lost, AFAIK, is the MDL compiler and environment. hmm. I think I may have found mdl, for ITS anyway. -brad From marvin at rain.org Wed Jan 10 11:24:28 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:24:28 -0800 Subject: Cleaning House Message-ID: <45A5214C.62C009EA@rain.org> It is looking more and more like I'll have to move and thus have a ****<<>>**** (ask Hans) of stuff that needs to be tossed, sold, or stored. I'll be putting stuff on VCM and Ebay to 1) see if I can still make enough money to buy this house, and 2) reduce the clutter :). This will be a continuing effort for the next several weeks and I'll be listing more stuff daily. Off topic for VCM and maybe of interest here, I have a couple hundred Belkin NOS Cat5 (not Cat5/e) cables w/RJ-45 ends. They are bagged as 10 sets per bag and I have 30", 42", and 48" available at $10.00/bag plus $6.50 Priority Mail US shipping. Email me offlist if interested. Check out VCM and Ebay (ID=KE6HTS) for the stuff I am getting rid of. Thanks! From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Wed Jan 10 09:06:55 2007 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:06:55 -0700 (MST) Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Last time I bought MEK was at the hardware store. I believe it has since been re-classified as a carcinogen or oxone destroying or baby seal killing substance, and isn't available to the general public anymore. Fortunately, I bought a quart 15 years ago and haven't used it up yet. Most of the use is through evaporation... Clint On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 1/9/07, Tony Duell wrote: >> For plastics that it will disolve (if you see what I mean), I've had >> great success using a liquid called 'Plastic Weld' available from good >> model shops. It's basically dicholoromethane (methylene chloride). > > Does anyone know where to get MEK or methylene chloride in the US > cheaper than buying a 50-100ml bottle at a hobby store? The base > chemical isn't all that expensive, but when you package it in tiny > amounts and sell it in a specialty shop, the price tends to go up > dramatically (i.e. - "Dow Conformant Compound" sold by the kilo vs > "Silly Putty" sold by the egg). > > -ethan > From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Wed Jan 10 09:08:44 2007 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:08:44 -0700 (MST) Subject: Fwd: Microvax IIs in BA123s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Which one is the BA123 chassis? The short fat one or the tall skinny one? Clint On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Richard wrote: > FYI... I'm just passing this along, please contact the original poster. > From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 10 11:33:06 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:33:06 -0700 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: References: <200701101220.l0ACK16V008678@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <45A52352.5030600@jetnet.ab.ca> Ethan Dicks wrote: > ADVENT was always FORTRAN (until it was ported to BASIC in the > 8-bit-micro era, and C as well for UNIX, then 16-bit micros). It is the PDP8 version of source that was lost. I suspect it still is on dec tape somewhere. > When > you say "MDL", you are probably thinking of Dungeon/Zork. The sources > are not lost (there's a copy on Bob Supnik's pages), neither are > compiled versions for at least TOPS-20 (it's on the Panda distro), but > what _is_ lost, AFAIK, is the MDL compiler and environment. So one > can inspect the source (at least one version, anyway), and one can > play the game (two versions for 36-bit that I've personally run), but > not turn source into a playable game. Nothing like closed source languages. :( I just got ADVENT running on my SBC6120 only to discover the terminal I am using has a flakey keyboard. Just what do you use for a termial with the SBC6120? > -ethan From jdbryan at acm.org Wed Jan 10 11:41:01 2007 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:41:01 -0500 Subject: getting started with your new HP 21xx In-Reply-To: <014d01c7341e$93835730$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200701101741.l0AHf3QV014176@mail.bcpl.net> On 9 Jan 2007 at 12:47, Jay West wrote: > Ahhh you aren't looking at the same spot I was. I had wandered in to this > URL: > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/21xx/diag/ > > Which is decidedly not the same thing :) True, except that you had written: "http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/1000/Diagnostics/ is the main directory of diagnostic manuals. Each diagnostic has it's own manual." Memory getting shorter, eh Jay? ;-) > > What revision is the latest (last) library? > > I think I had 2040, but you had supplied the one single upgraded > diagnostic that made the collection effectively 2326? To answer this > completely I need to go dig on my laptop :) At one time, I had all of the "Software Update Notices" for the 1000s, but of course I threw them away when we moved offices. :-( Still, from the DSD 4.0 Communicator (March 1986), the last update to the diagnostic library was at revision 2326 (mid-1983), and just the General Purpose Register diagnostic was updated from the 2040 set. My March 1986 HP 1000 price list has the 24396 diagnostic library in the "mature software" category, meaning that no further updates, barring major new bugs, were planned. So, as far as I know, the Bitsavers manual set is the latest set, with the exception of the GPR diagnostic manual. -- Dave From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 11:45:55 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:45:55 -0700 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:17:26 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "Ethan Dicks" writes: > what _is_ lost, AFAIK, is the MDL compiler and environment. So one > can inspect the source (at least one version, anyway), and one can > play the game (two versions for 36-bit that I've personally run), but > not turn source into a playable game. Apparently the ZIL interpreter from Infocom is based on MDL. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 11:50:11 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:50:11 -0600 Subject: Cleaning House References: <45A5214C.62C009EA@rain.org> Message-ID: <018001c734df$c6842990$6500a8c0@BILLING> It was written... > Check out VCM and Ebay (ID=KE6HTS) for the stuff I am getting rid of. I know how to look up all the items a given seller is selling on ebay... but I seem to be too brain-dead to see how to do that on vcm. Can someone enlighten me? Jay From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 10 11:52:51 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:52:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com> from "Sridhar Ayengar" at Jan 10, 2007 11:34:01 AM Message-ID: <200701101752.l0AHqpJr014860@onyx.spiritone.com> > James B. DiGriz wrote: > > The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the > > old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. > > > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 > > I *so* wish I could remember mine. > > Peace... Sridhar > It wasn't hard to find my CIS ID, however, I don't remember my password. Besides, I've not had an active account since sometime around late '93 most likely, so I kind of doubt I'd actually be able to log in. Zane From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 11:57:30 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:57:30 -0500 Subject: 36-bits, no waiting (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A5290A.2020404@gmail.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: >>> So in Central Ohio, at least, 36-bits survived into the 21st Century >>> for commercial usage. >> >> Shhh....don't tell Unisys. > > For that matter, what is GCOS-8 running on these days? I know it's > still around, though it looks like they might be moving to 64-bit > Itanium 2. They're *trying* to make everyone move to NovaScale systems with Itaniums, but they're still producing DPS9000's. The newest DPS9000's are actually decent systems, but GCOS8 is by no means common anymore. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 12:00:14 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:00:14 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Microvax IIs in BA123s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A529AE.9080802@gmail.com> cctech at porky.vax-11.org wrote: > > Which one is the BA123 chassis? The short fat one or the tall skinny one? IIRC, they're both the same height, but the BA123 is "fatter". Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 12:03:48 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:03:48 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701101752.l0AHqpJr014860@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200701101752.l0AHqpJr014860@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <45A52A84.3000906@gmail.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> James B. DiGriz wrote: >>> The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the >>> old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. >>> >>> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 >> I *so* wish I could remember mine. >> >> Peace... Sridhar >> > > It wasn't hard to find my CIS ID, however, I don't remember my password. > Besides, I've not had an active account since sometime around late '93 most > likely, so I kind of doubt I'd actually be able to log in. It would be cool if it were possible to finagle a *new* account. That would kick ass. Peace... Sridhar From marvin at rain.org Wed Jan 10 12:18:05 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:18:05 -0800 Subject: Cleaning House Message-ID: <45A52DDD.DBB6A5A2@rain.org> > I know how to look up all the items a given seller is selling on ebay... but > I seem to be too brain-dead to see how to do that on vcm. Can someone > enlighten me? > > Jay I don't know if there is an easier way, but click on one of anyones items, and below the listing is a link to "seller's other Ads", in my case "marvin's other Ads." Also, I have quite a bit of HP stuff I have no need of that I just can't get to ... yet :) ... hp-8x, display terminal (bad screen rot), keyboards, printers, drives, and I don't know what else :). From jdbryan at acm.org Wed Jan 10 12:19:42 2007 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:19:42 -0500 Subject: RTE In-Reply-To: <014601c7341d$8d181490$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200701101819.l0AIJhv1026015@mail.bcpl.net> On 9 Jan 2007 at 12:39, Jay West wrote: > *grin* I have no sound logical basis for this. I suspected as much! > Purely subjective gut reaction to the admittedly tiny amount of exposure > I've had to it. Fair enough, but you must have examples that provoked that reaction. > Most OS's that I first look at... because I've had lots of exposure to > lots of other OS's... there is some amount of "oh, yeah, that makes > sense...." Such as typing "awk" to invoke your string manipulator? :-) > I do not get that sense with RTE for some reason. I'll mention two things I found non-intuitive with RTE (I'm speaking of the early RTEs, not the later ones that grafted on Unix commands verbatim). First, there's no default command interpreter. When you boot RTE, it says, "SET TIME," and then it just sits there with no prompt (rather like logging into TSB; I always found the lack of a command prompt disturbing). Second, when you finally learn that you have to "interrupt the system" (from doing what?) in order to get a prompt to enter a command, you find that there are no commands that deal with files. None. RTE has a file management package and associated command interpreter, but it's run as one of many user programs. Once you get the file manager running, though, you have a prompt and the usual assortment of file-manipulation commands (list directories, copy files, edit, compile, etc.). At least the command names are mnemonic, rather than whimsical. :-) Actually, I was interested in your comment because I wondered whether RTE seemed odd to you compared to _current_ operating systems, or whether it seemed odd in the context of systems of the 1970s. -- Dave From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 10 12:19:48 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:19:48 -0800 Subject: Sun plastics In-Reply-To: References: , , Message-ID: <45A4BDC4.19752.29BF0DD@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jan 2007 at 8:06, cctech at porky.vax-11.org wrote: > Last time I bought MEK was at the hardware store. I believe it has since > been re-classified as a carcinogen or oxone destroying or baby seal > killing substance, and isn't available to the general public anymore. > Fortunately, I bought a quart 15 years ago and haven't used it up yet. > Most of the use is through evaporation... It's still available in some areas; another reason that you don't see it much is that it's also used in methamphetamine production, according to the DEA: http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/abuse/2-chem.htm and many jurisdictions, in their "war on drugs" zeal make anything having to do with meth production difficult to obtain. Cheers, Chuck From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 10 12:38:31 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:38:31 +0000 Subject: Microvax IIs in BA123s In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 10/1/07 15:08, "cctech at porky.vax-11.org" wrote: > > Which one is the BA123 chassis? The short fat one or the tall skinny one? The BA123 'world box' is the short fat one, the tall skinny one being the BA23. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 10 12:43:46 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:43:46 +0000 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 10/1/07 16:34, "Sridhar Ayengar" wrote: > James B. DiGriz wrote: >> The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the >> old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. >> >> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 > > I *so* wish I could remember mine. Same here, all I can remember is 100***.3616, there's NO chance I've got the password written down anywhere :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 10 12:50:24 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:50:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: from "Adrian Graham" at Jan 10, 2007 06:43:46 PM Message-ID: <200701101850.l0AIoP6p016455@onyx.spiritone.com> > On 10/1/07 16:34, "Sridhar Ayengar" wrote: > > > James B. DiGriz wrote: > >> The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the > >> old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. > >> > >> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 > > > > I *so* wish I could remember mine. > > Same here, all I can remember is 100***.3616, there's NO chance I've got the > password written down anywhere :) > > -- > Adrian/Witchy Oh, I *KNOW* where mine is written down, the problem is there is almost NO chance of my finding it! :^( The strange thing is I have a feeling it might be in the same box as an antique soldering iron... Zane From vrs at msn.com Wed Jan 10 13:07:32 2007 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:07:32 -0800 Subject: Cleaning House References: <45A5214C.62C009EA@rain.org> <018001c734df$c6842990$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: From: "Jay West" > It was written... >> Check out VCM and Ebay (ID=KE6HTS) for the stuff I am getting rid of. > I know how to look up all the items a given seller is selling on ebay... > but I seem to be too brain-dead to see how to do that on vcm. Can someone > enlighten me? In Marvin's, case, I think you can just click on "See Everything" :-). You can also click on his name "marvin", next to any of his auctions, then click on the little "437" or whatever next to "Current Postings". (There are about 50 pages of them.) There may be easier ways, but that worked for me :-). Vince From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 13:17:30 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:17:30 -0600 Subject: Cleaning House References: <45A5214C.62C009EA@rain.org><018001c734df$c6842990$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <022801c734eb$facbaf00$6500a8c0@BILLING> All the suggestions listed presupposed finding one of his items already up ;) By looking at ANY auction, and clicking on that seller, simple deduction gave... http://marketplace.vintage.org/showuser.cfm?handle=marvin Jay From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 10 13:28:04 2007 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:28:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Need info on Roytron paper tape reader/punch In-Reply-To: <017301c73354$6b365220$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <312682.63815.qm@web82703.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I have six used Roytron paper tape reader / punch combos that I would like to test out. The model number is 1560DV. They have a rectangular connector that looks like what was used on V.32 type modems. Does anyone have docs or information on these or know where I might find something? Thanks, Bob From jhoger at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 13:31:07 2007 From: jhoger at gmail.com (John R.) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:31:07 -0800 Subject: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more In-Reply-To: <45A40AC8.1000400@kurico.com> References: <45A40AC8.1000400@kurico.com> Message-ID: If my computers "just worked" there wouldn't be anything for me to do. I would feel so superfluous. -- John. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 14:05:39 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:05:39 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701101752.l0AHqpJr014860@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com> <200701101752.l0AHqpJr014860@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Zane H. Healy wrote: > It wasn't hard to find my CIS ID, however, I don't remember my password. > Besides, I've not had an active account since sometime around late '93 most > likely, so I kind of doubt I'd actually be able to log in. My old (1982) CIS number was on the mailing label for my monthly magazine (forget the title), but in 2001, when I worked there, there was no trace of it. Go figure ;-) -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 14:11:39 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:11:39 -0500 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: <45A5132F.7030704@gmail.com> References: <200701101220.l0ACK16V008678@mwave.heeltoe.com> <45A5132F.7030704@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > what _is_ lost, AFAIK, is the MDL compiler and environment... > > Are there enough specs around that you could write a work-alike? In the most abstract sense, almost certainly. Over a decade ago, I purchased the relevant MDL-related titles that are now out-of-print from MIT Press. MDL itself should be sufficiently documented as to be able to implement enough of a subset to compile Zork sources, but since I've never had to write a high-level compiler (just written a few assemblers), the task is larger than I have time or attention-span to conquer, and from the occasional airing of this topic on Usenet in rec.arts.int-fiction, the task is larger than most people care to conquer. In short - Can? Probably. Will? Maybe. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 14:25:56 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:25:56 -0500 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Richard wrote: > Apparently the ZIL interpreter from Infocom is based on MDL. There are numerous interviews with the original Implementors (founders of Infocom) and articles in "The New Zork Times"/"Statusline", etc. to say that "based on" is in the loosest sense of the word. I can't recall which of the articles describes all the MDL features they threw out the window when going from MDL to ZIL, but in effect, I think it would be more accurate to say that ZIL is patterned after MDL than based on. Unfortunately, none of the ZIL environment survived the move from MA to CA when Activision/Mediagenic shut down the Infocom group in the early 90s(?). I once (prior to the release of "The Lost Treasures of Infocom") had a line on getting access to some form of Sun-based server with the remnants of the group's development environment, but when it came down to discussions of the money required to purchase a *non-exclusive* license to repackage and republish the body of Infocom IP (a-la the aforementioned LToI), the negotiations broke down when their counter-offer to my initial offer was different by orders of magnitude. After seeing how cheaply the books were put together for LToI when it eventually came out, I kinda wished I'd been able to find enough backing to do it myself, but, to be honest, my background is development, not publishing, so I can't say that I would have been able to do a better job without hiking the price well above where they sold it at ($40-$60, IIRC). I keep hoping that someday, a copy of ZIL will surface somewhere, but so far, all I've seen is a tutorial that was given clearance to be released of some sort of new Imp's ZIL survival guide (that has a couple of blank/unfinished chapters, unfortunately). What's in there is most illuminating, but tantalizingly aggravating at the same time. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 14:41:32 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:41:32 -0500 Subject: Terminals (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) Message-ID: On 1/10/07, woodelf wrote: > I just got ADVENT running on my SBC6120 only to discover the terminal > I am using has a flakey keyboard. Bummer. > Just what do you use for a termial with the SBC6120? For times when I need to move files (like programming the Flash on my IOB6120), I use a Linux box and Kermit and whatever keyboard is on the Linux box (laptop or desktop). For real terminal use, lately, I've been using mostly LK201s on DEC terminals, and whatever keyboard is handy for my Planar ELT-320, a 9" orange-screen electroluminescent wee terminal that takes both PS/2 keyboards and DEC LK201 keyboards. Since the terminal is so small, I like to use my Happy Hacking PS/2 keyboard with it - the whole arrangement is smaller than many laptops. The heaviest part is the slug of metal in the base of the terminal to keep the screen from tipping over (I also have a wall-mount case for another ELT-320 with no base). So... depending on platform, a DEC LK201 or some random PS/2 keyboard (Keytronics are nice) -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 10 14:43:10 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:43:10 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com>, <200701101752.l0AHqpJr014860@onyx.spiritone.com>, Message-ID: <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jan 2007 at 15:05, Ethan Dicks wrote: > My old (1982) CIS number was on the mailing label for my monthly > magazine (forget the title), but in 2001, when I worked there, there > was no trace of it. Go figure ;-) It doesn't matter--the account has to be current. I just tried with my CIS number and password (yes--I could remember both :)) and got the following message: Last access: 18:16 22-Dec-04 Copyright (c) 2007 CompuServe Incorporated All Rights Reserved One moment please ... Thank you for signing on! Our records show that you once were a CompuServe member. Please call your local CompuServe Customer Service to re-activate your CompuServe account [xxxxx,xxxx] or use 'Sign-up' to set up a new account. 1-800-848-8990 (US and Canada) All other countries, please contact your local sales/service office. Thank you for using CompuServe! Off at 15:40 EST 10-Jan-07 Connect time = 0:01 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 14:48:30 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:48:30 -0500 Subject: replacing a dc005? (qbus chip) In-Reply-To: <200701101644.l0AGiUVg027838@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701101644.l0AGiUVg027838@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Brad Parker wrote: > One of my rqdx3 boards suffered a trauma in a previous life and one of > the "DC005" chips at the bottom cracked in half. Needless to say the > board does not work. Ow! > I removed the old chip, but what now? > > Does anyone have a spare DC005 or know of a suitable replacement? I > assume this is one of the magic DEC chips for qbus. It is a DEC "magic Qbus chip". We used to buy the DEC "Qbus Chip Kit", but we did use the DC005 to talk to the bus (just not their DMA chips). If you needed some other Qbus spare, I would probably have it, but we used all of our DC005s in our product. I know some 3rd party vendors used to use chips like the 72LS240 to interface to the Qbus, but I doubt they are pin-compatible nor even function-compatible with a DC005. Of course a '240 won't have the same bus loading, etc., but for a single-backplane system, you'd probably never know the difference. > I suppose I could try extracting one from another board, but that is > pretty painful... dips are easier to get out if you can snip their > leads. They are much easier to get out if you don't care about the board. -ethan From michael.passer at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 14:51:02 2007 From: michael.passer at gmail.com (Michael Passer) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:51:02 -0600 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com> <200701101752.l0AHqpJr014860@onyx.spiritone.com> <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <9b0f05d60701101251x73d8490bl4e5a6a8fd36475f2@mail.gmail.com> On 1/10/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 10 Jan 2007 at 15:05, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > My old (1982) CIS number was on the mailing label for my monthly > > magazine (forget the title), but in 2001, when I worked there, there > > was no trace of it. Go figure ;-) > > It doesn't matter--the account has to be current. I just tried with > my CIS number and password (yes--I could remember both :)) and got > the following message: > > Last access: 18:16 22-Dec-04 > > Copyright (c) 2007 > CompuServe Incorporated > All Rights Reserved > > > > One moment please ... > > Thank you for signing on! Our records show that you once > were a CompuServe member. Please call your local CompuServe > Customer Service to re-activate your CompuServe account [xxxxx,xxxx] > or use 'Sign-up' to set up a new account. > > 1-800-848-8990 (US and Canada) > > All other countries, please contact your local > sales/service office. > Thank you for using CompuServe! > > Off at 15:40 EST 10-Jan-07 > Connect time = 0:01 I wonder if anyone could log on with a Snapak PPN and password. Anyone have an old modem with one unopened :)? From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 14:53:56 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:53:56 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com> <200701101752.l0AHqpJr014860@onyx.spiritone.com> <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 10 Jan 2007 at 15:05, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > My old (1982) CIS number was on the mailing label for my monthly > > magazine (forget the title), but in 2001, when I worked there, there > > was no trace of it. Go figure ;-) > > It doesn't matter--the account has to be current. I just tried with > my CIS number and password (yes--I could remember both :)) and got > the following message: > > Last access: 18:16 22-Dec-04 > > Copyright (c) 2007 !!! Still live, then. > One moment please ... > > Thank you for signing on! Our records show that you once > were a CompuServe member. Please call your local CompuServe > Customer Service to re-activate your CompuServe account [xxxxx,xxxx] > or use 'Sign-up' to set up a new account. Interesting... I'll have to dig up that old magazine and check my mailing lable. One of the things I did long ago was to beta-test a slick C-64 VidTex (text plus simple character-based color graphics) client. I still have the xeroxed preliminary manual and a disk image with the client. Turns out that 20 years later, I was working in the same group with some of the guys who developed content that was designed for that client. They were pretty pleased to see me bring it in and fire it up under VICE. Nice little trip down memory lane for them. -ethan From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jan 10 16:03:15 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:03:15 -0300 Subject: Gateway destination - is it on topic? Message-ID: <038701c73503$7fbb3de0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Is the gateway destination old enough to be on topic? :) Well, I'm in need of a radio reciver of a gateway destination keyboard. Anyone wanting to part with that? :) Thanks! Alexandre From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 10 15:17:52 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:17:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <539975.37788.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> References: <539975.37788.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070110131128.G70871@shell.lmi.net> > > Sure. > > If you can boot the Victor, then you can format > > disks with it, and even > > make a boot disk. On Tue, 9 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > Yeah but that's laying an egg somehow w/o the > chicken. What I was thinking was tacking some code > into a rom chip. After POST/before bootstrapping, > cause it to format a floppy. Umm the rest I haven't > figured out yet... Remember that "boot" is short for "bootstrap". The relevance of THAT goes back to Baron Von Munchausen. The good baron, although oft accused of exaggeration, told many tales of his travels. One time, he was stuck in a swamp, and sinking fast. There was nothing overhead to grab, and nothing solid on any side. So, he reached down, grabbed the straps of his boots, and lifted himself out of it. It would certainly be easier if somebody has one that they could copy for you. The world lost much when Don Maslin died. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 10 15:20:16 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:20:16 +0000 Subject: OT but help rqd: website compromise Message-ID: Hi folks, Seems like my webserver was hacked on xmas eve by someone who managed to install a 'nice' little script called c99shell; fortunately they left their IP address kicking around and it resolves to a company called Staminus Communications in Fullerton, CA. Since the majority of this list is US based can anyone tell me if it's worth flinging them a message to abuse@ giving the culprit's IP address? I've already told my ISP over here but I doubt anything will happen. Message me off list if possible please, Jay, apols for the off-topic noise! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 10 15:21:57 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:21:57 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com>, <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <45A4E875.11766.342B5C7@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jan 2007 at 15:53, Ethan Dicks wrote: > !!! Still live, then. What's more surprising is that one can get in with anonymous login to ftp.compuserve.com. Most of the stuff looks to be related to CIM from 1998--even a Win 3.1 version. No private fora access, however. Cheers, Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 15:22:31 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:22:31 -0500 Subject: Microvax IIs in BA123s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Adrian Graham wrote: > On 10/1/07 15:08, "cctech at porky.vax-11.org" wrote: > > > > Which one is the BA123 chassis? The short fat one or the tall skinny one? > > The BA123 'world box' is the short fat one, the tall skinny one being the > BA23. Since we never stuffed our BA23s into the pedestal "sleeve", I would have responded that the BA23 is rack-mount and the BA123 is a pedestal case, but am reminded by this post that some people _did_ stick a BA23 on its side. For those that _don't_ know, you can slide the BA23 out of that tall, skinny, plastic case and rack it. We had a DEC-made rack shelf with some sort of friction-reducing tape front-to-back where the BA23 would slide over it (as opposed to slide rails bolted on the side of the BA232), but one could easily just cobble together some angle-bracket or put the BA23 on a flat shelf. ISTR there's a set of small removable faceplate brackets on either side of the BA23 that might be installed for rack use and removed for pedestal use, but it's been a while since I took a BA23 apart and I could easily be mistaken. -ethan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 10 15:34:59 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:34:59 -0600 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070110131128.G70871@shell.lmi.net> References: <539975.37788.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> <20070110131128.G70871@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45A55C03.8030600@yahoo.co.uk> Fred Cisin wrote: > Remember that "boot" is short for "bootstrap". > The relevance of THAT goes back to Baron Von Munchausen. > The good baron, although oft accused of exaggeration, told many tales of > his travels. One time, he was stuck in a swamp, and sinking fast. There > was nothing overhead to grab, and nothing solid on any side. So, he > reached down, grabbed the straps of his boots, and lifted himself out of > it. And people wonder why computers don't work very well... :-) From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 15:35:47 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:35:47 -0700 Subject: Cleaning House In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:18:05 -0800. <45A52DDD.DBB6A5A2@rain.org> Message-ID: Ah, so the mystery of who this "marvin" guy is, is finally solved! :-) Seriously. I have looked at a *lot* of your adds on vintage computer marketplace :) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 15:37:02 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:37:02 -0700 Subject: "kinetic systems minicrate" Message-ID: I stumbled across this on an auction site. It looks like a cardcage, but for what? Is it some kind of process control enclosure? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 15:49:37 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:49:37 -0700 Subject: Terminals (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:41:32 -0500. Message-ID: On 1/10/07, woodelf wrote: > Just what do you use for a termial with the SBC6120? Assuming that you just need an ASCII RS-232 terminal here and nothing fancier... I prefer a unit where the keyboard is separate and put in any position that feels ergonomically comfortable. That rules out things like the ADM-3A, ADM-5, Basic/Four 7250, Heath/Zenith Z-19, Heath H-9, Tektronix 4010/4014, etc. I love the screen font on the HP2621. It had very well formed characters that always looked so smooth and crisp at the same time. I have two, one with a dead PS that needs to be repaired. The keyboard is just OK; not the best, but not the worst I've used. The Tektronix 4105 and 4205 have really nice keyboards and have color graphics and text. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jan 10 15:51:07 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:51:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I keep hoping that someday, a copy of ZIL will surface somewhere, but > so far, all I've seen is a tutorial that was given clearance to be > released of some sort of new Imp's ZIL survival guide (that has a > couple of blank/unfinished chapters, unfortunately). What's in there > is most illuminating, but tantalizingly aggravating at the same time. That document was good enough for someone to write a usable ZIL compiler a couple years ago. The bigger barrier now to writing something large is that the original libraries are still lost. New ZIL libraries were being talked about last time I checked. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 15:51:19 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:51:19 -0700 Subject: Mouse for Tektronix 4105/4205 terminals? Message-ID: I didn't know this until I acquired some of these, but the keyboards have a mouse port on the back; it looks like a standard serial 9-pin connector and it has "MOUSE" labelled above it. However, I have yet to find any documentation on the pinout or electrical/comm specifications for the mouse. Does anyone recall having a mouse hooked up to their Tektronix 4105/4205 and what kind of connection it had? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 15:42:15 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:42:15 -0700 Subject: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:11:39 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "Ethan Dicks" writes: > On 1/10/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > what _is_ lost, AFAIK, is the MDL compiler and environment... > > > > Are there enough specs around that you could write a work-alike? > > [...] > > In short - Can? Probably. Will? Maybe. Reading about it made me wonder if it wouldn't be more fruitful to write a perl script to transliterate the ZIL source for Zork into some other LISP dialect or another language and work from that instead of trying to create a whole MDL compiler... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 15:53:23 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:53:23 -0700 Subject: Most expensive terminal I've seen on ebay... Message-ID: OK, this blows the compucolor frenzy out of the water, folks... Item # 270073780561 Authentic Altair Compter Single Line Terminal $2,800.00 with 8 bids. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 15:53:46 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:53:46 -0500 Subject: "kinetic systems minicrate" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A5606A.9060607@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > I stumbled across this on an auction site. It looks like a cardcage, > but for what? Is it some kind of process control enclosure? Do you have a URL? Peace... Sridhar From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 16:02:48 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:02:48 -0800 Subject: Terminals (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701101402v7a23622ege168aba5819f3c16@mail.gmail.com> On 1/10/07, Ethan Dicks wrote: > The heaviest part is the slug of metal in the base of the terminal to > keep the screen from tipping over (I also have a wall-mount case for > another ELT-320 with no base). > Is that a stock base or something you built? I have an ELT-320 laying flat on its back right now since I have no base for it. Has any one built their own base for one of these? They typically show up on eBay without a base (and usually without a power supply). Some day I'll have to get around to building my own base. -Glen From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 10 16:15:24 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:15:24 -0800 Subject: "kinetic systems minicrate" Message-ID: <45A5657C.2000905@bitsavers.org> > I stumbled across this on an auction site. It looks like a cardcage, > but for what? Kinetic Systems made CAMAC crates and boards. From derschjo at msu.edu Wed Jan 10 11:33:05 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:33:05 -0800 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: <200701101641.l0AGfLwA027672@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701101641.l0AGfLwA027672@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <45A52351.6030306@msu.edu> > > I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping > this will solve my problem. > I've had the same issue, my experience has been that unless the drive is already formatted for a DEC, the RQDX3 won't be able to reformat it successfully (even for drives with the exact same geometry as a DEC standard drive). At least I never had any luck doing so, but maybe newer ROMs will solve the problem. I recently picked up a VAXStation 2000 for the purpose of formatting these drives (it has firmware routines for reformatting RQDX3 drives). Well, that and I couldn't resist having such a tiny VAX machine... if you get really desperate, I'd be happy to format your drives for ya' :). Josh Brad Parker wrote: > "Glen Slick" wrote: > >> I don't know the answer to your first question. I have two M7555's in >> front of my right now. One has 243E5 / 244E5 and the other has 285E5 >> / 286E5. These are listed as issue 2 and issue 3 here: >> >> http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs/ROMlist >> >> It lists issue 4 as 339E5 and 340E5. BIN files are there. >> > > I just finished buring 339 & 340 into 27128A's. I plan to try them as > replacements for 243/244. > > I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping > this will solve my problem. > > and on a related note... > > -brad > > > From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Wed Jan 10 11:48:23 2007 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:48:23 -0700 (MST) Subject: replacing a dc005? (qbus chip) In-Reply-To: <200701101644.l0AGiUVg027838@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701101644.l0AGiUVg027838@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: I used to watch eBay for 'junk' QBus cards like DRV11W, etc. as a source of spare parts of DEC specific ICs. Clint On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Brad Parker wrote: > > One of my rqdx3 boards suffered a trauma in a previous life and one of > the "DC005" chips at the bottom cracked in half. Needless to say the > board does not work. > > I removed the old chip, but what now? > > Does anyone have a spare DC005 or know of a suitable replacement? I > assume this is one of the magic DEC chips for qbus. > > I suppose I could try extracting one from another board, but that is > pretty painful... dips are easier to get out if you can snip their > leads. > > -brad > From marvin at rain.org Wed Jan 10 16:36:15 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:36:15 -0800 Subject: Cleaning House Message-ID: <45A56A5F.6453D269@rain.org> > From: Richard > > Ah, so the mystery of who this "marvin" guy is, is finally solved! :-) > > Seriously. > > I have looked at a *lot* of your adds on vintage computer marketplace :) Thanks! If everything that I sold or tried to sell on VCM, VCF, Ebay sold, it wouldn't make a dent ... at least that I would be able to see :). I could put up several thousand items, and that *might* start to make a dent. The problem there is listing and packing time. I would *really* like to play with some of this stuff, but it is just too much stuff right now. Marvin From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 10 16:36:51 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:36:51 -0500 Subject: Microvax IIs in BA123s In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:22:31 EST." Message-ID: <200701102236.l0AMapsA020241@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Ethan Dicks" wrote: > >For those that _don't_ know, you can slide the BA23 out of that tall, >skinny, plastic case and rack it. hmm. I was pondering that just yesterday. I have a BA23 which is naked ("skinless"). I could not see how you could bolt slides to it... Are the "skins" hard to find? anyone have any extras they don't want? -brad From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 16:22:29 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:22:29 -0700 Subject: "kinetic systems minicrate" In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:15:24 -0800. <45A5657C.2000905@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <45A5657C.2000905 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > > I stumbled across this on an auction site. It looks like a cardcage, > > but for what? > > Kinetic Systems made CAMAC crates and boards. What's CAMAC? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 16:22:08 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:22:08 -0700 Subject: "kinetic systems minicrate" In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:53:46 -0500. <45A5606A.9060607@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <45A5606A.9060607 at gmail.com>, Sridhar Ayengar writes: > Richard wrote: > > I stumbled across this on an auction site. It looks like a cardcage, > > but for what? Is it some kind of process control enclosure? > > Do you have a URL? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jan 10 16:39:57 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:39:57 -0500 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: <45A52351.6030306@msu.edu> References: <200701101641.l0AGfLwA027672@mwave.heeltoe.com> <45A52351.6030306@msu.edu> Message-ID: <200701101739.57913.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 10 January 2007 12:33, Josh Dersch wrote: > > I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm > > hoping this will solve my problem. > > I've had the same issue, my experience has been that unless the drive > is already formatted for a DEC, the RQDX3 won't be able to reformat > it successfully (even for drives with the exact same geometry as a > DEC standard drive). At least I never had any luck doing so, but > maybe newer ROMs will solve the problem. FWIW, I've pulled ST225's (aka RD31's) out of bog-standard PC's, and formatted them on an RQDX3 in an MicroPDP11, using ZQRCH0 from XXDP... Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 10 16:42:41 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:42:41 -0500 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:33:05 PST." <45A52351.6030306@msu.edu> Message-ID: <200701102242.l0AMgfwM021634@mwave.heeltoe.com> Josh Dersch wrote: >> >> I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping >> this will solve my problem. >> >I've had the same issue, my experience has been that unless the drive is >already formatted for a DEC, the RQDX3 won't be able to reformat it >successfully (even for drives with the exact same geometry as a DEC >standard drive). At least I never had any luck doing so, but maybe >newer ROMs will solve the problem. I put in the v4 eeproms and was able to format the drive; I'm not sure if it was the eproms, however. Pretty much all of the posted examples of zrqch0 use for st-2xx drives were incorrect. Or at least they didn't work for me. I started experimenting and finally figured out how to get it to format the drive. Basically telling it not to autoformat and to ignore existing bad block info. At some point I'll try it again with the old eproms just for grins. I should post a log of the session (I'll try and make one tomorrow) -brad From teoz at neo.rr.com Wed Jan 10 04:51:44 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 05:51:44 -0500 Subject: Cleaning House References: <45A56A5F.6453D269@rain.org> Message-ID: <00fd01c734a5$522f7ac0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marvin Johnston" To: "ClassicCmp" Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 5:36 PM Subject: Re: Cleaning House > > > From: Richard > > > > Ah, so the mystery of who this "marvin" guy is, is finally solved! :-) > > > > Seriously. > > > > I have looked at a *lot* of your adds on vintage computer marketplace :) > > Thanks! If everything that I sold or tried to sell on VCM, VCF, Ebay sold, it > wouldn't make a dent ... at least that I would be able to see :). > > I could put up several thousand items, and that *might* start to make a dent. > The problem there is listing and packing time. I would *really* like to play > with some of this stuff, but it is just too much stuff right now. > > Marvin Finding the items you listed must be a major problem when people do show interest. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 16:53:44 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:53:44 -0500 Subject: Terminals (was Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10) In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90701101402v7a23622ege168aba5819f3c16@mail.gmail.com> References: <1e1fc3e90701101402v7a23622ege168aba5819f3c16@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Glen Slick wrote: > On 1/10/07, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > The heaviest part is the slug of metal in the base of the terminal to > > keep the screen from tipping over (I also have a wall-mount case for > > another ELT-320 with no base). > > > > Is that a stock base or something you built? Stock. No pictures at the moment, sorry. > I have an ELT-320 laying > flat on its back right now since I have no base for it. Has any one > built their own base for one of these? They typically show up on eBay > without a base (and usually without a power supply). Some day I'll > have to get around to building my own base. I got the one with the base with no PSU, and the one with the wall-mount enclosure (no base) _with_ a PSU. In any case, it's just 12V somewhere around 2000mA, IIRC with a DIN-6 power connector. -ethan From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 17:01:31 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:01:31 -0700 Subject: replacing a dc005? (qbus chip) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:48:23 -0700. Message-ID: In article , cctech at porky.vax-11.org writes: > I used to watch eBay for 'junk' QBus cards like DRV11W, etc. as a source > of spare parts of DEC specific ICs. Ooooh, that's a good idea, not only for fixing existing boards, but for prototyping new ones :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 17:03:11 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:03:11 -0500 Subject: "kinetic systems minicrate" In-Reply-To: References: <45A5657C.2000905@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Richard wrote: > In article <45A5657C.2000905 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > > Kinetic Systems made CAMAC crates and boards. > > What's CAMAC? It's a bus/cage standard for cards akin to VME, but with bus voltages like +/-6VDC and +/-24VDC rather than +/-5VDC (+/-12VDC is a latecomer to CAMAC), and with position-dependent addressing of cards (rather than address jumpers/switches as are common with VME where bus slots are typically identical). We had (have?) 4 CAMAC crates loaded with multi-channel ADC cards on AMANDA, the neutrino detector installed at Pole between about 1996 and 2000 (and which has been recently absorbed into Ice Cube, but that's a different story). We addressed all 4 CAMAC crates from a VME PPC processor via a VME<->CAMAC bridge card, as I don't think anyone made processors in CAMAC format (we also had other VME cards in the system, some stock, some purpose-built for the detector). I personally have never seen CAMAC cards used anywhere but in the context of physics labs and attendant equipment (particle detectors, etc). Stock cards tend to be data collection sorts of items. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 17:09:46 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:09:46 -0500 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070110131128.G70871@shell.lmi.net> References: <539975.37788.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> <20070110131128.G70871@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Fred Cisin wrote: > The world lost much when Don Maslin died. Amen. Just this week, I found the envelope for the Kaypro disk he sent me years ago. -ethan From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 17:10:43 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:10:43 -0600 Subject: Microvax IIs in BA123s References: <200701102236.l0AMapsA020241@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <00a501c7350c$8e043ab0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Brad wrote.... > I have a BA23 which is naked ("skinless"). I could not see how you could > bolt slides to it... > > Are the "skins" hard to find? anyone have any extras they don't want? I have a spare BA23 plastic tower I think. I'll check. To pull the metalwork out and rack mount it, you don't bolt slides to it. There are special slides that are basically L brackets that let you do it. Jay From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 17:21:27 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:21:27 -0700 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:09:46 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "Ethan Dicks" writes: > On 1/10/07, Fred Cisin wrote: > > The world lost much when Don Maslin died. > > Amen. Just this week, I found the envelope for the Kaypro disk he > sent me years ago. I didn't know who this was so a little googling turned up a list of disks that Don had put together. Browsing the list revealed this tantalizing item: BEEHIVE Name Format Description BEEV10 DSDD Beehive Topper II CP/M 2.2 System - BIOS 1.0 BEEV13 DSDD Beehive Topper II CP/M 2.2 System - BIOS 1.3 This seems to imply that Beehive (based in Utah) made some sort of CP/M machine called the "Topper II". Does anyone know about this machine? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 10 17:38:07 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:38:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070110153445.Q70871@shell.lmi.net> > > > The world lost much when Don Maslin died. On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Richard wrote: > > Amen. Just this week, I found the envelope for the Kaypro disk he > > sent me years ago. I have many hundreds of "alien" diskettes that were to go to him when I blue-screen. Now I don't know who to will them to. > I didn't know who this was so a little googling turned up a list of > disks that Don had put together. Browsing the list revealed this > tantalizing item: > BEEHIVE > Name Format Description > BEEV10 DSDD Beehive Topper II CP/M 2.2 System - BIOS 1.0 > BEEV13 DSDD Beehive Topper II CP/M 2.2 System - BIOS 1.3 > This seems to imply that Beehive (based in Utah) made some sort of > CP/M machine called the "Topper II". > Does anyone know about this machine? I have never seen the machine either, but I have seen floppies from it. I don't know whether that was made by Beehive, or was an aftermarket add-on to convert a terminal into a computer. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 10 17:45:43 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:45:43 -0700 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:38:07 -0800. <20070110153445.Q70871@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: In article <20070110153445.Q70871 at shell.lmi.net>, Fred Cisin writes: > On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Richard wrote: > > > Amen. Just this week, I found the envelope for the Kaypro disk he > > > sent me years ago. Just for the record, I didn't write that :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 17:51:44 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:51:44 -0500 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: References: <20070110153445.Q70871@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Richard wrote: > > On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Richard wrote: > > > > Amen. Just this week, I found the envelope for the Kaypro disk he > > > > sent me years ago. > > Just for the record, I didn't write that :-). I did. -ethan From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 10 18:11:14 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:11:14 -0800 Subject: floppies Message-ID: <45A580A2.4050109@bitsavers.org> >> > Amen. Just this week, I found the envelope for the Kaypro disk he >> > sent me years ago. > > I have many hundreds of "alien" diskettes that were to go to him when > I blue-screen. Now I don't know who to will them to. There's always CHM. I may not get to them, but my successors will. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 18:27:25 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:27:25 -0500 Subject: Looking for older Cisco PIX-520 images Message-ID: I have this recently acquired PIX-520 with what seems to be an entirely *blank* FLASH boot card. The machine is so clean inside - not a speck of dust - that I think it may be a NIB unit that someone decided to disgorge onto eBay last summer. It goes through the usual PC-ish boot dialogs (there's an Intel Pentium board inside, with 3 Intel NICs and a 3.5" floppy as the only peripherals besides the boot board), but when all the PC stuff is done, the unit acts dead - no traffic on the serial port that I can see, no text on the (installed by me for debugging) video. I'd try the Cisco site, but besides lacking a current log-in, from reading some of the firewall mailing list entries about older PIX OS files, it seems that Cisco may have purged some of what I'm looking for. If anyone happens to have any archived files from older versions (pre 6.x) of PIX OS and the attendant boot helper files (secondary bootstraps), please contact me *off list* if you are willing to share. For starters, I'd love to find a file like bh510.bin, bh512.bh or bh514.bin, which are various versions of the "boot helper" for the less-obsolete versions of the OS. If I had a boot helper file written to floppy, I should be able to at least see some activity related to it _trying_ to install the OS. Thanks, -ethan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 10 18:28:55 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:28:55 -0600 Subject: floppies In-Reply-To: <45A580A2.4050109@bitsavers.org> References: <45A580A2.4050109@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45A584C7.6030306@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: > >> > Amen. Just this week, I found the envelope for the Kaypro disk he > >> > sent me years ago. > > > > I have many hundreds of "alien" diskettes that were to go to him when > > I blue-screen. Now I don't know who to will them to. > > There's always CHM. I may not get to them, but my successors will. Yes, that's the view I'd take too... but having said that, what's the expected remaining lifetime of a floppy? Time is probably of the essence, I suppose, and where they go depends on who will deal with them first. We're in the same boat... it's nice that the stuff ends up with a museum where lots of people can see it, but some things are still time-critical and there's always the danger with anything received that it won't get dealt with until it's too late. It's one of the reasons I really want a device that'll just image a floppy at the lowest possible level, because in *most* cases it buys time (there will still be exceptions, where a marginal signal could be recovered from the original media but not from an image) until the data can be analysed "properly". cheers Jules From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 10 17:13:04 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:13:04 +0000 (GMT) Subject: "kinetic systems minicrate" In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 10, 7 03:22:29 pm Message-ID: > > What's CAMAC? It's an acronym for something like 'Computer Assisted Measurment And Control'. It's a bus standard for instrumetation modules used particularly in particle physics -tony From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 10 18:38:20 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:38:20 +0000 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: <200701101312.l0ADCsXY015077@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701101312.l0ADCsXY015077@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <45A586FC.1080908@dunnington.plus.com> Brad Parker wrote: > Anyone know if I can update an RQDX3 from v2 firmware to v4 firmware just > just by replacing the eeprom? obNitpick: it's an EPROM, not an EEPROM :-) Yes, that's all you need to change. However, the meaning of one of the links changed with later versions of the firmware. It only matters for hard drives with more than 8(? or 4?) heads, though, as far as I remember. I don't have the manual to hand, so I can't check. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 10 18:58:55 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:58:55 -0800 Subject: floppies Message-ID: <45A58BCF.50009@bitsavers.org> > what's the expected > remaining lifetime of a floppy? Time is probably of the essence Chuck and Fred have more experience, but I'm assuming once they're in a stable temp/humidity environment they should be ok for another 10 years. The stuff I'm dealing with now is stuff WAY past its shelf live (20-30 year old tapes). I've read hundreds of floppies over the past five years or so, and the only problems I've had have been with 70's 8" media that was stored in poor conditions where the oxide strips off upon head contact, and the common problem with all head-contact media of oxide/binder buildup reducing the signal level off the head. I absolutely agree that the discs should be copied in image format. From rcini at optonline.net Wed Jan 10 19:00:03 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:00:03 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701101850.l0AIoP6p016455@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <003501c7351b$d3d50290$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> 70153,3367 was mine... Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 1:50 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Compuserve wayback machine > On 10/1/07 16:34, "Sridhar Ayengar" wrote: > > > James B. DiGriz wrote: > >> The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the > >> old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. > >> > >> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 > > > > I *so* wish I could remember mine. > > Same here, all I can remember is 100***.3616, there's NO chance I've got the > password written down anywhere :) > > -- > Adrian/Witchy Oh, I *KNOW* where mine is written down, the problem is there is almost NO chance of my finding it! :^( The strange thing is I have a feeling it might be in the same box as an antique soldering iron... Zane From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 10 19:03:27 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:03:27 -0800 Subject: floppies Message-ID: <45A58CDF.5030503@bitsavers.org> > it's nice that the stuff ends up with a museum where > lots of people can see it Another minor point is it is probably unlikely that ANYONE other than archivists would see the physical discs unless there is something really unique about how they look. The important thing to preserve is their contents. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 10 19:06:33 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:06:33 -0800 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: <20070110153445.Q70871@shell.lmi.net> References: , <20070110153445.Q70871@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45A51D19.5255.41054A2@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jan 2007 at 15:38, Fred Cisin wrote: > I have many hundreds of "alien" diskettes that were to go to him when I > blue-screen. Now I don't know who to will them to. Same here--probably nobody. My collection's a little unusual in that it has a lot of embedded systems diskettes in it, for everything from a CNC EDM machine, to embroidery machines to electron microscopes to a cardiac monitor. Interesting, but who needs this kind of stuff anymore? > I have never seen the machine either, but I have seen floppies from it. > I don't know whether that was made by Beehive, or was an aftermarket > add-on to convert a terminal into a computer. Toward the end of their corprorate life, Beehive was open to doing lots of bizarre things, including loading their own terminals with custom firmware and rebadging them. I think that what portion of the terminal market the PC didn't destroy, Wyse probably got the lion's share of. I recall that the Wyse 50 was about as cheap as a terminal could get. Cheers, Chuck From rcini at optonline.net Wed Jan 10 19:10:53 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:10:53 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <003501c7351b$d3d50290$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <003601c7351d$5766d830$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> I actually just tried it and I can't remember my last password. It does seem to accept the UID though. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard A. Cini Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 8:00 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Compuserve wayback machine 70153,3367 was mine... Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 1:50 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Compuserve wayback machine > On 10/1/07 16:34, "Sridhar Ayengar" wrote: > > > James B. DiGriz wrote: > >> The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the > >> old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. > >> > >> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 > > > > I *so* wish I could remember mine. > > Same here, all I can remember is 100***.3616, there's NO chance I've got the > password written down anywhere :) > > -- > Adrian/Witchy Oh, I *KNOW* where mine is written down, the problem is there is almost NO chance of my finding it! :^( The strange thing is I have a feeling it might be in the same box as an antique soldering iron... Zane From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 10 19:12:25 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:12:25 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site><011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING><1168327122.4220.191.camel@linux.site> <005e01c73408$01eeabf0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <001101c7351d$8f3b7270$0100a8c0@screamer> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" > Best choice - and most common - get yourself a 2109 or 2113 (21MX/E). > You'll need 32kw of ram... but heck, you could easily pull one of your 64k > boards from your F and be all set. You'd also need floating point roms... > was that standard on the E? I forget, and no books around at the moment. > But I think it was standard on the E. Yes, E-series machines have floating point as a standard part of their firmware. The binary instructions are the same as those used on the F-series floating point accelerator. But there is no SIS option of course... >> o Is there any way to get TSB connected to an IP network? > TSB certainly has no IP support, and without DMS, the memory map is > awfully cramped - little room for new code. However - just cheat: put a > terminal server in front of it and away you go! How about running TSB out of virtual memory under IPL. Now you can swap out parts of your system map at will, think of having instant run-time overlays... Terry Newton hacked HP BASIC to run under IPL, run 'BYE' and it returns control back to the IPL code that called HP BASIC. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 10 19:13:21 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:13:21 -0800 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) Message-ID: <45A58F31.8070401@bitsavers.org> >> I have many hundreds of "alien" diskettes that were to go to him when I >> blue-screen. Now I don't know who to will them to. > Same here--probably nobody. My collection's a little unusual in that > it has a lot of embedded systems diskettes in it, for everything from > a CNC EDM machine, to embroidery machines to electron microscopes to > a cardiac monitor. Interesting, but who needs this kind of stuff > anymore? Someone who still owns one of these devices. Really more of an issue for software for test equipment, though, since that kind of stuff has a longer useful life (assuming the floppy for it doesn't get lost..) From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 10 19:07:17 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:07:17 +0000 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: <200701101641.l0AGfLwA027672@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701101641.l0AGfLwA027672@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <45A58DC5.2030903@dunnington.plus.com> Brad Parker wrote: > "Glen Slick" wrote: > I just finished buring 339 & 340 into 27128A's. I plan to try them as > replacements for 243/244. > > I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping > this will solve my problem. It may help, as I'm not absolutely sure that Issue 2 can handle ST-225, but Issue 3 or 4 certainly can. However, the common problem is that you need to give the right answers to the formatter's questions about using the manufacturer's bad block table and various other things, otherwise the formatter just tries to use the UIT table (aka FCT, Format Control Table) that's in the first three XBNs of a DEC-formatted disk, which it needs but won't find on a non-original-DEC drive. You can't use "autoformat" mode, although the data for the table for RD31/32/33 is in ZRQCH0. I used to do this a lot, fifteen years ago, but offhand I don't remember the incantations; I even worked out what almost all of the numbers had to be in order to use drives that DEC didn't support. I've no doubt the relevant recipe for an ST-225 -- which is supported, as an RD31 -- is on the web somewhere. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 10 19:20:52 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:20:52 -0800 Subject: floppies In-Reply-To: <45A58BCF.50009@bitsavers.org> References: <45A58BCF.50009@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45A52074.9373.41D6FE3@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jan 2007 at 16:58, Al Kossow wrote: > Chuck and Fred have more experience, but I'm assuming once they're > in a stable temp/humidity environment they should be ok for another > 10 years. The stuff I'm dealing with now is stuff WAY past its shelf > live (20-30 year old tapes). I've read hundreds of floppies over the > past five years or so, and the only problems I've had have been with > 70's 8" media that was stored in poor conditions where the oxide > strips off upon head contact, and the common problem with all > head-contact media of oxide/binder buildup reducing the signal level > off the head. There are some brands that you look out for as being real trouble. By and large, Dysan and Verbatim are pretty reliable. Some of the off-brands might as well be tossed into the dumpster--it'll save you a head cleaning and much cursing. 30-year-old 8" diskettes are usually quite readable; the fun ones are the 5.25" disks that have spent their life in a machine shop covered with a layer of greasy dirt and swarf. There's lots of old equipment still chugging along, long after the design life has expired. Just this past week, I sent a bunch of formatted floppies to a television production outfit in Germany-- their gear won't format floppies, but otherwise does what they need. I had to use one of my WD 1791 prototype cards in the PC; their format omits the IAM and the sectors are a tight fit, so the NEC PC- style FDC won't produce them. Cheers, Chuck > > I absolutely agree that the discs should be copied in image format. > From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 10 19:21:31 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:21:31 -0500 Subject: HP 1000 systems empty rack on ebay. References: <685935.44173.qm@web82709.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1168370241.4220.227.camel@linux.site> <001c01c73427$43f55930$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <002d01c7351e$d49712b0$0100a8c0@screamer> Say Jay, Check which model EEPROM chips your emulators use. I'll send you a new chip with the latest build, and I'll send you a RS-232 to EEPROM burner device so you can download new builds and cut EPROMs yourself. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 2:49 PM Subject: Re: HP 1000 systems empty rack on ebay. > Bob wrote.... >>> There's an HP 1000 system rack up on ebay right now, >>> (290068544027). Just thing to hold all of those 21MX >>> type systems in the last few posts. > That's exactly the correct period rack :) Appears to maybe be missing one > of the antitip feet, but no huge deal. I have one identical to that, holds > two 2113's, 2748B, 7900A, and a I2C paper tape reader/punch emulator > (THANK YOU BOB!). > >> Kind of a long drive for me. I'd LOVE to buy it, but... anybody >> have any ideas for shipping that I can contact QUICKLY? Thanks in >> advance. > I believe an empty rack of that style is around 105 pounds. Typical > dimensions, figure around 21 wide by 72 tall by maybe 30 deep. Secure > front door with duct tape, metal band it to pallet (with a piece of > cardboard on top - the top is painted/textured like the sides), wrap in > plastic, then ship out the door. See if the seller will band it to a > pallet & such, from the looks of where the rack is they may have that > capability. When you call a shipper, see if they will let you do a ship to > terminal, instead of ship to residence. If you can do that on both ends, > it saves a LOT. From one end... still helps. > > Jay > > From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 10 19:24:05 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:24:05 -0500 Subject: HP 21xx References: <200701092302.l09N1nEx035273@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20070110011750.11536.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <003301c7351f$2fea6fe0$0100a8c0@screamer> Yes it can! They are quite common, and very affordable. You can be up and running an HP mini with far less cost and trouble than a 'more desirable' PDP-8 or PDP-11. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Seefried" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 8:17 PM Subject: HP 21xx > Marathon HP Mini knowledge dump makes me want one. Very much. This > cannot end well... > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 10 19:24:00 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:24:00 +0000 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: <200701102242.l0AMgfwM021634@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701102242.l0AMgfwM021634@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <45A591B0.7030107@dunnington.plus.com> Brad Parker wrote: > I put in the v4 eeproms and was able to format the drive; I'm not sure > if it was the eproms, however. Probably not, the formatter contains the relevant table for the drive configuration, not the ROMs. However, the ROMs do contain diagnostic and formatting routines, which are invoked by a special set of commands, distinct from normal MSCP commands/routines, and it may be that the oldest ROMs don't have something needed for later drives like RD31 etc. > Pretty much all of the posted examples of zrqch0 use for st-2xx drives > were incorrect. You mean which DEC names match which drives (RD31 is 20MB ST-225, RD32 is whatever is 40MB, RD33 is 65MB) or how to invoke the right stages of the formatter? > I started experimenting > and finally figured out how to get it to format the drive. Basically > telling it not to autoformat and to ignore existing bad block info. Yep, that's about it, as far as I remember. A log would be useful as a record and aide-memoire, though. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 10 19:33:59 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:33:59 -0600 Subject: floppies In-Reply-To: <45A58BCF.50009@bitsavers.org> References: <45A58BCF.50009@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45A59407.6020205@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: > > what's the expected > > remaining lifetime of a floppy? Time is probably of the essence > > Chuck and Fred have more experience, but I'm assuming once they're > in a stable temp/humidity environment they should be ok for another > 10 years. The stuff I'm dealing with now is stuff WAY past its shelf > live (20-30 year old tapes). I've read hundreds of floppies over the > past five years or so, and the only problems I've had have been with > 70's 8" media that was stored in poor conditions where the oxide > strips off upon head contact, Yes, that's been my experience too, although I've mainly dealt with 5.25" floppies and seen the oxide problems there. I'm just not sure the poor conditions are a root cause though, or if it's one of those "disaster waiting to happen" scenarios - i.e. better storage will buy more time, but the physical deterioration is going to happen sooner or later anyway. >> it's nice that the stuff ends up with a museum where >> lots of people can see it > > Another minor point is it is probably unlikely that ANYONE > other than archivists would see the physical discs unless > there is something really unique about how they look. The > important thing to preserve is their contents. Oh absolutely - I just meant that floppies are one of those examples of things that aren't always best left with a museum. For a museum the problem can be daunting because there will be limited staff and they have to worry about everything - whereas a private individual interested in a particular class of media (everything from a specific manufacturer, say) might have both the time and motivation to attack that media long before the museum would have a chance to get to it. Tackling that sort of trusted relationship between museums and individuals is an interesting one though, and likely further complicated by museum certification schemes which limit what a museum can and can't do with its assets. cheers Jules From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 10 19:42:04 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:42:04 -0500 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. References: <01C7335F.67922850@MAGGIE><00d301c7339d$d813b240$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP><000f01c734ba$08d13c00$0100a8c0@screamer> <004201c734c0$a0515b40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <004c01c73521$b31af630$0100a8c0@screamer> For those interested in the photos of the EDAX PDP 11/23 box... http://www3.unlambda.com/download/edax/ Special thanks to Brad for hosting these images. Brad will be getting a chance to become familiar with my Lotus Elise, most appropriate for 'heel and toe' consulting! About the photos (not of the Lotus): CIMG0600.JPG shows the keyboard and LED 'programmable key legend' display unit. CIMG0602.JPG shows the whole pile of gear. CIMG0603.JPG shows the rear of the main chassis. CIMG0606.JPG shows the EDAX hardware, packaged on quad SPC sized boards. This is the ADC, preamps, analysis memory and display system, all driven from a Q-bus interface. CIMG0607.JPG shows the DEC hardware, an 11/23 with MMU and FPP. There is also a Sigma FDD controller, and a DILOG ST-506 disk controller. CIMG0610.JPG shows the rear of the main chassis opened. At the top of the chassis we see the Shugart 8-inch FDD and a half-height HDD. Intact or in parts, this thing needs a home. Lets make a deal! From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 10 19:53:08 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:53:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <003601c7351d$5766d830$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> from "Richard A. Cini" at "Jan 10, 7 08:10:53 pm" Message-ID: <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com> > I actually just tried it and I can't remember my last password. It does seem > to accept the UID though. What OS is that, if someone hasn't already answered this question? Custom? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes. -- Newt Gingrich From rcini at optonline.net Wed Jan 10 20:19:25 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:19:25 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <003e01c73526$ea965aa0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> I believe it was custom but I'm really rusty on it. I just tried it again and it worked. Last logon 12/28/1999 which would be about right. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Kaiser Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 8:53 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Compuserve wayback machine > I actually just tried it and I can't remember my last password. It does seem > to accept the UID though. What OS is that, if someone hasn't already answered this question? Custom? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes. -- Newt Gingrich From rcini at optonline.net Wed Jan 10 20:29:21 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:29:21 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <004401c73528$4d4f38f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> A follow-up... I did successfully log-on with my old CIS ID and password but it told me I had to call Customer Service to reactivate it or use "sign-up." It's interesting that after being deactivated since 1999, my CIS "classic" ID is still reserved. OK, so I go to compuserve.com (part of AOL) and try to login...it said my account was restricted and I should call a customer service drone. Makes perfect sense. They actually want you to pay $18/month for access, which I guess represents the legacy dial-up business. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Cameron Kaiser Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 8:53 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Compuserve wayback machine > I actually just tried it and I can't remember my last password. It does seem > to accept the UID though. What OS is that, if someone hasn't already answered this question? Custom? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes. -- Newt Gingrich From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 10 20:28:35 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:28:35 -0700 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: <004c01c73521$b31af630$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <01C7335F.67922850@MAGGIE><00d301c7339d$d813b240$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP><000f01c734ba$08d13c00$0100a8c0@screamer> <004201c734c0$a0515b40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <004c01c73521$b31af630$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <45A5A0D3.8080101@jetnet.ab.ca> Bob Shannon wrote: > CIMG0610.JPG shows the rear of the main chassis opened. At the top of > the chassis > we see the Shugart 8-inch FDD and a half-height HDD. A nice system but I still use dial up so 3 meg photos are a tad large. > Intact or in parts, this thing needs a home. Lets make a deal! Well what is behind door #3? :) http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/exotic.html From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 10 20:52:14 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:52:14 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <004401c73528$4d4f38f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com>, <004401c73528$4d4f38f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <45A535DE.26623.4711523@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jan 2007 at 21:29, Richard A. Cini wrote: So, exactly the same thing happened to you that happened to me. > They actually want you to pay $18/month for access, which I guess represents > the legacy dial-up business. Which is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect. When I dropped service at the end of 2004, my monthly bill was about $9.50/month. How do they expect to compete with the likes of NetZero and PeoplePC? BTW, Netcraft notes that their web servers are running Solaris 8. Cheers, Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 20:52:54 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:52:54 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com> References: <003601c7351d$5766d830$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > I actually just tried it and I can't remember my last password. It does seem > > to accept the UID though. > > What OS is that, if someone hasn't already answered this question? Custom? It's a CompuServe-customized TOPS-10, IIRC. Apparently, according to someone sitting 1m from me now, knowing how to run a CIS 36-bit host does _not_ help all that much when facing a raw TOPS-10 dot prompt - there are that many proprietary extensions - probably why they are still running it - no way to get $$$ allocated to replace it with something newer. -ethan From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Jan 10 20:48:52 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:48:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: <45A51D19.5255.41054A2@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <20070110153445.Q70871@shell.lmi.net> <45A51D19.5255.41054A2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200701110254.VAA09399@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Toward the end of their corprorate life, Beehive was open to doing > lots of bizarre things, including loading their own terminals with > custom firmware and rebadging them. Reminds me of something I did with a TeleVideo 955 once. Turns out that model has a custom-firmware ROM socket, with an escape sequence in the stock firmware to execute it. I disassembled enough of the various pieces to work out much of the interface to the hardware, and wrote a small video game to run in the custom firmware ROM as a proof-of-concept exercise. This promptly started a friend asking me when I would release NetBSD/tvi955.... (Yes, he was joking. The tvi955 is far too computron-poor to run anything even vaguely like a Unix variant. A few KB of RAM at most, and a G65SC802 - a slightly improved 6502 - as CPU...only way I can think of to do it would be to run an emulator for something beefier, with remote storage accessed via serial line. Never mind "run", never mind even "walk"; "crawl" would be too fast a word for it.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dholland at woh.rr.com Wed Jan 10 20:58:27 2007 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:58:27 -0500 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: <45A5A0D3.8080101@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <01C7335F.67922850@MAGGIE> <00d301c7339d$d813b240$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <000f01c734ba$08d13c00$0100a8c0@screamer> <004201c734c0$a0515b40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <004c01c73521$b31af630$0100a8c0@screamer> <45A5A0D3.8080101@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <1168484307.6235.0.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> On Wed, 2007-01-10 at 19:28 -0700, woodelf wrote: > Bob Shannon wrote: > > > > CIMG0610.JPG shows the rear of the main chassis opened. At the top of > > the chassis > > we see the Shugart 8-inch FDD and a half-height HDD. > A nice system but I still use dial up so 3 meg photos are a tad large. > > > Intact or in parts, this thing needs a home. Lets make a deal! > > Well what is behind door #3? :) > http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/exotic.html From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 21:04:04 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:04:04 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A535DE.26623.4711523@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com> <004401c73528$4d4f38f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> <45A535DE.26623.4711523@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Which is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect. When I dropped > service at the end of 2004, my monthly bill was about $9.50/month. > How do they expect to compete with the likes of NetZero and PeoplePC? I _think_ the business model with the 36-bit stuff is to leave it alone and as long as people send their money in, take it. As long as they are only paying electricity to keep the servers on, it must be profitable. Maintenace is to be discouraged as an unnecessary expense. > BTW, Netcraft notes that their web servers are running Solaris 8. Heh... no doubt they aren't running cs.com web servers from the 36-bit machines. _Has_ anyone ported a webserver to any flavor of TOPS? (TOPS-10 / TOPS-20) One can write a simple web server from scratch (look at how many embedded devices have web servers), but I mean like apache or ncsa or something "real". -ethan From rollerton at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 21:05:04 2007 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:05:04 -0600 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: <45A50E81.9080805@yahoo.co.uk> References: <007f01c734c8$5d4e61f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <45A50E81.9080805@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> On 1/10/07, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Jay West wrote: > > The scuffs on the top panel are pretty bad > > so just a "paint stick" type of approach won't help. I'm going to be > > looking at wax & grease remover, sanding, self-etching primer, > > chipguard, and paint. What fun. > > If it's a flat panel (or a panel with no curves < about 120 degrees) then > a > suitable wire brush attachment on an angle grinder can work wonders (just > be > careful as too choice of brush as too hard and you'll scuff the metal too > much > for a 'simple' respray). > > Personally I'm not a fan of solvents for this kind of thing as it's > difficult > to be sure that all the residue's been removed afterwards (and hence that > something left behind won't magically attack the new paint from below). > Washing and drying can cause its own problems (surface rust, water > deposits etc.) > > > So I took the panel into a metal paint shop in town well known for their > > expertise to see about getting the paint matched. They said that since > > the top is textured, the peaks & valleys will look brighter/darker and > > thus you can't put a piece like that on one of those optical scanners > > and get a good color match. > > I've always been told too that it's just not worth it on old panels as > uneven > sun-fading will result in a match that isn't "original" and won't match > every > other panel anyway. Matching by eye's a better bet (although personally I > find > it difficult, but doubtless it's a lot easier for the professionals who do > this kind of thing every day!) > > > Since I know absolutely NOTHING about paint/painting, I wanted to toss > > this out on the list to see if what this place is suggesting sounds > > right, and if the prices seem reasonable. > > Seems cheap to me, based on some of the quotes I've had before on this > side of > the pond. I've been told before not to mess around with aerosols though > and to > use a proper spray gun as the end result will be a lot nicer. I've zero > experience of using a proper gun though, and have no idea how easy it is > or > how much it would be to rent / buy one along with suitable compressor... > > Note that all of this advice has been from automotive paint specialists; > we > don't seem to have such a thing as "public general-purpose paint > specialists" > around here. I'm willing to bet that it's just as sound for computer > panels as > it is for cars, though. > > cheers > > Jules > Jay, I paint old airplanes, cars and internal combustion junk now and then. Those prices seem reasonable for good quality paint. Have you been able to identify if the paint is (acrylic) lacquer or enamel? If its lacquer then it will be a more forgiving process to refinish and dry faster versus dry and cure for enamel. Suggest you look at using autobody supplies from an automotive paint store and avoid the Home places. If the metal is Alum. then you need to do a few things differently. Assuing its steel, first clean everywhere you plan to repaint. Start with soap and water, rinse with hot water, then use a grease remover/prep solvent (autobody store) cleaner, or if you can't get that use Naptha, wipe an area to wet it and float the oils and then wipe it dry with another clean cloth. You do this in about 12" x 12" areas at a time. What you are trying to do is get the oils, waxes, and any silicone off the surface so it does not contaminate the sanding process. There is stuff that soap and water will remove, and stuff that a solvent will remove but neither will remove both, thus the wash it and then use a degreaser is the right process. Use some 80 grit wet/dry sand paper and a foam sanding block to open of the scratches, and then move to 120 and then 320 grit paper to feather the area between bare metal and good paint. Then scuff sand the entire item; you can use sand paper or scotch bright pads. Using the foam sanding block (autobody store) will help prevent sanding grooves into the old paint from pressure from your fingers. Clean it all up using solvent. If there are areas that are rusty, for instance the bottom of a deep scratch, you need to get that out and down to bright metal... A wire brush, dremel tool, etc can be used here. You dont want to wire brush the whole item, it will leave scratches that will telegraph thru any new primer or paint you apply and show on the surface of the new paint. Spot prime the area. A self etching primer in a spray can is a good pick for this. I use Mar-Hyde. You may need to build up layers of primer and do a bit of spot sanding to get a totally flat and even surface. If the scratch is deep or a dent then you might want to use a bit of polyester body filler (aka bondo), or a glazing putty (autobody store) and then another layer of primer. Wet sand the final coat of primer with 320 or 400 paper. BTW, get a primer thats a similar color to the final finish, for instance dont use dark grey or Red oxide for off white top coats, Mar-hyde has a buff colored version... Ok, now clean everything up again; wash and solvent, wipe with clean cloth. Then use a tack cloth (paint store, get a hand full)) to pick up any lint or last minute dust. Now you can paint. You have a lot of choces here, Acrylic Lacquer is the easiest and most forgiving, Acrylic Enamel (often called 1-part paint). The 2-part systems start getting really toxic and I would not recommend you mess with these unless you want to make a investment in some serious safety gear. Unless you have a perfect match in paint color and texture, you will want to refinish a panel area; the gaps between panels break what the eye sees so the imperfections in texture and color are not easily seen. Thats why autobody shops want to repaint a whole fender or hood. Also, 1-part enamel needs about 15 to 30 days at "room" temprature to reach full hardness, even though its dry to the touch in say 24hrs. If you get a run or a bug in the paint, you will have to wait for it to cure before you can sand it out and try again. There is a lot more detail and probably some stuff I left out or forgot that would be in any good hot rod painting book so that might be a good place to read up on this before you begin. bob. From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 10 21:10:31 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:10:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jan 10, 7 10:04:04 pm" Message-ID: <200701110310.l0B3AVwQ020116@floodgap.com> > > BTW, Netcraft notes that their web servers are running Solaris 8. > > Heh... no doubt they aren't running cs.com web servers from the 36-bit > machines. _Has_ anyone ported a webserver to any flavor of TOPS? Is that what it's running? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- NetBSD - a devil of an operating system. -- Julian Assange ----------------- From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 21:16:26 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:16:26 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701110310.l0B3AVwQ020116@floodgap.com> References: <200701110310.l0B3AVwQ020116@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > Heh... no doubt they aren't running cs.com web servers from the 36-bit > > machines. _Has_ anyone ported a webserver to any flavor of TOPS? > > Is that what it's running? Yes... as far as I can remember, the OS on the CIS 36-bit hosts is an extensively customized OS that started with an ancient version of DEC's TOPS-10, but had so much piled on it that neither programs nor programmers were exchangable between CIS and a "real" DEC environment. -ethan From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 10 21:26:49 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:26:49 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <003601c7351d$5766d830$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <003601c7351d$5766d830$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: At 8:10 PM -0500 1/10/07, Richard A. Cini wrote: >I actually just tried it and I can't remember my last password. It does seem >to accept the UID though. Actually it's a PPN (Project-Programmer Number) not a UID. :^) Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 10 21:31:01 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:31:01 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com> <004401c73528$4d4f38f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> <45A535DE.26623.4711523@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: At 10:04 PM -0500 1/10/07, Ethan Dicks wrote: >On 1/10/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>BTW, Netcraft notes that their web servers are running Solaris 8. > >Heh... no doubt they aren't running cs.com web servers from the 36-bit >machines. _Has_ anyone ported a webserver to any flavor of TOPS? >(TOPS-10 / TOPS-20) One can write a simple web server from scratch >(look at how many embedded devices have web servers), but I mean like >apache or ncsa or something "real". There is a web server for TOPS-20, however, I believe only a couple sites were running it and the last ones running it have stopped due to some serious security flaws. From what I've heard there isn't enough interest in patching them. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 21:36:05 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:36:05 -0600 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site><011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING><1168327122.4220.191.camel@linux.site><005e01c73408$01eeabf0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <001101c7351d$8f3b7270$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <017401c73531$a2a6f9b0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Bob wrote.... > How about running TSB out of virtual memory under IPL. Now you can swap > out parts of your system map at will, think of having instant run-time > overlays... > > Terry Newton hacked HP BASIC to run under IPL, run 'BYE' and it returns > control back to the IPL code that called HP BASIC. HP Basic... sure. I'd be shocked if you could run TSB under it though. Jay From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 10 21:36:32 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:36:32 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com> <004401c73528$4d4f38f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> <45A535DE.26623.4711523@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Zane H. Healy wrote: > There is a web server for TOPS-20, however, I believe only a couple > sites were running it and the last ones running it have stopped due > to some serious security flaws. That it exists is mildly surprising. That it has security flaws (i.e., is old and exploited, not that it's obviously sloppily written) is not so surprising. > From what I've heard there isn't enough interest in patching them. That is unsurprising at all. -ethan From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 21:41:08 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:41:08 -0600 Subject: HP 21xx References: <200701092302.l09N1nEx035273@dewey.classiccmp.org><20070110011750.11536.qmail@seefried.com> <003301c7351f$2fea6fe0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <017b01c73532$5517f9a0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Bob wrote.... > They are quite common, and very affordable. You can be up and running an > HP > mini with far less cost and trouble than a 'more desirable' PDP-8 or > PDP-11. Depends on what your definition is of affordable!! A 21MX E is cheap & common, I'd say they can easily be found sub $100. F's slightly less so, more like $150. M's are almost never found anymore, no telling what one would go for (but I'm about ready to find out). And have you seen what 2100A or S machines go for? I've seen anywhere from $750 to $1500. 2116's seem to go around $650 too. Jay From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 10 22:06:56 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:06:56 -0700 Subject: HP 21xx In-Reply-To: <017b01c73532$5517f9a0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <200701092302.l09N1nEx035273@dewey.classiccmp.org><20070110011750.11536.qmail@seefried.com> <003301c7351f$2fea6fe0$0100a8c0@screamer> <017b01c73532$5517f9a0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <45A5B7E0.1030208@jetnet.ab.ca> Jay West wrote: > Depends on what your definition is of affordable!! A 21MX E is cheap & > common, I'd say they can easily be found sub $100. F's slightly less so, > more like $150. M's are almost never found anymore, no telling what one > would go for (but I'm about ready to find out). And have you seen what > 2100A or S machines go for? I've seen anywhere from $750 to $1500. > 2116's seem to go around $650 too. Well I have not seen any computers go for a song, since about 1982. $300 seems like a fair price, with $300 for shipping for a basic less popular vintage computer then. I have the money ... Now who has the puter? > Jay PS. For any deals in the UK, just think 'pound sign' instead of '$'. From here all shipping costs are about the same, other than Antarctica. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jan 10 22:44:01 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:44:01 -0800 Subject: Cleaning House In-Reply-To: <183f01c734ea$95263810$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: >From: "Vincent Slyngstad" >From: "Jay West" >>It was written... >>>Check out VCM and Ebay (ID=KE6HTS) for the stuff I am getting rid of. >>I know how to look up all the items a given seller is selling on ebay... >>but I seem to be too brain-dead to see how to do that on vcm. Can someone >>enlighten me? > >In Marvin's, case, I think you can just click on "See Everything" :-). > >You can also click on his name "marvin", next to any of his auctions, >then click on the little "437" or whatever next to "Current Postings". >(There are about 50 pages of them.) > >There may be easier ways, but that worked for me :-). > > Vince > Hi Even though I knew it was Marvin, a quick search of what were obviously Ham call letters found Marvin's name attached. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ >From photos to predictions, The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes has it all. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/?icid=nctagline1 From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jan 10 22:44:45 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:44:45 -0600 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A4E875.11766.342B5C7@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com>, <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com>, <45A4E875.11766.342B5C7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A5C0BD.6040508@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 10 Jan 2007 at 15:53, Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> !!! Still live, then. > > What's more surprising is that one can get in with anonymous login to > ftp.compuserve.com. Most of the stuff looks to be related to CIM > from 1998--even a Win 3.1 version. No private fora access, however. For anyone who's gotten in: Are the old file archives still there and intact? There's a lot of stuff there that never made its way onto BBSes and the 'net... -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 10 22:51:44 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:51:44 -0800 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <01C7335F.67922850@MAGGIE> <00d301c7339d$d813b240$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <000f01c734ba$08d13c00$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <45A5C256.716594D9@cs.ubc.ca> Bob Shannon wrote: > But 12531 boards are slow, and not the most reliable. They often drop > characters when jumpered for higher baud rates. I use a 12531 for downloading into my HP2116 and experienced the dropped character problems when I first started. I found a simple solution however: set the transmitting machine to send two stop bits (if one's transmitter provides the option of course). The problem with the 12531 is that - in addition to not being double-bufferred - it doesn't indicate receipt of a character to the software until the end of the first stop bit. With only one stop bit, the software then has only a fraction of a bit time to pick up the character before it must restart the 12531 to receive the next character, so it can sync on the already-begun start bit. If you send two stop bits then the software has the entire period of the second stop bit to play with. I download multi-KByte streams into the 2116 at 19200 BPS without problem. http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/io12531BCD.html includes some notes on jumpering for higher baud rates and a cable schematic. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jan 10 22:57:30 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:57:30 -0800 Subject: floppies In-Reply-To: <45A59407.6020205@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: Jules Richardson > >Al Kossow wrote: >> > what's the expected >> > remaining lifetime of a floppy? Time is probably of the essence >> >>Chuck and Fred have more experience, but I'm assuming once they're >>in a stable temp/humidity environment they should be ok for another >>10 years. The stuff I'm dealing with now is stuff WAY past its shelf >>live (20-30 year old tapes). I've read hundreds of floppies over the >>past five years or so, and the only problems I've had have been with >>70's 8" media that was stored in poor conditions where the oxide >>strips off upon head contact, ---snip--- Hi I've found two issues with floppies. One was that the glue used to hold the liner on, inside the envelope, bleed through the liner and glopped on the heads. The other was a head that wasn't perfectly smooth. I don't know if this was from wear or someone using one of those drive damaging head cleaner disk. I usually clean the head(s) each time before I use a machine that hasn't been run for a while. I find that stuff that would normally wipe off would tend to stick to the surface if left there for some time. All disk loose some material but it is when the stuff sticks to the heads that it does the most damage. I have disk that are older then 20 years that show no indication of immediate failure. Maybe I'm just lucky. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Type your favorite song.? Get a customized station.? Try MSN Radio powered by Pandora. http://radio.msn.com/?icid=T002MSN03A07001 From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 10 23:04:19 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:04:19 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site><011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING><1168327122.4220.191.camel@linux.site><005e01c73408$01eeabf0$6500a8c0@BILLING><001101c7351d$8f3b7270$0100a8c0@screamer> <017401c73531$a2a6f9b0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <006801c7353d$f431cc90$0100a8c0@screamer> If it runs in 32K words, and uses IRQ's, there should be no problem. But the BBL code will be swapped out with a little 'stub' program that will re-swap the system map, either for another overlay, or to run IPL code. You get a real virtual address space, registers, IRQ's, DCPC transfers, etc. Why would TSB be any different than single user HP BASIC (which uses IRQ's)? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 10:36 PM Subject: Re: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) > Bob wrote.... >> How about running TSB out of virtual memory under IPL. Now you can swap >> out parts of your system map at will, think of having instant run-time >> overlays... >> >> Terry Newton hacked HP BASIC to run under IPL, run 'BYE' and it returns >> control back to the IPL code that called HP BASIC. > > HP Basic... sure. I'd be shocked if you could run TSB under it though. > > Jay > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 10 23:14:50 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:14:50 -0600 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site><011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING><1168327122.4220.191.camel@linux.site><005e01c73408$01eeabf0$6500a8c0@BILLING><001101c7351d$8f3b7270$0100a8c0@screamer><017401c73531$a2a6f9b0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <006801c7353d$f431cc90$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <01b901c7353f$6d52e770$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Bob wrote... > Why would TSB be any different than single user HP BASIC (which uses > IRQ's)? ok, let me ask a question which cuts to the chase then. What exactly did you have to change in HP BASIC to allow it to run under IPL? Remember, HP BASIC and TSB have pretty much zero in common. Jay From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jan 10 23:28:27 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:28:27 -0800 Subject: Cleaning House In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "dwight elvey" > > >>From: "Vincent Slyngstad" > >>From: "Jay West" >>>It was written... >>>>Check out VCM and Ebay (ID=KE6HTS) for the stuff I am getting rid of. >>>I know how to look up all the items a given seller is selling on ebay... >>>but I seem to be too brain-dead to see how to do that on vcm. Can someone >>>enlighten me? >> >>In Marvin's, case, I think you can just click on "See Everything" :-). >> >>You can also click on his name "marvin", next to any of his auctions, >>then click on the little "437" or whatever next to "Current Postings". >>(There are about 50 pages of them.) >> >>There may be easier ways, but that worked for me :-). >> >> Vince >> >Hi >Even though I knew it was Marvin, a quick search of what were >obviously Ham call letters found Marvin's name attached. >Dwight > Hi I missed Jay's question. On VCM, I did a search for 'marvin'. It then came up with his info. Below his name was a number ( I think it was 390 something ) I clicked on it and then saw all of Marvin's listings. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get FREE Web site and company branded e-mail from Microsoft Office Live http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/mcrssaub0050001411mrt/direct/01/ From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 10 23:33:05 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:33:05 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site><011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING><1168327122.4220.191.camel@linux.site><005e01c73408$01eeabf0$6500a8c0@BILLING><001101c7351d$8f3b7270$0100a8c0@screamer><017401c73531$a2a6f9b0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP><006801c7353d$f431cc90$0100a8c0@screamer> <01b901c7353f$6d52e770$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <007501c73541$f8eee2a0$0100a8c0@screamer> What they have in common is what matters. Why would any program that runs in 32K, less the BBL area (64 words) not run correctly under the SYSTEM map with 21MX memory protection disabled? When HP-IPL/OS runs something like HP BASIC, it loads the program to be run into a 32K word virtual address space(called a page in IPL). It them pokes in a modified sort of BBL program. A single function can remap the SYSTEM and USER maps, and make that virtual address space the SYSTEM map and transfer control to any address in that page. The program that ~had~ been loaded into VM is now running on its very own 32K word machine, IRQ vectors, DCPC transfers, everything. When that program (HP BASIC in this case) jumps to the special BBL loader a tiny DMS program unswaps the DMS maps and jumps to a special entry point in IPL, the threaded interpreter keeps chugging along as if it also is being run on a totally different CPU. Early versions of RTE could be run in VM pages, in fact, and program that does not take control of the DMS mapping registers must, be definition, run normally under these conditions. The system map is the system map, no matter where in physical memory it is mapped to. At power on, its the first 32K words of physical address space. So what if it happens to be mapped to some other physical address space? There is no way for a non-DMS program to ever know this is the case. Why would it not run perfectly? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 12:14 AM Subject: Re: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) > Bob wrote... >> Why would TSB be any different than single user HP BASIC (which uses >> IRQ's)? > ok, let me ask a question which cuts to the chase then. What exactly did > you have to change in HP BASIC to allow it to run under IPL? > > Remember, HP BASIC and TSB have pretty much zero in common. > > Jay > > From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 10 23:53:50 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:53:50 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <200701110153.l0B1r8NM013328@floodgap.com>, <45A535DE.26623.4711523@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <45A5606E.30287.51756A7@cclist.sydex.com> Does this help any? http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=ws- vintagecomp&redirCnt=1 Cheers, Chuck From RLAAG at PACBELL.NET Thu Jan 11 00:10:26 2007 From: RLAAG at PACBELL.NET (BOB LAAG) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:10:26 -0800 Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C Message-ID: <45A5D4D2.904@PACBELL.NET> I got a TI 58-c calculator a while back but there was no transformer with it... I was hoping someone would have one and could give me the specs on it and if it plugs into the calculator in either rotation... thanks, bob laag From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 00:59:22 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:59:22 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A5C0BD.6040508@oldskool.org> References: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com> <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com> <45A4E875.11766.342B5C7@cclist.sydex.com> <45A5C0BD.6040508@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 1/10/07, Jim Leonard wrote: > For anyone who's gotten in: Are the old file archives still there and > intact? There's a lot of stuff there that never made its way onto BBSes > and the 'net... I would be surprised to hear that anyone runs across any content - I went looking for it with my work PPN in 2000 and couldn't find diddly-squat. I was told that all the "old stuff" had been taken off some time before. My heyday with the service was in the 1982-1985 timeframe, with a C-64 and VIC MODEM (300 baud, handset attachment (manual dial, move the cord when the host answers)) and a "terminal program" I wrote in BASIC. We also had a CompuServe node behind glass at the science museum I volunteered around the same time - a DECsystem 2020 (KS-10?) with a few C-64 terminals out on the museum floor piped into "the service". The content from that era (GO GAMES, GO TRAVEL...) was nowhere to be found in 2000. I didn't use the file archives until I was a consultant at CompuServe in 1994-1995 writing tax software for H&R Block (the owners of CompuServe at the time), but that was an entirely different era (DEC PDP-10s going away, "32 bit hosts" (Intel boxes running UNIX) coming online, SC-25s and SC-30s starting to come in to replace DEC 36-bit hosts...) In its time, it was a fun place to work. One of those situations they really _were_ the "good old days". -ethan From ericj at speakeasy.org Thu Jan 11 01:42:17 2007 From: ericj at speakeasy.org (Eric Josephson) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:42:17 -0800 Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <297605.11905.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <002901c73554$04eacc10$b805a8c0@vulcan> > If it wasn't obvious, the underlying subject of this part of thread > is how to deal with the lack of a Victor 9000 boot floppy. If you need a Victor 9000 boot floppy I can supply one. Contact me off-list with a postal address. > were those dos services? I have a few books out in the shed, maybe I > should just look it up! I had envisioned a scheme by which I could > hack onto the bios so a blank floppy could be formatted in a V9000, > and subsequently the date/image from a normal floppy could be > transferred to it (I have a whole boatload of images for the machine, > but I'm not quite sure how they created the image of a boot > floppy...or why if it can't be created w/o a bootable V9000). The "universal" boot ROM is supposed to have a serial bootstrap capability. I haven't burned one to try in my Victor yet, but had considered using it for something like vtserver or ADT. I haven't seen docs on the protocol, but I expect you could reverse-engineer it from the boot ROM disassembly. Unfortunately the lack of any decent documentation for this machine could make the rest of the job a real PITA. I've seen mention of a Hardware Technical Reference for the Victor. If anyone has a copy I'd be interested in hearing from you. Regards, -- Eric Josephson From derschjo at msu.edu Wed Jan 10 17:15:48 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Joshua Alexander Dersch) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:15:48 -0500 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: <200701102242.l0AMgfwM021634@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701102242.l0AMgfwM021634@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: Brad Parker writes: > I put in the v4 eeproms and was able to format the drive; I'm not sure > if it was the eproms, however. > > Pretty much all of the posted examples of zrqch0 use for st-2xx drives > were incorrect. Or at least they didn't work for me. I started experimenting > and finally figured out how to get it to format the drive. Basically > telling it not to autoformat and to ignore existing bad block info. > Huh. I did the same exact thing with zrqch0 (many, many, many times, with many different variations of options on a wide swath of drives). I could get the format to complete without errors (supposedly) but I was unable to use the drive afterwards (couldn't make partitions or create filesystems for 2.11BSD, for example). Maybe it's just something wrong with my setup. At any rate, I'd love to see the logs of your attempts to see if I'm perhaps doing something incorrectly. Thanks, Josh > > Josh Dersch wrote: >>> >>> I can't get my rqdx3 to format any of the st-225's I have. I'm hoping >>> this will solve my problem. >>> >>I've had the same issue, my experience has been that unless the drive is >>already formatted for a DEC, the RQDX3 won't be able to reformat it >>successfully (even for drives with the exact same geometry as a DEC >>standard drive). At least I never had any luck doing so, but maybe >>newer ROMs will solve the problem. > > I put in the v4 eeproms and was able to format the drive; I'm not sure > if it was the eproms, however. > > Pretty much all of the posted examples of zrqch0 use for st-2xx drives > were incorrect. Or at least they didn't work for me. I started experimenting > and finally figured out how to get it to format the drive. Basically > telling it not to autoformat and to ignore existing bad block info. > > At some point I'll try it again with the old eproms just for grins. > > I should post a log of the session (I'll try and make one tomorrow) > > -brad > From tim at tim-mann.org Thu Jan 11 01:06:07 2007 From: tim at tim-mann.org (Tim Mann) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:06:07 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701101800.l0AI0gaY051624@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701101800.l0AI0gaY051624@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20070110230607.68eb1939@venice.mumblefrotz.org> On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:00:45 -0600 (CST), cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > ate: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:52:51 -0800 (PST) > From: "Zane H. Healy" > Subject: Re: Compuserve wayback machine > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <200701101752.l0AHqpJr014860 at onyx.spiritone.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > > James B. DiGriz wrote: > > > The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the > > > old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. > > > > > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 > > > > I *so* wish I could remember mine. > > > > Peace... Sridhar > > > > It wasn't hard to find my CIS ID, however, I don't remember my password. > Besides, I've not had an active account since sometime around late '93 most > likely, so I kind of doubt I'd actually be able to log in. Cool, I just tried this and actually remembered my old password (!). I got the following message. Note the "Last access" date. CompuServe Information Service 02:03 EST Thursday 11-Jan-2007 Last access: 20:00 28-Sep-98 Copyright (c) 2007 CompuServe Incorporated All Rights Reserved One moment please ... Thank you for signing on! Our records show that you once were a CompuServe member. Please call your local CompuServe Customer Service to re-activate your CompuServe account [70040,504] or use 'Sign-up' to set up a new account. 1-800-848-8990 (US and Canada) All other countries, please contact your local sales/service office. Thank you for using CompuServe! Off at 02:04 EST 11-Jan-07 Connect time = 0:01 Connection closed by foreign host. -- Tim Mann tim at tim-mann.org http://tim-mann.org/ From wizard at voyager.net Thu Jan 11 03:08:18 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 04:08:18 -0500 Subject: Cleaning House In-Reply-To: <45A5214C.62C009EA@rain.org> References: <45A5214C.62C009EA@rain.org> Message-ID: <1168506499.5968.41.camel@linux.site> On Wed, 2007-01-10 at 09:24 -0800, Marvin Johnston wrote: > Check out VCM and Ebay (ID=KE6HTS) for the stuff I am getting rid of. Hello, Marvin, I saw your sale on VCM after the reference to them on CCTALK. I'm interested in the "TRS-80 Pocket Computer Cassette Interface," the "V.35 Breakout/Activity Tester" and the "SCSI Zip Drives." VCM is making me wait, for "verification," whatever THAT means. (I just signed up.) In the meanwhile, could you give me a "package price" for the three items above? I can pay you with PayPal, or send a check... or... am open to suggestions for payment or barter. Anyway, I'm not opposed to the prices listed on VCM. Thanks, so much... Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From wizard at voyager.net Thu Jan 11 03:18:10 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 04:18:10 -0500 Subject: Cleaning House In-Reply-To: <1168506499.5968.41.camel@linux.site> References: <45A5214C.62C009EA@rain.org> <1168506499.5968.41.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <1168507090.5968.44.camel@linux.site> On Thu, 2007-01-11 at 04:08 -0500, Warren Wolfe wrote: > On Wed, 2007-01-10 at 09:24 -0800, Marvin Johnston wrote: > > > > Check out VCM and Ebay (ID=KE6HTS) for the stuff I am getting rid of. > > > Hello, Marvin, That was SUPPOSED to be private... I'm too old to be such a n00b. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From david at cantrell.org.uk Thu Jan 11 04:58:34 2007 From: david at cantrell.org.uk (David Cantrell) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:58:34 +0000 Subject: MCA RAID card, Vaxstation, Sun SCSI boxes: free to a good London home Message-ID: <20070111105833.GA32258@bytemark.barnyard.co.uk> I'm having a clear-out of a load of old stuff that I'm no longer using (or in some cases acquired and never used). Of interest to this list: * MCA SCSI RAID card, Mylex DAC960M, known working about four years ago. no driver disks, no box, no anti-static bag, no cables, no nothing. * VAXstation 3100, not powered on since I acquired it. external SCSI cable. * miscellaneous Sun external SCSI boxes which might even have working disks in 'em. All free to good homes. New owner to collect in south London, or I can deliver the MCA card in central London. I won't ship anything. If you want any of it, please contact me by private email. Anything not gone by the end of the month will be thrown away. And somewhat off-topic, if anyone knows where I can get a DVI-to-SCART converter so I can attach a Mac Mini to a TV, do please let me know. -- David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david fdisk format reinstall, doo-dah, doo-dah; fdisk format reinstall, it's the Windows way From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 11 07:09:09 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 07:09:09 -0600 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com> <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com> <45A4E875.11766.342B5C7@cclist.sydex.com> <45A5C0BD.6040508@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45A636F5.8000502@yahoo.co.uk> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 1/10/07, Jim Leonard wrote: >> For anyone who's gotten in: Are the old file archives still there and >> intact? There's a lot of stuff there that never made its way onto BBSes >> and the 'net... > > I would be surprised to hear that anyone runs across any content - I > went looking for it with my work PPN in 2000 and couldn't find > diddly-squat. I was told that all the "old stuff" had been taken off > some time before. That's interesting - if they've gone to the extent of retaining old logins it would suggest that they're expecting to entice a few original customers back based on nostalgia; for that reason you'd think they'd keep the content that those customers were used to available too (anyone know what sort of total size the "old stuff" would amount to? Presumably we're not talking that much in modern terms...) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 11 07:16:13 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 07:16:13 -0600 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> References: <007f01c734c8$5d4e61f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <45A50E81.9080805@yahoo.co.uk> <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <45A6389D.6020706@yahoo.co.uk> Robert Ollerton wrote: > If there are > areas that are rusty, for instance the bottom of a deep scratch, you > need to > get that out and down to bright metal... A wire brush, dremel tool, etc > can > be used here. You dont want to wire brush the whole item, it will leave > scratches that will telegraph thru any new primer or paint you apply and > show on the surface of the new paint. FWIW It certainly isn't a steel brush that I've used whenever I've done this, but some softer (gold-coloured) metal - presumably brass. I'd expect the average steel brush will make a mess of things, however. I've not had a problem with scratches in such situations with the above, and it's proved far quicker overall than using chemicals for paint removal. I keep on toying with the idea of setting up some sort of blasting cabinet, more out of curiosity than real need, but it's one of those projects that can wait until I have more time (yeah, right :-) and somewhere more permanent to site it. (I hear that things like baking powder work surprisingly well, and it'd be interesting to do some experimentation) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 11 07:27:21 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 07:27:21 -0600 Subject: Beehive Topper In-Reply-To: <200701110254.VAA09399@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: , <20070110153445.Q70871@shell.lmi.net> <45A51D19.5255.41054A2@cclist.sydex.com> <200701110254.VAA09399@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <45A63B39.3040706@yahoo.co.uk> der Mouse wrote: > (Yes, he was joking. The tvi955 is far too computron-poor to run > anything even vaguely like a Unix variant. A few KB of RAM at most, > and a G65SC802 - a slightly improved 6502 - as CPU... I don't know, what were the requirements for OS-9 on a 6809 CPU? (That's me taking "UNIX variant" to mean "Unix-a-like" rather than something claiming Unix compatibility). I suppose the question's purely about available memory, as something can generally be "run" on any speed CPU [1], although it might be painful :-) [1] Exceptions being if you're trying to service something which requires lots of fast interrupt response, I suppose. At some point a system must disappear up its own backside if it's just trying to do too much :) > only way I can > think of to do it would be to run an emulator for something beefier, > with remote storage accessed via serial line. Never mind "run", never > mind even "walk"; "crawl" would be too fast a word for it.) I bet you could hack more memory onto it if it hasn't got a reasonable complement already. Maybe homebrew something onto a I/O port to bank-switch the memory in 16KB chunks or somesuch. (I'm not sure how systems that do that typically handle refresh if using DRAM though as presumably it can get quite messy - and multiple banks done in SRAM will undoubtedly overload the PSU rather quickly) It *could* probably done without relying on any kind of 'slave' system anyway... cheers Jules From dave at mitton.com Thu Jan 11 09:34:29 2007 From: dave at mitton.com (dave at mitton.com) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:34:29 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Compuserve wayback machine Message-ID: <9962378.1168529669653.JavaMail.?@fh1037.dia.cp.net> > Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:52:14 -0800 > From: "Chuck Guzis" > Subject: RE: Compuserve wayback machine > > On 10 Jan 2007 at 21:29, Richard A. Cini wrote: > > So, exactly the same thing happened to you that happened to me. > > > They actually want you to pay $18/month for access, which I guess represents > > the legacy dial-up business. > > Which is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect. When I dropped > service at the end of 2004, my monthly bill was about $9.50 /month. > How do they expect to compete with the likes of NetZero and PeoplePC? > I've actually kept my Compuserve account alive all this time as an emergency travelling ISP. One of the incarnations of my cable internet provider didn't allow off net access to POP and SMTP so I discovered that the extensive network of dialups was useful. Under the later revs of their network, you can dial in, authenticate, and then just use PPP to access the internet directly. You get about 3/hours/mo dial-in time for free and usage rates there after. I logged in yesterday via the web.... it takes a little redirection to the "native" Compuserve site as the inital screen wants a "Screen Name" and won't accept a PPN. I thought I set a name for my account but I don't remember it and I didnt write it down anywhere (it was too "obvious" ;^} ) There is a Vintage Computing forum still active, and the files area still has stuff dating way back at least to the 80s. I am still carrying a $9.99/mo legacy subscription, but I don't think they'll let you sign up for that anymore. They now have a BYOA (Bring Your Own Access) rate advertised. I noticed someone in a support forum mention some sort of backup rate of $3/month. I'm guessing that they'll have deals to try to keep getting some money from you if you may quit. I just got a Cingular 8525 and an unlimited data rate, so I'll probably drop this soon. I'm off to learn more about Windows CE. Dave. From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Thu Jan 11 09:34:01 2007 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B. DiGriz) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:34:01 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A636F5.8000502@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45A51579.1030709@gmail.com> <45A4DF5E.31593.31F31B8@cclist.sydex.com> <45A4E875.11766.342B5C7@cclist.sydex.com> <45A5C0BD.6040508@oldskool.org> <45A636F5.8000502@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45A658E9.6040504@dragonsweb.org> Jules Richardson wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> On 1/10/07, Jim Leonard wrote: >>> For anyone who's gotten in: Are the old file archives still there and >>> intact? There's a lot of stuff there that never made its way onto BBSes >>> and the 'net... >> >> I would be surprised to hear that anyone runs across any content - I >> went looking for it with my work PPN in 2000 and couldn't find >> diddly-squat. I was told that all the "old stuff" had been taken off >> some time before. > > That's interesting - if they've gone to the extent of retaining old > logins it would suggest that they're expecting to entice a few original > customers back based on nostalgia; for that reason you'd think they'd > keep the content that those customers were used to available too (anyone > know what sort of total size the "old stuff" would amount to? Presumably > we're not talking that much in modern terms...) > > cheers > > Jules > A lot of stuff definitely was taken offline. Just not all at once. I remember around '87-88 or so I dl'd the entire OSI library because it was scheduled to be taken offline. Disk space I believe was the reason given. And it was removed. The TI sig. at least the file libraries, is archived at ftp.whtech.com. When it was folded into the Orphan Computer sig, some of it (messages, mostly, I *think*) was taken offline. Again disk usage was the reason given, as I recall. I'm sure some other forums have been preserved in different places, too. That's about the best that could be hoped for unless Compuserve has archive tapes and could put the material back online. Some of it is proprietary, though. I'd like to get the Pecan Software libraries for the P-system stuff, for instance, but I don't know if they're even still in business, and I'm not sure if I remember correctly how the licensing went for the 3rd-party forums CIS hosted. I imagine CIS has some right to put at least the user contributed stuff back up, but maybe just not enough interest has been expreesed. The legal department, would probably want authorization from the forum owner regardless, probably. jbdigriz From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 11 09:43:35 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:43:35 -0600 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint References: <007f01c734c8$5d4e61f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <45A50E81.9080805@yahoo.co.uk><2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> <45A6389D.6020706@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <003f01c73597$443cfd50$6500a8c0@BILLING> Thanks for all the suggestions folks. I appreciate the education in painting metal :) One additional thing though... remember the paint on these panels is textured. That's why the guy mentioned using a chipguard covering. I think he said they made two different spray on chipguard types, one for rough texture and one for small finer texture. I know that this texture wouldn't match the surrounding paint exactly, but hopefully it would be close enough that it wasn't obvious from a few feet away. Jay West From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Jan 11 09:51:55 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:51:55 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <9962378.1168529669653.JavaMail.?@fh1037.dia.cp.net> References: <9962378.1168529669653.JavaMail.?@fh1037.dia.cp.net> Message-ID: <45A65D1B.3070608@atarimuseum.com> I remember when they were like $10.95 and hour (ouch!) back in 83/84.... I used to work at Radio Shack and we used to lift the compuserve free trials out of the Modem packages and use the free 5 hour certificates just so I could get onto C$, then Radio Shack had a C$ account they allowed the stores to use for modem demo's and we'd stay late in the store and use the Model IV and dial into C$ and use the service :-) I kept my C$ original C$ ID account up until 1995 and moved to AOL as C$ still didn't have a good working gateway out to the Internet yet. I regret closing my C$ account, always liked C$ Curt dave at mitton.com wrote: >> Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:52:14 -0800 >> From: "Chuck Guzis" >> Subject: RE: Compuserve wayback machine >> >> On 10 Jan 2007 at 21:29, Richard A. Cini wrote: >> >> So, exactly the same thing happened to you that happened to me. >> >> >>> They actually want you to pay $18/month for access, which I guess >>> > represents > >>> the legacy dial-up business. >>> >> Which is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect. When I dropped >> service at the end of 2004, my monthly bill was about $9.50 >> > /month. > >> How do they expect to compete with the likes of NetZero and >> > PeoplePC? > > > I've actually kept my Compuserve account alive all this time as an > emergency travelling ISP. > One of the incarnations of my cable internet provider didn't allow off > net access to POP and SMTP > so I discovered that the extensive network of dialups was useful. > > Under the later revs of their network, you can dial in, authenticate, > and then just use PPP to access the internet directly. You get about > 3/hours/mo dial-in time for free and usage rates there after. > > I logged in yesterday via the web.... it takes a little redirection to > the "native" Compuserve site as the inital screen wants a "Screen Name" > and won't accept a PPN. I thought I set a name for my account but I > don't remember it and I didnt write it down anywhere (it was too > "obvious" ;^} ) > > There is a Vintage Computing forum still active, and the files area > still has stuff dating way back at least to the 80s. > > > I am still carrying a $9.99/mo legacy subscription, but I don't think > they'll let you sign up for that anymore. > They now have a BYOA (Bring Your Own Access) rate advertised. > I noticed someone in a support forum mention some sort of backup rate > of $3/month. I'm guessing that they'll have deals to try to keep > getting some money from you if you may quit. > > I just got a Cingular 8525 and an unlimited data rate, so I'll > probably drop this soon. I'm off to learn more about Windows CE. > > Dave. > > > From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jan 11 10:00:18 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:00:18 -0800 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >From: "Robert Ollerton" ---snip--- there are >areas that are rusty, for instance the bottom of a deep scratch, you need >to >get that out and down to bright metal... A wire brush, dremel tool, etc >can >be used here. You dont want to wire brush the whole item, it will leave >scratches that will telegraph thru any new primer or paint you apply and >show on the surface of the new paint. ---snip--- Hi For things like rust in scratches, I've used some phosphate liquid primer stuff. It stablizes the rust. I've just about run out of the stuff but can't find it in stores any more. I originally bought it at a boat shop. I've used it on my board trailer before painting it. That was about 12 years ago. Considering that it goes into salt water, I have no case other than the springs where rust is spreading under the paint. It was a greenish clear liquid that was water based. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Dave vs. Carl: The Insignificant Championship Series. ?Who will win? http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://davevscarl.spaces.live.com/?icid=T001MSN38C07001 From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 11 10:24:36 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 08:24:36 -0800 Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <002901c73554$04eacc10$b805a8c0@vulcan> References: <297605.11905.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com>, <002901c73554$04eacc10$b805a8c0@vulcan> Message-ID: <45A5F444.24100.758D250@cclist.sydex.com> Another thing to note is that outside of the USA, the Victor 9000 was known as the Sirius S1. That may get more response; it was my impression that the system was more popular outside of the USA than it was domestically. Cheers, Chuck From joachim.thiemann at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 10:45:32 2007 From: joachim.thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:45:32 -0500 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: <200701110254.VAA09399@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <20070110153445.Q70871@shell.lmi.net> <45A51D19.5255.41054A2@cclist.sydex.com> <200701110254.VAA09399@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <4affc5e0701110845t4c47d287o60c0c9674467fb7d@mail.gmail.com> On 1/10/07, der Mouse wrote: > when I would release NetBSD/tvi955.... > > (Yes, he was joking. The tvi955 is far too computron-poor to run > anything even vaguely like a Unix variant. A few KB of RAM at most, > and a G65SC802 - a slightly improved 6502 - as CPU...only way I can > think of to do it would be to run an emulator for something beefier, > with remote storage accessed via serial line. Never mind "run", never > mind even "walk"; "crawl" would be too fast a word for it.) Well, since it has a 6502 variant (in fact, the 65812 is used in the C64 SuperCPU cartrige) why not port Lunix? :-) Might need a bit more RAM though...and the C= serial bus. http://hld.c64.org/poldi/lunix/lunix.html Joe. ...or maybe Contiki? From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 11 11:28:45 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:28:45 -0800 Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? Message-ID: <45A673CD.7080909@bitsavers.org> > I've seen mention of a Hardware Technical Reference for the Victor. > If anyone has a copy I'd be interested in hearing from you. I've just uploaded scans of the Tech Ref and several other tech docs to http://bitsavers.org/pdf/victor/victor9000 From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 11 11:39:47 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:39:47 -0800 Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? Message-ID: <45A67663.5040802@bitsavers.org> > I've just uploaded scans of the Tech Ref and several other tech docs > to http://bitsavers.org/pdf/victor/victor9000 I just noticed that the figures are all missing in the tech ref. Most wouldn't matter, but the sector format of the floppy would be nice to have documented. Does anyone have the details of this (actual sync pattern, etc.)? From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 11 12:08:30 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:08:30 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A65D1B.3070608@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> Somewhere in storage I have the Byte Magazine that anounced that compuserve was concidering opening up their lines at night and weekends to hobiests at discounted rate that worked out to about 10 cents a minute, provided there was sufficent interest. I spotted it the day it arrived in the mail. It roped me in on my way to Chaos Manner, I had a 110 baud acustic coupler and a credit card, I was ready to rock. I called and got an account number along with an explinations that if it didn't happen for any reason, I would not be charged. I was contacted several weeks later when they hit the numbers they were looking for and decided to go live. I went online for the first time on that first night. Shortly there after I got a Hayes 300 S-100 card and then met up with Ward C and started running it at 450 baud for BBSing. I hated to have to slow it back down to 300 to access C$. I have lived here in Hilliard Ohio for many years and drive by a number of former compuserve buildings in the area, often when out shopping. Britton road is a great shortcut with very little trafic most of the time, plus it has two rotaries, or as some would say round-a-bouts, that are fun to drive fast when no one is around or looking :) I rarely see many cars in the lot over at C$ - Worldcom or now it has an MCI sign. Like the weather it will change again .... who knows mabe SBC will buy it up It has a lot of dark fiber passing in and out of that center, I watched as they built that place, In todays terms it has power and AC to host a big system sitting on multiple very fat pipes. There was a time before the internet when everyone who was anyone in the computer business had a C$ account, as that was the only way to get patches, fixes, and updates in a timely mannor. On this side of town a lot of people use to work at Compuserve, a few worked at Worldcom, and even less are or were with MCI, or has a relitave that did at one point in the time line. I was involved in the Autocad forum when it first started on C$, and watched it die over the years. At one point in time I had one of 3 RBBS systems that mirrored much of the Autocad forum download area for people who did not have C$ access. Wak ran one node here in Columbus, I ran the master in Chicago, and Shultzy kept one running in Oakland where our "people at Autodesk" posted things for us as a local call. The rules then was anything that was posted for public download on C$ was free to distribute. Items in private non public areas could only be DLed from C$ with special access and could not be shared, unless we recieved it officially with permission to post it, or it was publiclt posted on our BBS. We were all under non-disclosure on one or more official levels at the time, and did not abuse too it much :) What killed C$ was the idea that information was free and access was to be charged for based on baud rate, while at the same time dot bomb business models were being built around the concept access should be near free and as fast as possiable, content should be ad supported or sold on CD. The Autocad developer forum was/is an example. It evolved from the online distribution of hints and fixes, to being a profit center selling developers CD's and than back to an online mix when they created their own WEB and FTP site with multi-levels of access if you purchased the CD's. JohnQpublic will grudgeingly pay a flat monthly fee for access but unless it is porn they will not pay by the minute to chat and definately will not pay to get tech support. The merger/takeover by AOheL put a stake in the heart of C$ and killed it slow and sure, didn't help Time Warner much either, but at least they have a chance of spinning back off again. Sometimes it was/is sad to watch. Trivia Question .... What was the month and year of C$ startup anouncement ? and when did they pull the plug on CIS ? Just my 0.39 inflation adjusted Now back under my rock til' nextime, I feel verbose :) Bob Bradlee From marvin at rain.org Thu Jan 11 12:15:28 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:15:28 -0800 Subject: Cleaning House Message-ID: <45A67EC0.C03E92EA@rain.org> I probably should mention that stuff has been sold at VCF that was originally listed on VCM. I tried to remove most of it from VCM, but there are still a few items that I missed. My apologies for any inconveniences there!!! Marvin From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 11 12:20:57 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:20:57 -0600 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <45A68009.1000606@yahoo.co.uk> Bob Bradlee wrote: > Somewhere in storage I have the Byte Magazine that anounced that compuserve was concidering opening > up their lines at night and weekends to hobiests at discounted rate that worked out to about 10 cents a > minute, provided there was sufficent interest. Curiously, that's about what airports seem to charge for access these days. Some things never change :-) From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 12:34:39 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:34:39 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> References: <45A65D1B.3070608@atarimuseum.com> <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: > The merger/takeover by AOheL put a stake in the heart of C$ and killed it slow and sure, didn't help Time > Warner much either, but at least they have a chance of spinning back off again. Compuserve was already a dying beast by the time AOL took it over. They purchased it for the customer base (grab the customers before other online providers do) and for the infrastructure (which turned out to be squat). -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 12:40:44 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:40:44 -0700 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:48:52 -0500. <200701110254.VAA09399@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: In article <200701110254.VAA09399 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, der Mouse writes: > > Toward the end of their corprorate life, Beehive was open to doing > > lots of bizarre things, including loading their own terminals with > > custom firmware and rebadging them. > > Reminds me of something I did with a TeleVideo 955 once. Turns out > that model has a custom-firmware ROM socket, with an escape sequence in > the stock firmware to execute it. I disassembled enough of the various > pieces to work out much of the interface to the hardware, and wrote a > small video game to run in the custom firmware ROM as a > proof-of-concept exercise. [...] What an awesome hardware hack for a terminal! Do you still have it?!? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 11 12:41:41 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:41:41 +0000 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: <004c01c73521$b31af630$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: On 11/1/07 01:42, "Bob Shannon" wrote: > For those interested in the photos of the EDAX PDP 11/23 box... > > http://www3.unlambda.com/download/edax/ Nice! > CIMG0600.JPG shows the keyboard and LED 'programmable key legend' display > unit. Long time since I've seen a 'here is' key on a keyboard.....can't for the life of me remember what I last saw one on though.... > CIMG0607.JPG shows the DEC hardware, an 11/23 with MMU and FPP. There is > also a Sigma FDD controller, and a DILOG ST-506 disk controller. I get 'forbidden' with this one. If I turned up at home with something THAT big I'd sharp be told to take it elsewhere though :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 12:49:02 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:49:02 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <45A65D1B.3070608@atarimuseum.com> <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On 1/11/07, William Donzelli wrote: > > The merger/takeover by AOheL put a stake in the heart of C$ and killed it slow and sure, didn't help Time > > Warner much either, but at least they have a chance of spinning back off again. > > Compuserve was already a dying beast by the time AOL took it over. > They purchased it for the customer base (grab the customers before > other online providers do) and for the infrastructure (which turned > out to be squat). I was working there when they replaced all of our CompuServe badges with AOL badges, changed the sign on the building and changed our pay dates from CIS to AOL's schedule. Talk about end of an era. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 12:50:10 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:50:10 -0500 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: References: <004c01c73521$b31af630$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: On 1/11/07, Adrian Graham wrote: > Long time since I've seen a 'here is' key on a keyboard.....can't for the > life of me remember what I last saw one on though.... ASR-33? > > CIMG0607.JPG shows the DEC hardware, an 11/23 with MMU and FPP. There is > > also a Sigma FDD controller, and a DILOG ST-506 disk controller. > > I get 'forbidden' with this one. Me too. The keyboard close-up was nice. Never seen a legend bar above the function keys like that... pretty slick. -ethan From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 12:53:19 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:53:19 -0700 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 21:52:54 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "Ethan Dicks" writes: > It's a CompuServe-customized TOPS-10, IIRC. Apparently, according to > someone sitting 1m from me now, knowing how to run a CIS 36-bit host > does _not_ help all that much when facing a raw TOPS-10 dot prompt - > there are that many proprietary extensions - probably why they are > still running it - no way to get $$$ allocated to replace it with > something newer. What was the nature of the extensions? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 11 12:56:29 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:56:29 -0800 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: <200701110254.VAA09399@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: , <45A51D19.5255.41054A2@cclist.sydex.com>, <200701110254.VAA09399@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <45A617DD.15753.7E3E1D3@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jan 2007 at 21:48, der Mouse wrote: > Reminds me of something I did with a TeleVideo 955 once. Turns out > that model has a custom-firmware ROM socket, with an escape sequence in > the stock firmware to execute it. I disassembled enough of the various > pieces to work out much of the interface to the hardware, and wrote a > small video game to run in the custom firmware ROM as a > proof-of-concept exercise. This promptly started a friend asking me > when I would release NetBSD/tvi955.... When I wrote the firmware for the Fortune Systems text terminal, I added a special escape sequence that would allow one to load a program into RAM via the host and execute it. It was used for terminal QA, but the code stayed in as far as I know. If anyone has one of these animals and wants to know the escape sequence, drop me a line and I'll dig it out of my files. IIRC, there's not a lot of RAM there, but enough to goof around with. Cheers, Chuck From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 11 12:59:25 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:59:25 +0000 Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A5F444.24100.758D250@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 11/1/07 16:24, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > Another thing to note is that outside of the USA, the Victor 9000 was > known as the Sirius S1. That may get more response; it was my > impression that the system was more popular outside of the USA than > it was domestically. It's the ACT Sirius 1 over here, I used to use one at college though only as a terminal through to the PDP 11/44 :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 11 13:02:33 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:02:33 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <45A65D1B.3070608@atarimuseum.com>, , Message-ID: <45A61949.15311.7E97042@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jan 2007 at 13:49, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I was working there when they replaced all of our CompuServe badges > with AOL badges, changed the sign on the building and changed our pay > dates from CIS to AOL's schedule. Talk about end of an era. Can one still avail oneself of an AOL "free trial" subscription and get into the CIS fora? Or is a Compuserve account number required? Cheers, Chuck From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 11 13:09:21 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:09:21 +0000 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/1/07 18:50, "Ethan Dicks" wrote: > On 1/11/07, Adrian Graham wrote: >> Long time since I've seen a 'here is' key on a keyboard.....can't for the >> life of me remember what I last saw one on though.... > > ASR-33? Heh, you could be right actually! In which case it's only a couple of years since I last saw a 'here is' key since there's more than a couple of ASR33s at Bletchley Park...... > The keyboard close-up was nice. Never seen a legend bar above the > function keys like that... pretty slick. It's just a serially driven LED cluster though isn't it? Doesn't stop it being slick, mind :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 13:10:21 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:10:21 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/11/07, Richard wrote: > > In article , > "Ethan Dicks" writes: > > > It's a CompuServe-customized TOPS-10... > > What was the nature of the extensions? I don't know the answer to that in detail - I had a login, but I never had to do any maintenance work on the 36-bit hosts when I was there, but from what I can gather, CompuServe didn't write their tools in standard FORTRAN - they had an extended FORTRAN compiler they called XF4. There were also lots of home-grown libraries, and AFAIK, hooks into the OS to make writing local utilities easier and more powerful. >From what I gather from folks that used to run jobs on the system, operators were invoking a system of custom-written utilities one after the other for anything more complicated than DIRECTORY. Here's a link to some company history written in 1988... http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/compuserve.txt -ethan From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 12:56:29 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:56:29 -0700 Subject: "kinetic systems minicrate" In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:13:04 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > What's CAMAC? > > It's an acronym for something like 'Computer Assisted Measurment And > Control'. It's a bus standard for instrumetation modules used > particularly in particle physics That makes sense; this stuff was listed at an auction site as surplus from Los Alamos National Labs (the nuclear bomb guys). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 13:15:40 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:15:40 -0700 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:56:29 -0800. <45A617DD.15753.7E3E1D3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <45A617DD.15753.7E3E1D3 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > On 10 Jan 2007 at 21:48, der Mouse wrote: > > > Reminds me of something I did with a TeleVideo 955 once. Turns out > > that model has a custom-firmware ROM socket, with an escape sequence in > > the stock firmware to execute it. I disassembled enough of the various > > pieces to work out much of the interface to the hardware, and wrote a > > small video game to run in the custom firmware ROM as a > > proof-of-concept exercise. This promptly started a friend asking me > > when I would release NetBSD/tvi955.... > > When I wrote the firmware for the Fortune Systems text terminal, I > added a special escape sequence that would allow one to load a > program into RAM via the host and execute it. It was used for > terminal QA, but the code stayed in as far as I know. If anyone has > one of these animals and wants to know the escape sequence, drop me a > line and I'll dig it out of my files. IIRC, there's not a lot of > RAM there, but enough to goof around with. Cool! Another nice little tidbit to look for! :-) I haven't seen a Fortune Systems terminal on ebay or anything like that since I started looking for terminals in the past couple of years. Were they widely sold or used in some particular vertical market? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 11 13:19:28 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:19:28 -0800 Subject: ISO: Everex DC2000 tape drive Message-ID: <45A61D40.27150.7F8EE6E@cclist.sydex.com> Does anyone have a working Everex DC-2000 floppy-tape drive they want to part with? I checked ePay, but didn't find anything. Drop me an email and name your terms. Thanks, Chuck From mtapley at swri.edu Thu Jan 11 13:37:58 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:37:58 -0600 Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C Message-ID: Bob et al, the plug is polarized, so I assumed there's diodes in the wall-wart. Mine (TI-59, should be same) is at home and I'm not, so I'm not able to give better first-hand info before tomorrow, but http://xgistor-echo.ath.cx/files/TI59/ has much useful info. I commend the TI59_PSU.zip file to you in particular. Let me know if you want measurements off of my wall-wart(s). I think I can arrange that. At 12:00 -0600 1/11/07, Bob Laag wrote: >Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:10:26 -0800 >From: BOB LAAG >Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C > >I got a TI 58-c calculator a while back but there was no transformer >with it... I was hoping someone would have one and could give me the >specs on it and if it plugs into the calculator in either rotation... >thanks, bob laag -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 13:41:33 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:41:33 -0500 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/11/07, Adrian Graham wrote: > On 11/1/07 18:50, "Ethan Dicks" wrote: > > The keyboard close-up was nice. Never seen a legend bar above the > > function keys like that... pretty slick. > > It's just a serially driven LED cluster though isn't it? Doesn't stop it > being slick, mind :) It's not so much _what_ it is as where it is. It reminds me of the character legends above/below dials in a dial box. I've thought about something like that with a more modern twist - I have a few 40x2 LCDs - I got them from BG Micro, but I think they were originally from a satellite TV box - one could mount some shaft encoders above and below the LCD and have 8-10 chars per dial, or one could mount it above the function keys and do something similar to what this terminal is doing. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 11 13:43:48 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:43:48 -0800 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <45A622F4.18076.80F3688@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jan 2007 at 12:15, Richard wrote: > I haven't seen a Fortune Systems terminal on ebay or anything like > that since I started looking for terminals in the past couple of > years. Were they widely sold or used in some particular vertical > market? AFAIK, they were sold only with Fortune Systems 68K boxes. Not very unusual--your basic VT52/VT100 terminal, with some international character (Videotex) extensions. Given that FS boxen were never very popular, the terminals are probably fairly rare. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 13:43:26 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:43:26 -0700 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:10:21 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "Ethan Dicks" writes: > Here's a link to some company history written in 1988... > > http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/compuserve.txt That certainly was an interesting read! I had no idea that the history of CompuServ(e) was so long. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Thu Jan 11 13:57:17 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:57:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C In-Reply-To: <45A5D4D2.904@PACBELL.NET> References: <45A5D4D2.904@PACBELL.NET> Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, BOB LAAG wrote: > I got a TI 58-c calculator a while back but there was no transformer with > it... I was hoping someone would have one and could give me the specs on it > and if it plugs into the calculator in either rotation... thanks, bob laag According to these: http://www.rskey.org/detail.asp?manufacturer=Texas+Instruments&model=TI-58C http://www.rskey.org/gene/hpgene/tiadapt.html ...the output of the AC adaptor is 3.3VAC at 500ma. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 11 13:48:40 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:48:40 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, In-Reply-To: <002901c73554$04eacc10$b805a8c0@vulcan> from "Eric Josephson" at Jan 10, 7 11:42:17 pm Message-ID: > I've seen mention of a Hardware Technical Reference for the Victor. > If anyone has a copy I'd be interested in hearing from you. Not an official technical reference, but I did draw out scheamtics of my Sirius (the UK name for the Victor 9000) system. It's a twin floppy model with the normal keyboard and mono monitor. Apart from the boot ROMs, the only 'custom' parts are the encoder ROM on the disk controller board,a microcontroller in the keyboard and a microcontroller on the disk controller PCB that seems to be mostly to so with spindle motor speed control. As you might expect (it's a Chuck Peddle design...) it's full of 6522 VIAs. There are 3 on the mainboard (user port, printer/GPIB port, system control) and 3 more on the disk controller. Oh, the disk data encoder/decoder is very simillar to that in, say,. a Commodore 8050. The video hardware is a little odd in that there's 16 bit wide video RAM which indexes chracter bitmaps stored in main memory. There are enough 'chracter' (as opposed to attribute) bits in the video RAM to allow a separate bitmap pattern for each character cell on the screen, thus allowing bitmapped grapghics. The UK 'Apricot' computer used much the same method. Ohter things to mention : The printer port is really a GPIB port with a strange pinout in that it's driven by 75160 and 75161 (IIRC) chips. With the right software and cable it could talk to GPIB peripherals. The 'spare' 50 pin header (the one that doesn't link to the disk contorller) on the mainboard is a user port. It's basically an uncommitted 6522 VIA (well, one line is used as the clock for the sound circuitry, but is is also available on this header) along with power lines, grounds and a light pen input. There's also an unconnected header -- 7 pins or so -- in the rear corner of the mainboard. This is for sound _input_ -- IIRC it goes to the encoding side of the CODEC, which then goes to the receiver section of a 6852. Again, the main prohlem would be the software to drive this. It would take me a little time to find the diagrams, and as ever I don't have a scanner, but if there's interest, I'll go digging and post whatever info I can. -tony From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 14:07:50 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:07:50 -0700 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:41:33 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "Ethan Dicks" writes: > On 1/11/07, Adrian Graham wrote: > > On 11/1/07 18:50, "Ethan Dicks" wrote: > > > The keyboard close-up was nice. Never seen a legend bar above the > > > function keys like that... pretty slick. > > > > It's just a serially driven LED cluster though isn't it? Doesn't stop it > > being slick, mind :) > > It's not so much _what_ it is as where it is. It reminds me of the > character legends above/below dials in a dial box. > > I've thought about something like that with a more modern twist - I > have a few 40x2 LCDs - I got them from BG Micro, but I think they were > originally from a satellite TV box - one could mount some shaft > encoders above and below the LCD and have 8-10 chars per dial, or one > could mount it above the function keys and do something similar to > what this terminal is doing. The Apricot Xi had a keyboard with a membrane keypad arranged as something like 6 horizontal keys and a 2x40 LCD above the membrane keypad. Each membrane key had an associated LED. The intention was that you would write the labels into the LCD and illuminate the LED fo the key to alert the user that the key was active. It was an interesting idea, but only really useful for "hunt and peck" typers as the membrane keys were too far away to be reached by touch typing. The Apricot was an interesting machine -- MS-DOS compatible, but not BIOS compatible. In the end, you needed BIOS compatability to be "100% compatible" in the clone market and the Apricot failed. But they were nice looking machines with a nice keyboard compared to the boring boxes offered by others. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From stanb at dial.pipex.com Thu Jan 11 13:25:45 2007 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:25:45 +0000 Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:10:26 PST." <45A5D4D2.904@PACBELL.NET> Message-ID: <200701111925.TAA25594@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, BOB LAAG said: > I got a TI 58-c calculator a while back but there was no transformer > with it... I was hoping someone would have one and could give me the > specs on it and if it plugs into the calculator in either rotation... > thanks, bob laag > I don't know if the -C is the same, but my TI-58 (no -C) requires 6.2V ac @ 200mA. There are rectifier diodes in the calculator so the supply can be connected either way round. There is, or was, a website with all the details of the TI58/9 series, including circuits etc. google should find it. I'm afraid I didn't keep the url after downloading the info I needed :-( PS Just found it: http://xgistor.ath.cx if it's still active. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 11 14:38:54 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:38:54 +0000 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/1/07 20:07, "Richard" wrote: > The Apricot was an interesting machine -- MS-DOS compatible, but not > BIOS compatible. In the end, you needed BIOS compatability to be > "100% compatible" in the clone market and the Apricot failed. But > they were nice looking machines with a nice keyboard compared to the > boring boxes offered by others. I've started a history-that-needs-fleshing-out here: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Apricot/index.php Hells, I'm missing a load of pictures for some of those machines! Note that both the XD20 and the 'pc' have the LCD keyboard...... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From geoffr at zipcon.net Thu Jan 11 15:14:31 2007 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoff Reed) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:14:31 -0800 Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A67663.5040802@bitsavers.org> References: <45A67663.5040802@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <06f101c735c5$7d0e0a10$0701a8c0@liberator> -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 9:40 AM To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? > I've just uploaded scans of the Tech Ref and several other tech docs > to http://bitsavers.org/pdf/victor/victor9000 I just noticed that the figures are all missing in the tech ref. Most wouldn't matter, but the sector format of the floppy would be nice to have documented. Does anyone have the details of this (actual sync pattern, etc.)? ------- I'm pretty sure a former roomie of mine has a pair of those machines... I'll have to see if I can find him and see if he still has them... heck I need to see about getting in touch with him, he has my stack of kaypro's including a kaypro 10 I think it is (Kaypro with HDD) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 11 15:20:08 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:20:08 -0600 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A6AA08.7050108@yahoo.co.uk> Adrian Graham wrote: > On 11/1/07 20:07, "Richard" wrote: > >> The Apricot was an interesting machine -- MS-DOS compatible, but not >> BIOS compatible. In the end, you needed BIOS compatability to be >> "100% compatible" in the clone market and the Apricot failed. But >> they were nice looking machines with a nice keyboard compared to the >> boring boxes offered by others. > > I've started a history-that-needs-fleshing-out here: > > http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Apricot/index.php > > Hells, I'm missing a load of pictures for some of those machines! Note that > both the XD20 and the 'pc' have the LCD keyboard...... Hmm, we perhaps have a few at the museum which aren't mentioned there, should you want a nose around at some point. I know we've got some massive server ( it's a VXFT) which you perhaps haven't seen as it arrived relatively recently. Circa 1991 I was messing around with a large (but narrow) Apricot tower machine - as I recall it was semi-PC-compatible, but not quite. I *think* it was a 386; presumably a Xen-something-or-other. There's http://www.actapricot.org but some of its pages seem to have real trouble rendering in Firefox :-( I get the impression that Apricot were a bit like ICL - the actual product range was massive, and for every common machine known about there were ten more which only a very few people had... cheers Jules From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 15:49:50 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:49:50 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <45A65D1B.3070608@atarimuseum.com> <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: > I was working there when they replaced all of our CompuServe badges > with AOL badges, changed the sign on the building and changed our pay > dates from CIS to AOL's schedule. Talk about end of an era. How did AOL treat its Compuserve employees and culture? There was always a lot of pissing and moaning about AOL in our group (ANS.NET), but I think that exists everywhere, regardless of how good or bad the masters were. In hindsight, we look back and now admit that AOL really was a decent company to work for. We, and our culture, were treated very well. The amount of BS was pretty minimal. Our end of an era came about (2nd end of an era for ANS, actually) when AOL sold our group off to Worldcom. Suprise announcement - only the very top knew, and kept it a secret. It was timed perfectly on the day we moved to a new building, and they had just (as in a day) put up the nifty AOL sign up in the lobby. Removed the next day, I think. Worldcom sucked. -- Will From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jan 11 15:58:48 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:58:48 -0500 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:15:48 EST." Message-ID: <200701112158.l0BLwmus021417@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Joshua Alexander Dersch" wrote: > >Huh. I did the same exact thing with zrqch0 (many, many, many times, with >many different variations of options on a wide swath of drives). I could >get the format to complete without errors (supposedly) but I was unable to >use the drive afterwards (couldn't make partitions or create filesystems for >2.11BSD, for example). > >Maybe it's just something wrong with my setup. At any rate, I'd love to see >the logs of your attempts to see if I'm perhaps doing something incorrectly. Well, I used my SMT hot air gun and pulled a few DC005's off a spare board (it worked pretty well - just never thought to use it for through-hole). I put the DC005 in the dead RQDX3 and it appears to work fine. With that I was able to try formatting an ST-225 with V2 firmware and V4 firmware. They both worked. I was able to install RT-11 and boot from the drive (I plan to try rsts next, which is has been my goal for a while). So it wasn't firmware - it was operator error :-) I put the log of formatting with zrqch0 here: http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/pdp11/formatting.txt I think my problem is that I got fixated on "autoformatting". This turned out to be wrong (probably works fine for an drive which already has an FCT but not for a drive used ina pc). If I had a big enough MFM drive I'd try BSD but the biggest MFM I have is 20mb. All my larger drives are ESDI. RSTS should work on a 20mb drive... he said... crossing his fingers (and remembering it ran on 2x RK05's at long ago... :-) -brad From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 16:03:57 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:03:57 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <45A65D1B.3070608@atarimuseum.com> <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On 1/11/07, William Donzelli wrote: > > I was working there when they replaced all of our CompuServe badges > > with AOL badges, changed the sign on the building and changed our pay > > dates from CIS to AOL's schedule. Talk about end of an era. > > How did AOL treat its Compuserve employees and culture? Well... while I was there, _mostly_ we got left to ourselves (dress code, traditional holiday parties, etc.), but there were occasional moments of confusion and non-recognition when we had to directly deal with folks in Virginia. I was a developer, so mostly we kept our heads down and wrote code. I've heard from friends who are still there or who have recently (2006) departed that the years I was there (2001-2003) are now "good old days". One of the first changes to bubble to the top of the list of complaints is the quality of the coffee at the coffee stations. Seemingly trivial, but for a bunch of developers, quite important (at least it's still better there than when I was at Airtouch/Verizon - we used to bring our own coffee from home rather than drink the swill from their coffee service). > There was always a lot of pissing and moaning about AOL in our group > (ANS.NET), but I think that exists everywhere, regardless of how good > or bad the masters were. In hindsight, we look back and now admit that > AOL really was a decent company to work for. We, and our culture, were > treated very well. The amount of BS was pretty minimal. CompuServe was, at one point, a _really_ nice place to work... I remember working elsewhere in town and hearing good things about CIS from my friends who were there _at that time_, so I know it's not just nostalgia. When I was there, there were still a lot of people still smarting from the Worldcom/AOL dismantling of the former CompuServe, fueling any unhappy feelings at the time, I'm sure. > Our end of an era came about (2nd end of an era for ANS, actually) > when AOL sold our group off to Worldcom. Suprise announcement - only > the very top knew, and kept it a secret. It was timed perfectly on the > day we moved to a new building, and they had just (as in a day) put up > the nifty AOL sign up in the lobby. Removed the next day, I think. Ow! > Worldcom sucked. I've heard that from just about everyone from CompuServe who ended up there. -ethan From wizard at voyager.net Thu Jan 11 16:04:17 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:04:17 -0500 Subject: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question In-Reply-To: <20070111105833.GA32258@bytemark.barnyard.co.uk> References: <20070111105833.GA32258@bytemark.barnyard.co.uk> Message-ID: <1168553057.5968.65.camel@linux.site> Hello, folks, I just bought the afore-mentioned HP Rack for my new HP minicomputer. All well and good, but it is for pickup only in California, and I live in Michigan. Who knows a shipper who will pick it up, and drop it off, with only phone contact? Extra difficulty: It's not very heavy, for something that size, but it's HUGE. Looks to be almost six feet tall, probably five or a bit more, with casters. Clues, anyone? Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 16:18:24 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:18:24 -0700 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:20:08 -0600. <45A6AA08.7050108@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: In article <45A6AA08.7050108 at yahoo.co.uk>, Jules Richardson writes: > I get the impression that Apricot were a bit like ICL - the actual product > range was massive, and for every common machine known about there were ten > more which only a very few people had... Maybe in the UK, but in the states there were relatively few models offered. I remember there being only three models: the F1, Xi and a mid-range model in an Xi style case but in beige instead of black. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From useddec at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 16:22:39 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:22:39 -0600 Subject: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question In-Reply-To: <1168553057.5968.65.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <000701c735cf$01cb6dc0$4200a8c0@main> Hi Warren, Computer Transportation Services at 800-831-0030 and ask for Patti. They have a freight division and a padded van division. They are just a freight broker, and I've been using them for years. Thanks, Paul Anderson -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Warren Wolfe Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 4:04 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question Hello, folks, I just bought the afore-mentioned HP Rack for my new HP minicomputer. All well and good, but it is for pickup only in California, and I live in Michigan. Who knows a shipper who will pick it up, and drop it off, with only phone contact? Extra difficulty: It's not very heavy, for something that size, but it's HUGE. Looks to be almost six feet tall, probably five or a bit more, with casters. Clues, anyone? Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 16:30:57 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:30:57 -0500 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: <200701112158.l0BLwmus021417@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701112158.l0BLwmus021417@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On 1/11/07, Brad Parker wrote: > Well, I used my SMT hot air gun and pulled a few DC005's off a spare > board (it worked pretty well - just never thought to use it for > through-hole). I put the DC005 in the dead RQDX3 and it appears to work > fine. Cool. > RSTS should work on a 20mb drive... he said... crossing > his fingers (and remembering it ran on 2x RK05's at long ago... :-) Depends on the version, indeed it should be. The latest version of RSTS/E I played with when it was contemporary was v9.0 in the late 1980s/early 1990s, to support one of our few remaining RSTS customers from the late 1980s/early 1980s. It was on an 11/24 w/4xRL02, but I'm reasonably certain that we only had two packs spinning. We _might_ have run v10 on that same hardware, but I'm not as certain of that. We never did move up to the newer/faster/larger PDP-11s there - we stopped at 11/34s and 11/24s and 11/23s, and we never had a disk larger than 10MB on any of our PDP-11s. :-/ Made it tough to play with 2BSD after hours at work. -ethan From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 16:40:06 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:40:06 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <45A65D1B.3070608@atarimuseum.com> <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: > When I was there, there were still a lot of people still > smarting from the Worldcom/AOL dismantling of the former CompuServe, > fueling any unhappy feelings at the time, I'm sure. Worldcom was good at this. In the space of two or three months, ANS turned very sour. Others I worked with later that were absorbed by Worldcom said the same thing - MCI, MFS, UUnet. I even remember Sidgmoor coming to our office, and everyone could sense he was a bitter man, after Ebbers gutted his company. -- Will From JeLynch at stny.rr.com Thu Jan 11 16:43:14 2007 From: JeLynch at stny.rr.com (Jim Lynch) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:43:14 -0500 Subject: ISO: Everex DC2000 tape drive In-Reply-To: <45A61D40.27150.7F8EE6E@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45A61D40.27150.7F8EE6E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200701112243.l0BMh5MQ014404@ms-smtp-03.nyroc.rr.com> Chuck, I have a mountain tape drive in a Everex HyperCube. Would this work for you? Nanoman at stny.rr.com At 02:19 PM 1/11/2007, you wrote: >Does anyone have a working Everex DC-2000 floppy-tape drive they want >to part with? I checked ePay, but didn't find anything. > >Drop me an email and name your terms. > >Thanks, >Chuck From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 11 16:48:54 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 22:48:54 +0000 Subject: ACT Apricot (was: Re: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/1/07 22:18, "Richard" wrote: > Maybe in the UK, but in the states there were relatively few models > offered. I remember there being only three models: the F1, Xi and a > mid-range model in an Xi style case but in beige instead of black. I'm pretty sure I've got beige AND black Xi's and now I'm wondering where the $hells my black Xi is! I know I've got one.....somewhere.....I remember bringing it home.....gah....! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 16:54:25 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:54:25 -0700 Subject: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:22:39 -0600. <000701c735cf$01cb6dc0$4200a8c0@main> Message-ID: In article <000701c735cf$01cb6dc0$4200a8c0 at main>, "Paul Anderson" writes: > Computer Transportation Services [...] Note that while others have reported good service from this place in the past, I just had a pretty rotten experience with them. Caveat emptor -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 11 16:56:48 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:56:48 -0600 Subject: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question References: <20070111105833.GA32258@bytemark.barnyard.co.uk> <1168553057.5968.65.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <002401c735d3$c8df7dd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Warren wrote.... > I just bought the afore-mentioned HP Rack for my new HP > minicomputer. Awesome! You'll be happy with it. Let me know if you need rails, I MIGHT have a few spares. I do have spare keys and other assorted odds & ends of hardware for them. Quite a few of this exact rack have been through my workshop, a few of them stuck around :) > All well and good, but it is for pickup only Yikes... did the auction say pickup only? > in > California, and I live in Michigan. Who knows a shipper who will pick > it up, and drop it off, with only phone contact? I've used many, don't have contact info infront of me though. I suggest you use the one that guy sotomayor listed. He's shipped metric buttloads with them on a frequent basis and if he says they are good to use, that's all I need to know. Even if Richard's recent post on his experience isn't atypical, it's a RACK. Not like it's a glass terminal. Go to MoveIt.com (CTS Transportation services, 1-800-831-0030). I think they are one of the ones I've used before. Make sure you let the shipper know that they will need to metal band the item to a pallet... or see if the seller will at least do that for you. As I said in my previous post on this, see if they have a terminal in your area (if you have a vehicle to tilt it on to - van or pickup works great). If they do, see if they will leave it at the terminal for you to pick up instead of subcontracting out the last leg to your house. It will save you a bundle. Your first contact with a major shipper can be slightly intimidating, they will seem to want all kinds of info that you don't know what they are asking and they expect you to know the terminology right off the top of your head. Just tell them your an individual and it's your first time shipping. > Extra difficulty: It's > not very heavy, for something that size, but it's HUGE. Looks to be > almost six feet tall, probably five or a bit more, with casters. Clues, > anyone? Did you see my previous post to the list on this? I gave you rough dimensions ;) Since I have an identical rack with the same add-on front door... I just measured for you. It's 64 inches tall (including wheels) by 21 inches wide by 32 inches deep (including front door that sticks out an inch or so). This doesn't count the two antitip legs that jut out at the bottom front, which stick out 5 inches. Those measurements are exact. I do not know the exact weight of that rack empty, I'd guess about 105-125 (HP racks are a bit heavier than DEC or DG racks, HP racks are pretty solid stuff). Jay From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 17:01:45 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:01:45 -0700 Subject: ACT Apricot (was: Re: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. ) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jan 2007 22:48:54 +0000. Message-ID: In article , Adrian Graham writes: > On 11/1/07 22:18, "Richard" wrote: > > > Maybe in the UK, but in the states there were relatively few models > > offered. I remember there being only three models: the F1, Xi and a > > mid-range model in an Xi style case but in beige instead of black. > > I'm pretty sure I've got beige AND black Xi's and now I'm wondering where > the $hells my black Xi is! I know I've got one.....somewhere.....I remember > bringing it home.....gah....! I worked at the local Apricot dealer in Delaware at the time. I think that would have been the summer of 1984. The owner was a guy who had been a salesman at Computerland selling Apple ][s and even a few Lisas, IIRC. He chose the Apricot as the flagship line for his store. I worked for minimum wage doing tech stuff and the odd bit of programming for his customers. One guy had an entire business built around a chocolate chip cookie and needed dbase II programming done to manage his orders. That was the first and only time I've used dbase II, but it was pretty solid programming work for a few months. The owner had a customer in Washington, DC and while I was under 21 and couldn't legally drink in Delaware, the drinking age in DC was 18, so I could legally drink there. While debugging a LAN installation (my first experience with networking hardware or software) for a customer, I stayed for a few days down in DC. I went to a bar and drank enough so that I literally fell off my bar stool :-). Then there was the "closing time" tradition of the owner at the store. It would turn 5:00 PM and he would flip around the "open" sign in the window and say "I'll be right back". He'd return with a six-pack of Bud 16 ozers that we'd drink behind the store in the yard. (The store was a converted house.) Fun times! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 11 17:25:47 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:25:47 +0000 Subject: ACT Apricot (was: Re: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. ) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/1/07 23:01, "Richard" wrote: > Then there was the "closing time" tradition of the owner at the store. > It would turn 5:00 PM and he would flip around the "open" sign in the > window and say "I'll be right back". He'd return with a six-pack of > Bud 16 ozers that we'd drink behind the store in the yard. (The store > was a converted house.) > > Fun times! Sounds like it :) The best entertainment we had from both managers back then was free gin at the pub down the road, this was dampened somewhat by the fact we had to drive home afterwards so not much gin was drunk. Fun. Not. Can you remember what Apricots he sold? -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 11 17:57:11 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:57:11 -0600 Subject: ACT Apricot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A6CED7.2080504@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > I worked at the local Apricot dealer in Delaware at the time. I think > that would have been the summer of 1984. The owner was a guy who had been > a salesman at Computerland selling Apple ][s and even a few Lisas, IIRC. > He chose the Apricot as the flagship line for his store. I worked > for minimum wage doing tech stuff and the odd bit of programming for > his customers. That's pretty much how I got into computing too. Was a heck of a lot of fun at the place I was at too - relaxed atmosphere and lots of interesting hardware to futz around with. It started going downhill toward the end though ('93 or so) as the PC revolution had happened and 95% of the stuff coming in was just boring old clones - there was no real fixing going on any more and it was all just about board swapping :( No idea when the place closed down, but it's long gone now... cheers Jules From rollerton at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 18:12:23 2007 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:12:23 -0600 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: References: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com> On 1/11/07, dwight elvey wrote: > > > > > >From: "Robert Ollerton" > ---snip--- > there are > >areas that are rusty, for instance the bottom of a deep scratch, you need > >to > >get that out and down to bright metal... A wire brush, dremel tool, etc > >can > >be used here. You dont want to wire brush the whole item, it will leave > >scratches that will telegraph thru any new primer or paint you apply and > >show on the surface of the new paint. > ---snip--- > > Hi > For things like rust in scratches, I've used some phosphate liquid > primer stuff. It stablizes the rust. I've just about run out of the > stuff but can't find it in stores any more. I originally bought it > at a boat shop. I've used it on my board trailer before painting > it. That was about 12 years ago. Considering that it goes into > salt water, I have no case other than the springs where rust > is spreading under the paint. > It was a greenish clear liquid that was water based. > Dwight > > _________________________________________________________________ > Dave vs. Carl: The Insignificant Championship Series. Who will win? > > http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://davevscarl.spaces.live.com/?icid=T001MSN38C07001 > > Phosphoric acid, usually buffered is sometimes a prefered pre-treatment prior to primer. The old metal guys would call this galvanising. Idea is to wipe it on, and wipe it off before it drys and to not let it leave a white residue. This will eat tiny rust and leave a surface thats rough and resistant to rusting for a few days, weeks, months while you prepare other areas for primer/paint. Note that some primers claim to be incompatible with this treatment. I use a lot of this, Keep it in 5 gal buckets so I can dip parts in it. You can get it at most paint stores and HD in gallons for not a lot of $. Beware not to use any acid treatment on hightly stressed items for which your life depends on it. The End-Rust conversion coat stuff (tanic acid based I think) is ok for floorboards and iron workitems but I would not recommend it for something like a computer cabinet. where you want appearance or you are trying to acheive a high level of restoration "fidelity". One last tip, for aluminum items never use a steel wire brush, steel wool or sand paper made from aluminum oxide on the surface. Tiny fragments will embed in the metal and start a corrosion process. The corrosion treatment process prior to primer is usually done with either an etching primer or a Alodine metal salt conversion process. Jay for that textured coating, I am not sure how they did that but expect it was something in the paint mixture that dried at one rate while something else dried at another. I do know of one project where the first coat set up the pattern and then the 2nd & 3rd coat was the color. That finish is an industrial one that replaced wrinkle paint (aircraft panels) and hammertone finishes for surfaces that would be handled and it was desirable to hide damage and dirt. you might be able to simulate the cottage cheese effect by spraying a coat of primer and then using something to texture it and then let it dry, some experimentation with a $2 can of primer and some coated cardboard might yield a method. Things like saran wrap, sponges, pizza crust (!) might make good patterns. From geneb at simpits.com Thu Jan 11 18:21:08 2007 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:21:08 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A512C2.3080300@dragonsweb.org> References: <45A512C2.3080300@dragonsweb.org> Message-ID: <45A6D474.5010702@simpits.com> James B. DiGriz wrote: > The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got the > old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 > > jbdigriz Now here's the critical question - can you still get access to things like the CP/M, Commodore, Tandy and other old system related file libraries? If so, is there any way to get a new account? tnx! g. From rollerton at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 18:22:39 2007 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:22:39 -0600 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: <45A6389D.6020706@yahoo.co.uk> References: <007f01c734c8$5d4e61f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <45A50E81.9080805@yahoo.co.uk> <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> <45A6389D.6020706@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <2789adda0701111622ndd71f87w590db0f58b7b3c78@mail.gmail.com> Oh Brass brushes, I use a lot of them on projects to get crud out of corners and cracks. Also safe(er) on Aluminum. I have had to fix up a lot of messed up surfaces that were the result of a wirewheel in a drill or buffer. OK for Iron work, not very good for surfaces. I have two blast cabinets, one with glass beads for Aluminum and smaller more precise items and the 2nd cabinet with what ever mean media is available at the time, usually some form of iron furnace slag. I have a pressure pot sand blaster too, but I hate the feeling of sand sliding down my plumbers crack... I like to start out with chemical paint removers first to get things softened up and workable and and then go for the media blasting. That way I can keep as much of the dirt and paint residue outside my shop in a contained area, and then progressively move towards the clean area where I do my paint prep. On 1/11/07, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Robert Ollerton wrote: > > If there are > > areas that are rusty, for instance the bottom of a deep scratch, you > > need to > > get that out and down to bright metal... A wire brush, dremel tool, etc > > can > > be used here. You dont want to wire brush the whole item, it will leave > > scratches that will telegraph thru any new primer or paint you apply and > > show on the surface of the new paint. > > FWIW It certainly isn't a steel brush that I've used whenever I've done > this, > but some softer (gold-coloured) metal - presumably brass. I'd expect the > average steel brush will make a mess of things, however. > > I've not had a problem with scratches in such situations with the above, > and > it's proved far quicker overall than using chemicals for paint removal. I > keep > on toying with the idea of setting up some sort of blasting cabinet, more > out > of curiosity than real need, but it's one of those projects that can wait > until I have more time (yeah, right :-) and somewhere more permanent to > site > it. (I hear that things like baking powder work surprisingly well, and > it'd > be interesting to do some experimentation) > > cheers > > Jules > From ken at seefried.com Thu Jan 11 18:35:10 2007 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:35:10 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives Message-ID: <20070112003510.9281.qmail@seefried.com> [catching up a bit] > Ideally though you're going to need to determine the model of HD, and get > some extras. Ideally, yes, but I've found that's not always required in practice (in admittedly limited experience). I've successfully dd'ed a couple of old SCSI drives to larger SCSI drives and was able to boot & run without issue (other than the wasted space). I suspect it works because SCSI hides many low-level details. I certainly didn't test all the boundary cases, so there certainly might be gotchas if you used the duped disk extensively or in production. On my VME532 machine, I dd'ed the ~150MB Maxtor ESDI drive to a ~300MB Maxtor and it boots fine from the larger, half-wasted drive. I wouldn't count on it working with another vendors drive, or for all permutations of ESDI controllers. YMMV. Ken From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 18:37:49 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:37:49 -0500 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com> References: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Jay for that textured coating, I am not sure how they did that but expect it > was something in the paint mixture that dried at one rate while something > else dried at another. I saw some splatter coat spray paint just a week back in the auto supply store. I do not know how well it works. I have reproduced spatter coat for small patches by manually applying the bumps. After preparing the surface, I used the same paint as the exterior finish, but put some to the side so it starts to get a bit thick. Then, using a pin and a lot of time, random bumps are placed with a pin. It is actually very easy to replicate the pattern by eye. If your patch is over an inch square, expect to spent a good 15 minutes with the pin. Wrinkle paint is a different story - it is extremely difficult to get a wrinkle paint patch to look good. The best I can do is for tiny patches - a well placed thumpprint while the paint is tacky is acceptable. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 11 18:43:00 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:43:00 -0800 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com> References: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com>, , <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <45A66914.6253.9211EF8@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jan 2007 at 18:12, Robert Ollerton wrote: > Jay for that textured coating, I am not sure how they did that but expect it > was something in the paint mixture that dried at one rate while something > else dried at another. I do know of one project where the first coat set up > the pattern and then the 2nd & 3rd coat was the color. That finish is an > industrial one that replaced wrinkle paint (aircraft panels) and hammertone > finishes for surfaces that would be handled and it was desirable to hide > damage and dirt. you might be able to simulate the cottage cheese effect > by spraying a coat of primer and then using something to texture it and then > let it dry, some experimentation with a $2 can of primer and some coated > cardboard might yield a method. Things like saran wrap, sponges, pizza > crust (!) might make good patterns. There used to be a "rattle can" textured finish that deposited various-sized blobs of differently-colored paint. I wonder if this might be a close texture (used as an undercoat). When repairing fiberglass-resin cases, a bit of foam rubber (such as that used to pack old hard drives) works pretty well for giving things a fine texture. Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 11 18:46:15 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:46:15 -0600 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site><011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING><1168327122.4220.191.camel@linux.site><005e01c73408$01eeabf0$6500a8c0@BILLING><001101c7351d$8f3b7270$0100a8c0@screamer><017401c73531$a2a6f9b0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP><006801c7353d$f431cc90$0100a8c0@screamer><01b901c7353f$6d52e770$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <007501c73541$f8eee2a0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <001d01c735e3$14a0cf80$6500a8c0@BILLING> You wrote... > What they have in common is what matters. No, what they have different is what matters... like TSB having it's own fancy modified loader in the BBL area that IPL best not mess with ;) As I said, I've had my head out of the HP stuff for quite a while now, but I do THINK I recall that it has a special loader left in the system processor (and the I/O processor for that matter). TSB on the 2100's at least also relies on the autorestart feature so that the IO processor comes up to a sane state. > Why would any program that runs in 32K, less the BBL area (64 words) not > run correctly under the SYSTEM map with 21MX memory protection disabled? Oh, many things would run just fine I imagine. I would suspect that interrupt handling could get sticky. > A single function can remap the SYSTEM and USER maps, and make that > virtual > address space the SYSTEM map and transfer control to any address in that > page. I'm aware of how DMS works. I'm not familiar with how IPL implemented this vm stuff you mention. Is that in the older versions of IPL like the one I have? > The program that ~had~ been loaded into VM is now running on its very own > 32K word machine, IRQ vectors, DCPC transfers, everything. DCPC is of course valid and handled in a DMS environment. I'm still curious just how you handled interrupts in the scenario you describe. > When that program (HP BASIC in this case) jumps to the special BBL loader > a tiny DMS program unswaps the DMS maps and jumps to a special entry > point in IPL, the threaded interpreter keeps chugging along as if it also > is being run on a totally different CPU. Ahhh so it seems (to answer the probing question I asked earlier) that you/terry seeded HP BASIC with strategic calls to the "release quantum" code in the BBL area that does the task switch (or just patched it to exit there). Co-operative tasking. That means each map better be awfully co-operative in giving up it's use of the cpu. Or even if you're only switching tasks on a special keypress (or using the TBG), each application better be very well behaved. If it goes south (or just doesn't give up the quantum), so does the whole machine. > ... any program that does > not take control of the DMS mapping registers must, by definition, run > normally > under these conditions. I may well buy that statement, but I sure don't buy it yet. I'd like to see just what IPL is doing for this. > The system map is the system map, no matter where in physical memory it is > mapped to. At power on, its the first 32K words of physical address > space. > > So what if it happens to be mapped to some other physical address space? > There > is no way for a non-DMS program to ever know this is the case. > > Why would it not run perfectly? If it were strictly a matter of code & data in memory, of course your right. But there's more to it as there's more parts to a running machine/OS than the code in memory. Like disk drives, tape drives, interrupts, etc. Jay From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 11 18:50:13 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:50:13 -0800 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: References: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com>, <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com>, Message-ID: <45A66AC5.19827.927BB53@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jan 2007 at 19:37, William Donzelli wrote: > Wrinkle paint is a different story - it is extremely difficult to get > a wrinkle paint patch to look good. The best I can do is for tiny > patches - a well placed thumpprint while the paint is tacky is > acceptable. AFAIK, most wrinkle finish work involves baking. Here's an old ARRL "Hints and Kinks" item on the subject: http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/wrinkle.html I found another interesting reference on the subject: http://www.fancollectors.org/info/wrinkle.htm Cheers, Chuck From geneb at simpits.com Thu Jan 11 18:53:43 2007 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:53:43 -0800 Subject: ExecPC BBS problems... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A6DC17.4010804@simpits.com> Does anyone on the list have the contact email address for the sysop of the ExecPC bbs? In trying to connect today all I get is "You are user 49 in a queue of 49". This repeats until I disconnect. thanks. g. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 18:58:41 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:58:41 -0500 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: <45A66AC5.19827.927BB53@cclist.sydex.com> References: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com> <45A66AC5.19827.927BB53@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > AFAIK, most wrinkle finish work involves baking. Here's an old ARRL > "Hints and Kinks" item on the subject: Yes, but the texture of the wrinkle varies greatly with the baking and paint formulation. -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 19:28:35 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:28:35 -0700 Subject: ACT Apricot (was: Re: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. ) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:25:47 +0000. Message-ID: In article , Adrian Graham writes: > Can you remember what Apricots he sold? F1s and Xis IIRC -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 11 19:29:49 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:29:49 -0800 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D0366F0@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: There used to be a "rattle can" textured finish that deposited various-sized blobs of differently-colored paint. I wonder if this might be a close texture (used as an undercoat). When repairing fiberglass-resin cases, a bit of foam rubber (such as that used to pack old hard drives) works pretty well for giving things a fine texture. Cheers, Chuck ----------------------------------- And these days, you can get a spare can of almost any texture you want at Home Depot or Lowe's. I've tried some of the "orange peel" with good results to match the old crackle texture. I agree it's not the best but it is hard to pick out without very close examination. So far, no problems with it coming off either (knock on wood!) Billy From rollerton at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 19:39:08 2007 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:39:08 -0600 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: References: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com> <45A66AC5.19827.927BB53@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <2789adda0701111739w4eea71f8jee661b61295820c0@mail.gmail.com> On 1/11/07, William Donzelli wrote: > > > AFAIK, most wrinkle finish work involves baking. Here's an old ARRL > > "Hints and Kinks" item on the subject: > > Yes, but the texture of the wrinkle varies greatly with the baking and > paint formulation. > > -- > Will Aircraft grade, spray it on thick, two coats and hope it wrinkles right. if not, take it off and do it again. I have never acheived the same facrory finish that you see on items from 50+ years ago. From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 19:50:39 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:50:39 -0800 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: References: <45A617DD.15753.7E3E1D3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701111750i2d95f8c1p667a7539044a2cbc@mail.gmail.com> On 1/11/07, Richard wrote: > > In article <45A617DD.15753.7E3E1D3 at cclist.sydex.com>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > > On 10 Jan 2007 at 21:48, der Mouse wrote: > > > > > Reminds me of something I did with a TeleVideo 955 once. Turns out > > > that model has a custom-firmware ROM socket, with an escape sequence in > > > the stock firmware to execute it. I disassembled enough of the various > > > pieces to work out much of the interface to the hardware, and wrote a > > > small video game to run in the custom firmware ROM as a > > > proof-of-concept exercise. This promptly started a friend asking me > > > when I would release NetBSD/tvi955.... > > > > When I wrote the firmware for the Fortune Systems text terminal, I > > added a special escape sequence that would allow one to load a > > program into RAM via the host and execute it. It was used for > > terminal QA, but the code stayed in as far as I know. If anyone has > > one of these animals and wants to know the escape sequence, drop me a > > line and I'll dig it out of my files. IIRC, there's not a lot of > > RAM there, but enough to goof around with. > > Cool! Another nice little tidbit to look for! :-) > How common is that in vintage terminals? I know some of the HP 264x series terminals have an escape sequence that allows code to be downloaded and executed in the terminal. Somewhere on the net I believe there is a version of Pong for the HP 2644A. I don't have any 8008 CPU HP 264x terminals such as the 2644A, only 8085 CPU ones. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 11 19:56:27 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:56:27 -0700 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:50:39 -0800. <1e1fc3e90701111750i2d95f8c1p667a7539044a2cbc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <1e1fc3e90701111750i2d95f8c1p667a7539044a2cbc at mail.gmail.com>, "Glen Slick" writes: > How common is that in vintage terminals? I know some of the HP 264x > series terminals have an escape sequence that allows code to be > downloaded and executed in the terminal. Somewhere on the net I > believe there is a version of Pong for the HP 2644A. I don't have any > 8008 CPU HP 264x terminals such as the 2644A, only 8085 CPU ones. Wow, that's even more interesting since I have two 2648A's! A few google searches didn't turn up anything obvious; if you can dig up a URL that would be great! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From davebarnes at adelphia.net Thu Jan 11 20:02:37 2007 From: davebarnes at adelphia.net (David Barnes) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:02:37 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A68009.1000606@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> <45A68009.1000606@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: Great stuff... Didn't Compuserve run entirely on 'clone' DECsystem 10's and/or 20's? This was what I heard years ago... is it a fable? David Barnes davebarnes AT adelphia DOT net OpenVMS , Tru64 , Solaris , Linux , OS X , SGI Irix On Jan 11, 2007, at 1:20 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: > Bob Bradlee wrote: >> Somewhere in storage I have the Byte Magazine that anounced that >> compuserve was concidering opening up their lines at night and >> weekends to hobiests at discounted rate that worked out to about >> 10 cents a minute, provided there was sufficent interest. > > Curiously, that's about what airports seem to charge for access > these days. Some things never change :-) > > From bshannon at tiac.net Thu Jan 11 20:22:06 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:22:06 -0500 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. References: Message-ID: <001101c735f0$76c4a350$0100a8c0@screamer> Yep, the LED display above the keyboard is driven from a serial port on the 11/23. Some simple logic drives a number of intelligent LED display modules that put alphanumeric legends above the programmable function keys. If this thing gets parted out, I'm probably going to keep that bit, just because its absurdly cool. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrian Graham" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 2:09 PM Subject: Re: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. > On 11/1/07 18:50, "Ethan Dicks" wrote: > >> On 1/11/07, Adrian Graham wrote: >>> Long time since I've seen a 'here is' key on a keyboard.....can't for >>> the >>> life of me remember what I last saw one on though.... >> >> ASR-33? > > Heh, you could be right actually! In which case it's only a couple of > years > since I last saw a 'here is' key since there's more than a couple of > ASR33s > at Bletchley Park...... > >> The keyboard close-up was nice. Never seen a legend bar above the >> function keys like that... pretty slick. > > It's just a serially driven LED cluster though isn't it? Doesn't stop it > being slick, mind :) > > -- > Adrian/Witchy > Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator > Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer > collection? > > > From bshannon at tiac.net Thu Jan 11 20:24:18 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:24:18 -0500 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. References: Message-ID: <001501c735f0$c40a48e0$0100a8c0@screamer> I've got a fancy push button gizmo that has a 64 by 128 pixel LED graphic display inside. A RS-422 serial link talks to a controller board that can support up to four push button modules. Looks MIL-spec, had to be pricy too. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ethan Dicks" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 2:41 PM Subject: Re: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. > On 1/11/07, Adrian Graham wrote: >> On 11/1/07 18:50, "Ethan Dicks" wrote: >> > The keyboard close-up was nice. Never seen a legend bar above the >> > function keys like that... pretty slick. >> >> It's just a serially driven LED cluster though isn't it? Doesn't stop it >> being slick, mind :) > > It's not so much _what_ it is as where it is. It reminds me of the > character legends above/below dials in a dial box. > > I've thought about something like that with a more modern twist - I > have a few 40x2 LCDs - I got them from BG Micro, but I think they were > originally from a satellite TV box - one could mount some shaft > encoders above and below the LCD and have 8-10 chars per dial, or one > could mount it above the function keys and do something similar to > what this terminal is doing. > > -ethan > From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Thu Jan 11 20:25:40 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:25:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C In-Reply-To: <200701111925.TAA25594@citadel.metropolis.local> References: <200701111925.TAA25594@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Jan 2007, Stan Barr wrote: > I don't know if the -C is the same, but my TI-58 (no -C) requires > 6.2V ac @ 200mA. There are rectifier diodes in the calculator so > the supply can be connected either way round. I just checked my TI-58C, and it does indeed take a 3.3VAC 500ma power pack. The links I posted earlier agree. The connector is keyed. The part number is AC-9131. Are you sure that's the right pack, Stan? The references say the TI-58 uses the same AC-9131 pack. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From bshannon at tiac.net Thu Jan 11 20:43:58 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:43:58 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) References: <1168070487.4220.19.camel@linux.site><011801c73348$a09e76b0$6500a8c0@BILLING><1168327122.4220.191.camel@linux.site><005e01c73408$01eeabf0$6500a8c0@BILLING><001101c7351d$8f3b7270$0100a8c0@screamer><017401c73531$a2a6f9b0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP><006801c7353d$f431cc90$0100a8c0@screamer><01b901c7353f$6d52e770$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP><007501c73541$f8eee2a0$0100a8c0@screamer> <001d01c735e3$14a0cf80$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <003101c735f3$8345c020$0100a8c0@screamer> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 7:46 PM Subject: Re: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) > If it were strictly a matter of code & data in memory, of course your > right. But there's more to it as there's more parts to a running > machine/OS than the code in memory. Like disk drives, tape drives, > interrupts, etc. > > Jay The DMS keywords are in the IPL build you have now. Do the VM tasks have to cooperate? Yes, and no. If a program run from VM halts, you can mess with it via the front panel, just as it would be on an old core memory machine. If the program crashes, there is nothing IPL can do about that but when you PRESET and restart the machine you back to an uncorrupted IPL image, AND your balky program is also intact in VM, so you can poke at it using IPL. If you want to return to IPL from the program running from VM then yes, there is a short sequence of instructions that will perform the needed DMS magic and your back at the prompt, or still inside whatever IPL code transferred control to the program loaded into VM. To understand how simply this is all implemented you need to look at the IPL source code for the DMS extensions and have the CPU documentation handy unless you know the DMS opcodes in your sleep (I don't). IRQ's are no problem, they refer to memory locations, and IPL does remap page zero (all of it) for the VM program. So IRQ's run normally. HP BASIC uses IRQ's for all its I/O (basically SIO code). Try it out, load several copies of IPL into VM pages and play around! I'm sure single CPU versions of TSB will run from VM. If not, I'll fix the DMS code until it does. From trag at io.com Thu Jan 11 20:12:31 2007 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:12:31 -0600 Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C In-Reply-To: <200701111800.l0BI0nsV073660@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701111800.l0BI0nsV073660@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:10:26 -0800 >From: BOB LAAG >I got a TI 58-c calculator a while back but there was no transformer >with it... I was hoping someone would have one and could give me the >specs on it and if it plugs into the calculator in either rotation... >thanks, bob laag If the TI 58-c is the same or similar to the old TI-58 which was the same as the TI-59 but without the card reader and half the memory, then it is TI Model AC-9131, 3.3VAC 500mA. In other words, the above AC adapter is for a TI-59 ca. 1979. It shouldn't matter which way it's connected, because it is an AC adapter. Inside the battery compartment of the TI-59 you can see the four diodes of the bridge rectifier. Jeff Walther From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 21:19:12 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 22:19:12 -0500 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: <001501c735f0$c40a48e0$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <001501c735f0$c40a48e0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: On 1/11/07, Bob Shannon wrote: > I've got a fancy push button gizmo that has a 64 by 128 pixel LED graphic > display inside. A RS-422 serial link talks to a controller board that can > support > up to four push button modules. > > Looks MIL-spec, had to be pricy too. I remember seeing those advertised in engineering magazines a while back - they did look pricy, but cool. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 11 21:43:42 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 22:43:42 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> <45A68009.1000606@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 1/11/07, David Barnes wrote: > Great stuff... > > Didn't Compuserve run entirely on 'clone' DECsystem 10's and/or > 20's? This was what I heard years ago... is it a fable? The history link I posted earlier today describes the history of CompuServ(e) up to 1988, using various models of genuine DEC PDP-10s. Right around that time, DEC stopped making new models of PDP-10 (badged by marketing as DECsystem 20s by then). There are various stories about vendors (like Foonly) that attempted to step into the void, but most sites weren't interested and turned to 32-bit-based computing. CompuServe was so entrenched in the 36-bit world that by 1994, they were starting to replace real DEC machines with System Concepts SC-25s and, IIRC, SC-30s. Later they went with other models like the SC-40. By 2003, ISTR they were phasing out SC-25s or had just finished doing so, but there were still plenty of SC-40s running, and were still running in October (which is as recent as my one source can report, due to layoffs last year). AOL is _still_ running _some_ quantity and form of 36-bit machines in Columbus at the former CompuServ(e) headquarters (built in 1973), but I can no longer report what models are in service. As for "run entirely" on 36-bit machines, in the mid-1990, there was a push to migrate some of the tasks off of 36-bit DEC hardware onto 32-bit Intel-based hardware running some flavor of UNIX (*BSD, I _think_). I have a few of those servers at home - the ones called "Silver Bullets". They are rack length (30"-36"?), approx 12"x12" cross-section, and their enclosures were sheathed in chromed steel, long, thin, and shiny silver - thus the nickname. I don't know precisely what was under the hood in 1994, but the ones that have ended up in my hands (c. 2001) have EISA motherboards with some flavor of socketed Pentium chip (200Mhz? 133MHz?), SCSI interfaces, and 2GB (wiped) Seagate Barracuda disks. They were stored on flat shelves, two-wide, in extra wide, not 19", racks. I don't have one of the silver bullet racks, but there are plenty of those racks floating around the garages of ex-CompuServants in the Columbus area from when they pitched all the machines out around 2000-2001. Strangely enough, 36-bit computing has long outlasted the first attempts to migrate The Service to 32 bits. These days, I don't know what's running the web servers you hit when you go to cs.com, but it's going to be a mix of whatever sorts of servers you see at most large sites these days (Solaris, HP/UX, and AIX, I'd wager). I think somone recently reported that some site that tracks such things was saying cs.com was served by Solaris boxes. That's entirely believable. These web servers, though, have *nothing* to do with the traditional CIS "Service", which was and has always been (except for whatever the silver bullets did) 36 bits. -ethan From tpeters at mixcom.com Thu Jan 11 22:12:12 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 22:12:12 -0600 Subject: ExecPC BBS problems... In-Reply-To: <45A6DC17.4010804@simpits.com> References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070111221033.0d125070@localhost> At 04:53 PM 1/11/2007 -0800, you wrote: >Does anyone on the list have the contact email address for the sysop of >the ExecPC bbs? In trying to connect today all I get is "You are user 49 >in a queue of 49". This repeats until I disconnect. You want to contact the Exec-PC BBS? Via dial-up? Is that still around? I thought they converted to an ISP decades ago and pulled the plug on the BBS. The sysop at time was Bob Mahoney. I used to know him when I worked in Shorewood. I think he sold the business. -T "He's dead, Jim!" "No he's not, he's only sleeping!" --.sig of John Sichel sichelj at Umoncton.ca --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From geneb at simpits.com Thu Jan 11 22:28:05 2007 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:28:05 -0800 Subject: ExecPC BBS problems... In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20070111221033.0d125070@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20070111221033.0d125070@localhost> Message-ID: <45A70E55.9020707@simpits.com> Tom Peters wrote: > At 04:53 PM 1/11/2007 -0800, you wrote: >> Does anyone on the list have the contact email address for the sysop >> of the ExecPC bbs? In trying to connect today all I get is "You are >> user 49 in a queue of 49". This repeats until I disconnect. > > You want to contact the Exec-PC BBS? Via dial-up? Is that still around? > I thought they converted to an ISP decades ago and pulled the plug on > the BBS. > > The sysop at time was Bob Mahoney. I used to know him when I worked in > Shorewood. I think he sold the business. > The bbs is telnet only now at bbs.execpc.com. One of the former employees took the machines home and set it back up and opened it up for free to anyone that cared to log in. The file areas are full of jewels that I haven't even begun to mine yet. :) I think his name is Curt, but I'm not sure. g. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jan 11 22:24:35 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:24:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701120436.XAA25110@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Reminds me of something I did with a TeleVideo 955 once. Turns out >> that model has a custom-firmware ROM socket, with an escape sequence >> in the stock firmware to execute it. I disassembled enough of the >> various pieces to work out much of the interface to the hardware, >> and wrote a small video game to run in the custom firmware ROM as a >> proof-of-concept exercise. [...] > What an awesome hardware hack for a terminal! Thank you! I actually did a lot more. The thing has three socketed ROMs. I pulled all three and dumped them (at the time I had access to a PROM burner station at work). It was instantly clear that one was a character generator and nothing else - the bitmaps were obvious the moment I looked at the dump in binary. I promptly burned a variation on that one and as a result now have a tvi955 with an ISO-8859-1 font, something that may well not exist anywhere else in the world by this point. :) (The stock font is close but not quite 8859-1, differing in maybe a dozen characters; a friend of mine who knows fonts looked at it and says it's probably an early draft of what eventually became 8859-1.) I also dug out a breadboard and some RAM and a bunch of jumper wires, and brought out that socket's pins to the breadboard, where I made them access the RAM instead. I added additional logic so I could write to the RAM via a serial line, and presto! I had a tvi955 with downloadable font glyphs! It was a cool hack, but has long since been torn down. Because the flying wires introduced noise, the per-bit error rate on reads was very high (for memory), probably 1%-5%. For the character generator ROM this just produced snow on the screen, but for firmware it would of course have been catastrophic, so I didn't try to give it downloadable firmware. > Do you still have it?!? Yes, though it's been years since I so much as turned it on. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 11 23:55:22 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:55:22 -0800 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint References: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com> <45A66AC5.19827.927BB53@cclist.sydex.com> <2789adda0701111739w4eea71f8jee661b61295820c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <45A722CB.9CD2A03B@cs.ubc.ca> Robert Ollerton wrote: > > On 1/11/07, William Donzelli wrote: > > > > > AFAIK, most wrinkle finish work involves baking. Here's an old ARRL > > > "Hints and Kinks" item on the subject: > > > > Yes, but the texture of the wrinkle varies greatly with the baking and > > paint formulation. > > Aircraft grade, spray it on thick, two coats and hope it wrinkles right. if > not, take it off and do it again. I have never acheived the same facrory > finish that you see on items from 50+ years ago. The trick I was advised of with wrinkle paint was to 'force it' with it a hot-air gun. I have actually had good success using aerosol-can wrinkle paint from an auto-supply store and an old hair blow-dryer. Some patience required, but you can actually control the depth of the wrinkle with the hot air application. The result is a vast difference from just leaving the wrinkle paint to dry on it's own. This was on an aluminum chassis with an aerosol-can flat lacquer first coat. The aluminum was sanded (emery cloth and/or garnet) and washed with TSP and a long hot rinse before painting. (Criticism welcome if some fault is to be found in this process.) From root at parse.com Thu Jan 11 14:19:09 2007 From: root at parse.com (Robert Krten) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:19:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Needed: Someone to fix an 8/E in TX/USA 77385 Message-ID: <200701112019.l0BKJ9dk061400@amd64.ott.parse.com> Hi folks, I received an email from an individual who is looking for someone to help fix their 8/E and possibly their paper tape punch unit. Yes, there is still an 8/E out there doing useful work -- well up until a few days ago, anyway :-) If you are interested, available, etc. send me an email to info2007 at parse.com and I'll put you in touch, and you can discuss rates etc. (I have various ISPs blocked due to excessive spam; +1 613 599 8318 9am to 9pm and leave a message if you can't get through). Cheers, -RK -- Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices, http://www.parse.com/resume.html Wanted: DEC minis: http://www.parse.com/~museum/admin/wanted.html From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jan 12 01:37:18 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 01:37:18 -0600 Subject: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question In-Reply-To: <1168553057.5968.65.camel@linux.site> References: <20070111105833.GA32258@bytemark.barnyard.co.uk> <1168553057.5968.65.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <45A73AAE.1080802@msm.umr.edu> Warren Wolfe wrote: >Hello, folks, > > Looks to be >almost six feet tall, probably five or a bit more, with casters. Clues, >anyone? > > > > Peace, > > Warren E. Wolfe > wizard at voyager.net > > Warren, I live in Orange, and go to Earl's (Industrial Liquidators) in Hawthorne all the time when I'm there. I am in Kansas City right now, but will be driving back to LA next week, and could help if it is still necessary to have a local contact to Earls. don't panic if you have problems of any sort, I can press friends into handling anything they may need, but hopefully they will get you set, as they are very nice people to work with. I have shopped there for 20+ years, and never had any problems with anything reasonable. I think your unit will be in their LA warehouse and probably will not be a problem for them to hold for you till you can line up shipping. I wish I was there as I could haul it to my warehouse and have it banded on to a skid then drop at either Yellow or ABF docks, which are less than 1 mile and 500' from my office right now. Nice purchase. Jim From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jan 12 03:05:30 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:05:30 -0300 Subject: ExecPC BBS problems... References: <5.1.0.14.2.20070111221033.0d125070@localhost> <45A70E55.9020707@simpits.com> Message-ID: <030701c73629$13e60830$f0fea8c0@alpha> >>> Does anyone on the list have the contact email address for the sysop >>> of the ExecPC bbs? In trying to connect today all I get is "You are >>> user 49 in a queue of 49". This repeats until I disconnect. Better than me, I'm the user 73 in a queue of 73 :oD From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 12 05:03:24 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:03:24 -0600 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> <45A68009.1000606@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45A76AFC.7090001@yahoo.co.uk> Ethan Dicks wrote: > These days, I don't know what's running the web > servers you hit when you go to cs.com, but it's going to be a mix of > whatever sorts of servers you see at most large sites these days > (Solaris, HP/UX, and AIX, I'd wager). Scarily enough, no: jules at moa:~$ telnet www.cs.com 80 Trying 149.174.32.7... Connected to cs.com. Escape character is '^]'. GET / HTTP/1.0 HTTP/1.0 302 Object moved Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:05:36 GMT Content-Length: 144 Content-Type: text/html Cache-Control: private Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0 ... ... well, assuming that IIS hasn't been ported to non-Windows platforms, and assuming that they're not masking the true server type, anyway. From derschjo at msu.edu Fri Jan 12 01:42:15 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:42:15 -0800 Subject: rqdx3 firmware In-Reply-To: <200701112158.l0BLwmus021417@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701112158.l0BLwmus021417@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <45A73BD7.8070702@msu.edu> Brad Parker wrote: > With that I was able to try formatting an ST-225 with V2 firmware and V4 > firmware. They both worked. I was able to install RT-11 and boot from > the drive (I plan to try rsts next, which is has been my goal for a > while). > > So it wasn't firmware - it was operator error :-) > > I put the log of formatting with zrqch0 here: > > http://www.heeltoe.com/retro/pdp11/formatting.txt > > I think my problem is that I got fixated on "autoformatting". This > turned out to be wrong (probably works fine for an drive which already > has an FCT but not for a drive used ina pc). > > If I had a big enough MFM drive I'd try BSD but the biggest MFM I have > is 20mb. All my larger drives are ESDI. RSTS should work on a 20mb > drive... he said... crossing his fingers (and remembering it ran on > 2x RK05's at long ago... :-) Cool -- thanks for putting the log up. I'm fairly sure that's exactly what I've tried, but I'll have to have another go at it next time I get a chance. Josh From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 12 06:10:23 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 07:10:23 -0500 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:41:41 GMT." Message-ID: <200701121210.l0CCAOkb010345@mwave.heeltoe.com> Adrian Graham wrote: > >> CIMG0607.JPG shows the DEC hardware, an 11/23 with MMU and FPP. There is >> also a Sigma FDD controller, and a DILOG ST-506 disk controller. > >I get 'forbidden' with this one. my fault. fixed. sorry... -brad From stanb at dial.pipex.com Fri Jan 12 03:07:14 2007 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:07:14 +0000 Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:25:40 EST." Message-ID: <200701120907.JAA28104@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Mike Loewen said: > On Thu, 11 Jan 2007, Stan Barr wrote: > > > I don't know if the -C is the same, but my TI-58 (no -C) requires > > 6.2V ac @ 200mA. There are rectifier diodes in the calculator so > > the supply can be connected either way round. > > I just checked my TI-58C, and it does indeed take a 3.3VAC 500ma power > pack. The links I posted earlier agree. The connector is keyed. The > part number is AC-9131. Are you sure that's the right pack, Stan? The > references say the TI-58 uses the same AC-9131 pack. I had to go and find it* first, but the wall-wart definitely says 6.2V / 200mA Model AC9900/H-UK and is the one that came with it when I bought it new way back when. The connector is keyed, but it didn't need to be, the supply is definetly ac. I've got it on charge now, and it still works fine - it's seen a lot of use, it's on it's 3rd battery pack! * Searching had the useful side-effect of my finding my Sinclair Programmable Calculator, I'll get a battery later and see if that still works. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From useddec at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 07:10:09 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 07:10:09 -0600 Subject: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c7364a$fd57ad90$4200a8c0@main> Hi Richard CTS is a service company that finds the cheapest price for either common carrier or padded van service. Is your problem with them or the shipper they contracted with? If it was damage to the shipment, you should file a claim with the actual shipper. Thanks, Paul -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 4:54 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question In article <000701c735cf$01cb6dc0$4200a8c0 at main>, "Paul Anderson" writes: > Computer Transportation Services [...] Note that while others have reported good service from this place in the past, I just had a pretty rotten experience with them. Caveat emptor -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Fri Jan 12 07:11:59 2007 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B. DiGriz) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:11:59 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A6D474.5010702@simpits.com> References: <45A512C2.3080300@dragonsweb.org> <45A6D474.5010702@simpits.com> Message-ID: <45A7891F.3090506@dragonsweb.org> Gene Buckle wrote: > James B. DiGriz wrote: >> The message below is from August of last year. I just tried and got >> the old familiar CIS user ID prompt. Still can't remember mine, though. >> >> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ti99-4a/message/44436 >> >> jbdigriz > Now here's the critical question - can you still get access to things > like the CP/M, Commodore, Tandy and other old system related file > libraries? Dunno, and probably not, not much, but who knows? I haven't been able to check it myself. If it's only what's left in the WUGNET libraries you can access via the web forum interface, not much, for sure. > > If so, is there any way to get a new account? I think you can, but the sense you get is they really want you to use and AOL/Netscape screenname. It does say you can contact customer service to ask for you old ID to be reactivated. jbdigriz From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 12 09:05:39 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:05:39 -0700 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:24:35 -0500. <200701120436.XAA25110@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: In article <200701120436.XAA25110 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, der Mouse writes: > >> Reminds me of something I did with a TeleVideo 955 once. Turns out > >> that model has a custom-firmware ROM socket, with an escape sequence > >> in the stock firmware to execute it. I disassembled enough of the > >> various pieces to work out much of the interface to the hardware, > >> and wrote a small video game to run in the custom firmware ROM as a > >> proof-of-concept exercise. [...] > > What an awesome hardware hack for a terminal! > > Thank you! > > I actually did a lot more. [...] You're giving me lots of interesting ideas :-). A while back I asked if anyone had done any hacks for the VT100 since it has lots of signals on its internal expansion chassis, but noone seems to have done anything with those. Ya know, the Tektronix 4105s and 4205s have ROM... You could probably make a much more interesting video terminal game with those! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 12 09:07:07 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:07:07 -0700 Subject: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 12 Jan 2007 07:10:09 -0600. <000001c7364a$fd57ad90$4200a8c0@main> Message-ID: In article <000001c7364a$fd57ad90$4200a8c0 at main>, "Paul Anderson" writes: > CTS is a service company that finds the cheapest price for either common > carrier or padded van service. Is your problem with them or the shipper they > contracted with? If it was damage to the shipment, you should file a claim > with the actual shipper. Oh, all the problems were with them. They made a big mess of the order, didn't pack it properly and sent it out on a crappy pallet that barely survived the journey. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From g at kurico.com Fri Jan 12 10:41:58 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:41:58 -0600 Subject: 45 Apple IIe's available in San Antonio Message-ID: <45A7BA56.7040605@kurico.com> Someone in San Antonio has 45+ IIe's plus accessories for sale. Here is the url for his Craigslist ad: http://austin.craigslist.org/sys/261497853.html From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 12 10:52:21 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:52:21 -0600 Subject: a riviting topic Message-ID: <003201c7366a$07a29fc0$6500a8c0@BILLING> >From time to time, I've wondered about riviting whenever I come across a piece of computer cabinet metal that has rivits that have come loose or fallen out. The current case in point is the tilt latch on an 11/44 when it's in the 11X44-CA configuration (it's in the top of the rack, and tilts up on gas pistons). There is a little latch on the side (best way I can describe it is a metal rectangle cut on a diagonal) which is spring metal. You pull this latch in from the front with a pen or screwdriver, and it then clears the tab on the outer rack so it can tilt up. At the very back of this spring metal latch is a rivet holding it in place. This rivit has come loose. You can really only get to one side of it, that's when the cpu chassis is tilted up. I believe that in other (more common) rackmount configurations of the /44 when it's on slides that telescope out the front, this same latch is present but it's used to allow the cpu to slide forward rather than tilt up. I've seen riviters working on F18's at Boeing, and it sure appears to be a higher art form. Not sure it's something I could do, but thought I'd ask here. I've seen all kinds of rivits - different sizes - on an H960 I believe there are a couple? Anyways, what tools are required, where can one get rivits, what different types are there, and is it something a neophyte like me who has never done a rivit before can do? I'm looking for the basic intro to replacing a rivit for someone who has never done it. Jay West From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Fri Jan 12 10:59:53 2007 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:59:53 -0800 Subject: Strange disk controller in my new 8/A Message-ID: <1ab501c7366b$151903f0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Hi, I recently received my new PDP-8/A that I bought on eBay. The good news is that it arrived in useable condition, and comes with a 10Mb disk drive (Shugart 4004) and high-speed paper tape reader. The bad news seems to be that the software is all specific to the machine's former life as a CNC machine controller (MM180). The configuration seems to start with a standard 8/E cpu with EAE in the 8/A chassis with 32K of memory and the usual option cards. But for the disk and tape (which were the exciting parts, for me), there is a 3-card set with a 6800 on it that controls the disk, the paper tape reader, the CNC servos, and a bunch of other stuff. Effectively, all the non-console I/O is given over to the 6800 as a kind of I/O processor. Anyone have any experience with these? The 6800 board is KT (Kearney & Trecker) 1-20410, the board with the PIO chips is KT 1-20411, and the disk interface board is KT 1-20666. Thanks, Vince From blstuart at bellsouth.net Fri Jan 12 11:02:13 2007 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:02:13 -0600 Subject: a riviting topic Message-ID: <20070112170213.ECIQ9460.ibm65aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> Jay West wrote: > I've seen riviters working on F18's at Boeing, and it sure appears to be a > higher art form. Not sure it's something I could do, but thought I'd ask > here. I've seen all kinds of rivits - different sizes - on an H960 I believe > there are a couple? Anyways, what tools are required, where can one get > rivits, what different types are there, and is it something a neophyte like > me who has never done a rivit before can do? I'm looking for the basic intro > to replacing a rivit for someone who has never done it. There's a type of rivit called a pop rivit that I've used before. I get the impression that it's not as good a the sort used in manufacturing, but for this kind of purpose, I'd think it would do fine. The basic tool is a squeeze handle device. You take a rivit that has a shaft running trough it similar to a finishing nail with a bulge on the inside end of the rivit. You put the shaft into the riviting tool and insert the rivit into the hole. When you squeeze, it pulls the "nail" inward and the bulge streches a cylindrical part of the rivit pressing it against the back side. Then the tool cuts the "nail" and the two pieces are tossed. What's left is the rivit pressed in place. I think most tool shops carry these as well as supplies of the rivits. BLS From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 12 11:14:49 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:14:49 -0600 Subject: a riviting topic In-Reply-To: <20070112170213.ECIQ9460.ibm65aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> References: <20070112170213.ECIQ9460.ibm65aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <45A7C209.8010601@yahoo.co.uk> Brian L. Stuart wrote: > There's a type of rivit called a pop rivit that I've used before. I get the impression > that it's not as good a the sort used in manufacturing, but for this kind of > purpose, I'd think it would do fine. Is rivit a US variation or a typo? (it's 'rivet' this side of the pond) Anyhoo... agreed that for this kind of work it should be fine. The tool needed should cost virtually nothing (I'd certainly expect it to be less than $10US) and is really easy to work with. Places like Halfords and B&Q will sell them in the UK (along with better tool shops too); in the US Home Depot almost certainly have them and probably Wal-mart too. Same applies to the rivets themselves. I've always wondered how the massive rivets on ships are put in, in particular how on earth they get them to also be watertight around the hole! cheers Jules From jplist at kiwigeek.com Fri Jan 12 11:27:56 2007 From: jplist at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:27:56 -0600 (CST) Subject: a riviting topic In-Reply-To: <003201c7366a$07a29fc0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: On Fri, 12 Jan 2007, Jay West wrote: > clears the tab on the outer rack so it can tilt up. At the very back of this > spring metal latch is a rivet holding it in place. This rivit has come > loose. You can really only get to one side of it, that's when the cpu > chassis is tilted up. I believe that in other (more common) rackmount I agree with Brian L. Stuart on using pop rivets - as long as there's enough clearance for the head to poke out (depending on the size of the rivet, 2 or 3mm) and it won't rub on anything. The only thing I'd add is if the rivet needs to be removed and it can't be pliered out, you'll want to use a carbide drill bit - or one you're not worried about. Rivets are made from hardened steel and will ruin the bite of your drill bit. Of course, perhaps you're more skilled than I am and can resharpen a drill bit - I've never had much luck at it ;) If you never plan on doing another rivet in your life, I'd go for a cheapy pop rivet gun - but the gun makes a heck of a difference in the ease of getting them in and 'popped', so if you're having a tremendous time at getting the thing popped, you might want to try a better brand (or find someone who has a decent one). G'luck; JP From blstuart at bellsouth.net Fri Jan 12 11:28:54 2007 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:28:54 -0600 Subject: a riviting topic Message-ID: <20070112172854.FEEF9460.ibm65aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> > Is rivit a US variation or a typo? (it's 'rivet' this side of the pond) You should probably put your money on typo. Checking with google seems to confirm that. > Anyhoo... agreed that for this kind of work it should be fine. The tool needed > should cost virtually nothing (I'd certainly expect it to be less than $10US) > and is really easy to work with. While I was checking the spelling, I notice that wikipedia mentions another name for pop rivets is blind rivets. > I've always wondered how the massive rivets on ships are put in, in particular > how on earth they get them to also be watertight around the hole! I normally can't think that hard on a Friday :-) BLS From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 11:39:00 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:39:00 -0500 Subject: a riviting topic In-Reply-To: <45A7C209.8010601@yahoo.co.uk> References: <20070112170213.ECIQ9460.ibm65aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> <45A7C209.8010601@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: > I've always wondered how the massive rivets on ships are put in, in particular > how on earth they get them to also be watertight around the hole! They are more-or-less forged into place. They are heated until they are red, then hammered into place. The hammering action forms the shape. A good rivetter was very valuable, as it was a artful skill, being that he had a very short time to do a perfect job, hundreds of times a day. If you do not care what metal is being used, copper rivets are easy to work with and form, using a ball peen hammer. And lots and lots of light hits. -- Will From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Fri Jan 12 11:39:37 2007 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:39:37 -0000 Subject: a riviting topic References: <20070112172854.FEEF9460.ibm65aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <042e01c73670$a19ce6c0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> From: "Brian L. Stuart" > > > I've always wondered how the massive rivets on ships are put in, in particular > > how on earth they get them to also be watertight around the hole! > > I normally can't think that hard on a Friday :-) > > Normally with a pair of pneumatic hammers, one each side! The rivets are heated to red hot, then put in and hammered over. As the rivet cools, it will pull the plates together. On smaller jobs, for example locomotive boilers, a "Squeeze riveter" is used. This looks like a giant G-clamp, and contains the rivet set and forming toll (often hydraulic) in one unit. We used one of these to rebuild the boiler on a friends traction engine recently. Jim. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 12 11:55:04 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:55:04 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A76AFC.7090001@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net>, , <45A76AFC.7090001@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45A75AF8.28847.25995DC@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2007 at 5:03, Jules Richardson wrote: > HTTP/1.0 302 Object moved > Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:05:36 GMT > Content-Length: 144 > Content-Type: text/html > Cache-Control: private > Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0 I like to use www.netcraft.com to get a bunch of information at once. Once you start looking at any of the subdomains, such as netscape.compuserve.com, the answer comes back Solaris 8. Maybe the www.compuserve.com and www.cs.com are just front-ends for member login and that most of a session is redirected to the Solaris servers? It's kind of hard to believe that the bread-and-butter of CS is still being run on NT 4.0. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 12 12:18:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:18:21 -0800 Subject: a riviting topic In-Reply-To: <003201c7366a$07a29fc0$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <003201c7366a$07a29fc0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45A7606D.22934.26EE61B@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2007 at 10:52, Jay West wrote: > I've seen riviters working on F18's at Boeing, and it sure appears to be a > higher art form. Not sure it's something I could do, but thought I'd ask > here. I've seen all kinds of rivits - different sizes - on an H960 I believe > there are a couple? Anyways, what tools are required, where can one get > rivits, what different types are there, and is it something a neophyte like > me who has never done a rivit before can do? I'm looking for the basic intro > to replacing a rivit for someone who has never done it. Makes me wonder if the original purpose of a ball-pein (or "peen") hammer has been forgotten. One can often snug a rivet up by backing it with something firm, such as an anvil or bench vise and striking the mushroom end with the "peen" end of a ball-peen hammer. That leaves things looking more-or-less original. One can also purchase rivets (e.g. solid, split, hollow) of various types and form the end. McMaster-Carr will likely carry those. Yes, there are "pop" rivets, but if strength is an issue, do not use the aluminum variety. They will loosen up in a trice. Find some steel pop rivets. If the blank rivet does not fit in the hole very snugly, you may have to use a small washer over the end to provide a surface for the rivet "bulge" to bear against. Cheers, Chuck From mtapley at swri.edu Fri Jan 12 12:42:03 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:42:03 -0600 Subject: 45 Apple IIe's available in San Antonio In-Reply-To: <200701121730.l0CHU8Ic091461@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701121730.l0CHU8Ic091461@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 11:30 -0600 1/12/07, George Currie wrote: >Someone in San Antonio has 45+ IIe's plus accessories for sale. Here is >the url for his Craigslist ad: > >http://austin.craigslist.org/sys/261497853.html > Wow. Almost a supercomputer of Apple-IIe's, if only we had the networking. ;-) I'm in San Antonio. I have an Apple-II, and don't have the skills to be in the computer-refurb/sales business, so I'll pass on this for myself, but if help is needed with pickup or shipping, let me know. -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone From mtapley at swri.edu Fri Jan 12 12:25:26 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:25:26 -0600 Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C In-Reply-To: <200701121730.l0CHU8Ic091461@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701121730.l0CHU8Ic091461@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 11:30 -0600 1/12/07, Mike wrote: > I just checked my TI-58C, and it does indeed take a 3.3VAC 500ma power >pack. The links I posted earlier agree. The connector is keyed. The >part number is AC-9131. Are you sure that's the right pack, Stan? The >references say the TI-58 uses the same AC-9131 pack. The numbers so far are not totally inconsistent. The wart might supply 6.x V open-circuit or low-current, but rely on the battery pack to pull it down to 3.3V at 500 mA, running or charging. The circuit diagram on xgistor seems to indicate there's just a 4.7 Ohm resistor keeping the bus from being completely battery-limited. That said, the battery pack definitely contains 3 Ni-Cad cells, each typically around 1.1 or so V. (I have had mine apart, rebuilt with stock Ni-Cads, ond not fried anything.) Therefore 3.3 V to the electronics makes good sense. One thing I would *not* do would be to plug in the calculator without a good battery pack in place, based on the circuit diagram and on Tony's advice pertaining to the dire consequences of similar actions with HP calculators. FWIW, there is one more factor in the story. TI made a printer base (PC-100?) that you could place the calculator (TI-58, -58C, or -59) on to generate printouts. The method of connection was to take out the battery pack, and place the cavity that it just vacated over a protrusion on the face of the printer, which would then expand to lock the calculator into place. (There was also a compartment to put the battery pack into so it could charge while you printed.) Whatever the power supply in that doohickey was, it circumvented the battery completely. If anyone has one of those and could measure the voltage on its power pins, that would likely shed lots of light on what the calculator expects. (Sadly, mine went at a garage sale while I was away from home.) -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone From stanb at dial.pipex.com Fri Jan 12 12:41:11 2007 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 18:41:11 +0000 Subject: a riviting topic In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:14:49 CST." <45A7C209.8010601@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200701121841.SAA29551@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Jules Richardson said: > I've always wondered how the massive rivets on ships are put in, in > particular > how on earth they get them to also be watertight around the hole! They're put in red hot and when they cool they contract and pull the plates tightly together. In modern times the heads are hammered into shape with a pneumatic hammer, but in older times it was 1, 2 or 3 men swinging big hammers - I've watched both methods being used! Incidentally, my mother was a rivetter in WW2, she made Spitfire wings at Castle Bromwich, Birmingham - mostly left wings IIRC. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From gstreet at indy.net Fri Jan 12 13:24:48 2007 From: gstreet at indy.net (Robert) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:24:48 -0600 (GMT-06:00) Subject: a riv[e]ting topic Message-ID: <30608404.1168629888586.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Hello All, > >While I was checking the spelling, I notice that wikipedia mentions >another name for pop rivets is blind rivets. > I _love_ Wikipedia, but it certainly has its share of errors. Please: Never equate pop rivets with "blind" rivets. Blind rivet is a sort of generic term -- meaning that it's a form of rivet that can be used even though you do not have access to the other side of the rivet. Blind rivets are used on commercial aircraft, but only in relatively small quantities -- and -- each catagory of (blind) rivet is carefully chosen to perform a certain task. Most times, when we install blind fasteners (rivets fall into the broad catagory of fasteners), we have to get Engineering approval. Most installations of blind rivets are actually considered temporary. They will usually be removed during a Heavy Maintenance Visit (often several years later). Pop rivets fall at the very bottom of the rivet catagory. Pop rivets are never used on commercial aircraft structure, although I've used a lot of (a certain higher quality catagory of) them to fasten things like nutplates (all they are doing is holding what amounts to a nut, in place, while a bolt is tightened). Once tight, the bolt is tight the rivets are meaningless until you need to remove the bolt again. If the "pop" (type) rivets don't hold, then a veritable stream of cursing insues, while you go and try to find the right drill bits to remove the offending nutplates. Then, the little buggers almost always spin while you curse more and try to get a small pair of ViseGrips on the bottom of them (often very difficult due to space constraints), so you can smash them into submission, while you continue to drill them out. "Cherry-Max" rivets are a very popular form of blind fastener (in this case, blind rivet). They have a solid core of wickedly hard stainless steel that remains in place as the rivet is "pulled" into its compressed final product. Not only are they relatively heavy, they do not expand in the same way that solid rivets do -- plus you now have a dissimilar metal situation. Speaking of pop rivets: There is a kitplane (an excellent work horse of a plane) that makes use of thousands of closely spaced pop rivets. I used to be able to recall its name off the top of my head, but this library computer will not allow me to open another instance of my browser (to search google and figure it out). It was a sort of ugly, boxy, utilatarian looking plane. It was so "ugly" that it was actually very cool!! It's supposedly nearly "indestructable." Oh, BTW, "regular" solid aluminum rivets are only very slightly smaller than their correctly drilled, and in some cases, reamed holes. When the are compressed (bucked), they expand and tightly fill the hole. It's certainly an impressive art to get a properly shaped "bucked" head (also called "shop head"). If the bucked head is smashed too much or "leans" over, you've got to remove them. Technically, you are supposed to go to the next larger size because the material around the hole is now work hardened. If everyone actually removed ever screwed up rivet, there would be little hope of repair at a later time (because you don't have much leeway as to size). I'm pretty sure that that's how ships remained fairly water-tight. The final result of solid rivets are not always perfect. Upon close inspection of any commerical airliner, I can find dozens of leaking or "smoking" rivets. Technically speaking, they should be replaced. Realistically, it's a case of "what are you going to do?" I did a lightning inspection on a 757 that said they were hit on short final. It was raining and miserable (and very dark). It wasn't until the last section of inspection that I realized that I'd forgotten to check a few antennas. One thing led to another, and we eventually found way over 100 affected rivets (and outright holes). The plane was taken out of service for a couple of months, but I saw it again (with lots of very large rivets, which were used to "fill" some of the lightning strike holes). Always choose the correct rivet for the job(!!!). Regards, Robert Greenstreet From rollerton at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 13:40:23 2007 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:40:23 -0600 Subject: a riviting topic In-Reply-To: <042e01c73670$a19ce6c0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> References: <20070112172854.FEEF9460.ibm65aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> <042e01c73670$a19ce6c0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: <2789adda0701121140s75d512dcue3a5a76b2934bc49@mail.gmail.com> On 1/12/07, Jim Beacon wrote: > > > From: "Brian L. Stuart" > > > > > > > > I've always wondered how the massive rivets on ships are put in, in > particular > > > how on earth they get them to also be watertight around the hole! > > > > I normally can't think that hard on a Friday :-) > > > > > > Normally with a pair of pneumatic hammers, one each side! The rivets are > heated to red hot, then put in and hammered over. As the rivet cools, it > will pull the plates together. On smaller jobs, for example locomotive > boilers, a "Squeeze riveter" is used. This looks like a giant G-clamp, and > contains the rivet set and forming toll (often hydraulic) in one unit. We > used one of these to rebuild the boiler on a friends traction engine > recently. > > Jim. The technique for driven rivets is to deform the diameter of the rivet so that it expands within the holes to lock the parts to the rivet shank, and then form the "Shop head" to squeeze the parts together. In Aircraft for regular rivets, this is done with a rivet set that is either driven with a shop hammer or with a pneumatic hammer. The rivet set is made of tool steel, usually a few inches long and 2 or 3 times the diameter of the rivet. It has a polished depression that conforms to the shape of the factory head. A bucking bar is held against the blunt end of the rivet and a few strokes are made to the rivet set, then the shop head is inspected by eye or with a gauge to determine if the proper amount of deformation has occurred. The skill is in sensing how many hits with the hammer it takes to make a perfect head. When the distance between the buck and the set are too great a second person is needed, for instance the fuselage tail cone section usually needs someone thats able to fit in the tight space making for interesting stories. Rivets that don't meet the spec have to be drilled and then punched out and replaced. There are special rivets with a larger shank but same size head incase the hole becomes deformed in the process of removing the faulty rivet. Flush rivets were introduced with astounding results for aircraft by Howard Hughes with his R1 racer. The hole is drilled with a countersink area to hold the factory head, and the set is a mushroom shaped polished tool steel tool. Rivet squeezers can be hand held or mounted on a fixture and are used where they can reach both sides to speed up production as they set one or more rivets in one measured motion. The rivet length before driving is usually 1.5 times the diameter. Blind rivets are used where its not possible to place a buck to drive the rivet. The "nail head" pulls thru the hollow rivet to expand it to fit the hole and to create a shop head. Pop Rivets are a popular for light duty and consumer use. There are much tougher and expensive blind rivets such as the Cherry Max brand are used in structural and aircraft work. Jay, loose rivets can sometimes be tightened by placing a buck (1lb chunk of steel, hammer, dolly, etc) on one side, and tapping the other with the proper set, or in a pinch a hammer. This works for some but not all depending on size and alloy but its worth a try if you can get to both sides. Books have been written on this, and there are also videos, and classes if one is interested in learning more. And of course I probably left something out or mixed something up so before you go out and rivet something you should consult something more reliable. From rollerton at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 13:42:52 2007 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:42:52 -0600 Subject: a riv[e]ting topic In-Reply-To: <30608404.1168629888586.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <30608404.1168629888586.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <2789adda0701121142r50574f4bo62198550ca2a099d@mail.gmail.com> thats good stuff! On 1/12/07, Robert wrote: > > Hello All, > > > > >While I was checking the spelling, I notice that wikipedia mentions > >another name for pop rivets is blind rivets. > > > > I _love_ Wikipedia, but it certainly has its share of errors. Please: > Never equate > pop rivets with "blind" rivets. Blind rivet is a sort of generic term -- > meaning that > it's a form of rivet that can be used even though you do not have access > to the other > side of the rivet. Blind rivets are used on commercial aircraft, but only > in relatively small > quantities -- and -- each catagory of (blind) rivet is carefully chosen to > perform a certain > task. Most times, when we install blind fasteners (rivets fall into the > broad catagory > of fasteners), we have to get Engineering approval. Most installations of > blind rivets are > actually considered temporary. They will usually be removed during a Heavy > Maintenance > Visit (often several years later). > > Pop rivets fall at the very bottom of the rivet catagory. Pop rivets are > never used on commercial > aircraft structure, although I've used a lot of (a certain higher quality > catagory of) them to fasten > things like nutplates (all they are doing is holding what amounts to a > nut, in place, while a bolt is tightened). > Once tight, the bolt is tight the rivets are meaningless until you need to > remove the bolt again. If the "pop" (type) > rivets don't hold, then a veritable stream of cursing insues, while you go > and try to find the right drill bits > to remove the offending nutplates. Then, the little buggers almost always > spin while you curse more and > try to get a small pair of ViseGrips on the bottom of them (often very > difficult due to space constraints), so you > can smash them into submission, while you continue to drill them out. > > "Cherry-Max" rivets are a very popular form of blind fastener (in this > case, blind rivet). They have a solid > core of wickedly hard stainless steel that remains in place as the rivet > is "pulled" into its compressed final > product. Not only are they relatively heavy, they do not expand in the > same way that solid rivets do -- plus > you now have a dissimilar metal situation. > > Speaking of pop rivets: There is a kitplane (an excellent work horse of a > plane) that makes use of thousands of > closely spaced pop rivets. I used to be able to recall its name off the > top of my head, but this library computer > will not allow me to open another instance of my browser (to search google > and figure it out). It was a sort of ugly, boxy, utilatarian looking plane. > It was so "ugly" that it was actually very cool!! It's supposedly nearly > "indestructable." > > Oh, BTW, "regular" solid aluminum rivets are only very slightly smaller > than their correctly drilled, and in some > cases, reamed holes. When the are compressed (bucked), they expand and > tightly fill the hole. It's certainly an > impressive art to get a properly shaped "bucked" head (also called "shop > head"). If the bucked head is smashed > too much or "leans" over, you've got to remove them. Technically, you are > supposed to go to the next larger > size because the material around the hole is now work hardened. If > everyone actually removed ever screwed > up rivet, there would be little hope of repair at a later time (because > you don't have much leeway as to size). > I'm pretty sure that that's how ships remained fairly water-tight. The > final result of solid rivets are not always perfect. Upon close inspection > of any commerical airliner, I can find dozens of leaking or "smoking" > rivets. Technically speaking, they should be replaced. Realistically, it's a > case of "what are you going to do?" I did a lightning inspection on a 757 > that said they were hit on short final. It was raining and miserable (and > very dark). It wasn't until the last section of inspection that I realized > that I'd forgotten to check a few antennas. One thing led to > another, and we eventually found way over 100 affected rivets (and > outright holes). The plane was taken out of service for a couple of months, > but I saw it again (with lots of very large rivets, which were used to > "fill" some > of the lightning strike holes). > > Always choose the correct rivet for the job(!!!). > > Regards, > Robert Greenstreet > From rollerton at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 13:44:44 2007 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:44:44 -0600 Subject: DEC beige/creame/white paint In-Reply-To: <45A722CB.9CD2A03B@cs.ubc.ca> References: <2789adda0701101905n1f70e6a5s60918e81d0be08a@mail.gmail.com> <2789adda0701111612m3b058766sfe5c00b8a6c5cde3@mail.gmail.com> <45A66AC5.19827.927BB53@cclist.sydex.com> <2789adda0701111739w4eea71f8jee661b61295820c0@mail.gmail.com> <45A722CB.9CD2A03B@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <2789adda0701121144q9ef3be7nbb5cd98b2e09c803@mail.gmail.com> That sounds like a good idea, I have a panel to do in a couple of months and will try it. thanks. On 1/11/07, Brent Hilpert wrote: > > Robert Ollerton wrote: > > > > On 1/11/07, William Donzelli wrote: > > > > > > > AFAIK, most wrinkle finish work involves baking. Here's an old ARRL > > > > "Hints and Kinks" item on the subject: > > > > > > Yes, but the texture of the wrinkle varies greatly with the baking and > > > paint formulation. > > > > Aircraft grade, spray it on thick, two coats and hope it wrinkles > right. if > > not, take it off and do it again. I have never acheived the same > facrory > > finish that you see on items from 50+ years ago. > > The trick I was advised of with wrinkle paint was to 'force it' with it a > hot-air gun. I have actually had good success using aerosol-can wrinkle > paint > from an auto-supply store and an old hair blow-dryer. Some patience > required, > but you can actually control the depth of the wrinkle with the hot air > application. The result is a vast difference from just leaving the wrinkle > paint to dry on it's own. > > This was on an aluminum chassis with an aerosol-can flat lacquer first > coat. > The aluminum was sanded (emery cloth and/or garnet) and washed with TSP > and a > long hot rinse before painting. (Criticism welcome if some fault is to be > found in this process.) > From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 12 13:54:16 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:54:16 -0800 Subject: a riv[e]ting topic In-Reply-To: <30608404.1168629888586.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> References: <30608404.1168629888586.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <45A776E8.32161.2C6B5B2@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2007 at 0:00, Robert wrote: > Speaking of pop rivets: There is a kitplane (an excellent work horse of a plane) that makes use of thousands of > closely spaced pop rivets. I used to be able to recall its name off the top of my head, but this library computer > will not allow me to open another instance of my browser (to search google and figure it out). It was a sort of ugly, boxy, utilatarian looking plane. It was so "ugly" that it was actually very cool!! It's supposedly nearly > "indestructable." Are you perhaps thinking of the Bede 5? A friend decided to assemble one in the living room of his second-story apartment. I think he ruined the place utterly, what with the swarf from the thousands of holes drilled or the broken-off stubs of pop rivets that were left in the green shag carpeting, not to mention the oil from the snowmobile engine, etc. I seem to recall that there some problem getting the completed craft out of the building... At the same time, I was building a harpsichord in my third-story apartment and while the carpet was pretty dirty from all of the sawdust, I think it was salvageable. Cheers, Chuck From g-wright at att.net Fri Jan 12 13:55:16 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:55:16 +0000 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed Message-ID: <011220071955.1002.45A7E7A3000A4E77000003EA21587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> Hi, All of this HP 1000 talk got me going on mine. I have most of the drives, paper tape punch and tape drives and a real nice 2117F. But thats where it stops. No Cables Does anyone have a stash of these. I have no cables and cant seem to find anyone that does. It seems that most of these are offered with out the cables. I would guess they all go to bulhead connectors and are just easier to slip off the connector on the cards. Need these at minimum - Console 12966a - HPIB disk 12821a - HPIB Mag tape 13183 Also Trying to figure out 2 cards HP 12250 60001 and a FDS n612 4256-001 Thanks, Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 12 13:55:51 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:55:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: a riviting topic In-Reply-To: <45A7C209.8010601@yahoo.co.uk> References: <20070112170213.ECIQ9460.ibm65aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> <45A7C209.8010601@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20070112115123.J21683@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 12 Jan 2007, Jules Richardson wrote: > Is rivit a US variation or a typo? (it's 'rivet' this side of the pond) It usually is on this side, also. > Anyhoo... agreed that for this kind of work it should be fine. The tool needed > should cost virtually nothing (I'd certainly expect it to be less than $10US) > and is really easy to work with. > Places like Halfords and B&Q will sell them in the UK (along with better tool > shops too); in the US Home Depot almost certainly have them and probably > Wal-mart too. Same applies to the rivets themselves. Harbor Freight www.harborfreight.com Pop-rivets are available in various sizes and materials. For this, aluminum would probably do. There are also "riv-nuts", that leave a threaded hole down the middle when done. > I've always wondered how the massive rivets on ships are put in, in particular > how on earth they get them to also be watertight around the hole! "Real" rivets require access to both sides, and are beaten against an anvil. For some uses, "real" rivets are put in red hot, and tighten up more as they cool. From tpeters at mixcom.com Fri Jan 12 14:01:49 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:01:49 -0600 Subject: ExecPC BBS problems... In-Reply-To: <45A70E55.9020707@simpits.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20070111221033.0d125070@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20070111221033.0d125070@localhost> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070112140038.0ce380d0@localhost> In that case, it would be interesting to see if the MS-DOS systems: Hardware conference is still there. It was started at my suggestion and Bob made me run it. Just tried it. Putty times out and doesn't connect. At 08:28 PM 1/11/2007 -0800, you wrote: >Tom Peters wrote: >>At 04:53 PM 1/11/2007 -0800, you wrote: >>>Does anyone on the list have the contact email address for the sysop of >>>the ExecPC bbs? In trying to connect today all I get is "You are user >>>49 in a queue of 49". This repeats until I disconnect. >>You want to contact the Exec-PC BBS? Via dial-up? Is that still around? I >>thought they converted to an ISP decades ago and pulled the plug on the BBS. >>The sysop at time was Bob Mahoney. I used to know him when I worked in >>Shorewood. I think he sold the business. >The bbs is telnet only now at bbs.execpc.com. One of the former employees >took the machines home and set it back up and opened it up for free to >anyone that cared to log in. The file areas are full of jewels that I >haven't even begun to mine yet. :) > >I think his name is Curt, but I'm not sure. > >g. > [Love] For though I know he loves me / Tonight my heart is sad / His kiss was not so wonderful / As all the dreams I had. --Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Fri Jan 12 14:10:44 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:10:44 -0500 Subject: a riv[e]ting topic In-Reply-To: <45A776E8.32161.2C6B5B2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200701122010.l0CKAnPE005692@keith.ezwind.net> The Bede5 was/is the little single seat jet, James bond made famous and the Beer companies flew at airshows and such. He introduced a little highwing at Oskosh the same year as he flew the Bede5j jet for the public for the first time. I think, it was the Bede 15 but I may be wrong .... The 70's were hard on me :) Anyone who has walked down the flightline at an EAA convention has witnessed a wide range of use and abuse of rivets mixed in with the current generation of plastic fantastics :) later Bob On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:54:16 -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 12 Jan 2007 at 0:00, Robert wrote: > >> Speaking of pop rivets: There is a kitplane (an excellent work horse of a plane) that makes use of thousands of >> closely spaced pop rivets. I used to be able to recall its name off the top of my head, but this library computer >> will not allow me to open another instance of my browser (to search google and figure it out). It was a sort of ugly, boxy, utilatarian looking plane. It was so "ugly" that it was actually very cool!! It's supposedly nearly >> "indestructable." >Are you perhaps thinking of the Bede 5? A friend decided to assemble >one in the living room of his second-story apartment. I think he >ruined the place utterly, what with the swarf from the thousands of >holes drilled or the broken-off stubs of pop rivets that were left in >the green shag carpeting, not to mention the oil from the snowmobile >engine, etc. I seem to recall that there some problem getting the >completed craft out of the building... >At the same time, I was building a harpsichord in my third-story >apartment and while the carpet was pretty dirty from all of the >sawdust, I think it was salvageable. >Cheers, >Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 12 14:28:00 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:28:00 -0800 Subject: a riv[e]ting topic In-Reply-To: <200701122010.l0CKAnPE005692@keith.ezwind.net> References: <45A776E8.32161.2C6B5B2@cclist.sydex.com>, <200701122010.l0CKAnPE005692@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <45A77ED0.25477.2E59662@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2007 at 15:10, Bob Bradlee wrote: > The Bede5 was/is the little single seat jet, James bond made famous and the Beer companies flew at > airshows and such. He introduced a little highwing at Oskosh the same year as he flew the Bede5j jet for > the public for the first time. I think, it was the Bede 15 but I may be wrong .... The 70's were hard on me :) The 5J is a jet, but the original 5 used a Honda snowmobile engine in a pusher-prop configuration. The web is full of photos of the prop Bede5. Cheers, Chuck From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Fri Jan 12 14:46:00 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:46:00 -0500 Subject: a riv[e]ting topic In-Reply-To: <45A77ED0.25477.2E59662@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200701122046.l0CKk9xd008244@keith.ezwind.net> On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:28:00 -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 12 Jan 2007 at 15:10, Bob Bradlee wrote: >> The Bede5 was/is the little single seat jet, James bond made famous and the Beer companies flew at >> airshows and such. He introduced a little highwing at Oskosh the same year as he flew the Bede5j jet for >> the public for the first time. I think, it was the Bede 15 but I may be wrong .... The 70's were hard on me :) >The 5J is a jet, but the original 5 used a Honda snowmobile engine in >a pusher-prop configuration. The web is full of photos of the prop >Bede5. >Cheers, >Chuck The BD5 was introduced with the Rotak engine, there were 2 sizes you could order. But I stand on my statement Bond with teh help of the Beer companies made the design it famous, except for a few, flyers of course. BTW: As long as we are way off topic here is a link to a M60 Bombsight I am working on identifing, and an Injection Carburetor for an R02800 Double Wasp engine used on the A-26 or C-46. http://tinyurl.com/ycw94q later Bob From MGemeny at pgcps.org Fri Jan 12 15:15:47 2007 From: MGemeny at pgcps.org (Mike Gemeny) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:15:47 -0500 Subject: HP 21MX/F and OS choices (was Lookee what I just got!) Message-ID: <15EDC737436349459458881C284C88DB0170C5@PGCPS2K3EXIS1.pgcps.org> Should be TSB and IPL Bob, TSB assumes that it is the OS, so it is assuming that it ?owns? all of its peripherals, DMA and the Interrupt system as well. As long as these false assumptions are accounted for under IPL I would think that a single CPU TSB such as TSB E may run without many problems. The real problem comes with dual processor configurations of TSB. Ether processor can initiate communication to the other, although the Main is generally the one ?Calling the shots?. Ether way, they assume that their partner is listening attentively, and they don?t have much tolerance for a sluggish response. If ether one gives up on the other the result is DEATH. Under SIMH we had problems getting the timing right between the two virtual processors, but it does work, and on some platforms it still needs tweaking. On real hardware if you stop all user activity, you can get away with halting the Main processor, exploring memory from the front panel and pressing Run without causing a crash. But if any terminal were to strike a key while the Main was halted the IOP would give up on the main and die, when the main came back the IOP would be dead, so the Main would die too. If you try to halt the IOP with the system running the result is always death. I think that it may be the result of a lost clock interrupt, because we see the same thing under SIMH. TSB is rather particular about addresses of it IO devices, so running both processors on the same CPU may take a bit of creativity when allocating devices. The IOP of Access would give you the most flexibility, but it?s still rather strict. On the 2100 version of Access the IOP microcode went into the same sockets as the Main Processor?s floating point microcode so they were mutually exclusive and both required, but on the 21MX versions I think that was changed. So it may be possible to have both floating point instructions and IOP instructions in the same CPU. Although I seem to recall that the IOP instructions needed a stack pointer, and since they were not using some register of the memory subsystem they just used that register for the stack. I want to say that it was a ?memory fence register?, but I?m not sure. And the IMS that describes it refers only to the 2100a/s microcode, so I really don?t know what they did in the MX microcode. It?s possible that the IOP microcode for MX may interfere with something that IPL is counting on and Jay, Al, or Bob may be the best people to speak to that. Of course, this would only apply to real hardware, under SIMH the instructions are simulated without the constraints of the real hardware. It would be really cool if the interconnect kit (the channel between the two processors) could be virtual through IPL and perhaps even cause the change of context to running the other processor. The device drivers in the IOP are well organized, but the Main Processor is not. Sometimes it looks more like spaghetti code, with IO instructions all over the place in seemingly unrelated routines. (I?m sure they did that because they had both memory and CPU time constraints, ;-) None the less, my hat?s off to them. The last version of HP2000 Access had only one bug found in it that I am aware of. With that bug patched, I don?t think any other bug has ever been found. I don?t think I shall ever again see such perfection. On the special boot strap loader issue for Access, I don?t see it being a problem. We don?t use it or even load it under SIMH. We just let SIMH load the second half of the bootstrap paper tape image in low memory of the Main processor and start it. We also let SIMH load the whole image of a preconfigured IOP and start that. Sure someone could change the SIMH startup scripts to be absolutely true to the recommended boot procedures, but then again, a lot of these short cuts were well known back in the day of real production systems and we are trying to boot the system with minimal operator intervention. TSB E sounds like the place to start. Then I would try Access on two CPUs then each running under IPL. And finally Access with both running on the same CPU. If you decide to run tests with IPL and TSB under SIMH I would also caution that the simulated interconnect between the two processors has only (as far a I know) been working under Windoz. I think it has something to do with the ?Socket Connect? library code, which last I checked was only used by this device. Some day some other device may use it, and someone may take the time to fix it. But for now we are just so happy to be able to run dual CPU TSB that we put up with running it on Windoz. The quickest way to boot up a TSB E system is under SIMH. The URL for the ZIP is in the links section of the HP2000 Yahoo Group. The binaries are images of original HP paper tapes (Thanks, Al and Jeff), so they should be quite useable on real hardware if ported to a suitable media. Hope this helps, Mike Gemeny From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 12 15:38:42 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:38:42 -0700 Subject: govliq: 16 RP06 disk drives (Kapolei, HI) Message-ID: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 12 15:36:53 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:36:53 -0700 Subject: only on govliquidation.com could this happen.... Message-ID: Lot includes.... 1 PUNCHED PROGRAM TAPE - ok 50 FLEXIBLE DISK - ok 1 TYPING ELEMENT - ok ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 10 RECTAL SPECULUMS - what?!?! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 12 15:56:17 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:56:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: only on govliquidation.com could this happen.... In-Reply-To: from Richard at "Jan 12, 7 02:36:53 pm" Message-ID: <200701122156.l0CLuHC5023480@floodgap.com> > > > Lot includes.... > > 1 PUNCHED PROGRAM TAPE - ok > 50 FLEXIBLE DISK - ok > 1 TYPING ELEMENT - ok > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > ... > 10 RECTAL SPECULUMS - what?!?! That's for inserting the typing element. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- LDA #TXT:JMP $AB1E:TXT .asc "just another c64 hacker":.byt 0d00 - From jondjohnston at hotmail.com Fri Jan 12 16:04:18 2007 From: jondjohnston at hotmail.com (Jon Johnston) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 09:04:18 +1100 Subject: HP 500 Series BASIC MSI statement Message-ID: We are looking for documentation on HP 500 Series BASIC software. Our immediate need is to learn the syntax of the MSI (Mass Storage Is) statement. Unfortunately, the form of the statement is not the same as with HP RMB or 9845 BASIC (we've tried those). Jon Johnston HP Computer Museum http://www.hpmuseum.net From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 16:21:53 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:21:53 -0800 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: <011220071955.1002.45A7E7A3000A4E77000003EA21587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> References: <011220071955.1002.45A7E7A3000A4E77000003EA21587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701121421x2e55652br55498213e7b9dd6f@mail.gmail.com> On 1/12/07, g-wright at att.net wrote: > Hi, > > All of this HP 1000 talk got me going on mine. I have > most of the drives, paper tape punch and tape drives and > a real nice 2117F. But thats where it stops. No Cables > Might be easier to build your own unless someone has a stash to offer. EDAC makes card edge connectors that mate with the usual 48 position connector cards, but they are not standard stock items that you can order anywhere that I have found. I requested a sample and got a couple. I forget the exact part number without checking. It might be worth finding out what the item cost and minimum order would be to order some of these, and how long the lead time would be. There was also someone selling used connectors+hoods with the rest of the cable chopped off on eBay a while back. Something like a couple of them for $10. My guess is that he has more of them but just hasn't listed any in a while. -Glen From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 12 16:25:19 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 15:25:19 -0700 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:21:53 -0800. <1e1fc3e90701121421x2e55652br55498213e7b9dd6f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <1e1fc3e90701121421x2e55652br55498213e7b9dd6f at mail.gmail.com>, "Glen Slick" writes: > There was also someone selling used connectors+hoods with the rest of > the cable chopped off on eBay a while back. Something like a couple > of them for $10. My guess is that he has more of them but just hasn't > listed any in a while. I erroneously purchased one of these items thinking it was the same connector as for the card edge on the 2648A, but its not the same. I am looking for the right connector for the 2648A. I tried looking in DigiKey and so-on but didn't see anything that looked right. What's the URL for EDAC? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 16:29:28 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:29:28 -0800 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: References: <1e1fc3e90701121421x2e55652br55498213e7b9dd6f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701121429k189af912od04f45ba5180c5e5@mail.gmail.com> On 1/12/07, Richard wrote: > > What's the URL for EDAC? http://www.edac.net/ From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 12 16:40:08 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:40:08 -0800 Subject: a riv[e]ting topic In-Reply-To: <200701122046.l0CKk9xd008244@keith.ezwind.net> References: <45A77ED0.25477.2E59662@cclist.sydex.com>, <200701122046.l0CKk9xd008244@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <45A79DC8.21923.35E8FA4@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2007 at 15:46, Bob Bradlee wrote: > But I stand on my statement Bond with teh help of the Beer companies made the design it famous, except > for a few, flyers of course. No quibble there. BTW, my friend tackled the BeDe5 as his first- ever construction project. I was appalled at some of the Homer Simpson-ish construction techniques he used and really worried that he was actually going try to get the thing airborne. In the end, he lost his nerve and interest and sold the carcass for pennies on the dollar. OTOH, the harpsichord I built still sits in my living room happily tinkling away 32 years later... :) Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jan 12 17:27:27 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:27:27 -0700 Subject: a riv[e]ting topic In-Reply-To: <45A79DC8.21923.35E8FA4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45A77ED0.25477.2E59662@cclist.sydex.com>, <200701122046.l0CKk9xd008244@keith.ezwind.net> <45A79DC8.21923.35E8FA4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45A8195F.9010404@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > No quibble there. BTW, my friend tackled the BeDe5 as his first- > ever construction project. I was appalled at some of the Homer > Simpson-ish construction techniques he used and really worried that > he was actually going try to get the thing airborne. In the end, he > lost his nerve and interest and sold the carcass for pennies on the > dollar. I still say the best aircraft design other than Nausicaa's jet guilder ( from the movie Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind) is the human power machines. > OTOH, the harpsichord I built still sits in my living room happily > tinkling away 32 years later... :) Drat... I Can't hear it from here. :( > Cheers, > Chuck PS: Many of Studio Ghibli's films have great flying machines. http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/films/ From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 12 16:48:47 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:48:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Looking for a service manual for the HP9865 cassette drive Message-ID: Well, the subject: line says it all really, but I'd better explain if only to avoid the 'You should be able to figure it out for yourself' (I could, if I have the drive) and the 'Most of it's the same as the drive in an HP9830' (it is, but it's the different bits I am interested in) type of replies. I've bought a few interfaces for the HP98x0 series of 'calculators' [1]. One of them is the interface for said tape drive, it's a single PCB containing about 10 TTL chips. What I am looking for, though, is a pinout of the interface connector on the drve iteslf so I have some idea what to expect on the end of this interface's cable. [1] They're called 'calculators' to get past the purchasing depatrments of the time. They're really computers -- the 9830 in particular programmed in BASIC, has an alphanumeric display and supports HPIB and I believe a hard disk. Other machines in the family (9810 and 9820) are more like calculators, but haev the same bit-serial 16 bit proceessor, etc. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 12 17:16:09 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:16:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: a riviting topic In-Reply-To: <003201c7366a$07a29fc0$6500a8c0@BILLING> from "Jay West" at Jan 12, 7 10:52:21 am Message-ID: > > >From time to time, I've wondered about riviting whenever I come across a > piece of computer cabinet metal that has rivits that have come loose or > fallen out. The current case in point is the tilt latch on an 11/44 when > it's in the 11X44-CA configuration (it's in the top of the rack, and tilts > up on gas pistons). There is a little latch on the side (best way I can > describe it is a metal rectangle cut on a diagonal) which is spring metal. > You pull this latch in from the front with a pen or screwdriver, and it then > clears the tab on the outer rack so it can tilt up. At the very back of this > spring metal latch is a rivet holding it in place. This rivit has come > loose. You can really only get to one side of it, that's when the cpu > chassis is tilted up. I believe that in other (more common) rackmount > configurations of the /44 when it's on slides that telescope out the front, > this same latch is present but it's used to allow the cpu to slide forward > rather than tilt up. > > I've seen riviters working on F18's at Boeing, and it sure appears to be a > higher art form. Not sure it's something I could do, but thought I'd ask > here. I've seen all kinds of rivits - different sizes - on an H960 I believe > there are a couple? Anyways, what tools are required, where can one get > rivits, what different types are there, and is it something a neophyte like > me who has never done a rivit before can do? I'm looking for the basic intro > to replacing a rivit for someone who has never done it. Firstly, let me say that I don't normally use rivets. As yuo know by now, I like to take things apart, and I'd rather not have to drill out rivets. But they can be useful in some situations, and in fact in some cases a riveting-like process is the onlt way to fix something. Riveting covers several different, but closely related, processes, actually. The traditional 'rivet' was a metal cylinder with head on one end, a bit like a blunt-ended nail. You put it through holes in the parts to be joind and used a hammer for form a head on the other end, aided with a tool normally called a 'snap' or a 'rivet set'. To use this type, you need access to both sides of the work. When you only have acess to osne side of the work, you use something called a 'blind rivet' or a 'pop rivet'. The rivit hs hollow, and had a metal pin running through it. Yput it into a special tool (normally called a 'pop riveter', available from good car part and DIY shops), it grips the pin. You now put the body of the rivet through the holes in the work and squeeze the handles of the tool. This pulls the pin back through the rivet, and the end of the pin then forms the other head on the rivet body. The pin then brrsks off (making the 'pop' that gives the process one of its names). This process is very easy if you have a good rivet tool, and is probably what you want to do. Finally, there are times when a pin or spindle is fastended to a nother part (plate, gear, etc) by forming over the end in much the same way as riveting. If you want to do this, you really need what's called a 'staking set' which will guide a punch tool perpendicular to the work and so on. A good watchmakers staking set will cost a few hundered pounds (!), I was lucky enough to find a second-hand one with a frw of the punches missing for about a tenth of the new price. Yes, I grabbed it. It's very useful for camera and clock repair, and of course extra punches and diss can be made from tool steel on a lathe. For your problem, if you _can_ cat to both sides, you might be able to support one side and reform the head on the other side using a hammer and a suitable puch/set tool. If not, you need to drill out the old rivet (take care, some rivets are suprisingly hard metal) and replace it with a new blind rivet. These come in various materials, of varying strengths. The common ones seem to be a light aluminium alloy, fine for fixing trim and the like, bot sot much good for anything else. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 12 16:53:22 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:53:22 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP11284 (or HP11285) datacomms interface Message-ID: Another of the interfaces I purchased is called an HP11284 data communications interface, it's part of the 11285 datacomms option (which also included firmware ROM modules for the HP9830). Anyway, this thing is complicated. It's 2 modules that plug into the 9830 I/O slots, each contains a PCB. One is stuffed with TTL and RS232 buffers (1488s and 1489s), the other has more TTL and 4 custom ICs. 2 20 pin ones (no idea) and 2 40 pin ones (maybe transmitter and receiver logic). The modules are linked by a cable, there's another cable from the first PCB I mentioned to the podem (or whatever). It ends in a 36 pin microribbon connector, I believe there was another cable which I don't have that connected to that and which ended in a pair of DB25 plugs, one for the RS232 signals to the modem, ther other carrying RS336 signals to an aautodialler. My first question is simple. Does anyone have this interface with that last cable and could 'buzz out' the connections so that I can make said cable, and/or figure out a little of the internal hardware? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 12 17:27:24 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:27:24 +0000 (GMT) Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C In-Reply-To: from "Mark Tapley" at Jan 12, 7 12:25:26 pm Message-ID: > That said, the battery pack definitely contains 3 Ni-Cad cells, each > typically around 1.1 or so V. (I have had mine apart, rebuilt with > stock Ni-Cads, ond not fried anything.) Therefore 3.3 V to the > electronics makes good sense. IIRC it was called a 'BP1A' battery pack. It was just 3 NiCds in series, notihing more, and I'd estimate it as being about 3.6V open-circuit. I know (becuase in my younger and even more foolish days I did it), you could run the SR51A calculator off 3 alkaline primaey cells in series (4.5V). > > One thing I would *not* do would be to plug in the calculator without > a good battery pack in place, based on the circuit diagram and on No, nor would I. At least one of my old TIs has a warning label on the bottonm which says something like 'Battery pack must be in position before connecting charger'. > Tony's advice pertaining to the dire consequences of similar actions > with HP calculators. > > FWIW, there is one more factor in the story. TI made a printer base > (PC-100?) that you could place the calculator (TI-58, -58C, or -59) > on to generate printouts. The method of connection was to take out > the battery pack, and place the cavity that it just vacated over a > protrusion on the face of the printer, which would then expand to > lock the calculator into place. (There was also a compartment to put That 'plug' connected both to the normal calculator battery contacts and to a row of a doze or so contacts on the logic PCB which carried the printer data signals, etc. > the battery pack into so it could charge while you printed.) Whatever > the power supply in that doohickey was, it circumvented the battery > completely. If anyone has one of those and could measure the voltage > on its power pins, that would likely shed lots of light on what the I do have one (in fact I have a couple), but the one I can easily get to has a 110V transformer in it, so it would take a little time to test it. It may not help anyway. It'll apply 3.6V or so to the calculator power contacts to run the machine, and it'll supply a suitable charging voltage/current to the removed battery pacb. But that won't tell you what the calculator's internal charging circuitry needs from the wall-wart, since that circuitry is not used when you use the printer cradle. Oh yes, IIRC, if yuo put a TI58C on the cradle, it'll work, but you lose the contents of the continuous memory if you turn off or unplug the cradle from the mains. -tony From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Jan 12 17:35:04 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:35:04 -0000 (GMT) Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <45A76AFC.7090001@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200701111808.l0BI8a9Y005458@keith.ezwind.net> <45A68009.1000606@yahoo.co.uk> <45A76AFC.7090001@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <1477.192.168.0.4.1168644904.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> On Fri, January 12, 2007 11:03, Jules Richardson wrote: > GET / HTTP/1.0 > > HTTP/1.0 302 Object moved > Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:05:36 GMT > Content-Length: 144 > Content-Type: text/html > Cache-Control: private > Server: Microsoft-IIS/4.0 So THAT's why I keep seeing GET / HTTP/1.0 in my webserver logs! Time to hide the server ident on my own webserver or better still, tell the script kiddies it's a MICROS~1 web box.... -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Jan 12 17:35:51 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:35:51 -0000 (GMT) Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: <200701121210.l0CCAOkb010345@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701121210.l0CCAOkb010345@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <1480.192.168.0.4.1168644951.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> On Fri, January 12, 2007 12:10, Brad Parker wrote: > > Adrian Graham wrote: >> >>> CIMG0607.JPG shows the DEC hardware, an 11/23 with MMU and FPP. There >>> is >>> also a Sigma FDD controller, and a DILOG ST-506 disk controller. >> >>I get 'forbidden' with this one. > > my fault. fixed. sorry... Thanks :) -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 12 18:01:30 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:01:30 -0700 Subject: Vintage bitslice parts Message-ID: A nice post from comp.arch recently.... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 12 18:04:33 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:04:33 -0700 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:35:04 +0000. <1477.192.168.0.4.1168644904.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: In article <1477.192.168.0.4.1168644904.squirrel at vorbis.demon.co.uk>, "Witchy" writes: > So THAT's why I keep seeing GET / HTTP/1.0 in my webserver logs! Time to > hide the server ident on my own webserver or better still, tell the script > kiddies it's a MICROS~1 web box.... If you make it look like IIS, they'll probably pound it even more. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Jan 12 18:14:49 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:14:49 -0500 Subject: only on govliquidation.com could this happen.... Message-ID: <01C7367D.FB03F160@MSE_D03> Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:56:17 -0800 (PST) From: Cameron Kaiser Subject: Re: only on govliquidation.com could this happen.... > > > Lot includes.... > ... > 10 RECTAL SPECULUMS - what?!?! That's for inserting the typing element. --------------------------------- ROTFL!!! Cameron, your humour (and medical expertise) make wading through the dreck worth while; thanks for a good laugh! mike From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 12 18:28:24 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:28:24 -0800 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <45A7B728.19635.3C1ABD3@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2007 at 17:04, Richard wrote: > > So THAT's why I keep seeing GET / HTTP/1.0 in my webserver logs! Time to > > hide the server ident on my own webserver or better still, tell the script > > kiddies it's a MICROS~1 web box.... > > If you make it look like IIS, they'll probably pound it even more. Nah, do what I do with my browser--make up some totally outlandish ident info, such as "Wrinkled Toad 57.3" Keep 'em guessing. :) Cheers, Chuck From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Jan 12 18:46:46 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:46:46 -0000 (GMT) Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1718.192.168.0.4.1168649206.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> On Sat, January 13, 2007 00:04, Richard wrote: > > In article <1477.192.168.0.4.1168644904.squirrel at vorbis.demon.co.uk>, > "Witchy" writes: > >> So THAT's why I keep seeing GET / HTTP/1.0 in my webserver logs! Time to >> hide the server ident on my own webserver or better still, tell the >> script >> kiddies it's a MICROS~1 web box.... > > If you make it look like IIS, they'll probably pound it even more. Yes, but they won't get in :) I dunno, maybe I should just turn the ident off and let them guess.....I've already stopped the stupid things that are on by default in my older version of SuSE, though one of those stupid things means I can't add attachments to my own email messages through my own email server....... (massive offtopic drift here, sorry) > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From pechter at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 20:27:31 2007 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:27:31 -0500 Subject: Compuserve wayback machine In-Reply-To: <1718.192.168.0.4.1168649206.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> References: <1718.192.168.0.4.1168649206.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: My old FreeBSD box was setup in the old days to put out a telnet prompt of Username and I modified it to not let logins in from other than a couple of internet addresses from work. Took about 15 minutes to modify /bin/login and the gettytab and telnetd files. I loved looking at the logs. If I had a captive DCL environment chrooted I'd have let them in. 8-) I redirected the telnet and ssh to it from my firewall. The only external login that would work was an ssh on an unusual port. Bill On 1/12/07, Witchy wrote: > > > On Sat, January 13, 2007 00:04, Richard wrote: > > > > In article <1477.192.168.0.4.1168644904.squirrel at vorbis.demon.co.uk>, > > "Witchy" writes: > > > >> So THAT's why I keep seeing GET / HTTP/1.0 in my webserver logs! Time > to > >> hide the server ident on my own webserver or better still, tell the > >> script > >> kiddies it's a MICROS~1 web box.... > > > > If you make it look like IIS, they'll probably pound it even more. > > Yes, but they won't get in :) > > I dunno, maybe I should just turn the ident off and let them > guess.....I've already stopped the stupid things that are on by default in > my older version of SuSE, though one of those stupid things means I can't > add attachments to my own email messages through my own email > server....... > > (massive offtopic drift here, sorry) > > > -- > > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for > download > > > > > > Legalize Adulthood! > > > > > -- > adrian/witchy > Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator > www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? > From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 12 20:28:33 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:28:33 -0700 Subject: cpu world Message-ID: I haven't seen anyone mention this here before.... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 12 21:01:38 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:01:38 -0800 Subject: DTC MicroFile Message-ID: <45A84B92.3010409@bitsavers.org> > Does anyone have any recollections or information > about the DTC MicroFile? Data Terminals and > Communications made it. It's a piece of furniture > on wheels, contains a box with a dual 8" floppy drive and > appears to be designed to sit in between a terminal > and a daisywheel printer -- a primitive word processor? > Haven't had a chance to crack the box open yet, and am > curious if anyone has any concrete information. > > Cheers > Brian I just uploaded several documents on it to http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dtc/microFile From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 12 21:09:28 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:09:28 -0600 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed References: <011220071955.1002.45A7E7A3000A4E77000003EA21587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <00f901c736c0$3ea6d490$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Jerry wrote... > All of this HP 1000 talk got me going on mine. Good. Mission Accomplished :) > Does anyone have a stash of these. Yes. > I have no cables and > cant seem to find anyone that does. It seems that most > of these are offered with out the cables. I would guess they > all go to bulhead connectors and are just easier to slip off the > connector on the cards. (on HP) No, I've never run into any cabinet bulkhead connectors except for DB25 panels (well, ok, some of the 13037 stuff). Everything else was direct cable from device to interface. On a properly buttoned up HP it wouldn't be easier to slip them off the cards, what with ground cables sometimes screwed in and the PCA retainer bracket locked in and the rear panel over the I/O cards for proper ventilation and the battery backup over that ;. That's not to say everyone observed those recomendations of course. > - Console 12966a I don't have a spare, I make more anytime I need one from spare connector hoods. The jumpers in the hood for wiring to a BACI are a pain. > - HPIB disk 12821a I may have a spare, what length do you need. > - HPIB Mag tape 13183 Hummm I don't have manuals in hand, but I don't believe 13183 is a HPIB card is it? Isn't that the "normal" HP proprietary interface? > Also Trying to figure out 2 cards > > HP 12250 60001 and a FDS n612 4256-001 Doesn't ring a bell at all. Got pics? Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 12 21:22:42 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:22:42 -0600 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed References: <011220071955.1002.45A7E7A3000A4E77000003EA21587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> <1e1fc3e90701121421x2e55652br55498213e7b9dd6f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <011a01c736c2$17e000a0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Glen wrote.... > Might be easier to build your own unless someone has a stash to offer. HP cables CAN be a pain to replicate... they are never happy with a cable unless it has 50 wires in it ;) > EDAC makes card edge connectors that mate with the usual 48 position > connector cards, but they are not standard stock items that you can > order anywhere that I have found. I requested a sample and got a > couple. I forget the exact part number without checking. Careful, you'll need both single registration and dual registration connectors, both 48 pin and both look the same initially. > It might be worth finding out what the item cost and minimum order > would be to order some of these, and how long the lead time would be. Yes, it would be. I have a decent stash of the connectors, but could always use more. I could also use some of the most typical bulk cable used with them. I'd be happy to go into a group purchase on this. > There was also someone selling used connectors+hoods with the rest of > the cable chopped off on eBay a while back. Something like a couple > of them for $10. My guess is that he has more of them but just hasn't > listed any in a while. That was ebayid SammySlave, he's in San Jose CA. I suspect he has more. Sometimes the ones he puts up are single registration, some are dual. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 12 21:25:34 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:25:34 -0600 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed References: Message-ID: <011f01c736c2$7e5937c0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Richard wrote... > I erroneously purchased one of these items thinking it was the same > connector as for the card edge on the 2648A, but its not the same. What was different? Did you run in to the single vs. dual registration issue? Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 12 21:28:15 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:28:15 -0600 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed References: Message-ID: <012201c736c2$df706970$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Richard wrote... > I am looking for the right connector for the 2648A. I tried looking > in DigiKey and so-on but didn't see anything that looked right. Oh, and remember the cable for the 2648A isn't just hardwired at the reader end... on that end it's a v.35 kind of looking connector only taller (I think this was used on winchester drives early on). Jay From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 12 21:31:24 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:31:24 -0800 Subject: cpu world In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45A7E20C.22613.469387A@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2007 at 19:28, Richard wrote: > I haven't seen anyone mention this here before.... > > I've used that site before--has a few interesting datasheets on it that can't be found elsewhere. The fellow certainly does have an extensive collection! Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 12 21:34:20 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:34:20 -0600 Subject: a riv[e]ting topic References: <45A77ED0.25477.2E59662@cclist.sydex.com>, <200701122046.l0CKk9xd008244@keith.ezwind.net><45A79DC8.21923.35E8FA4@cclist.sydex.com> <45A8195F.9010404@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <012b01c736c3$b903b8e0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> ok, james bond aircraft are off topic lol From vax9000 at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 21:58:36 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:58:36 -0500 Subject: cpu world In-Reply-To: <45A7E20C.22613.469387A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45A7E20C.22613.469387A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 1/12/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 12 Jan 2007 at 19:28, Richard wrote: > > > I haven't seen anyone mention this here before.... > > > > > > I've used that site before--has a few interesting datasheets on it > that can't be found elsewhere. The fellow certainly does have an > extensive collection! Right, but I have two x86 chips that he does not have, 80376 and 80386SL. Cheers, > Chuck > > From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 22:20:00 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 20:20:00 -0800 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: <011a01c736c2$17e000a0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <011220071955.1002.45A7E7A3000A4E77000003EA21587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> <1e1fc3e90701121421x2e55652br55498213e7b9dd6f@mail.gmail.com> <011a01c736c2$17e000a0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701122020l19a2ae12j243626f542dbe185@mail.gmail.com> On 1/12/07, Jay West wrote: > Glen wrote.... > > EDAC makes card edge connectors that mate with the usual 48 position > > connector cards, but they are not standard stock items that you can > > order anywhere that I have found. I requested a sample and got a > > couple. I forget the exact part number without checking. > Careful, you'll need both single registration and dual registration > connectors, both 48 pin and both look the same initially. > What's the difference between single and double? Top and bottom are connected together for each position on single, or something else? This is the connector I got from EDAC, except 305-048-500-202 instead of the stocked 044: http://rocky.digikey.com/WebLib/EDAC/Web%20Photo/305-044-500-202.jpg There are various mounting hole options encoded in the last section of the part number. See the full spec for details. http://www.edac.net/downloads/305-315-355%20Series%20Spec%20Sheet.pdf Digikey quotes 244.06 / 25 = $9.76 for the 305-050-500-202 so that might be about what the price would be for the 305-048-500-202. That's about twice of SammySlave's used eBay price (or about the same after paying him shipping), but no hood. -Glen From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 12 22:38:14 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 20:38:14 -0800 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: References: <1e1fc3e90701121421x2e55652br55498213e7b9dd6f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701122038p2d29c80csa3cb69134e9e493b@mail.gmail.com> On 1/12/07, Richard wrote: > > I erroneously purchased one of these items thinking it was the same > connector as for the card edge on the 2648A, but its not the same. > Are you looking for the card edge connector for the async card in the 2648A? Isn't that just a 30 position (dual row 15) card edge connector? Does this look right? http://rocky.digikey.com/WebLib/EDAC/Web%20Photo/305-030-500-202.jpg -Glen From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jan 12 23:49:43 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:49:43 -0800 Subject: Looking for an old calculator In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Has anyone seen either a Diehl Combitron S or a SCM 566PR. I'd love to have one of these. Those that watch the gov auctions should keep an eye out for one of these. I used one years ago and always wanted one. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes is here. Get all the scoop. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/?icid=nctagline2 From evan at snarc.net Sat Jan 13 00:12:32 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 01:12:32 -0500 Subject: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 Message-ID: <000901c736d9$cff56ec0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Help please .... I haven't programmed in many years and I'm winging this because I don't have the HX-20 BASIC manual (it's not among the other HX-20 manuals on the Epson support site.) How do I tell my program to halt and wait for someone to press RETURN before continuing? And would I then need a follow-up command to actually make it sense the keypress? - Evan From evan at snarc.net Sat Jan 13 00:23:26 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 01:23:26 -0500 Subject: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 In-Reply-To: <000901c736d9$cff56ec0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <000b01c736db$55ddb780$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Or better yet, does anyone have a PDF of the BASIC reference, so I can learn more...? I've been searching on the web but no luck yet. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 1:13 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 Help please .... I haven't programmed in many years and I'm winging this because I don't have the HX-20 BASIC manual (it's not among the other HX-20 manuals on the Epson support site.) How do I tell my program to halt and wait for someone to press RETURN before continuing? And would I then need a follow-up command to actually make it sense the keypress? - Evan From evan at snarc.net Sat Jan 13 00:33:20 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 01:33:20 -0500 Subject: Solved ... RE: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 In-Reply-To: <000b01c736db$55ddb780$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <000c01c736dc$b79ea140$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Thanks to Pat F., via cctalk IRC room. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 1:23 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 Or better yet, does anyone have a PDF of the BASIC reference, so I can learn more...? I've been searching on the web but no luck yet. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 1:13 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 Help please .... I haven't programmed in many years and I'm winging this because I don't have the HX-20 BASIC manual (it's not among the other HX-20 manuals on the Epson support site.) How do I tell my program to halt and wait for someone to press RETURN before continuing? And would I then need a follow-up command to actually make it sense the keypress? - Evan From lbickley at bickleywest.com Sat Jan 13 00:33:10 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:33:10 -0800 Subject: MODCOMP II rescued... Message-ID: <200701122233.10349.lbickley@bickleywest.com> I had the good fortune of rescuing a quite clean MODCOMP II/12 today! The system has 64K of core memory, full front panel and separate I/O chassis and I/O panel. The I/O chassis contains a dual 9600 baud serial interface, a high-speed synchronous interface and a TTY controller (110-9600 baud). Does anyone on the list have schematics and/or writeups on Modcomp serial or other peripherals? If so, I'd really appreciate a pointer to the PDFs. If you don't have them in PDF form, I'll be glad to pay the cost for hard copies and shipping. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Fri Jan 12 09:05:30 2007 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:05:30 -0700 (MST) Subject: * EMERGENCY * Shipping Question In-Reply-To: <1168553057.5968.65.camel@linux.site> References: <20070111105833.GA32258@bytemark.barnyard.co.uk> <1168553057.5968.65.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: One thing to be aware of is the freight company will want to call someone and verify the pickup BEFORE they drive out. I had major issues with this because they wanted to call me instead of the guy they were picking it up from. It took three pickup attempts before it got on the truck (only two for the drop off...) Clint On Thu, 11 Jan 2007, Warren Wolfe wrote: > Hello, folks, > > I just bought the afore-mentioned HP Rack for my new HP > minicomputer. All well and good, but it is for pickup only in > California, and I live in Michigan. Who knows a shipper who will pick > it up, and drop it off, with only phone contact? Extra difficulty: It's > not very heavy, for something that size, but it's HUGE. Looks to be > almost six feet tall, probably five or a bit more, with casters. Clues, > anyone? > > > > Peace, > > Warren E. Wolfe > wizard at voyager.net > > From paulp132 at comcast.net Fri Jan 12 22:59:48 2007 From: paulp132 at comcast.net (paul popelka) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 20:59:48 -0800 Subject: Anyone know where to find software for an hp 16505a prototype analyzer? Message-ID: <001901c736cf$a706a830$6401a8c0@geek> I bought one of these and the hard drive is failing. Sometimes it boots, sometimes it doesn't. If I can find the install cd and floppy, maybe I can get this working. Of course then I'd need to find a cd-rom drive that works with the 16505. Thanks, Paul From fritz_chwolka at t-online.de Sat Jan 13 04:13:31 2007 From: fritz_chwolka at t-online.de (Fritz Chwolka) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:13:31 +0100 (CET) Subject: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 In-Reply-To: <000b01c736db$55ddb780$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <1H5ftE-05IbRY0@fwd34.sul.t-online.de> On Sat, 13 Jan 2007 01:23:26 -0500, Evan Koblentz wrote: >Or better yet, does anyone have a PDF of the BASIC reference, so I can learn >more...? I've been searching on the web but no luck yet. > >-----Original Message----- >From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] >Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 1:13 AM >To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' >Subject: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 > >Help please .... I haven't programmed in many years and I'm winging this >because I don't have the HX-20 BASIC manual (it's not among the other HX-20 >manuals on the Epson support site.) > >How do I tell my program to halt and wait for someone to press RETURN before >continuing? And would I then need a follow-up command to actually make it >sense the keypress? > >- Evan > http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/epson/~fjkraan/comp/hx 20/doc/ Mit freundlichen Gruessen Fritz Chwolka From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sat Jan 13 08:54:00 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 08:54:00 -0600 Subject: Fibre Optic Channel Extenders on Epay (Bus / Tag) Message-ID: <45A8F287.4000105@msm.umr.edu> I know there are only a couple of people interested in these, but this is probably the place to post this to get to who might want it. These units will take bus and tag in and allow one to run over a distance via fibre optic. Might be useful for a pile which includes such. hopefully the conflicting suffix numbers does not mean these do not have at least one pair that could work given the fibre optic connection. Jim ibm 3044-D01 extender link 5874992954 ibm 3044-C02 extender link 5874993303 ibm 3044-C01 extender link 290051556365 From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Jan 13 09:56:16 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 07:56:16 -0800 Subject: Anyone know where to find software for an hp 16505a prototype analyzer? In-Reply-To: <001901c736cf$a706a830$6401a8c0@geek> References: <001901c736cf$a706a830$6401a8c0@geek> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701130756l15706355oc9b84f6a97b3fb6@mail.gmail.com> On 1/12/07, paul popelka wrote: > I bought one of these and the hard drive is failing. Sometimes it boots, > sometimes it doesn't. > > If I can find the install cd and floppy, maybe I can get this working. Of > course then I'd need to find a cd-rom drive that works with the 16505. > > Thanks, > Paul > I also have an HP 16505A for which I would like to find a copy of the original software install CD. There is an update CD, but it is not a complete OS install CD. If you have the original software install CD you should be able to boot directly from that and reinstall the OS without any floppy needed. If someone happens to have the original software install CD it would great if we could get copies. An HP 16505A is really just a 712/60 running HP/UX 9 with a special application which controls a 16500B/C through the SCSI port. -Glen From richardlynch3 at comcast.net Sat Jan 13 10:00:05 2007 From: richardlynch3 at comcast.net (Richard Lynch) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 10:00:05 -0600 Subject: HP 2112A In-Reply-To: <011220071955.1002.45A7E7A3000A4E77000003EA21587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: All the HP 21MX posts got me interested in finding out what I have with the HP 2112A I recently got and what I'm missing. The back end (where all the I/O cards go) is empty. In the front there is the DCPC, Memory Protection, M.E.M. (Memory Extension Module), 3 memory cards and Memory Controller. I believe I can see 3 loader ROM chips installed on the CPU board (assuming I'm looking in the right place - front right side of the board as I'm facing it). Of the 3 optional Control Store modules in the back, the middle one is mounted under the CPU, but the other two are not there. The back label says "2112A" and lists the following options: 12978A (Writeable Control Store Diagnostic) 12992B (Disk boot ROM) 12992C (Terminal boot ROM) I figured out from the bitsavers document and another online document that these are the 3 ROM options I saw. The paper tape loader ROM is soldered in with the M-series machines, according to the online documents I read. 12897A (DCPC) 12892A (Mem Protect) 13187Ax2 (16k Mem) So it looks to me like I need some I/O boards (13175 disk drive interface, 12966 or 12968 terminal interface, 12597 paper tape interface), and probably the other Control Store modules to flesh this thing out (not to mention the cables to connect to peripherals). Does all that sound right? Richard Lynch From jpero at sympatico.ca Sat Jan 13 06:58:31 2007 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:58:31 +0000 Subject: cpu world In-Reply-To: References: <45A7E20C.22613.469387A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070113175739.TTHO24907.tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> > On 1/12/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > > On 12 Jan 2007 at 19:28, Richard wrote: > > > > > I haven't seen anyone mention this here before.... > > > > > > > > > > I've used that site before--has a few interesting datasheets on it > > that can't be found elsewhere. The fellow certainly does have an > > extensive collection! > > > Right, but I have two x86 chips that he does not have, 80376 and 80386SL. > > Cheers, > > Chuck Correct, this is lesser known two-chip set designed for power management and a low-power CPU for notebooks. Soon replaced by 486SL. Cheers, Wizard From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sat Jan 13 12:21:40 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:21:40 -0500 Subject: cpu world In-Reply-To: <20070113175739.TTHO24907.tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> References: <45A7E20C.22613.469387A@cclist.sydex.com> <20070113175739.TTHO24907.tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> Message-ID: > Correct, this is lesser known two-chip set designed for power > management and a low-power CPU for notebooks. Soon replaced by > 486SL. No, the 80376 was a stripped down 80386 for embedded applications. Nothing to do with laptops... Yes, it was a flop. -- Will From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Jan 13 12:19:54 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:19:54 -0600 Subject: Browning plastic cases In-Reply-To: <20070113175739.TTHO24907.tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard > References: <45A7E20C.22613.469387A@cclist.sydex.com> <20070113175739.TTHO24907.tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070113121915.07855ea0@mail> Recently Digg'd: A discussion of how plastic ages and discolors: http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/189 - John From evan at snarc.net Sat Jan 13 12:29:20 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:29:20 -0500 Subject: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 In-Reply-To: <1H5ftE-05IbRY0@fwd34.sul.t-online.de> Message-ID: <000601c73740$bef54c50$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Thanks! That site wouldn't load when I tried it last night. -----Original Message----- From: Fritz Chwolka [mailto:fritz_chwolka at t-online.de] Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 5:14 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 On Sat, 13 Jan 2007 01:23:26 -0500, Evan Koblentz wrote: >Or better yet, does anyone have a PDF of the BASIC reference, so I can >learn more...? I've been searching on the web but no luck yet. > >-----Original Message----- >From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] >Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2007 1:13 AM >To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' >Subject: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 > >Help please .... I haven't programmed in many years and I'm winging >this because I don't have the HX-20 BASIC manual (it's not among the >other HX-20 manuals on the Epson support site.) > >How do I tell my program to halt and wait for someone to press RETURN >before continuing? And would I then need a follow-up command to >actually make it sense the keypress? > >- Evan > http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/epson/~fjkraan/comp/hx 20/doc/ Mit freundlichen Gruessen Fritz Chwolka From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jan 13 12:40:45 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 10:40:45 -0800 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD Message-ID: <649102ba5d00816bffee5e1f7df6a424@valleyimplants.com> I have a old VAXstation 3100/76 I'm playing around with (it's surprising how much faster the VAX 4000/200 "seems" - guess it's better memory and I/O bandwidth). The beastie is not-quite-complete (running it as a VAXserver, and the external SCSI connector has been replaced with a HD-50 that isn't functional- not sure if that's bad wiring or bad SCSI chip), but it does have a full 32MB RAM and all the tests it fails are explainable (?? on the network (since it's not connected, that's expected), ? on the serial lines (no kb/mouse connected there) and the external SCSI (nothing connected and known issues). Anyway-to the question: Neither NetBSD 2.0 or 3.0 will install successfully. They both segfault, usually during install but once I got 3.0 installed and it was very limited functionality. Officially the 3176 is supported, but is NetBSD known to be tempermental? (I'm not sure if it's the VAX or the software - VMS boots fine, but if the system's wonky I won't bother with it anymore). Can't test NetBSD on my other VAX (4000-200), since SHAC isn't supported. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 13 13:15:06 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:15:06 -0800 Subject: Browning plastic cases Message-ID: <45A8BF3A.11093.7C92FDB@cclist.sydex.com> On 13 Jan 2007 at 12:19, John Foust wrote: > > Recently Digg'd: A discussion of how plastic ages and discolors: > > http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/189 When I saw the photo of the SNES case, I said to myself, "That looks just like the old high-density foam cases look like before they're painted." Why not paint the darned things? I'd rather have a somewhat un- authentic finish that looked good than a cruddy yellow half-and-half case. If done right, I doubt that anyone could tell at a distance of more than 6 inches. I remember the model shop guy at Durango making his prototype cases-- out of clear polycarbonate. I thought they looked pretty nifty as they were--but then he had to go and have them painted. He made the 14" hard disk case out of sheet ABS and said he'd never do that again- -he said it was like machining rubber. All production was of high- density foam, however--and painted. In any case, paint good--plastic colorants bad. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jan 13 13:30:27 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:30:27 -0700 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:25:34 -0600. <011f01c736c2$7e5937c0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: In article <011f01c736c2$7e5937c0$6600a8c0 at HPLAPTOP>, "Jay West" writes: > Richard wrote... > > I erroneously purchased one of these items thinking it was the same > > connector as for the card edge on the 2648A, but its not the same. > What was different? Did you run in to the single vs. dual registration > issue? Its the wrong number of pins and the wrong physical size (too big for the 2648A). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jan 13 13:31:03 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:31:03 -0700 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:28:15 -0600. <012201c736c2$df706970$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: In article <012201c736c2$df706970$6600a8c0 at HPLAPTOP>, "Jay West" writes: > Richard wrote... > > I am looking for the right connector for the 2648A. I tried looking > > in DigiKey and so-on but didn't see anything that looked right. > Oh, and remember the cable for the 2648A isn't just hardwired at the reader > end... on that end it's a v.35 kind of looking connector only taller (I > think this was used on winchester drives early on). Reader? I'm talking about a terminal. I don't know what you mean by "reader end". -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jan 13 13:33:08 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:33:08 -0700 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 12 Jan 2007 20:38:14 -0800. <1e1fc3e90701122038p2d29c80csa3cb69134e9e493b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <1e1fc3e90701122038p2d29c80csa3cb69134e9e493b at mail.gmail.com>, "Glen Slick" writes: > Are you looking for the card edge connector for the async card in the > 2648A? Yes > Isn't that just a 30 position (dual row 15) card edge > connector? I'd have to go check the terminal to be sure, but that sounds right. > Does this look right? > > http://rocky.digikey.com/WebLib/EDAC/Web%20Photo/305-030-500-202.jpg Yes, that looks like the right kind of receptable for the card edge. However, I was looking for something that could be used in a cable; that picture shows a connector designed for a circuit board. Yes, I could kludge something together, but I was hoping to find something a little more designed for a cable connection. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From williams.dan at gmail.com Sat Jan 13 13:41:18 2007 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 19:41:18 +0000 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <649102ba5d00816bffee5e1f7df6a424@valleyimplants.com> References: <649102ba5d00816bffee5e1f7df6a424@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640701131141x2a968b33tcb79811d95f513bc@mail.gmail.com> On 13/01/07, Scott Quinn wrote: > I have a old VAXstation 3100/76 I'm playing around with (it's > surprising how much faster the VAX 4000/200 "seems" - guess it's better > memory and I/O bandwidth). The beastie is not-quite-complete (running > it as a VAXserver, and the external SCSI connector has been replaced > with a HD-50 that isn't functional- not sure if that's bad wiring or > bad SCSI chip), but it does have a full 32MB RAM and all the tests it > fails are explainable (?? on the network (since it's not connected, > that's expected), ? on the serial lines (no kb/mouse connected there) > and the external SCSI (nothing connected and known issues). > > Anyway-to the question: Neither NetBSD 2.0 or 3.0 will install > successfully. They both segfault, usually during install but once I got > 3.0 installed and it was very limited functionality. Officially the > 3176 is supported, but is NetBSD known to be tempermental? (I'm not > sure if it's the VAX or the software - VMS boots fine, but if the > system's wonky I won't bother with it anymore). > > Can't test NetBSD on my other VAX (4000-200), since SHAC isn't > supported. > > > The NetBSD Installer can be wonky at best. I've not tried 3 but 2 I've installed by netbooting and copying and extracting all the files. Then once pkgsrc is setup you're away. Some of my 3100's will barf at the scsi connector without a terminator some are fine. I normally ignore it, I would guess it's s down to firmware revision. Dan From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jan 13 13:49:17 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:49:17 -0700 Subject: Browning plastic cases In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:15:06 -0800. <45A8BF3A.11093.7C92FDB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: Would a dropcloth/sheet placed over equipment protect it from UV discoloration due to fluorescent lighting? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Jan 13 14:57:06 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:57:06 -0800 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: References: <1e1fc3e90701122038p2d29c80csa3cb69134e9e493b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701131257q10334626u4ef21bdab512804@mail.gmail.com> On 1/13/07, Richard wrote: > > > Does this look right? > > > > http://rocky.digikey.com/WebLib/EDAC/Web%20Photo/305-030-500-202.jpg > > Yes, that looks like the right kind of receptable for the card edge. > However, I was looking for something that could be used in a cable; > that picture shows a connector designed for a circuit board. Yes, I > could kludge something together, but I was hoping to find something a > little more designed for a cable connection. > -- I'm not sure how else you would expect the connector to look. The 500 field of the 305-030-500-202 part number means Wire Hole termination. You just put a wire from your cable through the hole and solder it in place. That is the exact same thing that is inside the hood of standard HP cables. -Glen From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jan 13 15:19:03 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 14:19:03 -0700 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Jan 2007 12:57:06 -0800. <1e1fc3e90701131257q10334626u4ef21bdab512804@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <1e1fc3e90701131257q10334626u4ef21bdab512804 at mail.gmail.com>, "Glen Slick" writes: > I'm not sure how else you would expect the connector to look. The 500 > field of the 305-030-500-202 part number means Wire Hole termination. > You just put a wire from your cable through the hole and solder it in > place. That is the exact same thing that is inside the hood of > standard HP cables. OIC. Is there some sort of hood enclosure I can get for it? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From richardlynch3 at comcast.net Sat Jan 13 15:20:39 2007 From: richardlynch3 at comcast.net (Richard Lynch) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 15:20:39 -0600 Subject: Low cost 1" paper tape In-Reply-To: <00a401c72e21$ce0e9890$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: Got mine today in the mail. It's oiled. on 1/1/07 9:55 PM, Jay West at jwest at classiccmp.org wrote: > The tape doesn't appear to be the oiled variety. That rules out use in an > ASR33 does it not? > > Jay > > >> This seller has 1" paper tape for a fair price, $3.00 for 7 rolls. See >> item number 8288222035 >> He has 75 boxes available. >> >> Bob >> > > From bshannon at tiac.net Sat Jan 13 15:46:29 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 16:46:29 -0500 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed References: <011220071955.1002.45A7E7A3000A4E77000003EA21587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <000501c7375c$49b1b390$0100a8c0@screamer> I've got spare cables for the 12821A controller. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 2:55 PM Subject: HP 2117f cables needed > Hi, > > All of this HP 1000 talk got me going on mine. I have > most of the drives, paper tape punch and tape drives and > a real nice 2117F. But thats where it stops. No Cables > > Does anyone have a stash of these. I have no cables and > cant seem to find anyone that does. It seems that most > of these are offered with out the cables. I would guess they > all go to bulhead connectors and are just easier to slip off the > connector on the cards. > > Need these at minimum > > - Console 12966a > - HPIB disk 12821a > - HPIB Mag tape 13183 > > Also Trying to figure out 2 cards > > HP 12250 60001 and a FDS n612 4256-001 > > > Thanks, Jerry > > Jerry Wright > JLC inc > g-wright at att.net > From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jan 13 03:51:29 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 04:51:29 -0500 Subject: Token Ring Hub Message-ID: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> I have a few 16/4 Token Ring ISA cards and an EISA 100Mb one that I want to test out in a few 486 systems I have to compare it to 10Mb Ethernet that I currently run. Anybody have a super cheap hub for sale I can use (these are the RJ45 type cables)? Located in the US. Also what is a good way to bridge Token Ring to Ethernet so that these 486 machines can use my router/cable modem? From bshannon at tiac.net Sat Jan 13 15:49:16 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 16:49:16 -0500 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed References: Message-ID: <000d01c7375c$acc24440$0100a8c0@screamer> Your looking for the edge card connector for the 2648? That's easy, I have spares. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 5:25 PM Subject: Re: HP 2117f cables needed > > In article <1e1fc3e90701121421x2e55652br55498213e7b9dd6f at mail.gmail.com>, > "Glen Slick" writes: > >> There was also someone selling used connectors+hoods with the rest of >> the cable chopped off on eBay a while back. Something like a couple >> of them for $10. My guess is that he has more of them but just hasn't >> listed any in a while. > > I erroneously purchased one of these items thinking it was the same > connector as for the card edge on the 2648A, but its not the same. > > I am looking for the right connector for the 2648A. I tried looking > in DigiKey and so-on but didn't see anything that looked right. > > What's the URL for EDAC? > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > From brad at heeltoe.com Sat Jan 13 16:07:15 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 17:07:15 -0500 Subject: desperately seeking pertec cables In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 13 Jan 2007 04:51:29 EST." <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <200701132207.l0DM7FvJ014376@mwave.heeltoe.com> I have a TS05 tape drive with cables for a TSV05, i.e. 50 pin edge to 50 pin high density (i.e. scsi-2 connectors). I thought I had a way to connect the cables to 50 pin .1" headers (which the controller board wants) but it turns out the way the DEC TVS05 cables uses the "high density/a.k.a scsi-2" connector is not the same as the way SCSI-2 uses it - the pins don't map correctly if you use an off the shelf scsi-2/.1"header converter. This has me frustrated and an in need of some standard "pertec cables", i.e. 50 pin edge to 50 pin .1" header. (i was all set to boot off the ts05 or tm11 controller but no joy :-( Does anyone have a pair of these, at least say 10' that they don't need and would sell? -brad i'm going to go drown my sorrows in a martini :-) From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 13 16:14:42 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 14:14:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: BASIC in the Epson HX-20 In-Reply-To: <000b01c736db$55ddb780$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000b01c736db$55ddb780$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <20070113141216.Y80515@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 13 Jan 2007, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Or better yet, does anyone have a PDF of the BASIC reference, so I can learn > more...? I've been searching on the web but no luck yet. Check with Uncle Roger (Sellam should have reasonably current contact info) I gave him TWO HC-20s (Japanese model, grey, with added support for katakana), service manuals (in Japanese), some English manuals, and some accessory items. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From grant at stockly.com Sat Jan 13 16:34:43 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:34:43 -0900 Subject: Transformer Search Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> I'm looking for a source of transformers like those used in the Altair 680. In addition, does anyone have any idea what the rated current output is with the Altair 680? I do not have an assemnly manual. If anyone has an idea of the watt rating I'd appreciate it. : ) It has 102620 and 9967736 written on it. It only has one primary coil. There are two secondary coils. One with a center tap and one without. Here are some stats I took: Primary: 121.4vAC Secondary 1: 11.13vAC (used for +9v/+5v) Secondary 2: 14.57vAC parallel, 29.2vAC series (used for +/-16vDC supply) Thanks, Grant From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jan 13 17:08:08 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 16:08:08 -0700 Subject: Transformer Search In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <45A96658.7040604@jetnet.ab.ca> Grant Stockly wrote: > I'm looking for a source of transformers like those used in the Altair > 680. In addition, does anyone have any idea what the rated current > output is with the Altair 680? I do not have an assemnly manual. If > anyone has an idea of the watt rating I'd appreciate it. : ) > > It has 102620 and 9967736 written on it. > > It only has one primary coil. > > There are two secondary coils. One with a center tap and one without. > > Here are some stats I took: > > Primary: 121.4vAC > > Secondary 1: 11.13vAC (used for +9v/+5v) > > Secondary 2: 14.57vAC parallel, 29.2vAC series (used for +/-16vDC supply) > > Thanks, > Grant If all else fails have a new transformer made here. http://www.electra-print.com/ > From grant at stockly.com Sat Jan 13 17:27:19 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 14:27:19 -0900 Subject: Transformer Search In-Reply-To: <45A96658.7040604@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113142647.038e7e98@pop.1and1.com> > >If all else fails have a new transformer made here. >http://www.electra-print.com/ Have you used them before? Their prices on custom transformers seem very reasonable... Grant From vax9000 at gmail.com Sat Jan 13 18:36:28 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 19:36:28 -0500 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <649102ba5d00816bffee5e1f7df6a424@valleyimplants.com> References: <649102ba5d00816bffee5e1f7df6a424@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: On 1/13/07, Scott Quinn wrote: > > I have a old VAXstation 3100/76 I'm playing around with (it's > surprising how much faster the VAX 4000/200 "seems" - guess it's better > memory and I/O bandwidth). The beastie is not-quite-complete (running > it as a VAXserver, and the external SCSI connector has been replaced > with a HD-50 that isn't functional- not sure if that's bad wiring or > bad SCSI chip), but it does have a full 32MB RAM and all the tests it The SCSI connector on 3100 76 is wired differently from the standard. I was told that it was because there was no standard when the first vaxstation was out. You need a DEC specific SCSI cable to use the port. vax, 9000 fails are explainable (?? on the network (since it's not connected, > that's expected), ? on the serial lines (no kb/mouse connected there) > and the external SCSI (nothing connected and known issues). > > Anyway-to the question: Neither NetBSD 2.0 or 3.0 will install > successfully. They both segfault, usually during install but once I got > 3.0 installed and it was very limited functionality. Officially the > 3176 is supported, but is NetBSD known to be tempermental? (I'm not > sure if it's the VAX or the software - VMS boots fine, but if the > system's wonky I won't bother with it anymore). > > Can't test NetBSD on my other VAX (4000-200), since SHAC isn't > supported. > > > From arcarlini at iee.org Sat Jan 13 19:12:11 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 01:12:11 -0000 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <006b01c73779$0692e850$b504010a@uatempname> 9000 VAX wrote: > The SCSI connector on 3100 76 is wired differently from the standard. > I was told that it was because there was no standard when the first > vaxstation was out. You need a DEC specific SCSI cable to use the > port. The wiring inside the VAXstation 3100-76 may well be "non-standard", but the external connector works perfectly well with any SCSI cable which physically connects. Internally there is a single cable harness even though the internal devices and external devices are separate SCSI channels. So you cannot replace the harness (with anything other than the exact same harness) without knowing exactly what you are doing. If the external connector has been replaced with an Amphenol one, then perhaps that was not done properly. There's a terminator on the harness too - and my recollection is that without it things do not work well (if at all). Antonio From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Jan 13 19:15:27 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 17:15:27 -0800 Subject: desperately seeking pertec cables In-Reply-To: <200701132207.l0DM7FvJ014376@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> <200701132207.l0DM7FvJ014376@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701131715ncd01037g957c65f619f2821e@mail.gmail.com> On 1/13/07, Brad Parker wrote: > > This has me frustrated and an in need of some standard "pertec cables", > i.e. 50 pin edge to 50 pin .1" header. > > Does anyone have a pair of these, at least say 10' that they don't need > and would sell? > Let us know if you find a cheap source. I'd like to try getting an M4 9914 running with either a DQ132 or a DQ142 but I don't have any cables either. Going by single quantity prices for a section of 10ft flat cable + socket connector + card edge connector adds up to about $25 a cable or $50 for the pair on Digi-Key part prices. That might be ok if I knew I would be able to get everything to work, but would be an expensive experiment if I couldn't get it all to work. -Glen From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jan 13 19:19:21 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 17:19:21 -0800 Subject: Free Boxes (??) (Texas Instruments) Message-ID: <902ce6ba023ea4b3b48ee67ae9fd7e2e@valleyimplants.com> Yes, you read that right. If there is someone who wants to have an original set of boxes for a Texas Instruments Professional Computer in pretty good shape (some tape marks), I have them. The provenance on these is excellent. One owner, stored in an attached garage since 1984. Looks like System Unit, Color Monitor and (I believe) Keyboard Located in Renton, but shipping a possibility. From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Sat Jan 13 20:06:49 2007 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 18:06:49 -0800 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <1168164760.11603.43.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> <1168164760.11603.43.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: On 1/7/07, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > How about donating them to a relevant institution, like the CHM? Just > another E450 is unlikely to fetch much at a salvage auction, just like a > U10... Unfortunately, I don't think the University would let us do that either. But it's worth checking... Eric From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Sat Jan 13 20:06:49 2007 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 18:06:49 -0800 Subject: Sun E450 server officially vintage In-Reply-To: <1168164760.11603.43.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <006001c72e7b$17f6bdd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <459BF207.8020201@jetnet.ab.ca> <1168164760.11603.43.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: On 1/7/07, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > How about donating them to a relevant institution, like the CHM? Just > another E450 is unlikely to fetch much at a salvage auction, just like a > U10... Unfortunately, I don't think the University would let us do that either. But it's worth checking... Eric From ericj at speakeasy.org Sat Jan 13 21:29:33 2007 From: ericj at speakeasy.org (Eric Josephson) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 19:29:33 -0800 Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A673CD.7080909@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <004001c7378c$35e75290$b805a8c0@vulcan> > > I've seen mention of a Hardware Technical Reference for the Victor. > > If anyone has a copy I'd be interested in hearing from you. > > I've just uploaded scans of the Tech Ref and several other tech docs > to http://bitsavers.org/pdf/victor/victor9000 > Thanks Al! That's greatly appreciated. From g-wright at att.net Sat Jan 13 22:03:47 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 04:03:47 +0000 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed, part2 Message-ID: <011420070403.4213.45A9ABA1000725560000107521604666489B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from "Jay West" : -------------- > Jerry wrote... > > All of this HP 1000 talk got me going on mine. > Good. Mission Accomplished :) > > > Does anyone have a stash of these. > Yes. > > > I have no cables and > > cant seem to find anyone that does. It seems that most > > of these are offered with out the cables. I would guess they > > all go to bulhead connectors and are just easier to slip off the > > connector on the cards. > (on HP) No, I've never run into any cabinet bulkhead connectors except for > DB25 panels (well, ok, some of the 13037 stuff). Everything else was direct > cable from device to interface. On a properly buttoned up HP it wouldn't be > easier to slip them off the cards, what with ground cables sometimes screwed > in and the PCA retainer bracket locked in and the rear panel over the I/O > cards for proper ventilation and the battery backup over that ;. That's not > to say everyone observed those recomendations of course. > > > - Console 12966a > I don't have a spare, I make more anytime I need one from spare connector > hoods. The jumpers in the hood for wiring to a BACI are a pain. I pickup a few connectors today and will make up one shortly > > > - HPIB disk 12821a > I may have a spare, what length do you need. Beggers can't be picky . I can handle most anything Disk would be in a floor cabinet > > > - HPIB Mag tape 13183 > Hummm I don't have manuals in hand, but I don't believe 13183 is a HPIB card > is it? Isn't that the "normal" HP proprietary interface? > your right. The list I have does not really say. I have 4) 7970b's is this 2 card set for these ?? of coarse no cables > > Also Trying to figure out 2 cards > > > > HP 12250 60001 and a FDS n612 4256-001 The HP 12250-60001 is very close to a 12792 muxer card in chip type and layout. Both use 0.10" pin spacing on the external connector. The Other is a Typo It is a FPS n612 4256 001 (non Hp card) Date code is old. (1977) Have Pics. but no easy place to post. can E-mail > Doesn't ring a bell at all. Got pics? > > Jay > > This thing has 2 different disk interfaces. 13175D and 12821A I have both HPIB and 7906 dives I have both 7970b and 7980E Mag Tape drives Thanks, jerry From James at jdfogg.com Sat Jan 13 22:20:47 2007 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:20:47 -0500 Subject: Token Ring Hub Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A256B4D@sbs.jdfogg.com> > Also what is a good way to bridge Token Ring to Ethernet so > that these 486 machines can use my router/cable modem? > In today's hardware world, the easiest way to have Ethernet communicate with Token Ring is via a dual-topology router. The Cisco model 2514 with one Ethernet and one TR interface should be very affordable in the used market. If you can find older Cabletron MMACs or the chassis based Proteon equipment (70 series, etc.) you can bridge TR to Ethernet at layer 2. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sat Jan 13 22:45:59 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:45:59 -0500 Subject: Browning plastic cases In-Reply-To: <45A8BF3A.11093.7C92FDB@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45A8BF3A.11093.7C92FDB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > Why not paint the darned things? I'd rather have a somewhat un- > authentic finish that looked good than a cruddy yellow half-and-half > case. If done right, I doubt that anyone could tell at a distance of > more than 6 inches. It should be noted that painting the yellowed case with a mild paint is actually the most proper thing to do, in the mind of a professional conservator. Even more proper, and as done with some aircraft at the Gerber facility, is to apply a wax coating to the original finish, and then paint over the wax. This allows the paint to be removed completely and safely when it comes time to refinish the outer layer. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sat Jan 13 22:51:42 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:51:42 -0500 Subject: Browning plastic cases In-Reply-To: References: <45A8BF3A.11093.7C92FDB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > Would a dropcloth/sheet placed over equipment protect it from UV > discoloration due to fluorescent lighting? You can find UV filters for flourescent lighting at museum supply stores on the web. There are a few good, down-to-Earth books available about the science of conservation, all of which escape my mind right now. There are lots of good, practical, easy to use tips and ideas in these. Remember that these museum people aim to keep the condition of their artifacts frozen in time for hundreds or thousand of years, even if not yet practical. -- Will From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jan 13 23:19:11 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 21:19:11 -0800 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD Message-ID: > 9000 VAX wrote: > >> The SCSI connector on 3100 76 is wired differently from the standard. >> I was told that it was because there was no standard when the first >> vaxstation was out. You need a DEC specific SCSI cable to use the >> port. > > > The wiring inside the VAXstation 3100-76 may well be "non-standard", > but the external connector works perfectly well with any SCSI > cable which physically connects. Internally there is a single > cable harness even though the internal devices and external > devices are separate SCSI channels. So you cannot replace > the harness (with anything other than the exact same > harness) without knowing exactly what you are doing. > > If the external connector has been replaced with an > Amphenol one, then perhaps that was not done properly. > > There's a terminator on the harness too - and my recollection > is that without it things do not work well (if at all). > > Antonio > Internal works just fine, external has the Amphenol-50, but since there are 2 colors of loose wires and a proprietary internal connector it's unlikely I can figure the "proper" wiring out. I suppose I could trace it from the NCR chips, but for now I just pull the cover and plug stuff in the 1st bus. The ground wires on the external bus are all one color, and they seem to go to the right places - so it's partially right. If only DEC had better documentation. I hand installed NetBSD from the shell option, and it seems to be working better (no panics yet). sushi complains about libcurses and won't run, but vi runs ok. It isn't my main VAX, anyway, so I'll probably shove it back under the bed for now. I was going to junk it if it didn't work, but it pulled itself together. I'd throw VMS on it, but (a) everyone needs at least one BSD VAX and (b) the console is shared with the 4200 so it would be a bother to run them together as a VAXcluster. I'm considering clustering the 4000-200 and my 3000-300X, though. Too bad DEC doesn't have the ultimate useless feature: cross-OS clustering. Imagine a VMS VAX, Tru64 Alpha, and VMS Integrity clustered. Completely pointless, but cool sounding. From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 13 23:19:49 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:19:49 -0600 Subject: Low cost 1" paper tape References: Message-ID: <006801c7379b$f1c0c730$e489cecf@HPLAPTOP> Richard wrote... > Got mine today in the mail. It's oiled. Bummer, that rules out using it in most everything BESIDES an ASR 33! Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jan 13 23:37:37 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:37:37 -0600 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed References: Message-ID: <00db01c7379e$1dede980$e489cecf@HPLAPTOP> I had written... >> What was different? Did you run in to the single vs. dual registration >> issue? To which richard responded... > Its the wrong number of pins and the wrong physical size (too big for > the 2648A). Oh good lord, how embarassing. You said 2648A and my brain was locked thinking paper tape reader. Total brain lock on my part. Sorry. You're talking about the connector that goes to the back of the terminal's async card. That is NOT the standard HP I/O connector, like you see in the rear of an HP cpu. I'll take the standard HP I/O connectors off your hands that you got from ebay ;) Jay West From vp at drexel.edu Sat Jan 13 23:39:00 2007 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 00:39:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: wall wart for TI-58-C Message-ID: <200701140539.l0E5d0cf005098@dune.cs.drexel.edu> ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > Oh yes, IIRC, if yuo put a TI58C on the cradle, it'll work, but you lose > the contents of the continuous memory if you turn off or unplug the > cradle from the mains. Regarding turning off the cradle, it depends on the model number. The PC100A and 100B models would cut off poewr to calculator when you turned off the cradle (using the big brown slide switch on its side). The 100C cradle will continue supplying power to the calculator even when you turn the cradle off. This is documented in the manual and was done specifically for the 58C. **vp From geneb at simpits.com Sat Jan 13 23:54:38 2007 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 21:54:38 -0800 Subject: ExecPC BBS problems... In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20070112140038.0ce380d0@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20070111221033.0d125070@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20070111221033.0d125070@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20070112140038.0ce380d0@localhost> Message-ID: <45A9C59E.7080408@simpits.com> Tom Peters wrote: > In that case, it would be interesting to see if the MS-DOS systems: > Hardware conference is still there. It was started at my suggestion and > Bob made me run it. > > Just tried it. Putty times out and doesn't connect. > It's back on line Tom. Curt must have either noticed it or someone was kind enough to notify him. The MS-DOS conference is still there and has these message bases: Hardware Tom Peters Hot Topics Bob Mahoney + MS/PC/DR-DOS Keith Parkansky PC Life (commentary) Alan Frayer PC Review Forum Jake Moritz Public Domain Michael Barndt It looks like you're still on the hook for Hardware. :) g. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jan 14 00:51:34 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:51:34 -0700 Subject: Transformer Search In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113142647.038e7e98@pop.1and1.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113142647.038e7e98@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <45A9D2F6.3020105@jetnet.ab.ca> Grant Stockly wrote: > >> >> If all else fails have a new transformer made here. >> http://www.electra-print.com/ > > > Have you used them before? Their prices on custom transformers seem > very reasonable... I have, but I also ordered a small transformer. The S-100 power supply if I remeber right had lots of amps. 20+ amps on the +8 line I think. Only a few amps on the +-12? volts. > Grant > . From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 14 00:52:20 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 22:52:20 -0800 Subject: Browning plastic cases Message-ID: <45A962A4.3674.A4785D1@cclist.sydex.com> On 13 Jan 2007 at 23:45, William Donzelli wrote: > It should be noted that painting the yellowed case with a mild paint > is actually the most proper thing to do, in the mind of a professional > conservator. Even more proper, and as done with some aircraft at the > Gerber facility, is to apply a wax coating to the original finish, and > then paint over the wax. This allows the paint to be removed > completely and safely when it comes time to refinish the outer layer. Yup. If you're just doing it for show, a water-based paint would do the job, if you didn't handle it too much. Easy to remove--and actually serves to preserve things by sealing out atmosphere and UV rays. Cheers, Chuck From marvin at rain.org Sun Jan 14 01:34:28 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:34:28 -0800 Subject: Floppy Disk Cross-Reference Message-ID: <45A9DD04.BE9E8640@rain.org> Is there a cross-reference available on the web to show what machines used what floppy disks? I'm looking specifically for what machines use what 8" floppies, i.e. SS, DS, hard or soft sectored, TPI, etc. It seems like it would be a useful thing to have in a FAQ. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 14 01:43:04 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:43:04 -0800 Subject: Transformer Search In-Reply-To: <45A9D2F6.3020105@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com>, <5.2.1.1.0.20070113142647.038e7e98@pop.1and1.com>, <45A9D2F6.3020105@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <45A96E88.14790.A75F7D8@cclist.sydex.com> On 13 Jan 2007 at 23:51, woodelf wrote: > The S-100 power supply if I remeber right had lots of amps. > 20+ amps on the +8 line I think. Only a few amps on the +-12? volts. On the Altair 8800 the power supply is pretty anemic, as I recall. OTOH, the one on my Integrand box is one big hunk of iron. Cheers, Chuck From grant at stockly.com Sun Jan 14 02:06:33 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 23:06:33 -0900 Subject: Transformer Search In-Reply-To: <45A96E88.14790.A75F7D8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45A9D2F6.3020105@jetnet.ab.ca> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113142647.038e7e98@pop.1and1.com> <45A9D2F6.3020105@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113230452.03f72e30@pop.1and1.com> At 10:43 PM 1/13/2007, you wrote: >On 13 Jan 2007 at 23:51, woodelf wrote: > > > The S-100 power supply if I remeber right had lots of amps. > > 20+ amps on the +8 line I think. Only a few amps on the +-12? volts. > >On the Altair 8800 the power supply is pretty anemic, as I recall. >OTOH, the one on my Integrand box is one big hunk of iron. I'm talking about the 680. It has to be around 25-30w. Its 2.4"x2.2"x2" I wanted to do switchers, but there is hardly any room for one. Grant From legalize at xmission.com Sun Jan 14 02:19:42 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 01:19:42 -0700 Subject: desperately seeking pertec cables In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 13 Jan 2007 17:15:27 -0800. <1e1fc3e90701131715ncd01037g957c65f619f2821e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <1e1fc3e90701131715ncd01037g957c65f619f2821e at mail.gmail.com>, "Glen Slick" writes: > Let us know if you find a cheap source. Definately; I'm in the same boat. I have a Fujitsu M2444 9-track drive with a pertect interface and a Q-bus pertec interface card but no appropriate cable to connect the two. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From carey.unruh at gmail.com Sun Jan 14 16:38:39 2007 From: carey.unruh at gmail.com (Carey Unruh) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 15:38:39 -0700 Subject: a riv[e]ting topic Message-ID: <004701c7382c$bd7fbc10$0400000a@Lucy> Found on rec.aviation.homebuilt by veeduber via google groups... http://tinyurl.com/y8qfao or http://preview.tinyurl.com/y8qfao Riveting 101 http://tinyurl.com/se4pd or http://preview.tinyurl.com/se4pd Riveting 101 - continued (Part 2 of 3) http://tinyurl.com/y7ql2r or http://preview.tinyurl.com/y7ql2r Riveting 101 - Part Three of three. QUOTE/ Riveting 101 ...or Meet Mr. Smiley :-) Wanna learn how to rivet? Go down to the hardware store -- or whatever passes for a hardware store in your community -- and buy yourself a packet of COPPER rivets. They come in different lengths and copper washers are usually included in the packet. Now find yourself a small hammer (...no, smaller than that... about 8oz). Have you got an old shoe? An old LEATHER shoe? Okay, then howzabout an old handbag. Or even some heavy canvas. Okay, good... use that. (I never thought of riveting cardboard... I usually just weld it... ) What are you going to use for your anvil? (And yes, an anvil makes a good anvil. But real anvils are kinda thin on the ground this season.) No, wood won't work for an anvil, not even lignum vitae. (Yep, it makes good prop-shaft bearings for aircraft carriers. But it don't work worth spit as an anvil.) Well-made bench-vise... that oughta work. Face of a sledge-hammer will do too. You work it out. Last thing you need is a HOLE to put the rivet in. Lotsa folks forget that the hole is part of the process. When you're riveting leather, canvas or cardboard the hole isn't a very important part of the process -- not like it is when you're riveting metal -- but you can't rivet without a hole so go make one. Make it as big around as your rivet. You can make it with a punch or an awl or a drill. Got it? Okay, put the rivet through the hole, put a washer on the rivet and squeeze the rivet down tight against whatever it is you're riveting. How much of the rivet's shank is sticking up? That's too much. You only want two diameter's worth of the rivet's shank sticking up past the washer, so cut it off. Now hit it with the hammer. (Okay, then hit it again!) Keep hitting it until the shank is hammered into a button about twice as wide as the shank. Do a couple more. /QUOTE From sethm at loomcom.com Sun Jan 14 04:10:41 2007 From: sethm at loomcom.com (Seth J. Morabito) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 02:10:41 -0800 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <649102ba5d00816bffee5e1f7df6a424@valleyimplants.com> References: <649102ba5d00816bffee5e1f7df6a424@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <20070114101041.GA13037@motherbrain.retronet.net> On Sat, Jan 13, 2007 at 10:40:45AM -0800, Scott Quinn wrote: > Anyway-to the question: Neither NetBSD 2.0 or 3.0 will install > successfully. They both segfault, usually during install but once I got > 3.0 installed and it was very limited functionality. Officially the > 3176 is supported, but is NetBSD known to be tempermental? (I'm not > sure if it's the VAX or the software - VMS boots fine, but if the > system's wonky I won't bother with it anymore). Hi Scott, I have a stock VAXstation 3100 m76 here, with fully functional external SCSI and framebuffer. I've just given up trying to get NetBSD installed onto it. Like you, I encountered all kinds of segfaults trying to get it installed. It's really frustrating, because NetBSD runs fine on my 3100 m30s! I wonder if it's just something about the m76 that NetBSD is particularly unhappy about. -Seth From bear at typewritten.org Sun Jan 14 06:08:20 2007 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 04:08:20 -0800 Subject: cpu world In-Reply-To: References: <45A7E20C.22613.469387A@cclist.sydex.com> <20070113175739.TTHO24907.tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2007, at 10:21 AM, William Donzelli wrote: > No, the 80376 was a stripped down 80386 for embedded applications. > Nothing to do with laptops... The only place I can think I've even seen one is on the precursor to the Mylex DAC960 RAID controller, the DCE376. ok bear From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 14 06:18:09 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 06:18:09 -0600 Subject: Token Ring Hub In-Reply-To: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45AA1F81.8080008@yahoo.co.uk> Teo Zenios wrote: > Also what is a good way to bridge Token Ring to Ethernet so that > these 486 machines can use my router/cable modem? Last time I did that was quite a few years ago, using a spare Linux box. I think the TR side of things was a Madge PCI board of some flavour, with the Ethernet side probably being a 3Com 905 PCI (100mbit). As I recall, Linux supported the IBM ISA boards back then, along with Madge cards using Madge's own drivers. I don't think there was any support around at all for Olicom cards. Things may well be better these days... people have had about ten years to write a few more drivers :-) Our (small-ish, maybe 150 machines) network was token ring, but there'd always be a few projects on the go which used server machines from the likes of Sun, SGI, HP etc. and which really wanted to be on Ethernet - hence the need for the bridge. cheers Jules From jclang at notms.net Sun Jan 14 07:38:34 2007 From: jclang at notms.net (joe lang) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 08:38:34 -0500 Subject: Transformer Search In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113230452.03f72e30@pop.1and1.com> References: <45A9D2F6.3020105@jetnet.ab.ca> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113142647.038e7e98@pop.1and1.com> <45A9D2F6.3020105@jetnet.ab.ca> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113230452.03f72e30@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <45AA325A.90307@notms.net> Grant Stockly wrote: > At 10:43 PM 1/13/2007, you wrote: > >> On 13 Jan 2007 at 23:51, woodelf wrote: >> >> > The S-100 power supply if I remeber right had lots of amps. >> > 20+ amps on the +8 line I think. Only a few amps on the +-12? volts. >> >> On the Altair 8800 the power supply is pretty anemic, as I recall. >> OTOH, the one on my Integrand box is one big hunk of iron. > > > I'm talking about the 680. It has to be around 25-30w. Its 2.4"x2.2"x2" > > I wanted to do switchers, but there is hardly any room for one. > > Grant The original power supply for the 680 was WAY undersized... You can get a pretty good idea of the transformar rating from the size. (or weight) Look through the catalogs for something of similar size and use it's power rating to calculate how much the original transformer could have provided. In the 680 almost all of the load was on the 5 volt supply. (and +9 unreg for option cards) Are you doing an exact recreation or using more modern parts? joe From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Sun Jan 14 10:17:18 2007 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 16:17:18 +0000 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <200701101636.l0AGZeRJ049124@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701101636.l0AGZeRJ049124@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <68BB1853-0A78-4312-BE41-84D122E4C80E@microspot.co.uk> Can anyone please tell me if the Olivetti M20 used a Z8010 memory management unit? When I worked for Marconi Elliott Avionics at Rochester we designed the anti submarine sub system for the WG34 (Later EH101) helicopter using a dozen Z8001s and Z8010s plus lots of specialised processors. After I left the company, the project dragged on for many years before being cancelled and a rival, more mainstream system fitted. The Z8001 had 16 low order address lines and 7 segment selector lines, so even without an MMU, it should have an 8MB address range. IIRC, the MMU took the top 9 address lines and the 7 segment selector lines and could map them onto a 16MB address range. For speed and simplicity, I came up with the idea of never setting the bottom bit in the segment base registers so we could send the bottom 8 bits of the CPU address directly as the row address to the RAM chips and by the time they were ready for the column address, the MMU look-up was done. Hence we allocated memory in 256 byte chunks instead of 128 bytes as envisaged by Zilog. In the M20 uses a Z8010 I might get one if one comes up for sale in Europe. Roger Holmes On 10 Jan, 2007, at 16:36, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 8 > Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 22:49:27 -0800 > From: "dwight elvey" > Subject: Re: Olivetti M20 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed > >> From: Gene Buckle >> >> dwight elvey wrote: >>> Hi >>> For those that might be interested in an Olivetti M20, there is one >>> on eBay. This was one of the few machines made with a Z8000 >>> processor. >>> I think the only personal computer. >>> If someone on this list gets one, contact me and I'll help you get >>> it up and running. >>> Dwight >> >> That's cool. I just posted PDFs of the CP/M for Z8000 manuals on the >> Retroarchive site. :) >> >> g. >> >> > > Hi Gene > I would suspect that the one on eBay isn't ready for CP/M8000 right > out of the box. I'm sure it'll handle PCOS, at least version 2.0f. > The problem is that most machines didn't come with enough memory > for CP/M8000. Although, the manual for CP/M8000 states that one > can run in a machine with 128K of memory, because of a number > of allocation issues in the M20, you really need 384K. > The M20's comes with 128K on the mother board and usually > have two 32K expansion memory cards. Even with three of these > 32K cards, your only up to 224K. Still not enough. > When I first got CP/M8000 running on my machine, I modified > two of my memory cards to take 64K DRAM chips. This brings it > to 384K. I was always going to increase it to 512K, the most that > the M20 decodes, but I don't see the need any more. > A fellow in Italy had thought that it might be easier to take two > 1 meg simm's and use those ( you need at least 2 because it > does access 8 bit or 16 bit and needs the separate selects ). > We talked it over and came up with a way to wire them up > such that they can provide 384K with a minimum of external > hardware( total of 512K with the mother boards memory). > The only painful issue is that the M20 normally has a select for > either 32K or 128K at each board position. The first solution > used three board edges to connect the two other connectors > selects. Another fellow built one that he made a header to > go under the NAND gate chip that normally sent out the > selects. This did require lifting one part and putting it on a socket. > It also seems that some of the memory boards came with sockets > and could be configured for either 32K or 128K by jumpers > but none of my board were that easy. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sun Jan 14 10:34:10 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 10:34:10 -0600 Subject: Token Ring Hub In-Reply-To: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45AA5B82.6060408@msm.umr.edu> Teo Zenios wrote: > >Also what is a good way to bridge Token Ring to Ethernet so that these 486 machines can use my router/cable modem? > > I purchased some 3Com 3c359's off ebay, and built up a linux box to bridge them. There is a 3c509 on the ethernet side. There is a 3174 on the token ring. It is a standard MAU, no rj45 baluns. Don't forget on ancient MAU's you have to have a token ring starter upper, to charge up the hub. I had a years old one, and was informed to use the supplied IBM starter to set up mine. I might point out that the MAU had no active power, as some of the ones which use rj45's do, and that may have had to do with the "starter upper" gizmo. Anyone who can educate me on that one would do me a favor, I just did it and it worked (after replacing the 9v battery in the IBM gizmo) Jim From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 14 12:58:12 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 10:58:12 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <68BB1853-0A78-4312-BE41-84D122E4C80E@microspot.co.uk> References: <200701101636.l0AGZeRJ049124@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <68BB1853-0A78-4312-BE41-84D122E4C80E@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <45AA0CC4.14431.CE01A94@cclist.sydex.com> On 14 Jan 2007 at 16:17, Roger Holmes wrote: > Can anyone please tell me if the Olivetti M20 used a Z8010 memory > management unit? What would have been the point on a system that can accommodate at most, 512K? Cheers, Chuck From cbajpai at comcast.net Sun Jan 14 13:02:16 2007 From: cbajpai at comcast.net (Chandra Bajpai) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:02:16 -0500 Subject: Browning plastic cases In-Reply-To: <45A962A4.3674.A4785D1@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200701141902.l0EJ2OCC068393@keith.ezwind.net> A water based paint like Latex? Would I just Home Depot House paint? :-) -Chandra -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 1:52 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Browning plastic cases On 13 Jan 2007 at 23:45, William Donzelli wrote: > It should be noted that painting the yellowed case with a mild paint > is actually the most proper thing to do, in the mind of a professional > conservator. Even more proper, and as done with some aircraft at the > Gerber facility, is to apply a wax coating to the original finish, and > then paint over the wax. This allows the paint to be removed > completely and safely when it comes time to refinish the outer layer. Yup. If you're just doing it for show, a water-based paint would do the job, if you didn't handle it too much. Easy to remove--and actually serves to preserve things by sealing out atmosphere and UV rays. Cheers, Chuck From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jan 14 13:12:40 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:12:40 -0500 Subject: Browning plastic cases In-Reply-To: <200701141902.l0EJ2OCC068393@keith.ezwind.net> References: <45A962A4.3674.A4785D1@cclist.sydex.com> <200701141902.l0EJ2OCC068393@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: > A water based paint like Latex? Would I just Home Depot House paint? :-) You could, although thinning is probably in order so the finish is not too gloppy. -- Will From gordon at gjcp.net Sun Jan 14 12:12:33 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 18:12:33 +0000 Subject: Token Ring Hub In-Reply-To: <45AA5B82.6060408@msm.umr.edu> References: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> <45AA5B82.6060408@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <45AA7291.1050407@gjcp.net> jim wrote: > Anyone who can educate me on that one would do me a favor, I > just did it and it worked (after replacing the 9v battery in the IBM > gizmo) There are relays in the MAU that bypass a dead or disconnected port, as far as I know. You need the starter thingy to switch at least one on so the others come up. At least, that's how it was for store loop. Real token ring may be different. Gordon From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Jan 14 16:18:43 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:18:43 -0800 Subject: the Cambridge Ring / was Re: Token Ring Hub References: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> <45AA5B82.6060408@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <45AAAC43.C141F97F@cs.ubc.ca> All this talk of token rings has reminded me of the original Cambridge ring. In the early 80's a project in the CS department where I was working was going to set up a Cambridge ring. A bunch of hardware was ordered and received from England: as I recall the network nodes were a yellow metal box around 12"*16"*4" with a hinged door and PCB, etc. inside. At the same time, Ethernet (thickwire, of course) was becoming current and wire was pulled through the CS building to accommodate both Ethernet and Cambridge ring (I think the decision-makers were hedging bets as to which technology was going to predominate). The Cambridge ring nodes sat on a shelf for years and were never used, while various machines (primarily a VAX780 and 750) went on the ethernet. I think a lot of the issue was availability of processor interface hardware/drivers. Anybody recall or have some of these nodes? Is there a Cambridge ring running anywhere? (Bletchley perhaps.) From gstreet at indy.net Sun Jan 14 16:56:23 2007 From: gstreet at indy.net (Robert) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 17:56:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: a riv[e]ting topic (Robert Greenstreet) Message-ID: <2453634.1168815383054.JavaMail.root@elwamui-wigeon.atl.sa.earthlink.net> > >Are you perhaps thinking of the Bede 5? A friend decided to assemble >one in the living room of his second-story apartment. I think he >ruined the place utterly, what with the swarf from the thousands of >holes drilled or the broken-off stubs of pop rivets that were left in >the green shag carpeting, not to mention the oil from the snowmobile >engine, etc. I seem to recall that there some problem getting the >completed craft out of the building... > >At the same time, I was building a harpsichord in my third-story >apartment and while the carpet was pretty dirty from all of the >sawdust, I think it was salvageable. > >Cheers, >Chuck > > I think I must be thinking of the Zenith: http://www.zenithair.com/stolch801/construction.html It uses what seems to amount to "Cherry" rivets. I've forgotten the details of the difference between Cherry and CherryMax, but the "Max" are significantly stronger (and worse to drill out)... I could have sworn that I had seen a flying example of a 4-seater a/c that looked like the Zenith, with a big a/c engine providing the power. That was probably at least 10 years ago... Good to hear that you got the harpsichord completed, and that it is still playing! Oh, BTW, one of the engines that lots of people finally settled on for the BD-5 (prop version) was the 1200 Honda Civic engine (the "49 states" model, not the CVCC). You've got to have balls to fly the BD-5, especially with a Honda 1200 screaming at rpm's that it was never intended to run at, especially with high manifold pressure... Regards, Robert Greenstreet From grant at stockly.com Sun Jan 14 17:30:52 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 14:30:52 -0900 Subject: Transformer Search In-Reply-To: <45AA325A.90307@notms.net> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070113230452.03f72e30@pop.1and1.com> <45A9D2F6.3020105@jetnet.ab.ca> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113131436.03abdd40@pop.1and1.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113142647.038e7e98@pop.1and1.com> <45A9D2F6.3020105@jetnet.ab.ca> <5.2.1.1.0.20070113230452.03f72e30@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070114142625.03ae3360@pop.1and1.com> >The original power supply for the 680 was WAY undersized... > >You can get a pretty good idea of the transformar rating from >the size. (or weight) Look through the catalogs for something >of similar size and use it's power rating to calculate how much >the original transformer could have provided. > >In the 680 almost all of the load was on the 5 volt supply. >(and +9 unreg for option cards) I want to get as hefty a power supply I can and still fit in the enclosure. The 680 was often modded to have two transformers in parallel. I would be interested in doing that depending on the cost. I was hoping someone would have a manual from MITS that mentions the VA or output on each of the 2 secondaries. Would knowing the resistance of any of the coils tell me the current capacity? Probably not without knowing the number of coils? As long as the replacement has a higher output than the origional I'm happy. >Are you doing an exact recreation or using more modern parts? I don't know what you mean. About as exact as the 8800 kit I did. Except maybe a little more since there isn't room for a switching power supply. The 680 isn't as well known, or nearly as available on the aftermarket. Thought it would be a good one to preserve the software. : ) Grant From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 14 17:48:34 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 17:48:34 -0600 Subject: the Cambridge Ring / was Re: Token Ring Hub In-Reply-To: <45AAAC43.C141F97F@cs.ubc.ca> References: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> <45AA5B82.6060408@msm.umr.edu> <45AAAC43.C141F97F@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <45AAC152.1080304@yahoo.co.uk> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Anybody recall or have some of these nodes? Is there a Cambridge ring running > anywhere? (Bletchley perhaps.) No we don't, sadly. I'm not even aware that we have *any* CR stuff, actually. I've raised it before that we really should if we get the opportunity as it's a good example (along with Econet and Research Machines' efforts) of UK networking technology. Cambridge university do still maintain a collection - although not in a running / viewable condition. At least that does mean that someone still owns a pile of the hardware, at least. There's a chap called David Greaves who had some really nice CR / CFR pages up at: http://koo.corpus.cam.ac.uk/projects/earlyatm/earlyatm.html ... however the server seems broken (at least for me) at present. Bashing "corpus.cam.ac.uk early atm" into Google should get you a link to that page and allow you to see the cached text of the pages though, but it's not as much fun without the images :) [it seems you can't put a link into Google and expect their entry for that link back in order to reach the cached version, which is a bit annoying!] cheers Jules From arcarlini at iee.org Sun Jan 14 18:13:40 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:13:40 -0000 Subject: the Cambridge Ring / was Re: Token Ring Hub In-Reply-To: <45AAC152.1080304@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <00a001c7383a$04176850$b504010a@uatempname> Jules Richardson wrote: > There's a chap called David Greaves who had some really nice CR / CFR > pages up at: > > http://koo.corpus.cam.ac.uk/projects/earlyatm/earlyatm.html > > ... however the server seems broken (at least for me) at present. > Bashing "corpus.cam.ac.uk early atm" into Google should get you a > link to that page > and allow you to see the cached text of the pages though, but it's > not as much fun without the images :) http://web.archive.org/web/20021211223436/http://koo.corpus.cam.ac.uk/pr ojects/earlyatm/earlyatm.html The thumbnails don't show up for me but if you click on them they do seem to be there. Antonio From lbickley at bickleywest.com Sun Jan 14 22:34:03 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 20:34:03 -0800 Subject: MODCOMP rescue pictures... Message-ID: <200701142034.03490.lbickley@bickleywest.com> The link below shows pictures and a brief description of the MODCOMP II that we rescued on Friday 1/12/2007. Restoration work has started on the CPU/MEM chassis - the I/O chassis is as we got it. [Note that the pictures are kinda large - so if you have a slow speed connection, they'll take awhile] http://bickleywest.com/modcomp.htm In case you're curious, here's a summary inventory of the systems we have inhouse [unfortunately, it's incomplete]: http://bickleywest.com/system1.html http://bickleywest.com/system2.html Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jan 15 00:23:54 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 22:23:54 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <68BB1853-0A78-4312-BE41-84D122E4C80E@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: Roger Holmes > > >Can anyone please tell me if the Olivetti M20 used a Z8010 memory >management unit? ---snip--- Hi Roger No, it didn't use a 8010. It could have but I believe that when the project was started, the 8010 wasn't ready yet. They used a ROM instead. They do a number of interesting logical to physical mapping but these could have been done with a 8010 just as easily ( and more flexibly ). Most of the mapping is to handle the holes that the video causes. Some is related to the dual mapped memory. Even with the full 512K of memory, I don't know of any application that needed more than 384K. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes is here. Get all the scoop. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/?icid=nctagline2 From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Mon Jan 15 01:04:55 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 07:04:55 -0000 Subject: a riviting topic Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D393D56@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson Sent: 12 January 2007 17:15 To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: a riviting topic Brian L. Stuart wrote: > There's a type of rivit called a pop rivit that I've used before. I > get the impression that it's not as good a the sort used in > manufacturing, but for this kind of purpose, I'd think it would do fine. Is rivit a US variation or a typo? (it's 'rivet' this side of the pond) Anyhoo... agreed that for this kind of work it should be fine. The tool needed should cost virtually nothing (I'd certainly expect it to be less than $10US) and is really easy to work with. Places like Halfords and B&Q will sell them in the UK (along with better tool shops too); in the US Home Depot almost certainly have them and probably Wal-mart too. Same applies to the rivets themselves. I've always wondered how the massive rivets on ships are put in, in particular how on earth they get them to also be watertight around the hole! cheers Jules From Glen.Heiberg at gijima.com Mon Jan 15 01:31:07 2007 From: Glen.Heiberg at gijima.com (Glen Heiberg) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:31:07 +0200 Subject: Token ring hub Message-ID: <21983F0E5895694FBDDC5E9E25202592047EAB@RST-CLE02.za.astgroup.com> You could look out for an original IBM 8228 MAU (Multistation Access Unit). These have 8 workstation ports and a pair of RI/RO (Ring In-Ring Out) ports, and is a passive device (did not need AC power). Alternatively, you could look out for an IBM 8230 CAU and LAM (or the Madge equivalent). However, these are quite bulky. All the above use the big IBM connectors with type-1 cabling. Cat 5 cables with RJ45 connectors can be used as long as you use a balun. I have never encountered a tokenring NIC that only had RJ45 connectors; there was always a DB9 connector. Also, you don't need any "token ring starter upper". The first station that inserts into the ring generates the token. All stations must use the same ring speed (either 4Mbps or 16Mbps). The first station that joins the ring must be set to a fixed speed; subsequent stations inserting into the ring can be set to autosense the ring speed. If the EISA TR NIC you have is indeed a 100Mbps device, it will only do 100Mbps TR when connected to a 100Mbps TR switch, and these seem to be fairly rare. For moderate to high network loads, a 4Mbps TR network would run rings ;-) around an equivalent 10Mbps Ethernet network. For simple TCP/IP connectivity between a TR and ethernet network, setup a Linux box with any IBM TR nic based on the "tropic" chipset or a Madge NIC (Linux drivers availble from their website) and your choice of supported ethernet NIC, and setup IP routing. Regards Glen, Teo Zenios wrote: > >Also what is a good way to bridge Token Ring to Ethernet so that these 486 machines can use my router/cable modem? > > Jim wrote: >I purchased some 3Com 3c359's off ebay, and built up a linux box to >bridge them. > >There is a 3c509 on the ethernet side. There is a 3174 on the token >ring. It is a standard MAU, no rj45 baluns. Don't forget on ancient >MAU's you have to have a token ring starter upper, to charge up >the hub. I had a years old one, and was informed to use the supplied >IBM starter to set up mine. I might point out that the MAU had no >active power, as some of the ones which use rj45's do, and that >may have had to do with the "starter upper" gizmo. > >Anyone who can educate me on that one would do me a favor, I >just did it and it worked (after replacing the 9v battery in the IBM >gizmo) > >Jim From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Jan 15 07:15:28 2007 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:15:28 -0500 Subject: a riviting topic In-Reply-To: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D393D56@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> References: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D393D56@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Message-ID: <20070115131528.2B19ABA4286@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "Rod Smallwood" wrote: > Is rivit a US variation or a typo? (it's 'rivet' this side of the pond) There have been trademarks in various countries (including the US) that among other things use the spelling "rivit" as part of the mark. Tim. From DLawrence at mctl.co.uk Mon Jan 15 05:09:57 2007 From: DLawrence at mctl.co.uk (David Lawrence) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 11:09:57 -0000 Subject: FW: FREE! Motorola VME-10 System and Motorola Development Hardware Message-ID: <5903CCD061FE2D488DFAAA68EB51550B0D80E7@yellow.mctl.co.uk> Hi Bruce, A real long shot this - We have a poorly VME10. I know your web entry is dated 1999, and that you stated that you were going to ditch your VME10 'in the next week' if you had no response, but I was wondering if, by some chance, your VME10 was still available (I'm always the optimist ;-) ) Please could you let me know either way. Many thanks, David Lawrence I.T. Consultant MCT Limited Tel : 01730 894834 Fax : 01730 892641 E-mail : dlawrence at mctl.co.uk Internet : http://www.mctl.co.uk ________________________________ avast! Antivirus : Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 0703-0, 13/01/2007 Tested on: 15/01/2007 11:09:57 avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2007 ALWIL Software. From tony.eros at machm.org Mon Jan 15 08:32:09 2007 From: tony.eros at machm.org (Anthony L. Eros) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:32:09 -0500 Subject: Minivac 601 documentation copies/scans? Message-ID: <5a3c22527ac349378a99990be20bcbfe@machm.org> I've been building a bit of a collection of logic/computer trainers, one of which is a Minivac 601. Originally, there were a set of manuals for this unit that detailed some construction projects. I'd really like to get a copy or scan of the full documentation. Is there anyone with a full documentation set for the Minivac who would be willing to either copy it for me or lend me the manuals so I could scan them? I asked this question a while back on the list and someone replied, but I wasn't ever able to finalize getting copies and now I've managed to misplace the relevent emails... Thanks! -- Tony From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Mon Jan 15 08:38:59 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:38:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Minivac 601 documentation copies/scans? In-Reply-To: <5a3c22527ac349378a99990be20bcbfe@machm.org> References: <5a3c22527ac349378a99990be20bcbfe@machm.org> Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Jan 2007, Anthony L. Eros wrote: > Is there anyone with a full documentation set for the Minivac who would > be willing to either copy it for me or lend me the manuals so I could > scan them? Michael Pearson included a 601 in his VCF East 3.0 exhibit, and he had the manuals for it. Maybe Evan Koblentz could put you in touch with him. http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/VCF-East2006/dscn4146-f.jpg http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/VCF-East2006/dscn4147-f.jpg Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jan 15 11:39:22 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 12:39:22 -0500 Subject: Parting out Teletype model 43 Message-ID: I am going to part out a somewhat junky model 43 Teletype. Anyone need parts? Let me know soon, as I reach for my tools tonight... -- Will From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Mon Jan 15 13:19:33 2007 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 19:19:33 +0000 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <200701151800.l0FI04VZ046415@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701151800.l0FI04VZ046415@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On 15 Jan, 2007, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2007 10:58:12 -0800 > From: "Chuck Guzis" > Subject: Re: Olivetti M20 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Message-ID: <45AA0CC4.14431.CE01A94 at cclist.sydex.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > On 14 Jan 2007 at 16:17, Roger Holmes wrote: > >> Can anyone please tell me if the Olivetti M20 used a Z8010 memory >> management unit? > > What would have been the point on a system that can accommodate at > most, 512K? 1) To prevent one process overwriting the memory belonging to another process. Segments did not HAVE to be 64k, that was their maximum size, the minimum was 128 bytes. 2) To provide virtual memory. 3) To protect the executive from processes. 4) To allow non contiguous physical address space to appear as a logical contiguous address space 5) To provide mapping out of faulty blocks of memory and probably as many reasons I have not thought of off the top of my head. Best regards, Roger. > > Cheers, > Chuck From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Mon Jan 15 13:46:06 2007 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 19:46:06 +0000 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <200701151800.l0FI04VZ046415@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701151800.l0FI04VZ046415@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <88DB646D-E9F0-40AD-A2EC-A988EBAEBB8E@microspot.co.uk> On 15 Jan, 2007, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >> Can anyone please tell me if the Olivetti M20 used a Z8010 memory >> management unit? > ---snip--- > > Hi Roger > No, it didn't use a 8010. It could have but I believe that when > the project was started, the 8010 wasn't ready yet. > They used a ROM instead. They do a number of interesting > logical to physical mapping but these could have been done > with a 8010 just as easily ( and more flexibly ). > Most of the mapping is to handle the holes that the video > causes. Some is related to the dual mapped memory. > Even with the full 512K of memory, I don't know of any > application that needed more than 384K. > Dwight Many thanks Dwight. A pity they did not at least use RAM instead of ROM. Roger. From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 15 13:59:03 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 12:59:03 -0700 Subject: HP2645As.... again Message-ID: Ebay item # 280070687500 The seller has zero feedback, indicating to me that he stumbled across these terminals and liquidating them gave him the impetus to create an ebay account. Jay, shall we try again at a bulk purchase? He's got 30 of them, and its not clear if they are all 2645As and some of them might be 2648As. The seller says some are used, some are new, although I don't know how you could tell from his picture of the pile :-). Maybe the "new" ones are the ones with the little cover for the switches on the upper left of the keyboard? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From JHuang at eminc.com Mon Jan 15 10:25:56 2007 From: JHuang at eminc.com (Jeffery Huang) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:25:56 -0800 Subject: Data Systems Design DSD-880 8" floppy and hard drive? Message-ID: <72A390F37FA1B344B97364EF2C1D409416F0C5@expressmail.express.local> Hi Stuart. Do you still have this 8" floppy drive. If not, could you tell me where can I found it. I use this fool on old Amistar Insertion Machine and most of them can read/write. Thanks for ur response. Jeffery yjdhuang at yahoo.com From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jan 15 14:44:29 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 12:44:29 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <88DB646D-E9F0-40AD-A2EC-A988EBAEBB8E@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: Roger Holmes > >On 15 Jan, 2007, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > >>>Can anyone please tell me if the Olivetti M20 used a Z8010 memory >>>management unit? >>---snip--- >> >>Hi Roger >>No, it didn't use a 8010. It could have but I believe that when >>the project was started, the 8010 wasn't ready yet. >>They used a ROM instead. They do a number of interesting >>logical to physical mapping but these could have been done >>with a 8010 just as easily ( and more flexibly ). >>Most of the mapping is to handle the holes that the video >>causes. Some is related to the dual mapped memory. >>Even with the full 512K of memory, I don't know of any >>application that needed more than 384K. >>Dwight > > > >Many thanks Dwight. > >A pity they did not at least use RAM instead of ROM. > >Roger. > Hi It does block things as 16K chunks. To be RAM, it would have to be fast but I guess any of those faster cache RAMs would do. I believe the ROMs are 60 ns and I've seen the cache with 30 ns. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Dave vs. Carl: The Insignificant Championship Series. ?Who will win? http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://davevscarl.spaces.live.com/?icid=T001MSN38C07001 From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 15 15:34:18 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 13:34:18 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: References: <200701151800.l0FI04VZ046415@dewey.classiccmp.org>, Message-ID: <45AB82DA.7301.12955A5A@cclist.sydex.com> On 15 Jan 2007 at 19:19, Roger Holmes wrote: > 1) To prevent one process overwriting the memory belonging to another > process. > Segments did not HAVE to be 64k, that was their maximum size, the > minimum > was 128 bytes. > 2) To provide virtual memory. > 3) To protect the executive from processes. > 4) To allow non contiguous physical address space to appear as a > logical contiguous address space > 5) To provide mapping out of faulty blocks of memory > and probably as many reasons I have not thought of off the top of my > head. Consider the time this was introduced. It was a $5K personal computer from 1982 whose base configuration was 2 floppies and no hard disk. Just about any of the above was probably held to be superfluous by most manufacturers in that context. Cheers, Chuck From marvin at rain.org Mon Jan 15 17:01:42 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 15:01:42 -0800 Subject: Heathkit H77 Case Message-ID: <45AC07D6.B6554D86@rain.org> I have the Heathkit H77 case where the pieces that hold the front panel to the chassic got broken off. With JB Weld to the rescue, I went ahead and fixed it only to find out a "small" problem. It seems that the label on the front of the case covers the screw holes and I *really* don't want to poke holes in it as it is in excellent condition. Has anyone tried to remove that front label, and if so how? My first thought was to take a heat gun and warm up the adhesive to the point where the label might come off without damage. My second thought was to ask here :). From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 15 18:01:26 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:01:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, was RE: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <004001c7378c$35e75290$b805a8c0@vulcan> Message-ID: <955551.88496.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> --- Eric Josephson wrote: > Thanks Al! That's greatly appreciated. Thanks from me too Al, ya big honky! LOL LOL LOL. You're okay in my book. Don't care what the other listers have been saying about you behind your back LOL LOL LOL LOL! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't get soaked. Take a quick peak at the forecast with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 15 18:27:20 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:27:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20070116002720.47735.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tony Duell wrote: > As you might expect (it's a Chuck Peddle design...) > it's full of 6522 > VIAs. There are 3 on the mainboard (user port, > printer/GPIB port, system > control) and 3 more on the disk controller. Oh, the > disk data > encoder/decoder is very simillar to that in, say,. a > Commodore 8050. I lift the hood on mine and shut it real quick! It's insides are the scariest looking thing I've seen in a while! > It would take me a little time to find the diagrams, > and as ever I don't > have a scanner, but if there's interest, I'll go > digging and post > whatever info I can. If you want to make copies and mail them to me, I'll scan and post them on my site...if I ever set it up!, and/or forward them to other interested parties. ____________________________________________________________________________________ It's here! Your new message! Get new email alerts with the free Yahoo! Toolbar. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 15 18:31:48 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:31:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Victor 9000 archive Message-ID: <842391.48674.qm@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.issue.org.uk/ Loads and loads and loads of V9K stuph. You'll be like a kid w/a Vic9K in a candy store. be sure and read the "personal note". ____________________________________________________________________________________ Finding fabulous fares is fun. Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 15 19:28:21 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 19:28:21 -0600 Subject: HP2645As.... again References: Message-ID: <007c01c7390d$9dd10db0$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Richard wrote.... > Ebay item # 280070687500 > > The seller has zero feedback, indicating to me that he stumbled across > these terminals and liquidating them gave him the impetus to create an > ebay account. It sure doesn't indicate that to me. I believe it's the same guy as before just with a new nickname, and if not, it's someone who bought the entire lot and is now selling them. I believe the picture of the terminal in this auction was taken on the exact same table as some of the other pictures the previous guy sent me. Wasn't the previous guy in TX too? > Jay, shall we try again at a bulk purchase? No offense, but absolutely not. I want no part of this. Jay West From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 15 19:40:37 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:40:37 -0500 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <20070114101041.GA13037@motherbrain.retronet.net> References: <649102ba5d00816bffee5e1f7df6a424@valleyimplants.com> <20070114101041.GA13037@motherbrain.retronet.net> Message-ID: <45AC2D15.8090703@gmail.com> Seth J. Morabito wrote: > On Sat, Jan 13, 2007 at 10:40:45AM -0800, Scott Quinn wrote: >> Anyway-to the question: Neither NetBSD 2.0 or 3.0 will install >> successfully. They both segfault, usually during install but once I got >> 3.0 installed and it was very limited functionality. Officially the >> 3176 is supported, but is NetBSD known to be tempermental? (I'm not >> sure if it's the VAX or the software - VMS boots fine, but if the >> system's wonky I won't bother with it anymore). > > Hi Scott, > > I have a stock VAXstation 3100 m76 here, with fully functional external > SCSI and framebuffer. > > I've just given up trying to get NetBSD installed onto it. Like you, > I encountered all kinds of segfaults trying to get it installed. It's > really frustrating, because NetBSD runs fine on my 3100 m30s! > > I wonder if it's just something about the m76 that NetBSD is > particularly unhappy about. I have two /76's. I used to run NetBSD on my VAXen, but I stopped after I discovered the joys of VAXclustering. My /76's run VMS just like a dream. IMHO, there are better boxes out there to run NetBSD on. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 15 19:51:53 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:51:53 -0500 Subject: Token Ring Hub In-Reply-To: <45AA1F81.8080008@yahoo.co.uk> References: <006601c736f8$66941ac0$0b01a8c0@game> <45AA1F81.8080008@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45AC2FB9.2060401@gmail.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Teo Zenios wrote: >> Also what is a good way to bridge Token Ring to Ethernet so that > > these 486 machines can use my router/cable modem? > > Last time I did that was quite a few years ago, using a spare Linux box. > I think the TR side of things was a Madge PCI board of some flavour, > with the Ethernet side probably being a 3Com 905 PCI (100mbit). > > As I recall, Linux supported the IBM ISA boards back then, along with > Madge cards using Madge's own drivers. I don't think there was any > support around at all for Olicom cards. Things may well be better these > days... people have had about ten years to write a few more drivers :-) I know for a fact that the IBM TROPIC-based ISA, MCA and PCMCIA token ring cards work well under NetBSD. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 15 19:29:23 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:29:23 -0500 Subject: cpu world In-Reply-To: References: <45A7E20C.22613.469387A@cclist.sydex.com> <20070113175739.TTHO24907.tomts20-srv.bellnexxia.net@wizard> Message-ID: <45AC2A73.3040406@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: >> Correct, this is lesser known two-chip set designed for power >> management and a low-power CPU for notebooks. Soon replaced by >> 486SL. > > No, the 80376 was a stripped down 80386 for embedded applications. > Nothing to do with laptops... > > Yes, it was a flop. But its successor, the 80386EX, wasn't. I've seen them several places. Peace... Sridhar From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 01:25:59 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 02:25:59 -0500 Subject: Looking for board for 30GB Quantum Fireball Plus LM Message-ID: While the drive is not strictly on-topic, the contents are - I have a 30GB Quantum drive that did not survive the rigors of the APO mail system. I have to admit I was in a bit of a hurry on my way out of Pole and while virtually all of my stuff survived travelling 12,000 miles in the mail system, something must have shifted in my box of hard drives and some of the components on the bottom of the drive are damaged and missing. Sufficient packing materials are hard to come by at the Pole, and I was counting on double-boxing and pink bubble wrap to be enough - it obviously wasn't. I think a neighboring drive must have shifted and rubbed on the circuit board of this one, causing a patch of visible component damage. The drive itself does spin up, and gives the expected pattern of blinks on its lone LED, but the machine does not see it. Given that there are 3 missing resistors of a size smaller than an 805 package (don't know the names of the really wee parts) and a few bent pins on a nearby 104(?) pin 0.5mm pitch QFP, the lack of responsiveness doesn't really surprise me. If anyone on the list happens to have an unhappy 30GB Quantum drive, I'd be interested in its board. The P/N on the lid sticker is an LM30A011. Worst case, if I can find another similar drive and a scan of the area of the board near the LED on an intact drive of the same model, I can probably harvest a replacement chip and some SMT resistors and transplant them. The damaged chip in question is badged Lucent/Quantum, P/N "MS24C13 34". There's no horrible noises from the HDA - typical spin-up/spin-down noises, so I think there may be a chance to get at this drive, if I can repair/replace the board. Yes, I know that drives are cheap these days - I would just like to get at what's on this one. Naturally, the other drives in the box, including the blank 18GB workstation drives, are fine... only my boot drive gets dinged. :-/ Thanks, -ethan From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 16 02:11:17 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:11:17 +0000 Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, In-Reply-To: <20070116002720.47735.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 16/1/07 00:27, "Chris M" wrote: >> control) and 3 more on the disk controller. Oh, the >> disk data >> encoder/decoder is very simillar to that in, say,. a >> Commodore 8050. > > I lift the hood on mine and shut it real quick! It's > insides are the scariest looking thing I've seen in a > while! And that's just the disk controller :) The real insides are underneath the floppies... > If you want to make copies and mail them to me, I'll > scan and post them on my site...if I ever set it up!, > and/or forward them to other interested parties. Ditto. I really need to flesh out my Sirius 1/V9000 page since there's not much info and one not-very-clear picture up atm. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 16 02:15:16 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:15:16 +0000 Subject: Victor 9000 archive In-Reply-To: <842391.48674.qm@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 16/1/07 00:31, "Chris M" wrote: > http://www.issue.org.uk/ > > Loads and loads and loads of V9K stuph. You'll be like > a kid w/a Vic9K in a candy store. > > be sure and read the "personal note". Lesson: don't piss off the dutch authorities. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 16 02:16:25 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 08:16:25 +0000 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <45AC2D15.8090703@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 16/1/07 01:40, "Sridhar Ayengar" wrote: >> I wonder if it's just something about the m76 that NetBSD is >> particularly unhappy about. > > I have two /76's. I used to run NetBSD on my VAXen, but I stopped after > I discovered the joys of VAXclustering. My /76's run VMS just like a dream. It's almost like they were *designed* to run that particular OS :o) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From classiccmp at discordance.org.uk Tue Jan 16 03:49:27 2007 From: classiccmp at discordance.org.uk (Adrian Burgess) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:49:27 +0000 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <006b01c73779$0692e850$b504010a@uatempname> References: <006b01c73779$0692e850$b504010a@uatempname> Message-ID: <20070116094926.GC5856@discordance.org.uk> On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 01:12:11AM -0000, arcarlini at iee.org wrote: > > The wiring inside the VAXstation 3100-76 may well be "non-standard", > but the external connector works perfectly well with any SCSI > cable which physically connects. I'm a bit confused. I've got an M76 which I'd love to install a later version of VMS on (it's currently on 5.5), but everything I've read has said that the external SCSI connector is DEC-specific and needs a DEC BC09J cable to attach normal SCSI devices to (a cable which I've not yet found at a reasonable price). Is this not the case? From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Tue Jan 16 11:03:57 2007 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:03:57 -0800 Subject: Looking for board for 30GB Quantum Fireball Plus LM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have a 30GB Quantum that I was planning to replace with a 70GB drive. I'll check the model number to see if its a match. I probably won't get around to pulling it till the first of the month though (proposal deadline Jan 30). Let me know if you don't find one before then. On 1/15/07, Ethan Dicks wrote: > While the drive is not strictly on-topic, the contents are - I have a > 30GB Quantum drive that did not survive the rigors of the APO mail > system. I have to admit I was in a bit of a hurry on my way out of > Pole and while virtually all of my stuff survived travelling 12,000 > miles in the mail system, something must have shifted in my box of > hard drives and some of the components on the bottom of the drive are > damaged and missing. Sufficient packing materials are hard to come by > at the Pole, and I was counting on double-boxing and pink bubble wrap > to be enough - it obviously wasn't. I think a neighboring drive must > have shifted and rubbed on the circuit board of this one, causing a > patch of visible component damage. > > The drive itself does spin up, and gives the expected pattern of > blinks on its lone LED, but the machine does not see it. Given that > there are 3 missing resistors of a size smaller than an 805 package > (don't know the names of the really wee parts) and a few bent pins on > a nearby 104(?) pin 0.5mm pitch QFP, the lack of responsiveness > doesn't really surprise me. > > If anyone on the list happens to have an unhappy 30GB Quantum drive, > I'd be interested in its board. The P/N on the lid sticker is an > LM30A011. > > Worst case, if I can find another similar drive and a scan of the area > of the board near the LED on an intact drive of the same model, I can > probably harvest a replacement chip and some SMT resistors and > transplant them. The damaged chip in question is badged > Lucent/Quantum, P/N "MS24C13 34". > > There's no horrible noises from the HDA - typical spin-up/spin-down > noises, so I think there may be a chance to get at this drive, if I > can repair/replace the board. Yes, I know that drives are cheap these > days - I would just like to get at what's on this one. > > Naturally, the other drives in the box, including the blank 18GB > workstation drives, are fine... only my boot drive gets dinged. :-/ > > Thanks, > > -ethan > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 11:36:21 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:36:21 -0500 Subject: Looking for board for 30GB Quantum Fireball Plus LM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/16/07, Eric J Korpela wrote: > I have a 30GB Quantum that I was planning to replace with a 70GB > drive. I'll check the model number to see if its a match. I probably > won't get around to pulling it till the first of the month though > (proposal deadline Jan 30). Let me know if you don't find one before > then. OK. Thanks much. -ethan From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 16 12:20:20 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:20:20 +0000 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <20070116094926.GC5856@discordance.org.uk> Message-ID: On 16/1/07 09:49, "Adrian Burgess" wrote: > On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 01:12:11AM -0000, arcarlini at iee.org wrote: >> >> The wiring inside the VAXstation 3100-76 may well be "non-standard", >> but the external connector works perfectly well with any SCSI >> cable which physically connects. > > I'm a bit confused. I've got an M76 which I'd love to install a later > version of VMS on (it's currently on 5.5), but everything I've read has said > that the external SCSI connector is DEC-specific and needs a DEC BC09J cable > to attach normal SCSI devices to (a cable which I've not yet found at a > reasonable price). Is this not the case? VAXstations have an external 68-way male connector as standard, the OP's machine has had this retrofitted (badly?) with an HD50 instead. If I had easy access to my M78 I could try swapping the internal cable with something that terminates in a 'standard'* SCSI-1 centronics** connector since I'm pretty sure they both terminate in headers on the motherboard, but something is nagging at me that the thinner VAXstations (similar to an Infoserver150) had the external connector on the main internal bus wiring? *yeah I know, plenty to choose from etc :) **I know it's not its real name, I can't remember what it really is..... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Tue Jan 16 13:59:00 2007 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:59:00 +0000 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <200701161802.l0GI0w43062082@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701161802.l0GI0w43062082@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: > >> 1) To prevent one process overwriting the memory belonging to another >> process. >> Segments did not HAVE to be 64k, that was their maximum size, the >> minimum >> was 128 bytes. >> 2) To provide virtual memory. >> 3) To protect the executive from processes. >> 4) To allow non contiguous physical address space to appear as a >> logical contiguous address space >> 5) To provide mapping out of faulty blocks of memory >> and probably as many reasons I have not thought of off the top of my >> head. > > Consider the time this was introduced. It was a $5K personal > computer from 1982 whose base configuration was 2 floppies and no > hard disk. Just about any of the above was probably held to be > superfluous by most manufacturers in that context. Well OK 5k dollars is not much, but in January the following year for 10k, Apple's Lisa had several of the above, though I have to admit I have seen some spectacular crashes as it was possible to corrupt the sound buffers and also to seriously derange the CRT scanning. The compiler generated some strange code to 'touch' the new top of stack on subroutine entry so the OS could allocate all the extra space in one go rather than in little bits. One enterprising British software house even got Unix running on a Lisa with the (then) optional 5MB profile hard disk. It wasn't C.A.P. but one of the other big ones of the time. Before I left Marconi in 1980, we had at least one Z8010, but I don't know what date they became commercially available. Fitting one might well have saved Olivetti money, depending on unit price of course. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 16 14:51:24 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:51:24 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: References: <200701161802.l0GI0w43062082@dewey.classiccmp.org>, Message-ID: <45ACCA4C.31809.17946C7B@cclist.sydex.com> On 16 Jan 2007 at 19:59, Roger Holmes wrote: > Well OK 5k dollars is not much, but in January the following year for > 10k, Apple's Lisa had several of the above, though I have to admit I > have seen some spectacular crashes as it was possible to corrupt the > sound buffers and also to seriously derange the CRT scanning. The > compiler generated some strange code to 'touch' the new top of stack > on subroutine entry so the OS could allocate all the extra space in > one go rather than in little bits. One enterprising British software > house even got Unix running on a Lisa with the (then) optional 5MB > profile hard disk. It wasn't C.A.P. but one of the other big ones of > the time. The reason I mention this is because around 1981 I was working with early steppings of the 80286. Microsoft had most of the code for Xenix ported, but for the kernel--which they pretty much left to Intel. Oddly, the system in the lab we were working with for our own software was an Onyx box running, I think, V7 on a Z8000. Consider how long it was after 1981 that the 80286 on the PeeCee platform was running virtual memory tasks. Doubtless the folks at Olivetti knew about the Onyx box and decided to take a more modest approach and create a desktop "Personal Computer". The Lisa sold for twice the price of an M20 and contained quite a bit more hardware. Categorizing the memory management as "virtual" is perhaps stretching a term. A Lisa program had to "advise" the 68K that it was going to use a physical address (i.e. you couldn't just invent an address and use any old instruction to access it-- instructions on a single-CPU 68K weren't restartable after a fault). So perhaps the memory was a bit more than "real physical" and less than "virtual". As an interesting aside, the operation I was with at about the same time as the Lisa was being trotted out was looking to expand a bit and needed something to supplement the VAX 11/750 that was our workhorse. Since we didn't need another 750, I lobbied for a 730, but one of the other founders lobbied hard for a Plexus 68K box. I recall meeting with the Plexus sales guy and hearing him tell me that they were working on virtual memory for their System III port. I called him a liar and said that the 68000 was incapable of true VM. I lost the battle and our firm bought the Plexus. It was an incredibly slow waste of money. For the M20's price point and market positioning, I really think that an MMU would have been a waste of resources--and could well have been a budget-buster. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 16 15:02:38 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:02:38 -0800 Subject: Jumpers for a GSI 2.88MB floppy card Message-ID: <45ACCCEE.28925.179EB749@cclist.sydex.com> This is a little ISA card (made in USA!) with a separate 34-pin header for a 2.88MB floppy drive. There's a sticker marked "1133-11- 04-9 Model 11". There's a row of jumpers labeled 'B1 B2 B3 B4 PR SE". Anyone got the jumper settings for this thing? I think that PR=primary and SE=secondary and that B1-B4 may be drive types, but confirmation might save some work. Thanks, Chuck From sethm at loomcom.com Tue Jan 16 15:10:50 2007 From: sethm at loomcom.com (Seth J. Morabito) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:10:50 -0800 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <20070116094926.GC5856@discordance.org.uk> References: <006b01c73779$0692e850$b504010a@uatempname> <20070116094926.GC5856@discordance.org.uk> Message-ID: <20070116211050.GA20129@motherbrain.retronet.net> On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 09:49:27AM +0000, Adrian Burgess wrote: > On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 01:12:11AM -0000, arcarlini at iee.org wrote: > > > > The wiring inside the VAXstation 3100-76 may well be "non-standard", > > but the external connector works perfectly well with any SCSI > > cable which physically connects. > > I'm a bit confused. I've got an M76 which I'd love to install a later > version of VMS on (it's currently on 5.5), but everything I've read has said > that the external SCSI connector is DEC-specific and needs a DEC BC09J cable > to attach normal SCSI devices to (a cable which I've not yet found at a > reasonable price). Is this not the case? The 68-pin connector on these is NOT standard, and definitely NOT SCSI-III. You can use either a BC09J-xx or a BC56H-xx cable. The -xx at the end specifies the cable length (i.e. -03 for three foot, -06 for six foot, -10 for ten foot, etc.) The BC09J has an angled 50 pin connector on one end, and the straight 68-pin female connector on the other. The BC56H has a straight 50 pin connector on one end, and a straight 68-pin female connector on the other. Only DEC made these cables as far as I'm aware. I have five of them, and I hoard them jealously, like some sort of bejeweled sacred hoardable thing. (OK, well maybe they're not THAT rare. You can get them on eBay frequently for around $15 to $20.) -Seth From sethm at loomcom.com Tue Jan 16 15:14:42 2007 From: sethm at loomcom.com (Seth J. Morabito) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:14:42 -0800 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <45AC2D15.8090703@gmail.com> References: <649102ba5d00816bffee5e1f7df6a424@valleyimplants.com> <20070114101041.GA13037@motherbrain.retronet.net> <45AC2D15.8090703@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070116211442.GB20129@motherbrain.retronet.net> On Mon, Jan 15, 2007 at 08:40:37PM -0500, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Seth J. Morabito wrote: > >I wonder if it's just something about the m76 that NetBSD is > >particularly unhappy about. > > I have two /76's. I used to run NetBSD on my VAXen, but I stopped after > I discovered the joys of VAXclustering. My /76's run VMS just like a dream. They do run VMS quite well! My only complaint is that my /76 is very picky about drive brands, and it's getting very difficult to find < 2GB SCSI drives these days (at least for reasonable prices). (Wish I'd had the forethought to snag a few pallettes of 500MB, 1GB, and 2GB SCSI drives back in the '98 to '01 timeframe! Seems like everyone was just giving them away back then.) > Peace... Sridhar -Seth From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 16 15:29:23 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:29:23 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Victor 9000 boot floppy, In-Reply-To: <20070116002720.47735.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jan 15, 7 04:27:20 pm Message-ID: > I lift the hood on mine and shut it real quick! It's > insides are the scariest looking thing I've seen in a > while! Why? It's actually very easy to dismantle, most of the time you only have to loosen (and not completely remove) the screws. I've forgotten if it's better to remove the disk drive chassis or the PSU/back panal first (if you do it in the wrong order) you have to remove, not just loosen, a screw that links those 2 sections). But the machine will split ito the PSU, mainboard, disk drive mechanisms and disk controller PCB quite quickly. And there's nothting that scared me when I looked inside mine. It's all standard chips (apart from the ROMs) -- chips I could identify, get data on, etc. > > > It would take me a little time to find the diagrams, > > and as ever I don't > > have a scanner, but if there's interest, I'll go > > digging and post > > whatever info I can. > > If you want to make copies and mail them to me, I'll > scan and post them on my site...if I ever set it up!, > and/or forward them to other interested parties. Nest job, thenm is to find them... -tony From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Jan 16 16:40:44 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:40:44 -0000 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <20070116211050.GA20129@motherbrain.retronet.net> Message-ID: <002f01c739bf$5d475080$c204010a@uatempname> Seth J. Morabito wrote: > The 68-pin connector on these is NOT standard, and definitely NOT > SCSI-III. There are non-DEC machines around that use the MicroD68 (or is it Honda68) connector ... is it just the gender that makes you say it is non-standard? Or do you believe that the DEC pin-out does not match the SCSI-2 pinout? (I cannot claimn for sure that it does since the M76 may have come out before SCSI-2 ... the engineering spec for the KA43 (system board used in the M76) is dated 16-Oct-1990 but I don't have the date of the SCSI-2 spec to hand. Either way, I pretty sure that the M76 SCSI is SCSI-1. Have you tried connecting one of those 68-pin-to-50-pin SCSI converters on it to see whether a device will work? This page http://www.phm.lu/documentation/connectors/SCSI.asp has the various pinouts so if you have a BC09J to hand you can buzz it out and see whether things are as expected or not. (My desktop VAX is a VS4000-90, which went back to the 50-way connectors on the back so I don't have a BC09J to hand. According to the cable guide I have, the BC56H (equiv to a BC09J but straight rather than 90 degrees ... or vice versa) is also used on the Decstation 2100/3100 and the InfoServer tower (whose part number I don't know). So it is not unique to this box. Antonio From christer at a-son.net Tue Jan 16 16:42:52 2007 From: christer at a-son.net (Christer O. Andersson) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 23:42:52 +0100 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <002f01c739bf$5d475080$c204010a@uatempname> References: <20070116211050.GA20129@motherbrain.retronet.net> <002f01c739bf$5d475080$c204010a@uatempname> Message-ID: <20070116224252.GD29983@bass.mejeriet.home> On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 10:40:44PM -0000, arcarlini at iee.org wrote: > Seth J. Morabito wrote: > > > The 68-pin connector on these is NOT standard, and definitely NOT > > SCSI-III. > > According to the cable guide I have, the BC56H (equiv to > a BC09J but straight rather than 90 degrees ... or vice > versa) is also used on the Decstation 2100/3100 and > the InfoServer tower (whose part number I don't know). > So it is not unique to this box. > Maybe this will help? http://ce.et.tudelft.nl/~knop/cables/DEC_SCSI.html -- Christer O. Andersson Odensbacken From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 16 17:06:27 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 23:06:27 +0000 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <002f01c739bf$5d475080$c204010a@uatempname> Message-ID: On 16/1/07 22:40, "arcarlini at iee.org" wrote: > spec for the KA43 (system board used in the M76) is dated 16-Oct-1990 > but I don't have the date of the SCSI-2 spec to hand. Either way, > I pretty sure that the M76 SCSI is SCSI-1. Oh yes, didn't MicroVAXen of that era leap from SCSI-1 in the 3100-10 etc upwards to UltraSCSI in the 4100-108? I don't ever remember putting SCSI-2 disks in those machines even in the mid 90s - SCSI-2 and wide SCSI stuff was always on AlphaServers, though I'm pretty sure a KZ-style adapter was available for the 3100-8x and 9x later on. > versa) is also used on the Decstation 2100/3100 and > the InfoServer tower (whose part number I don't know). > So it is not unique to this box. I thought it was all the 'thin' style 3100s, same size as the 3100-10 and 20, M76 etc.....all of mine are at work so I can't easily check till tomorrow. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From jos.dreesen at bluewin.ch Tue Jan 16 15:09:47 2007 From: jos.dreesen at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:09:47 +0100 Subject: Datapoint 2200 software ? Message-ID: <45AD3F1B.9010402@bluewin.ch> Does anyone know of software repositories for the Datapoint 2200 I or II machines ? Jos Dreesen From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 16 18:44:27 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:44:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45A55C03.8030600@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <611396.41540.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> > Fred Cisin wrote: > > Remember that "boot" is short for "bootstrap". > > The relevance of THAT goes back to Baron Von > Munchausen. > > The good baron, although oft accused of > exaggeration, told many tales of > > his travels. One time, he was stuck in a swamp, > and sinking fast. There > > was nothing overhead to grab, and nothing solid on > any side. So, he > > reached down, grabbed the straps of his boots, and > lifted himself out of > > it. hmmm. So bootstrapping has nothing to do with getting on a horse? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Finding fabulous fares is fun. Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 16 19:48:16 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 17:48:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <611396.41540.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> References: <611396.41540.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070116165528.G38912@shell.lmi.net> > > Fred Cisin wrote: > > > Remember that "boot" is short for "bootstrap". The relevance of THAT > > > goes back to Baron Von Munchausen. The good baron, although oft > > > accused of exaggeration, told many tales of his travels. One time, > > > he was stuck in a swamp, and sinking fast. There was nothing > > > overhead to grab, and nothing solid on any side. So, he reached > > > down, grabbed the straps of his boots, and lifted himself out of it. On Tue, 16 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > hmmm. So bootstrapping has nothing to do with getting > on a horse? Not unless you lift yourself by your bootstraps to do it. It is obviously a physical impossibility, just like using the operating system functions that are available once the OS is loaded, for loading the operating system. "To bootstrap" also shows that verbizing nouns has been around for quite a while. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jan 16 20:08:30 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:08:30 -0800 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD Message-ID: <96e6b3ca48426bcb686589078e8b5b42@valleyimplants.com> > Adrian wrote > On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 01:12:11AM -0000, arcarlini at iee.org wrote: >> >> The wiring inside the VAXstation 3100-76 may well be "non-standard", >> but the external connector works perfectly well with any SCSI >> cable which physically connects. > > I'm a bit confused. I've got an M76 which I'd love to install a later > version of VMS on (it's currently on 5.5), but everything I've read > has said > that the external SCSI connector is DEC-specific and needs a DEC BC09J > cable > to attach normal SCSI devices to (a cable which I've not yet found at a > reasonable price). Is this not the case? The connector is proprietary to DEC (same one as used in the DECstations), but the SCSI that comes out of it is standard. Since that particular connector hasn't been picked up by anyone else (in that particular sex)- yes, any SCSI cable that physically connects will work. On mine I just pull the lid and connect up whatever I need to the internal bus, although I do have an InfoServer... hmm, possibilities that don't require a screwdriver. From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 20:19:14 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:19:14 -0500 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <002f01c739bf$5d475080$c204010a@uatempname> References: <002f01c739bf$5d475080$c204010a@uatempname> Message-ID: <45AD87A2.7000007@gmail.com> arcarlini at iee.org wrote: > According to the cable guide I have, the BC56H (equiv to > a BC09J but straight rather than 90 degrees ... or vice > versa) is also used on the Decstation 2100/3100 and > the InfoServer tower (whose part number I don't know). > So it is not unique to this box. That cable is compatible with the DECstation 2100/3100/(5100?), but not with the InfoServer tower. It is compatible with the InfoServer *desktop* (100 or 150) which is basically a VAXstation 3100 with an internal CD-ROM and custom firmware. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 20:20:44 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:20:44 -0500 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45AD87FC.6020207@gmail.com> Adrian Graham wrote: > On 16/1/07 22:40, "arcarlini at iee.org" wrote: > >> spec for the KA43 (system board used in the M76) is dated 16-Oct-1990 >> but I don't have the date of the SCSI-2 spec to hand. Either way, >> I pretty sure that the M76 SCSI is SCSI-1. > > Oh yes, didn't MicroVAXen of that era leap from SCSI-1 in the 3100-10 etc > upwards to UltraSCSI in the 4100-108? I don't ever remember putting SCSI-2 > disks in those machines even in the mid 90s - SCSI-2 and wide SCSI stuff was > always on AlphaServers, though I'm pretty sure a KZ-style adapter was > available for the 3100-8x and 9x later on. There were slots in the MicroVAX 3100-9x? What kind? I've never seen this machine in the wild. I knew that there's a TurboChannel option for the VAXstation 4000/90. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 20:40:01 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:40:01 -0500 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070116165528.G38912@shell.lmi.net> References: <611396.41540.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> <20070116165528.G38912@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45AD8C81.7070704@gmail.com> Fred Cisin wrote: >>> Fred Cisin wrote: >>>> Remember that "boot" is short for "bootstrap". The relevance of THAT >>>> goes back to Baron Von Munchausen. The good baron, although oft >>>> accused of exaggeration, told many tales of his travels. One time, >>>> he was stuck in a swamp, and sinking fast. There was nothing >>>> overhead to grab, and nothing solid on any side. So, he reached >>>> down, grabbed the straps of his boots, and lifted himself out of it. > > On Tue, 16 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: >> hmmm. So bootstrapping has nothing to do with getting >> on a horse? > > Not unless you lift yourself by your bootstraps to do it. > It is obviously a physical impossibility, just like using the operating > system functions that are available once the OS is loaded, for loading the > operating system. > > > "To bootstrap" also shows that verbizing nouns has been around for quite a > while. All nouns can be verbed. For example, "All nouns can be verbed." Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 16 20:49:36 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:49:36 -0800 Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45AD8C81.7070704@gmail.com> References: <611396.41540.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com>, <20070116165528.G38912@shell.lmi.net>, <45AD8C81.7070704@gmail.com> Message-ID: <45AD1E40.26903.18DC5F2F@cclist.sydex.com> On 16 Jan 2007 at 21:40, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > All nouns can be verbed. > > For example, "All nouns can be verbed." And, correspondingly: "You must be talking about the verbation of nouns." Cheers, Chuck From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jan 16 21:03:34 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 19:03:34 -0800 Subject: Olivetti M20 In-Reply-To: <45ACCA4C.31809.17946C7B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" ---snip--- > >For the M20's price point and market positioning, I really think that >an MMU would have been a waste of resources--and could well have been >a budget-buster. > >Cheers, >Chuck > Hi For the purpose that I can see that Olivetti used a ROM, I think it was the right choice. For the most part it was related to logical to physical mapping. They used a portion of the physical memory for the video memory. This was a 16K block for B/W but it required up to 3 blocks for color. They could configure for 2, 4 or 8 colors. To do more than one color, required expansion memory cards with parallel to serial registers to send the video information to the video controller chip. The ROM could be quickly setup with jumpers for what ever combination of memory that was needed. This simplifies the need to have additional software to configure the system. They also use the ROM to create windows in memory that had the data memory mapped different than the instruction memory. This allowed the processor to access 128K while staying within a single segment. For applications that ran in non-segmented mode, this allows a better use of memory while taking advantage of the smaller code size of non-segmented code. While both of these could have been done with a MMU, it would have been over kill for a desk top machine. They did make some larger machines with Z8000's. I would guess that because of the type of machine these were, they would be expected to have MMU's. These were called the M30 and M40. I've only seen a picture of the M30. It was a half height rack setup. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Fixing up the home? Live Search can help http://imagine-windowslive.com/search/kits/default.aspx?kit=improve&locale=en-US&source=hmemailtaglinenov06&FORM=WLMTAG From frustum at pacbell.net Tue Jan 16 21:31:15 2007 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:31:15 -0600 Subject: Datapoint 2200 software ? In-Reply-To: <45AD3F1B.9010402@bluewin.ch> References: <45AD3F1B.9010402@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <45AD9883.3050501@pacbell.net> Jos Dreesen wrote: > Does anyone know of software repositories for the Datapoint 2200 I or > II machines ? > Jos Dreesen Al Kossow has some tapes, and he recorded them (432 MB of aiff files). I made a stab at writing a software decoder. I could recover most of the files, but I had to tweak my algorithm for specific files. Other things then distracted me and I haven't gone back to it. One problem I had was that the tape slows down and speeds up as it stops between each block. The simple-minded decoder uses a PLL to track frequency variation, but it sometimes gets confused during those transitions. My intent was to add some logic to notice these transitions and to automatically ignore them. But I lost interest before that happened. It would be really great if someone wrote an emulation for the datapoint machines; it would then be more motivation to dig up and prepare software. Jos, I can send you a zip file of what I have. Al, I promised to clean this up and send it to you, but I just don't know when I'll have time to clean it up, so I'll mail it to you. From rescue at hawkmountain.net Tue Jan 16 21:54:35 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:54:35 -0500 Subject: CMD QBUS SCSI Message-ID: <45AD9DFB.6000007@hawkmountain.net> I found the manual for CMD 220 on bitsavers... along with a txt file for the 220A/TM (which is what I have). Couple of things: 1. Does anyone have the full manual digitized (or a hard copy you don't want anymore) that covers the 220A (to be exact, CQD-BV220A/TM) ? 2. In the txt file, it has (formatting neatend... (for fixed point font anyway)): W1 OUT Reserved (F) W2 IN SCSI terminator power enabled (F) W3 OUT Reserved (F) W4 1-2 IN Eprom Size 512-Kbit or 1-Mbit (F) W5 OUT 0 Wait State for Eprom Cycles (F) W6-1 OUT Adaptive DMA enabled (F) W6-2 OUT Adaptive DMA Dwell Time enabled (F) W6-4 W6-5 IN IN 0.8-ms DMA dwell time OUT IN 1.6-ms DMA dwell time IN OUT 3.2-ms DMA dwell time OUT OUT 6.4-ms DMA dwell time W6-5 OUT Block mode DMA enabled (F) W6-6 W6-7 Auto-Boot for LSI-11 systems without Boot Roms OUT IN Auto-Bootstrap address = 773000 IN IN Auto-Bootstrap address = 771000 OUT OUT Auto-Bootstrap disabled (F) IN OUT Auto-Bootstrap address = 775000 W6-8 IN Reserved (F) The W6-4, W6-5 pair I believe should be labelled W6-3, W6-4, as W6-5 is documented twice ... and W6-3 is not documented. Anyone know if my belief/assumption is correct ? Anyone know what DMA dwell time should be used in a PDP11/83 ? Should this board be closest to the CPU, or furthest in a an 11/83 ? Thanks in advance, -- Curt From evan at snarc.net Tue Jan 16 22:44:45 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 23:44:45 -0500 Subject: Draper article in Wall Street Journal Message-ID: <000601c739f2$36518710$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116863379291775523-_EQCu93LyjSommsN6J 7qiCozuu8_20070122.html?mod=blogs TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/y8vquk I met the article's author at VCF 9. That is the Apple event he refers to in paragraph #8. From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Jan 17 01:07:30 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 07:07:30 -0000 Subject: VAXstation 3100/76 configured as VAXserver and NetBSD In-Reply-To: <45AD87FC.6020207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <003d01c73a06$287af4f0$c204010a@uatempname> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > There were slots in the MicroVAX 3100-9x? What kind? I've never seen > this machine in the wild. > > I knew that there's a TurboChannel option for the VAXstation 4000/90. IIRC the MicroVAX 3100-98, VAX 4000-108 and MicroVAX 3100-88 all shipped in PC-style cases. They had an internal slot or two. These looked like PCI connectors but were in fact more or less the same as the option connectors on the other (more traditional) MicroVAX 3100-9x systems. Used to connect the DSW43 synch adapter and maybe a few other options that I've forgotten. Antonio From iamvirtual at gmail.com Tue Jan 16 22:41:01 2007 From: iamvirtual at gmail.com (B M) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 21:41:01 -0700 Subject: Motorola chips Message-ID: <2645f9870701162041m6a52343fx9978b5332590d2c2@mail.gmail.com> I am trying to identify 3 Motorola chips. I searched on the 'net, but I didn't come up with anything. The markings are SCM10071L SCM10072L SCM10073L The chips were produced in mid 1973 and early 1974. All three chips are ceramic and have 28 pins. Thanks for any information you can supply. --barry From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 01:45:22 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:45:22 -0500 Subject: Motorola chips In-Reply-To: <2645f9870701162041m6a52343fx9978b5332590d2c2@mail.gmail.com> References: <2645f9870701162041m6a52343fx9978b5332590d2c2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > I am trying to identify 3 Motorola chips. I searched on the 'net, but > I didn't come up with anything. > > The markings are > SCM10071L > SCM10072L > SCM10073L Dimes to donuts those are mask ROMs. Custom Motorola parts are prefixed by SC, not MC. They also like to make the third character M when the device is for memory. -- Will From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jan 17 02:04:57 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:04:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Draper article in Wall Street Journal In-Reply-To: <000601c739f2$36518710$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000601c739f2$36518710$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Jan 2007, Evan Koblentz wrote: > http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116863379291775523-_EQCu93LyjSommsN6J > 7qiCozuu8_20070122.html?mod=blogs > > TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/y8vquk > > I met the article's author at VCF 9. That is the Apple event he refers to > in paragraph #8. Is Draper the kind of person who would accept a stipend from one of the two Steves? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 17 07:34:00 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 8:34:00 -0500 Subject: Draper article in Wall Street Journal Message-ID: <200701171334.l0HDYoU1038186@keith.ezwind.net> The article covers that point. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 17 10:49:25 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 08:49:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070116165528.G38912@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <585904.20830.qm@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > Not unless you lift yourself by your bootstraps to > do it. > It is obviously a physical impossibility, just like > using the operating > system functions that are available once the OS is > loaded, for loading the > operating system. Oi. The code that's embedded in the system rom, which is usually invoked by an "INT" is there whether the OS is loaded or not, no? My point was all the facilities for formatting tracks, and reading and writing individual sectors is present there. A very simple program is required to copy the contents of a disk in a: to a disk in b:. I remember doing this as an exercise when I learned assembly language. Under 20 lines iirc, and I did it w/debug. Therefore what would be the problem of having the post, instead of handing off control to bootstrap code, execute a snippet of code which formats a disk, then copies the contents of another disk to it. Of course this would require a V9000 to have the ability to natively read a vanilla IBM format. And of course you'd need to add the code to a custom eprom. In theory it should work. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Need a quick answer? Get one in minutes from people who know. Ask your question on www.Answers.yahoo.com From feedle at feedle.net Wed Jan 17 11:00:25 2007 From: feedle at feedle.net (feedle at feedle.net) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:00:25 -0700 (MST) Subject: Draper article in Wall Street Journal In-Reply-To: References: <000601c739f2$36518710$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <3034.69.145.252.103.1169053225.squirrel@webmail.feedle.net> > Is Draper the kind of person who would accept a stipend from one of the > two Steves? It is my understanding that at one point he was living in a guest room at Woz' house for about a year (this was probably ten years ago now). And, I also understand that Woz regularly "fixes financial problems" for Draper. Now, if Woz could only get the guy to bathe regularly.. that'd be something. From useddec at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 11:09:56 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:09:56 -0600 Subject: PDP8 Diags on RX01 Message-ID: <624966d60701170909r1cc5a552xdbc2366ea2215ba8@mail.gmail.com> > Does anyone have PDP8 diags on a RX01available? Thanks, Paul Anderson 217-586-5361 From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jan 17 12:31:05 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:31:05 -0500 Subject: Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20) In-Reply-To: References: <200701161802.l0GI0w43062082@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45AE6B69.7020506@arachelian.com> Roger Holmes wrote: >> > Well OK 5k dollars is not much, but in January the following year for > 10k, Apple's Lisa had several of the above, though I have to admit I > have seen some spectacular crashes as it was possible to corrupt the > sound buffers and also to seriously derange the CRT scanning. Erm, I'm not sure how this is possible as the Lisa had no sound buffers at all. All it had was a bunch of resistors hooked up to a latch in order to act as a volume control for the VIA's shift register. It beeped in the same way as the Commodore PET. That is by setting timer2 on the VIA and setting a value in the SR, then setting the ACR to loop the data in the SR. There was no sound buffer, there was no way to play anything other than beeps. Nothing is available to the OS to derange the CRT scanning. All you can do is enable interrupts on the vertical retrace, or disable said interrupts, and you can also select which 32K of memory to use as the framebuffer. That's it. > The compiler generated some strange code to 'touch' the new top of > stack on subroutine entry so the OS could allocate all the extra space > in one go rather than in little bits. One enterprising British > software house even got Unix running on a Lisa with the (then) > optional 5MB profile hard disk. It wasn't C.A.P. but one of the other > big ones of the time. There were two. Microsoft/SCO Xenix, and UniPlus. I'd love to get my hands on UniPlus, but it seems to be rare. If this was something else, it would be wonderful to get a copy of it. I'm not sure what the strange code is about, I suspect something to do with the MMU. If you'd access a page that wasn't mapped to your process, the OS would either load it from disk, or allocate more MMU pages to your process, thus getting more memory. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 17 13:05:31 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:05:31 -0600 Subject: General Automation Zebra! Message-ID: <001401c73a6a$77b9d400$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> In a prior life I owned a company that was a Pick dealer (Pick Systems, Microdata, GA, Ultimate, etc.), so all kinds of interesting Pick-related stuff still floats around the house and I rediscover things from time to time. Today one has surfaced that I thought was lost forever. My father sold his business recently and in cleaning out things he found a QIC cartridge tape I had left there for safekeeping as an off-site backup many years ago. It's a GA (General Automation) Zebra Pick OS Dealer Sysgen tape. This is a tape that was only provided to GA dealers (for dealers to replace an end-users lost or damaged boot tapes, or to sell with new systems {the licensing was in the terminal ports, not the OS}). It was an Account-Save format tape of an account called DEALER-SYSGEN. On that account was stored the monitor and ABS sections for every different system GA made. A menu ran when you logged on to the account and it asked you what system you wanted to make an OS load tape for (1700, 1750, 2820, 3820, 3000, 3500, 5500, 7820, 8830, etc.), and what tape media you want the tape created on (QIC or 1/2 mag tape). It then wrote a complete bootable tape with bootstrap, monitor, abs, and files sections for any of those systems. What a find!!! Of course, I haven't tried to read this tape, perhaps it's got some worthless datafile backup from something else on it. But it still has the original GA Zebra lable stating it's the dealer sysgen tape and the write protect is on.... so I'm hopeful. I happen to have a GA1750 and a GA2820 in my collection, so I'm thrilled to know that I can make new boot tapes for them now. More importantly, I can make boot tapes for any other GA Zebra system. Note that this tape is for rev 3.8, which was the last non-R91 Pick GA produced (I wasn't a fan of R91, so I'm really glad it's the pinnacle of the 3.8 train). I need to see if I can find my manual patch sheets that bring it up to 3.8T1. Anyways, if anyone has GA Zebra's in their collection and needs a new boot tape I can help you out. Now I just need to find the DEALER.ASSY account for 3.8 :) Jay West From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jan 17 13:15:30 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 14:15:30 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 Message-ID: <45AE75D2.4010606@arachelian.com> Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 By Steven Goodwin /Online on: 2007-01-05/ /(Or, how to prevent the Dark Ages of computing through free software)/ In a few years time, it will be impossible to study the history of home computers since everything at the time was proprietary; both in terms of the physical hardware, and all the software that ran upon it since most of it is encumbered by software ?protection? to prevent copying. To compound the problem, the hardware is dying (literally) and (being proprietary) can?t be rebuilt in any equivalent manner. In some cases the software is physically disintegrating too since, in the case of many 8-bit micros from the 1980?s, the storage medium was cassette tape; a temperamental mechanism at the time, let alone now. It?s not that no computer innovation took place in the 1980?s, just that none of it will be recorded. http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/digital_archaeology_of_the_microcomputer_1974-1994 From ak6dn at mindspring.com Wed Jan 17 13:22:18 2007 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:22:18 -0800 Subject: Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20) In-Reply-To: <45AE6B69.7020506@arachelian.com> References: <200701161802.l0GI0w43062082@dewey.classiccmp.org> <45AE6B69.7020506@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <45AE776A.3020606@mindspring.com> Ray Arachelian wrote: > Roger Holmes wrote: >> The compiler generated some strange code to 'touch' the new top of >> stack on subroutine entry so the OS could allocate all the extra space >> in one go rather than in little bits. One enterprising British >> software house even got Unix running on a Lisa with the (then) >> optional 5MB profile hard disk. It wasn't C.A.P. but one of the other >> big ones of the time. > There were two. Microsoft/SCO Xenix, and UniPlus. I'd love to get my > hands on UniPlus, but it seems to be rare. If this was something else, > it would be wonderful to get a copy of it. > > I'm not sure what the strange code is about, I suspect something to do > with the MMU. If you'd access a page that wasn't mapped to your > process, the OS would either load it from disk, or allocate more MMU > pages to your process, thus getting more memory. > Lisa (and Macintosh) used the original 68000 which was not capable of recovering from an arbitrary access (page) fault in the middle of an instruction (the updated 68010 fixed this, but Apple never used it). The 68000 did lot leave enough info on the fault stack to indicate which memory access within an instruction faulted, and which registers might have been auto-incremented/decremented. On the Lisa all accesses to memory that was not previously known to be memory resident used a probe instruction (a TST.W (A0), IIRC) that only did one memory access and did not alter the registers. Lisa was a segmented memory architecture, not demand paged, so the overhead was not too great. Stack extension also used this probe IIRC. From g-wright at att.net Wed Jan 17 13:28:05 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:28:05 +0000 Subject: General Automation Zebra! Message-ID: <011720071928.23837.45AE78C50002DEE400005D1D21603763169B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: "Jay West" > In a prior life I owned a company that was a Pick dealer (Pick Systems, > Microdata, GA, Ultimate, etc.), so all kinds of interesting Pick-related > stuff still floats around the house and I rediscover things from time to > time. Today one has surfaced that I thought was lost forever. My father sold > his business recently and in cleaning out things he found a QIC cartridge > tape I had left there for safekeeping as an off-site backup many years ago. > > It's a GA (General Automation) Zebra Pick OS Dealer Sysgen tape. This is a > tape that was only provided to GA dealers (for dealers to replace an > end-users lost or damaged boot tapes, or to sell with new systems {the > licensing was in the terminal ports, not the OS}). It was an Account-Save > format tape of an account called DEALER-SYSGEN. On that account was stored > the monitor and ABS sections for every different system GA made. A menu ran > when you logged on to the account and it asked you what system you wanted to > make an OS load tape for (1700, 1750, 2820, 3820, 3000, 3500, 5500, 7820, > 8830, etc.), and what tape media you want the tape created on (QIC or 1/2 > mag tape). It then wrote a complete bootable tape with bootstrap, monitor, > abs, and files sections for any of those systems. What a find!!! Of course, > I haven't tried to read this tape, perhaps it's got some worthless datafile > backup from something else on it. But it still has the original GA Zebra > lable stating it's the dealer sysgen tape and the write protect is on.... so > I'm hopeful. > > I happen to have a GA1750 and a GA2820 in my collection, so I'm thrilled to > know that I can make new boot tapes for them now. More importantly, I can > make boot tapes for any other GA Zebra system. Note that this tape is for > rev 3.8, which was the last non-R91 Pick GA produced (I wasn't a fan of R91, > so I'm really glad it's the pinnacle of the 3.8 train). I need to see if I > can find my manual patch sheets that bring it up to 3.8T1. > > Anyways, if anyone has GA Zebra's in their collection and needs a new boot > tape I can help you out. Now I just need to find the DEALER.ASSY account for > 3.8 :) > > Jay West > > > > Hi Jay My Zebra says 2510 on the botton sticker if I remember correctly has a 8" drive and a Qic Tape. Still Boots pick OS. I have the same tape you have but did not know how to to use it. My machine model did not show up on the label of the tape either. Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc. g-wright at att.net From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Jan 17 13:43:44 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 14:43:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AE75D2.4010606@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <20070117194344.74358585A6@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Ray Arachelian > > > Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 > > By Steven Goodwin > > /Online on: 2007-01-05/ > > /(Or, how to prevent the Dark Ages of computing through free software)/ > > In a few years time, it will be impossible to study the history of home > computers since everything at the time was proprietary; both in terms of > the physical hardware, and all the software that ran upon it since most > of it is encumbered by software ???protection??? to prevent copying. > > To compound the problem, the hardware is dying (literally) and (being > proprietary) can???t be rebuilt in any equivalent manner. In some cases > the software is physically disintegrating too since, in the case of many > 8-bit micros from the 1980???s, the storage medium was cassette tape; a > temperamental mechanism at the time, let alone now. It???s not that no > computer innovation took place in the 1980???s, just that none of it will > be recorded. It sounds like he is implying in his article that nothing is being done to preserve software.. TOSEC (The Old School Emulation Center @ http://www.tosec.info ) is one place that is doing a very good job... Cheers, Bryan From marvin at rain.org Wed Jan 17 13:48:31 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:48:31 -0800 Subject: Draper article in Wall Street Journal References: <45AE6D72.68AA6380@rain.org> <45AE7AEA.5060605@west.net> Message-ID: <45AE7D8F.875EFD7C@rain.org> A friend of mine who knew him gave me this URL: http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/Play/history/stories/nuke.html From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 17 13:57:34 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:57:34 -0800 Subject: Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20) In-Reply-To: <45AE776A.3020606@mindspring.com> References: <200701161802.l0GI0w43062082@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <45AE6B69.7020506@arachelian.com>, <45AE776A.3020606@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <45AE0F2E.25008.1C898097@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2007 at 11:22, Don North wrote: > Lisa (and Macintosh) used the original 68000 which was not capable of > recovering from an arbitrary access (page) fault in the middle of an > instruction (the updated 68010 fixed this, but Apple never used it). > The 68000 did lot leave enough info on the fault stack to indicate > which memory access within an instruction faulted, and which registers > might have been auto-incremented/decremented. Exactly why I said that calling the Lisa architecture "virtual memory" is misleading at best. One could not write a loop to move 2 megabytes using a simple MOVEM/SUBQ/BNE loop as if all of the memory were seamlessly continuous and present. I remember trying to make a list of 68K instructions that could be restarted, wondering if it might be possible to construct a useful subset. One of the gotchas was that the bus error handling in the 68K gave you a P-counter that was only guaranteed to be "in the vicinity" of the failing instruction. I gave up after awhile. Of course, it wasn't necessary to implement virtual memory in hardware. JRT Pascal did it--on floppy yet. (an interesting aspect of an otherwise miserable product). Cheers, Chuck > > On the Lisa all accesses to memory that was not previously known > to be memory resident used a probe instruction (a TST.W (A0), IIRC) > that only did one memory access and did not alter the registers. > Lisa was a segmented memory architecture, not demand paged, so the > overhead was not too great. Stack extension also used this probe IIRC. > > > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 17 14:04:50 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 14:04:50 -0600 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AE75D2.4010606@arachelian.com> References: <45AE75D2.4010606@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <45AE8162.4080209@yahoo.co.uk> Ray Arachelian wrote: > /(Or, how to prevent the Dark Ages of computing through free software)/ > > In a few years time, it will be impossible to study the history of home > computers since everything at the time was proprietary; both in terms of > the physical hardware, and all the software that ran upon it since most > of it is encumbered by software ?protection? to prevent copying. > > To compound the problem, the hardware is dying (literally) and (being > proprietary) can?t be rebuilt in any equivalent manner. In some cases > the software is physically disintegrating too since, in the case of many > 8-bit micros from the 1980?s, the storage medium was cassette tape; a > temperamental mechanism at the time, let alone now. It?s not that no > computer innovation took place in the 1980?s, just that none of it will > be recorded. Hmm, I'm inclined to disagree. In a few years time it will be impossible to study the *current* generation of home computers because the expected lifetime of the hardware and software is much less now, whilst the complexity has increased. Service information for modern equipment is harder to find, and the parts are far more likely to be custom anyway. Data sizes are much larger these days, making offline backups difficult for most home users. Plus there's the nostalgia factor; vintage systems had real character and required an investment of effort on the part of the user - making them more likely to be preserved. Modern systems are grey boxes that are so cheap they get thrown away for a newer model when they are no longer needed. So... I don't think there's anything like as much of a problem with vintage systems now as there will be in 20 years time with the systems of today. The article just smacks of typical "it's old, therefore it's a problem" writing to me. cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 17 14:35:24 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:35:24 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AE75D2.4010606@arachelian.com> References: <45AE75D2.4010606@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <45AE180C.28494.1CAC23DF@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2007 at 14:15, Ray Arachelian wrote: > In a few years time, it will be impossible to study the history of home > computers since everything at the time was proprietary; both in terms of > the physical hardware, and all the software that ran upon it since most > of it is encumbered by software "protection" to prevent copying. I don't buy that "most" software is encumbered by software protection- -unless the author is talking about games. Even so, much of the early software protection is easy to hack. What concerns me more is modern software that requires activation via the internet to run. When companies disappear (as they are wont to do), the user is left with no recourse. > To compound the problem, the hardware is dying (literally) and (being > proprietary) can?t be rebuilt in any equivalent manner. As Tony has pointed out, early hardware is usually far easier to repair than the modern variety. > In some cases the software is physically disintegrating too since, in > the case of many 8-bit micros from the 1980?s, the storage medium was > cassette tape; a temperamental mechanism at the time, let alone now. > It?s not that no computer innovation took place in the 1980?s, just > that none of it will be recorded. Feh. Most of the software of the 80's was written to floppy, an excellent storage medium. Give me a 20-year old 8" floppy any day to a 2-year old 1.44MB 3.5" diskette. How many 80's (not 70's) systems used cassette tape as primary storage? True, the DC-xxxx carts are starting to have problems, but in most cases, this was used as backup, not a distribution medium. In many cases, the problem is with the aging rubber in the drive, not the medium itself. I'd be more worried about the various writeable DVD types lasting 20- 30 years. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 14:53:04 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:53:04 -0700 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:35:24 -0800. <45AE180C.28494.1CAC23DF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <45AE180C.28494.1CAC23DF at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > I don't buy that "most" software is encumbered by software protection- > -unless the author is talking about games. Even so, much of the=20 > early software protection is easy to hack. What concerns me more is=20 > modern software that requires activation via the internet to run.=20 > When companies disappear (as they are wont to do), the user is left=20 > with no recourse. As with copy protection in the past, activation protection will be reverse engineered and patched out in order to keep abandonware running -- assuming people care enough to do the work. Now, what's really important is to keep the bits archived, even if they are license locked. Eventually someone may care and by then having the archived bits is what will count. > [...] True, the DC-xxxx carts are=20 > starting to have problems, but in most cases, this was used as=20 > backup, not a distribution medium. The big exception here seems to be the workstation market. QIC was used as the primary distribution medium for the ESV, for instance. > In many cases, the problem is=20 > with the aging rubber in the drive, not the medium itself. I thought people had reported problems with QIC medium recently? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 14:48:41 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:48:41 -0700 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 14:04:50 -0600. <45AE8162.4080209@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: In article <45AE8162.4080209 at yahoo.co.uk>, Jules Richardson writes: > Hmm, I'm inclined to disagree. In a few years time it will be impossible > to study the *current* generation of home computers because the expected > lifetime of the hardware and software is much less now, whilst the > complexity has increased. I disagree with your characterization of software having a short lifespan. Dusty decks from the 1950s are still with us and in use today, we just store them in a .FOR file instead of storing them in a physical card deck. Because few, if any, applications these days use machine language, software is more portable and more long-lived than ever. There are still OS and architecture dependencies that make some transitions difficult and may cause an application to be rewritten instead of modified. This may cause one lineage of the application to be abandoned. However, the gap isn't insurmountable. If you're luck you can just ditch the existing UI and write a new front end for the application as most of the big changes in platform are at the UI end. I've just spent some time since the holidays of moving the FRACTINT code base from a 16-bit DOS application circa 1990 and moved it to the Win32 environment circa 2006. There is a huge shift in the viewpoint of the application there -- a DOS app polls for IO or runs brute force at full blast ignoring any input until its ready. Some programs can't even be ^C'ed in the middle until they try to print something and if they take a long time to print something, you're at the mercy of the application unless you decide to soft boot. Contrast that with an event-driven architecture of any application built for window system (whether its MacOS, X or Win32 or even Win16 doesn't really matter). (FRACTINT v1 was released as open source software in 1988, BTW.) This all assumes everything is written in a high-level language. If your application is a 1960s or 1970s variety where large chunks of it are written in assembly, then it may simply be easier to reimplement a new version in a high-level language instead of transliterating the assembly into a HLL. It would be interesting to see a survey of software applications and their source languages over time. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 17 15:09:29 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:09:29 +0000 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AE75D2.4010606@arachelian.com> Message-ID: On 17/1/07 19:15, "Ray Arachelian" wrote: > > Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 > > By Steven Goodwin > > /Online on: 2007-01-05/ > > /(Or, how to prevent the Dark Ages of computing through free software)/ > > In a few years time, it will be impossible to study the history of home > computers since everything at the time was proprietary; both in terms of > the physical hardware, and all the software that ran upon it since most > of it is encumbered by software ?protection? to prevent copying. I love it when someone publishes an article without doing any proper research. Is he saying that no copy-protected software of the late 70s and 80s hasn't already been reverse engineered and/or broken many years ago? So what if the hardware was proprietary? Has there been a home computer that hasn't been recreated in some form or another, either by a hardware rebuild or emulation of some sort? (MESS springs to mind). > To compound the problem, the hardware is dying (literally) and (being > proprietary) can?t be rebuilt in any equivalent manner. In some cases > the software is physically disintegrating too since, in the case of many > 8-bit micros from the 1980?s, the storage medium was cassette tape; a > temperamental mechanism at the time, let alone now. It?s not that no > computer innovation took place in the 1980?s, just that none of it will > be recorded. Now I *know* he's done no research! Aside from my own BinaryDinosaurs website how many other home computer museums are there online? Books by the likes of Gordon Laing and others? Meh, sloppy journalism. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 17 15:15:41 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:15:41 -0600 Subject: General Automation Zebra! References: <011720071928.23837.45AE78C50002DEE400005D1D21603763169B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <003501c73a7c$a7234250$6600a8c0@BILLING> Jerry wrote.... > My Zebra says 2510 on the botton sticker if I remember correctly > has a 8" drive and a Qic Tape. Nice to know there's 2500's around still. I sold a lot of 'em :) However, in the entire history of General Automation's Zebra Pick line, I was pretty confident none were ever sold with 8" floppy (or floppies at all for that matter). How odd. I'd love to see a picture of this. The 2500's were tabletop machines, perhaps around 20 inches wide, 25 inches deep, 8 inches tall... had a creame/beige side & top (one piece) and a black plastic front. I seem to recall only two buttons on front, power and reset. > Still Boots pick OS. I have > the same tape you have but did not know how to to use it. Are you sure it's a "dealer.sysgen" tape, and not just a tape that was MADE by a dealer.sysgen tape? I did see a lot of folks label the output of the dealer.sysgen account as a 'sysgen' tape which it really isn't. If you can boot off the tape (BOOT CT from executive), it's not a dealer.sysgen. Dealer.sysgen tapes were just account saves and useless without a machine already running. You could always put it in and do a "dummy SEL-RESTORE" and see what it pulls off. > My machine model did not show up on the label of the tape either. I seem to recall there was something special/different about the QIC tape drives in the oldest zebras vs. all the later zebras... a different recording method or something making them bidirectionally incompatible. The sysgen account could create tapes for these machines, but only if the target machine was retrofitted with the newer style QIC drive. I'm sure the 2500 was one of the old style drives normally. The 1750 could be either style. Everything else was the later style I believe. Jay From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 17 15:18:41 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:18:41 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <45AE2231.12230.1CD3C3D5@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2007 at 13:53, Richard wrote: > As with copy protection in the past, activation protection will be > reverse engineered and patched out in order to keep abandonware > running -- assuming people care enough to do the work. Now, what's > really important is to keep the bits archived, even if they are > license locked. Eventually someone may care and by then having the > archived bits is what will count. Back in the bad old days, it was pretty easy to unlock protection schemes. Nowadays, what with warez lists and crackz lists being published, software producers have had to resort to some very elaborate schemes. Yes, it's possible that someone may want to unravel them in the future, but given the size of the task, I'm not holding my breath. > I thought people had reported problems with QIC medium recently? It depends on the medium. The large DC600/6150/6250 seem to be pretty robust--at least I've had no problems reading old specimens. The smaller media, such as DC1000/2000/2120 etc. were never any good to start with. I have absolutely no confidence that a tape from a Pereos drive would be readable today. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 15:25:48 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 14:25:48 -0700 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:18:41 -0800. <45AE2231.12230.1CD3C3D5@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <45AE2231.12230.1CD3C3D5 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > Back in the bad old days, it was pretty easy to unlock protection > schemes. Nowadays, what with warez lists and crackz lists being > published, software producers have had to resort to some very > elaborate schemes. Yes, it's possible that someone may want to > unravel them in the future, but given the size of the task, I'm not > holding my breath. As with most things, the amount of work done to protect an application is directly in response to the perceived threat. Yeah, some people may have gone overboard, but I know in the flexlm licensed 3DPaint application I worked on it was a simple license check at the start of the app. Patch up to jump over the check and you're done. I suspect that most software is like this -- find the one place where it polls the dongle and jump over that code. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 17 15:27:13 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:27:13 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 Message-ID: <45AE94B1.4060405@bitsavers.org> > What follows is a ten-point plan outlining the primary issues of digital archaeology ... > I love it when someone publishes an article without doing any proper > research. His total lack of knowledge of the subject was obvious by what he thought the 10 primary issues were. He seems ignorant of the serious problem of verifying that a program was copied in its original form (as opposed to have been hacked, or with viruses) or the need for EVERY archival container to have something like an MD5 sum to detect corruption in the future. One of the problems I have as a CHM curator is trying to decide how much of the on line stuff that is out there from the pre-PC time period to snapshot (there's a LOT!). As someone else mentioned, the monoculture and proprietary systems are the real preservation problems, mid 80's or so and beyond. The best I've been able to come up with is to try to save as many SDKs as I can find, which at least gives some level of detail on how they worked. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 15:29:53 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 16:29:53 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AE180C.28494.1CAC23DF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45AE75D2.4010606@arachelian.com> <45AE180C.28494.1CAC23DF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > I don't buy that "most" software is encumbered by software protection- > -unless the author is talking about games. Even so, much of the > early software protection is easy to hack. What concerns me more is > modern software that requires activation via the internet to run. > When companies disappear (as they are wont to do), the user is left > with no recourse. Even modern copy protection does not really stand a chance, even with programs that require activation by the net. Just look at all the warez sites with cracked programs of recent vintage. I am not worried, as I know that in 20 years or so, when we are playing with today's junk, the tools and technology will be able to deal with the stuff. We will have programs that can easily and quickly crack even the toughest of today's encryptions, FPGAs that will easily emulate today's ASICs, and hardware tools that will allow us to get a damn good idea of what is happening inside of today's black boxes. I am not worriesd about today's stuff. In time, yes, it will be worth expending lots of effort to save. And it should be saved, as it is very important in the whole historic timeline. For me, right now, I would rather expand my resources on the stuff that is tipping over the brink (this is why I do not get excited about saving Suns, PDP-11s, Altairs, etc. - lots of them still out there.). -- Will From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jan 17 15:35:45 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 16:35:45 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45AE96B1.2060402@arachelian.com> Richard wrote: > As with copy protection in the past, activation protection will be > reverse engineered and patched out in order to keep abandonware > running -- assuming people care enough to do the work. Now, what's > really important is to keep the bits archived, even if they are > license locked. Eventually someone may care and by then having the > archived bits is what will count. > > One thing I'd like to add to this, is that you'd want to copy the installation on the machine that it is installed on. i.e. entire hard drive, and any relevant bits such as MAC address, kind of hardware, etc. You'd want to do this with at least two identically installed systems (but different serial #'s, so not site licensed) so that way you can diff the installs. The differences will point the future reverse engineer to where the serial numbers or whatever else involved in the DRM are stored and will help in stripping it away. From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 17 15:41:11 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 16:41:11 -0500 Subject: Draper article in Wall Street Journal In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:48:31 PST." <45AE7D8F.875EFD7C@rain.org> Message-ID: <200701172141.l0HLfBdn018645@mwave.heeltoe.com> Marvin Johnston wrote: > >A friend of mine who knew him gave me this URL: > >http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/Play/history/stories/nuke.html I didn't realize these messages were about John Draper. Did something happen to him? (i remember making 2600 hz boxes :-) -brad From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 17 15:45:15 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:45:15 -0600 Subject: Cracking (was Digital archaeology) References: Message-ID: <024501c73a80$c8a9e1f0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Richard wrote... > As with most things, the amount of work done to protect an application > is directly in response to the perceived threat. Nah, I think it was more along the lines of how good a particular programmer or group of programmers a software manufacturer happened to have on staff. I don't think most companies actually spent time analyzing the threat and keeping their response equally measured. That's why a lot of companies eventually contracted with other companies who specialized in copy protection (everlok, etc.). > I suspect > that most software is like this -- find the one place where it polls > the dongle and jump over that code. Oh no... definitely not. Sure, there was definitely some code that was a simple no-op. But I wouldn't say that was the majority of applications. Even very very old applications got much more crafty than that. Those dongle checks were often spread all over the code, not just one place. Look at some of the copyprotection schemes used on the C64 "inside the drive" and it's amazing how complex they were back in that day even. Sierra had stuff that would make an adventure game take an unsolvable twist much later in the game if it sensed the copyprotection had been broken. Some games decrypt the code on the fly as it accesses the disk... so at least in my experience, there were definitely some "no-op the branch" and you're done, but that was a far minority of programs. Jay West From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 15:47:51 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 16:47:51 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <45AE2231.12230.1CD3C3D5@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 1/17/07, Richard wrote: > As with most things, the amount of work done to protect an application > is directly in response to the perceived threat. Yeah, some people > may have gone overboard, but I know in the flexlm licensed 3DPaint > application I worked on it was a simple license check at the start of > the app. Patch up to jump over the check and you're done. I suspect > that most software is like this -- find the one place where it polls > the dongle and jump over that code. That technique was common with the C-64... typically there were bad tracks intentionally written to the distribution floppy - in part of the app startup or perhaps the loader (small program that knew how to get the rest of the app into memory), some subroutine would be called that would check a normally unaccessed part of the disk and check the drive error code against what was expected, then either allow the program to run or not. There were techniques for simple utilities to write any useful error pattern to the disk except perhaps one or two tricky ones, permitting a working copy of a protected floppy, but all of that is irrelevant when you run into a copy protection subroutine that, rather than returning success or failure, is easy to identify because "success" is returning at all and failure is calling the C-64 ROM reset routine... the memory clears on the next start cycle, "protecting" the memory from post-mortem (they think). Once you have identified that style of routine, it's easy to either patch over the JSR to the protection routine, or to just stick an RTS at the front of the routine. Since there's a known ROM address in the code, it's also not hard to find the copy protection routine in the first place. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 17 16:13:53 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:13:53 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AE180C.28494.1CAC23DF@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 17, 7 12:35:24 pm Message-ID: > > To compound the problem, the hardware is dying (literally) and (being > > proprietary) can=B4t be rebuilt in any equivalent manner. > > As Tony has pointed out, early hardware is usually far easier to=20 > repair than the modern variety. On my bench at the moment is a programmable calculator dating from 1972. It could almost be called a desktop microcomptuer, the architacture is much the same (16 bit (bit serial) processor, firmware ROMs, RAM, peripherals). One chip in the memory control section had failed. Now, I'll admit I couldn't quickly find a source of the exact same part, but I bought a fuctional replacemnt (74LS95 as against 7495) from a shop in London. And apart from the firmware ROMs there is not one component in that machine that I don';t have a full data sheet for. In therory any part could be rebuilt. OK, an official schemtic was not available, but based on my knowledge of related machines, it took me a couple of weeks (and not working 'flat out' on that all the time) to produce one. I think I'll have more luck keeping that machine going [1] than any of the machine made today [1] And this is not an isolated example. We can all list dozens of machine from the 'clcassic' period where just about all replacement chips are available, where full schematics and service manuals are available, and so on. > > > In some cases the software is physically disintegrating too since, in > > the case of many 8-bit micros from the 1980=B4s, the storage medium was > > cassette tape; a temperamental mechanism at the time, let alone now. Ah. but that doesn't mean it's got more temperamental with age. TO be fair, a lot of cassette loading problems were caused by having to get the volume level just right. I would think (although I've not tried this, not having suitable hardware) that a modern computer/soundcard could extract the information from a marginal home computer cassette tape rather better than the simple interface hardware in the origianl computer could. > > It=B4s not that no computer innovation took place in the 1980=B4s, just > > that none of it will be recorded.=20 This sounds a little like something that struck me in May 1986 when I bought my P850 minicomputer. I, and a couple of friends, realised that unless somebody did something then 20 years of computer history were going to vanish -- at the time very few prople were preserving the once-commonplace onld minis and micros. So we did something. Fordunately, other people thought likewise and there now is a great group of people around the world preserving different aspects of classic computing in different ways (and I am certainly not trying to judge what is, and is not, valuable here!). And to be honest, I think it's now unlikely that _any_ machine will be totally forgotten. > > Feh. Most of the software of the 80's was written to floppy, an=20 > excellent storage medium. Give me a 20-year old 8" floppy any day to=20 > a 2-year old 1.44MB 3.5" diskette. How many 80's (not 70's) systems=20 Agreed! > used cassette tape as primary storage? True, the DC-xxxx carts are=20 > starting to have problems, but in most cases, this was used as=20 > backup, not a distribution medium. In many cases, the problem is=20 > with the aging rubber in the drive, not the medium itself. > > I'd be more worried about the various writeable DVD types lasting 20- > 30 years. The other problem is finding something to read it. The old storage drives were relatively simple and well-docuemtned. Apart from the heads, just about any part could be made in a good home workshop. Stopage formats were often well docuemtned, so if there's some way of reading the magnetic trasitions on the medium, it will be possuible to recover the data. But I wouldn't fancy making a DVD drive from scratch (even given the laser pickup). Many of them are undocuemtned ('they're not worth repairing' -- maybe not now, but what about in 20 years time when you can't buy a replacement). In some cases the storage format is delibearately undocumetned. To be honest I think it'll be a lot easier to keep a 1970's machine running than a 2000's machine. -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 17 18:16:41 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 16:16:41 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS Message-ID: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid History page." -- So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. Frickin' wonderful. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 18:14:13 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:14:13 -0700 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 16:29:53 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > I am not worriesd about today's stuff. In time, yes, it will be worth > expending lots of effort to save. And it should be saved, as it is > very important in the whole historic timeline. For me, right now, I > would rather expand my resources on the stuff that is tipping over the > brink (this is why I do not get excited about saving Suns, PDP-11s, > Altairs, etc. - lots of them still out there.). Ditto. Except that I focus on graphics and terminals and you'd be surprised how many terminals have "already gone over the brink" as it were. People keep CPUs for nostalgia. They chuck the terminal. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 18:20:34 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:20:34 -0700 Subject: Cracking (was Digital archaeology) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:45:15 -0600. <024501c73a80$c8a9e1f0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <024501c73a80$c8a9e1f0$6600a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > Richard wrote... > > As with most things, the amount of work done to protect an application > > is directly in response to the perceived threat. > Nah, I think it was more along the lines of how good a particular programmer > or group of programmers a software manufacturer happened to have on staff. I > don't think most companies actually spent time analyzing the threat and > keeping their response equally measured. That's why a lot of companies > eventually contracted with other companies who specialized in copy > protection (everlok, etc.). As always, I chose my words carefully :-). I said "perceived" threat, not measured or analyzed threat level. Yeah, you get harder to decruft stuff from a good programmer, but even a bad programmer can make your life hell by inserting tons of checkForValidLicense() calls sprinkled throughout the code. Companies worried about this stuff, particularly games companies in the early days, but they didn't spend their entire development budget on it. There's a point where they all said "that's good enough". How much they decided they needed is proportionate to their perception of the threat. If they don't feel threatened by copying, then they don't bother. If they feel mildly threatened they take mild measures. If they feel absolutely paranoid about it, they take extreme measures. I'm simply saying that like most things in life, most people won't feel the need to take extreme measures. > > [simply NOP out the check or jump over the check] > Oh no... definitely not. Sure, there was definitely some code that was a > simple no-op. But I wouldn't say that was the majority of applications. Even > very very old applications got much more crafty than that. Well, you have that weird situation in the "old days" where programmers were cheap and machines were expensive, so yeah in that environment I can see people putting more resources into the copy prevention. > [...] so at least in my experience, there > were definitely some "no-op the branch" and you're done, but that was a far > minority of programs. I have no experience in these matters, merely suspicions :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From curt at atarimuseum.com Wed Jan 17 18:37:17 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:37:17 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45AEC13D.9010700@atarimuseum.com> I just started noticing that as well. We all know it has nothing to do with the dribble Ebay is trying to push on everyone as their excuse, they just don't want bidders directly talking with one another and cutting deals or other sellers letting bidders know they may have the same item for less. I personally don't like not knowing whom I'm bidding against as I try to make a point of avoiding auctions is I see another person I know already engaged in a bid on an item, though I use sniping sw as well so many times I don't know the activity of the auction until its over and I see I've bid against friends. Curt Al Kossow wrote: > "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between > preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay > has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad > guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In > certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User > IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to you > and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will see > an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid > History page." > > -- > > So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. > Frickin' wonderful. > > > From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 18:42:17 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:42:17 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. > Frickin' wonderful. And a good marketing tool is also now gone. Watching items, and who has been bidding on them, is very valuable to us sellers in gauging the market. I am not sure if it will do any good, but I encourage everyone to write a note to Ebay requesting that they revise this new system. The sooner I am off Ebay, the better... -- Will From marvin at rain.org Wed Jan 17 18:42:52 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 16:42:52 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS Message-ID: <45AEC28C.38787E41@rain.org> This latest BS only applies to bidding over $200.00 ... or at least that is what they are saying. Personally, I would still *really* like to see a link on ClassicCmp.org to VCM as I think that might increase the traffic there. If I don't know the bidder on classic computer type stuff, I will generally make them aware of the site. Ebay has a lot of weaknesses, but so far, nobody has been able to successfully exploit them. > From: Al Kossow > "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between preserving transparency and > protecting our Community of members. eBay has decided to change how bid history information is > displayed so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In certain > cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User IDs on the Bid History page. Your > User ID will be shown only to you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will > see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid History page." > > -- > > So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. > Frickin' wonderful. From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Jan 17 18:52:46 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:52:46 -0000 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <002801c73a9a$f938c3d0$0404010a@uatempname> Al Kossow wrote: > "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between > preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay > has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad > guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. > In certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder > User IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to > you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will > see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the > Bid History page." I've noticed that happening on some auctions when I view a seller's auctions over a period of time. I've just looked at a few random auctions live (on ebay.co.uk) and I can see full details on the history page. Maybe it's by category or something. Antonio From g at kurico.com Wed Jan 17 19:00:43 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:00:43 -0600 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: <45AEC13D.9010700@atarimuseum.com> References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> <45AEC13D.9010700@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <45AEC6BB.6090003@kurico.com> Cutting deals with other bidders is a no-no in auctions, this the flip side to shill bidding. As for having other sellers fish for buyers, it's hard to imagine someone offering a marketplace and being successful by allowing vendors to walk into others stores and actively pitch their prices to customers. As for their reason being BS, what is your basis for this assumption? I happen to know that the problem that they are mentioning is real as I've had several of these bogus "second chance" offers myself. And yes, it happens quite frequently with bigger ticket items. I would venture to guess that the reason they state happens with significantly more regularity than bidders collaborating. I can see how in a tight knit community knowing that you're not bidding against a compadre is useful, but we could easily setup a system to assist with that if it was that big of a deal. George Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > I just started noticing that as well. We all know it has nothing > to do with the dribble Ebay is trying to push on everyone as their > excuse, they just don't want bidders directly talking with one another > and cutting deals or other sellers letting bidders know they may have > the same item for less. I personally don't like not knowing whom > I'm bidding against as I try to make a point of avoiding auctions is I > see another person I know already engaged in a bid on an item, though > I use sniping sw as well so many times I don't know the activity of > the auction until its over and I see I've bid against friends. > > > > Curt > > > > Al Kossow wrote: >> "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between >> preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay >> has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad >> guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. >> In certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder >> User IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to >> you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will >> see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the >> Bid History page." >> >> -- >> >> So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. >> Frickin' wonderful. >> >> >> From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 17 19:00:23 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:00:23 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <45AE5627.4579.1D9EB8ED@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2007 at 17:14, Richard wrote: > Ditto. Except that I focus on graphics and terminals and you'd be > surprised how many terminals have "already gone over the brink" as it > were. People keep CPUs for nostalgia. They chuck the terminal. Richard, what you do for terminals is certainly worthwhile. However, given the description of a terminal (e.g. user's manual), I can easily emulate one or, if worse comes to worst, build one from modern components. A CPU is much harder. Peripherals (e.g. tapes, disks, printers) are the hardest. If I were to collect something for preservation, it'd be peripherals. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 17 19:14:14 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:14:14 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org>, Message-ID: <45AE5966.24018.1DAB687D@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2007 at 19:42, William Donzelli wrote: > So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. > > Frickin' wonderful. Does this mean that the name of the currently-winning bidder will be hidden from everyone but the seller and the bidder? ---Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 17 19:20:21 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:20:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: <45AE5966.24018.1DAB687D@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 17, 7 05:14:14 pm" Message-ID: <200701180120.l0I1KM78017028@floodgap.com> > > So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. > > > Frickin' wonderful. > > Does this mean that the name of the currently-winning bidder will be > hidden from everyone but the seller and the bidder? Jupp. It appears the cutoff is $200. When I bid over that amount, suddenly I was "Bidder 6". -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Time wounds all heels. -- Groucho Marx ------------------------------------- From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 17 19:21:29 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:21:29 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: <45AEC6BB.6090003@kurico.com> References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org>, <45AEC13D.9010700@atarimuseum.com>, <45AEC6BB.6090003@kurico.com> Message-ID: <45AE5B19.14602.1DB20BBA@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2007 at 19:00, George Currie wrote: > Cutting deals with other bidders is a no-no in auctions, this the flip > side to shill bidding. Is it? I've certainly done this with live auctions, particularly where I'm only interested in one or two items out of a lot. The benefit is that you can find someone who would otherwise be bidding against you and is not at all interested in the items that you are-- and the two of you can bid more than you otherwise were prepared to. I hadn't realized that this was illegal, illicit or unethical. Cheers, Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 17 19:23:40 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:23:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: from William Donzelli at "Jan 17, 7 07:42:17 pm" Message-ID: <200701180123.l0I1Ne2F017922@floodgap.com> > I am not sure if it will do any good, but I encourage everyone to > write a note to Ebay requesting that they revise this new system. To give an alternative viewpoint, as a frequent buyer I get a lot of requests saying "well, I see your max big was x, how about this?" I'm leery of such offers from people I don't know, and would just as soon not get them because it makes it obvious where the deep pockets are. I realize this hurts sellers, but frankly, if I didn't know you and you offered me a big-ticket item, I'd probably ignore you as a potential fraudster (whether or not you actually are, I'm not willing to chance it -- I've been burned before). -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Tell the truth, and run. -- Yugoslav proverb ------------------------------- From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 17 19:24:44 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:24:44 -0600 Subject: Latest eBay BS References: <45AEC28C.38787E41@rain.org> Message-ID: <00b501c73a9f$6fa23160$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Marvin wrote.... > This latest BS only applies to bidding over $200.00 Ugg... a large proportion of the auctions I'd like to see the bidders on are over $200.00. > Personally, I would still *really* like to see a link on > ClassicCmp.org to VCM as I think that might increase the traffic there. Once the classiccmp links database is setup, this will be there. However, in the mean time turnabout is fair play - I'd be happy to trade links with the VCM to get more traffic here. Jay From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 17 19:26:17 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:26:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: <45AE5B19.14602.1DB20BBA@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 17, 7 05:21:29 pm" Message-ID: <200701180126.l0I1QH6m016510@floodgap.com> > > Cutting deals with other bidders is a no-no in auctions, this the flip > > side to shill bidding. > > Is it? I've certainly done this with live auctions, particularly > where I'm only interested in one or two items out of a lot. The > benefit is that you can find someone who would otherwise be bidding > against you and is not at all interested in the items that you are-- > and the two of you can bid more than you otherwise were prepared to. > > I hadn't realized that this was illegal, illicit or unethical. Combo bidding isn't illegal that I know of. I've done this on other sites for exactly this reason. However, see my other post on why I'm not greatly opposed to this policy. (This is not support, but I'm not crusading for its removal.) -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- What is THIS man doing here?! -- Maj. Hochstetter, "Hogan's Heroes" -------- From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 17 19:31:10 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:31:10 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: At 4:16 PM -0800 1/17/07, Al Kossow wrote: >"As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between >preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. >eBay has decided to change how bid history information is displayed >so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this >information. In certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able >to view Bidder User IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will >be shown only to you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. >Other members will see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied >consistently to the Bid History page." > >-- > >So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. >Frickin' wonderful. This is a great boon to all of those dishonest sellers out there. Just think of how many sellers will now sign up for a 2nd account so that they can bid on their own items. Thanks eBay. This isn't about protecting their users, realizing the maximum profit from the sellers by aiding them to be dishonest. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 17 19:51:29 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:51:29 -0500 Subject: HP2645As.... again References: Message-ID: <001101c73aa3$331b5ce0$0100a8c0@screamer> I'm game for a terminal or two, if there is a bulk-buy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard" To: Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:59 PM Subject: HP2645As.... again > Ebay item # 280070687500 > > The seller has zero feedback, indicating to me that he stumbled across > these terminals and liquidating them gave him the impetus to create an > ebay account. > > Jay, shall we try again at a bulk purchase? > > He's got 30 of them, and its not clear if they are all 2645As and > some of them might be 2648As. > > The seller says some are used, some are new, although I don't know how > you could tell from his picture of the pile :-). Maybe the "new" ones > are the ones with the little cover for the switches on the upper left > of the keyboard? > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 17 20:05:53 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:05:53 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <003501c73aa5$2fde9680$0100a8c0@screamer> > This is a great boon to all of those dishonest sellers out there. > Just think of how many sellers will now sign up for a 2nd account so > that they can bid on their own items. Thanks eBay. What? They could not get a second account and do exactly the same thing before this change? Think this over again. > This isn't about protecting their users, realizing the maximum profit > from the sellers by aiding them to be dishonest. > > Zane Bull. Ever bid on a big ticket item and get bogus second chance offers? Its a real problem. I may not like their response, but it makes more sense than claiming this is a tool for dishonest sellers. From MGemeny at pgcps.org Wed Jan 17 20:18:38 2007 From: MGemeny at pgcps.org (Mike Gemeny) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:18:38 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) Message-ID: <15EDC737436349459458881C284C88DB0170D4@PGCPS2K3EXIS1.pgcps.org> eBay wrote: "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to you and the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will see an anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid History page." Al replied: "So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. Frickin' wonderful." Yea, that would make it a lot easier for a seller to bid against their own buyers, now wouldn't it? Yes, eBay will argue that sellers bidding on their own items is a violation of their "Acceptable use policy", but then again "target bidders with fake offers" would also likely be a violation of the policy and they don't seem to be able to do anything about that, do they? On Jan 11 '07 I had placed a bid as the only bidder on an item with no reserve. eBay later told me that: "We're writing to let you know that eBay has ended the following item you were bidding on because the item appears to have been listed without the account holder's permission: ... We are now working to restore the account to its original owner as soon as possible. For privacy reasons, we can't share any further details regarding this member's account. ... As eBay removed the item, you are not obliged to send payment for it. Please don't send money or respond to any further emails regarding this listing. ..." Now we see who they are really trying to protect, don't we? Mike Gemeny. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 20:30:39 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:30:39 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: <003501c73aa5$2fde9680$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> <003501c73aa5$2fde9680$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: > They could not get a second account and do exactly the same thing > before this change? Yes, they can - but now shills are not as obvious to the outside world, just Ebay. Sure, Ebay can probably weed out the shills and bogus accounts for the big sellers, but not for the casual and small networks of little guys. What is to stop me from asking my buddies with good, established feedback to shill up my auctions for a cut? To Ebay and the rest of the world, everything looks fine. > Ever bid on a big ticket item and get bogus second chance offers? > > Its a real problem. I may not like their response, but it makes more > sense than claiming this is a tool for dishonest sellers. Yes, it happens. I buy a lot of certain identical items, put them on Ebay with second chance offers, and every so often someone calls me on it to see if the second chance is genuine. It is a simple fix - a personalized message, and perhaps a new digital image of the item. It works well - I have not yet had a questioned second chance offer get refused. It would be nice if Ebay tied their Verified User program (something I ought to join) to a waiving of this cloaking system. If verified, it seems to me that Ebay and the rest of the world would know the second chance offers are real. -- Will From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Jan 17 20:39:29 2007 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:39:29 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On the other hand, I have restrained myself from bidding against people I know unless the item was very rare. I guess I won't be able to do that any more. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 20:47:17 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:47:17 -0700 Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:00:43 -0600. <45AEC6BB.6090003@kurico.com> Message-ID: In article <45AEC6BB.6090003 at kurico.com>, George Currie writes: > I can see how in a tight knit community knowing that you're not bidding > against a compadre is useful, but we could easily setup a system to > assist with that if it was that big of a deal. Engulf and Devour with web services! (Hat tip to you Monty Python fans out there) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 20:48:18 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:48:18 -0700 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 17:00:23 -0800. <45AE5627.4579.1D9EB8ED@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <45AE5627.4579.1D9EB8ED at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > Richard, what you do for terminals is certainly worthwhile. However, > given the description of a terminal (e.g. user's manual), I can > easily emulate one or, if worse comes to worst, build one from modern > components. This completely misses the point that the terminal is the tactile physical interface for the user. When you can emulate that (utility fog, anyone?) let me know. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 17 20:50:51 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:50:51 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <15EDC737436349459458881C284C88DB0170D4@PGCPS2K3EXIS1.pgcps.org> References: <15EDC737436349459458881C284C88DB0170D4@PGCPS2K3EXIS1.pgcps.org> Message-ID: <45AE700B.4766.1E03DDA1@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2007 at 21:18, Mike Gemeny wrote: > On Jan 11 '07 I had placed a bid as the only bidder on an item with no > reserve. eBay later told me that: > > "We're writing to let you know that eBay has ended the following item > you were bidding on because the item appears to have been listed > without the account holder's permission: Thank your lucky stars that they did. I don't know how often it comes up with vintage computer gear, but it happens regularly with high-priced musical instruments. Some lowlife hijacks an account and lists an item using either photos from the web (sometime they're manufacturer's photos) or another auction. You send your money--and nothing. Cheers, Chuck From steerex at mindspring.com Wed Jan 17 21:15:18 2007 From: steerex at mindspring.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:15:18 -0500 Subject: HP2645As.... again Message-ID: <01C73A84.F9BCC2E0@MAGGIE> I may also be interested in one or two. Exactly what is a 2645A? SteveRob ---------- From: Bob Shannon Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 8:51 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: HP2645As.... again I'm game for a terminal or two, if there is a bulk-buy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard" To: Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:59 PM Subject: HP2645As.... again > Ebay item # 280070687500 From g at kurico.com Wed Jan 17 21:15:37 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:15:37 -0600 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <15EDC737436349459458881C284C88DB0170D4@PGCPS2K3EXIS1.pgcps.org> References: <15EDC737436349459458881C284C88DB0170D4@PGCPS2K3EXIS1.pgcps.org> Message-ID: <45AEE659.1020704@kurico.com> Mike Gemeny wrote: > eBay wrote: > [snippage] > Now we see who they are really trying to protect, don't we? > > Mike Gemeny. > > I totally do not get your point. Are you saying that you are in favour of this new policy because you just gave an example of what can happen? Or are you saying that by ebay shutting down an auction that they are doing some evil because they are trying to protect someone's account that just got hijacked (this happens to buyers and sellers)? Forgive my denseness here. George From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 21:40:27 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:40:27 -0700 Subject: HP2645As.... again In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:15:18 -0500. <01C73A84.F9BCC2E0@MAGGIE> Message-ID: In article <01C73A84.F9BCC2E0 at MAGGIE>, Steve Robertson writes: > I may also be interested in one or two. Exactly what is a 2645A? Heh heh. HP made the 264x series of terminals in the 1970s. They look like this: . The 2645A is character only; the 2648A includes graphics. The system chassis is basically a microcomputer: a backplane into which a bunch of cards are fitted. Most of the major "chunks" of the architecture are implemented as multi-board sets with an additional frontplane connector that provided the board set with its own private communication path. Most models had a cartridge tape drive mounted in the cabinet so that you could have local storage of data and programs through the terminal. The microprocessor in the terminal is an 8080 or 8088. Its kinda funny how we recently talked about terminal hacks that hijacked a terminal to turn it into a microcomputer system. The 264x series from HP is an example of where a manufacturer did this intentionally to their own terminal design in order to create a family of terminals with functional variations all using the same chassis and reusing most of the electronics through the board sets. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 17 21:46:25 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:46:25 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org><003501c73aa5$2fde9680$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <003b01c73ab3$3b3fea70$0100a8c0@screamer> Excellent idea! > It would be nice if Ebay tied their Verified User program (something I > ought to join) to a waiving of this cloaking system. If verified, it > seems to me that Ebay and the rest of the world would know the second > chance offers are real. > > -- > Will > From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jan 17 21:51:24 2007 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:51:24 -0500 Subject: HP2645As.... again References: <01C73A84.F9BCC2E0@MAGGIE> Message-ID: <004c01c73ab3$ed671020$0100a8c0@screamer> 2645 terminals were one of the standard terminals used on HP1000 systems for many years. The 2645 was a higher-end model, often equipped with extra fonts, serial ports, and other options short of full graphics like a 2648 or 2649. The keyboard is slightly different from the lower-end terminals of the same series (like 2642 or 2644). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Robertson" To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only'" Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 10:15 PM Subject: RE: HP2645As.... again >I may also be interested in one or two. Exactly what is a 2645A? > > SteveRob > > ---------- > From: Bob Shannon > Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 8:51 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: HP2645As.... again > > I'm game for a terminal or two, if there is a bulk-buy. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Richard" > To: > Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:59 PM > Subject: HP2645As.... again > > >> Ebay item # 280070687500 > > > > From MGemeny at pgcps.org Wed Jan 17 21:57:38 2007 From: MGemeny at pgcps.org (Mike Gemeny) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:57:38 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) Message-ID: <15EDC737436349459458881C284C88DB0170D6@PGCPS2K3EXIS1.pgcps.org> George wrote: I totally do not get your point. Sorry if I was not clear on that. I did my homework on the seller, the seller?s feedback, the types of items the seller deals in, the sellers other open auctions, and so forth, before I placed a bid. It all seemed to be quite consistent. The impression I was left with was that the seller (or an employee) messed up, and eBay or their policies helped to ?Fix it?. Don?t get me wrong here. I don?t have a problem with an auction being canceled if it was listed in error, nor do I have a problem with hijacked accounts being returned to the rightful owner. But I don?t think the latter is what happened here. I think that eBay may be trying too hard to accommodate sellers. (Could it be that the more money that changes hands the more money eBay makes?) Thanks, Mike Gemeny. From ohh at drizzle.com Wed Jan 17 21:58:17 2007 From: ohh at drizzle.com (O. Sharp) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:58:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Latest eBay BS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: William Donzelli wrote, in part: > I am not sure if it will do any good, but I encourage everyone to > write a note to Ebay requesting that they revise this new system. I find the hardest part of writing to eBay is finding an address to write to. They seem to like hiding any means of direct contact. :) They do have a "suggestion box" sort of thing, though, which I can _hope_ somebody actually reads: http://pages.ebay.com/help/newtoebay/suggest.html ...and I just sent them the following: I see eBay has chosen to withhold information about other bidders from the "Bidding History" pages of several auctions. While eBay's desire to protect the bidders' identities "so bad guys cannot target bidders with fake offers" (as eBay's explanation suggests) is understandable, I must also note that it effectively prevents bidders from being able to identify, and protect themselves from, shill bidding. To my mind - especially because most of what I do on eBay is buy - the benefit of your new policy isn't _nearly_ enough to compensate for the loss of security and knowledge I have in being able to verify that only legitimate bidders are bidding against me. Because of this, I regret to say I will _not_ be bidding on eBay auctions which have masked bid histories (I really _do_ regret it, because there's an auction [#330075638902] I was planning to bid on before eBay implemented this feature!). This is unfortunate, and regrettable, but I'm confident I'll find other forums to buy most of what I'm looking for which have greater transparency. I hope eBay will reconsider, and quickly end, this experiment in policy. Agree with it or don't, as you choose. But that's what I think, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to tell them. :) (And yes, I'm completely serious. I suppose I'll miss out on some deals this way, but if eBay really likes their new rule I'm sure there are some _other_ places where I can spend the money. ) -O.- From lbickley at bickleywest.com Wed Jan 17 22:05:39 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:05:39 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) Message-ID: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> If you're going to write the person at eBay responsible for this new policy, contact Rob Chesnut, Senior Vice President, eBay Global Trust & Safety. Here's his email address: Rob Chesnut I have already sent an email to him - with this theme: "I hope you understand the gravity of this newly implemented change. It literally changes the entire character of eBay - and makes eBay a much less desirable auction site." Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 17 22:06:12 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:06:12 -0600 Subject: HP2645As.... again References: <01C73A84.F9BCC2E0@MAGGIE> <004c01c73ab3$ed671020$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <001001c73ab5$fdefa0e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Bob wrote.... > 2645 terminals were one of the standard terminals used on > HP1000 systems for many years. See the manual: http://bitsavers.vt100.net/hp/terminal/02645-90005_2645ref_Oct77.pdf It's truly an impressive terminal... and very much has the HP period look & feel. I suspect it's the same seller as last time, and for me anyways - I won't deal with him. Jay From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Wed Jan 17 22:10:09 2007 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:10:09 -0600 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <45AE700B.4766.1E03DDA1@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: About 6 months ago, I was selling an old Toshiba 486 laptop. The email I got from the winner came from a different email address than the registered one. The winner asked if I would ship the laptop to his son in Nigeria , even though the auction said US only. I replied "No". Turns out the account had been hijacked, so the auction was cancelled before there was further correspondence. I later relisted and sold the item. As to the original topic of the thread, however, I don't like the idea of hiding the bidders' identities. Bob >From: "Chuck Guzis" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Subject: Re: Latest eBay BS (OT?) >Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:50:51 -0800 > >On 17 Jan 2007 at 21:18, Mike Gemeny wrote: > > > On Jan 11 '07 I had placed a bid as the only bidder on an item with no > > reserve. eBay later told me that: > > > > "We're writing to let you know that eBay has ended the following item > > you were bidding on because the item appears to have been listed > > without the account holder's permission: > >Thank your lucky stars that they did. I don't know how often it >comes up with vintage computer gear, but it happens regularly with >high-priced musical instruments. Some lowlife hijacks an account and >lists an item using either photos from the web (sometime they're >manufacturer's photos) or another auction. > >You send your money--and nothing. > >Cheers, >Chuck > _________________________________________________________________ Invite your Hotmail contacts to join your friends list with Windows Live Spaces http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://spaces.live.com/spacesapi.aspx?wx_action=create&wx_url=/friends.aspx&mkt=en-us From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 17 22:10:40 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:10:40 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <45AE82C0.8882.1E4CEDCA@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2007 at 19:48, Richard wrote: > This completely misses the point that the terminal is the tactile > physical interface for the user. When you can emulate that (utility > fog, anyone?) let me know. You mean as in "keyboard"? Boy, there have been a bunch of variations, haven't there? My most/least (love-hate) favorite was an EBCDIC keyboard with individual enclosed dry reed switches for each key (it was a George Risk model). A couple of Fairchild RTL ICs, mostly a diode encoder matrix. Diecast housing. I used it for a time with my TV Typewriter--the control keys were set to impose a higher resistance force than the others (remember the Beehive Super Bee?). It would make you very tired using it for extended periods. Does anyone have any idea what this may have belonged to? Cheers, Chuck From g at kurico.com Wed Jan 17 22:12:43 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:12:43 -0600 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <15EDC737436349459458881C284C88DB0170D6@PGCPS2K3EXIS1.pgcps.org> References: <15EDC737436349459458881C284C88DB0170D6@PGCPS2K3EXIS1.pgcps.org> Message-ID: <45AEF3BB.6030005@kurico.com> I disagree. I had a similar experience in that someone managed to hijack my account. It would have been somewhat difficult for someone to realize that the items that I had listed were "bogus" in that I do sell consumer electronics and computer stuff and that's what the hijacker was selling (actually, I think they do target those who do sell items similar to what they want to scam with), though a more attentive bidder might notice that all the bogus items were brand new and I rarely sell new items (just my castaways). Why would ebay want to help the seller here? As a seller, I can cancel an auction at any time, for any reason (I can also cancel your bid if I felt like it). The only issue is whether ebay decides to take its cut (i.e. under certain circumstances ebay will waive it's fees) of the listing fees. Now I guess they could have pretended to get their account hijacked because they were going to get hit by the ebay fees, but take it from me, it's a pain to go through the process to get these transactions removed. And in any case, it is in ebay's financial interest NOT to help sellers "fix" problems because a) it's extra work for ebay b) they end up not making any money on it. George Mike Gemeny wrote: > George wrote: I totally do not get your point. ? > > Sorry if I was not clear on that. > > I did my homework on the seller, the seller?s feedback, > the types of items the seller deals in, the sellers other > open auctions, and so forth, before I placed a bid. > > It all seemed to be quite consistent. > > The impression I was left with was that the seller > (or an employee) messed up, and eBay or their policies > helped to ?Fix it?. > > Don?t get me wrong here. I don?t have a problem with an > auction being canceled if it was listed in error, nor do > I have a problem with hijacked accounts being returned > to the rightful owner. But I don?t think the latter is > what happened here. > > I think that eBay may be trying too hard to accommodate > sellers. (Could it be that the more money that changes > hands the more money eBay makes?) > > Thanks, > Mike Gemeny. > > From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 22:20:19 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:20:19 -0700 Subject: HP2645As.... again In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:06:12 -0600. <001001c73ab5$fdefa0e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: In article <001001c73ab5$fdefa0e0$6700a8c0 at HPLAPTOP>, "Jay West" writes: > I suspect it's the same seller as last time, and for me anyways - I won't > deal with him. Is it the same location geographically? I thought it was different this time. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From teoz at neo.rr.com Wed Jan 17 22:25:40 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:25:40 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) References: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <00b501c73ab8$b79de400$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lyle Bickley" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 11:05 PM Subject: Re: Latest eBay BS (OT?) > If you're going to write the person at eBay responsible for this new policy, > contact Rob Chesnut, Senior Vice President, eBay Global Trust & Safety. > Here's his email address: > > Rob Chesnut > > I have already sent an email to him - with this theme: > > "I hope you understand the gravity of this newly implemented change. It > literally changes the entire character of eBay - and makes eBay a much less > desirable auction site." > > Lyle I would think a company like ebay would have to see a drop in the 10's if not 100's of millions in revenue before they would even think about changing their policies back. Nobody will notice if everybody from this list quit ebay forever. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 17 22:28:31 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:28:31 -0700 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:10:40 -0800. <45AE82C0.8882.1E4CEDCA@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <45AE82C0.8882.1E4CEDCA at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > On 17 Jan 2007 at 19:48, Richard wrote: > > > This completely misses the point that the terminal is the tactile > > physical interface for the user. When you can emulate that (utility > > fog, anyone?) let me know. > > You mean as in "keyboard"? Yes, that's the part you touch generally speaking. But terminals also had tablets and mice as attachments as well. Granted, not your average terminal, but the graphics terminals often had support for these. Hell, the Megatek I purchased from Patrick has a joystick *and* dial valuators built into the keyboard as well as a whole slew of other stuff. There are the printing terminals that you sit at like the ASR33, the LA36, LA120 and there's one made by Data General that is a pedestal, but I don't know the model # on that one. For CRTs there are the integral units like the ADM3/ADM5, the VT52, the Z9/Z19 and hey, while we're at it, the Basic/Four Model 7250. Making the keyboard an integrated part of the system cabinet changes the experience because of the limited ergonomics. It forces you to sit with your face right in the screen, filling your field of view even if its only 80x24. The detachable keyboard CRTs change this dynamic entirely. Then there are the portable terminals like the TI Silent 700 series. At first they're portable but not the sort of thing you want sitting on your lap, so you set them on the desk, but you could take them *home* and use your lowly phone to contact the computer from the luxury of your bedroom with the stereo system and your record collection and comfy chair instead of that stuffy office with the flourescent overhead lighting in endless banks. Give 'em a decade and they've evolved into the precursors of laptops like the later models in the Silent 700 series and the Random Colleague (yes, from Random Corp.). So yeah, I think there's a lot to the experience that isn't provided by an emulator. And we haven't even gotten to the feel of the keyboards and their layouts... Emulators don't sound like this either: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 22:28:50 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:28:50 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <00b501c73ab8$b79de400$0b01a8c0@game> References: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <00b501c73ab8$b79de400$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: > I would think a company like ebay would have to see a drop in the 10's if > not 100's of millions in revenue before they would even think about changing > their policies back. Nobody will notice if everybody from this list quit > ebay forever. Gee, I guess we ought to just give up then. Why bother voting, too. -- Will From geneb at simpits.com Wed Jan 17 22:54:19 2007 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:54:19 -0800 Subject: General Automation Zebra! In-Reply-To: <001401c73a6a$77b9d400$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <001401c73a6a$77b9d400$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <45AEFD7B.5050102@simpits.com> > I happen to have a GA1750 and a GA2820 in my collection, so I'm thrilled > to know that I can make new boot tapes for them now. More importantly, I > can make boot tapes for any other GA Zebra system. Note that this tape > is for rev 3.8, which was the last non-R91 Pick GA produced (I wasn't a > fan of R91, so I'm really glad it's the pinnacle of the 3.8 train). I > need to see if I can find my manual patch sheets that bring it up to 3.8T1. > > Anyways, if anyone has GA Zebra's in their collection and needs a new > boot tape I can help you out. Now I just need to find the DEALER.ASSY > account for 3.8 :) > That's great Jay! Does that version have the SUMMATION basic keyword? g. From vax9000 at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 22:54:00 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:54:00 -0500 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter Message-ID: The laptop served me as a terminal, after the flyback transformer of my VT320 died. (Side info: there are new VT320 flyback transformers on ebay for $4 each. But the news is too late for me.) I was facing the question as what to do. Buy a real terminal? Buy another 8086-386 laptop? Buy a mac SE? Buy a small used IDE HD? Buy serial cable for the HP 100LX I have? Replace the unreliable floppy drive? After one hour of surfing the internet, I finally bought 4 IDE-CF adapters (laptop and desktop versions, $2 each). One for the laptop, one for the pentium PC linux router, one for the 386 desktop. Just want to share the experience with you so you do not need to waste the 1 hour as I did. vax, 9000 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 23:02:17 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:02:17 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <45AE82C0.8882.1E4CEDCA@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 1/17/07, Richard wrote: > So yeah, I think there's a lot to the experience that isn't provided > by an emulator. Agreed. > And we haven't even gotten to the feel of the keyboards and their > layouts... Too true - for me, I type fast enough that tactile feedback and layout _matters_. I have spent many hours on DEC keyboards (VT52, VT100, LK201 (VT220, DECmate...), etc), and Commodores (PET, VIC-20, C-64), Amiga, etc., and I fall into a different rhythm with each one. > Emulators don't sound like this either: > I should make a recording of my ASR-33 doing something "interesting" like an OS/8 directory or reading papertape. I was thinking that if I played that mp3 for my 8-year-old nephew, he would have *no* idea what it was. -ethan From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 18 00:17:29 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:17:29 -0600 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: References: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <00b501c73ab8$b79de400$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45AF10F9.9030503@oldskool.org> William Donzelli wrote: >> I would think a company like ebay would have to see a drop in the 10's if >> not 100's of millions in revenue before they would even think about >> changing >> their policies back. Nobody will notice if everybody from this list quit >> ebay forever. > > Gee, I guess we ought to just give up then. Yes. > Why bother voting, too. That's a terrible comparison. There are less than 1000 people on this list, "voting" against a company of 90,000+ employees in a Fortune 100 company. There are more efficient and useful ways to spend your time. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 18 00:19:39 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:19:39 -0600 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> 9000 VAX wrote: > After one hour of surfing the internet, I finally bought 4 IDE-CF adapters > (laptop and desktop versions, $2 each). One for the laptop, one for the > pentium PC linux router, one for the 386 desktop. > > Just want to share the experience with you so you do not need to waste > the 1 > hour as I did. Where did you find the IDE-CF adapters? I'm in need of a few myself. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 00:26:34 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:26:34 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <45AE82C0.8882.1E4CEDCA@cclist.sydex.com>, , Message-ID: <45AEA29A.25038.1EC959AF@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 0:02, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > And we haven't even gotten to the feel of the keyboards and their > > layouts... > > Too true - for me, I type fast enough that tactile feedback and layout > _matters_. I have spent many hours on DEC keyboards (VT52, VT100, > LK201 (VT220, DECmate...), etc), and Commodores (PET, VIC-20, C-64), > Amiga, etc., and I fall into a different rhythm with each one. I was never able to touch-type on an ASR-33. I automatically degraded to a two-finger approach. Otherwise, I was raised on keypunch. You learn to type *very* accurately and blindly on an 026 (or if you were really unlucky, an 024 that didn't print on the card). Chunka-chunka-chunk. clickety- clunk... I hated terminals, probably because most of them were on the end of a 300 baud link at best. The first ones I used were something like 64x8--old CDC models without the memory upgrade to 64x16. I try to forget them. Personal computers changed a lot--you had a keyboard and display, as in a terminal, but you talk to the local computer at 9600 or 19200 baud. I wrote programs for my Altair (and succeeding computers) and talked to the remote boxes with a modem scavenged from a Silent 700 (acoustic coupler). I initially used a Techtran dual-cassette paper- tape emulator as my offline storage and moved to floppy when I could. Editing was local and fast. It was wonderful. The Silent 700 terminal eventually was replaced with a nice Racal Vadic that could do 1200 baud (and use Racal protocol to do, what?--2000 baud when talking to another Racal). When I was later setting up a programming shop, everyone got a VT220 clone (I don't recall whose--it may have been Tab) on their desks-- except me. I brought in my IBM PC and my homebrew hard disk (one of those Shugart 4MB 8" jobs; I recently discovered my interface card for it). I was a lot more productive than the guys with the 220's and wasn't bothered nearly as much when the VAX went down. I don't miss terminals (or keypunches or teletypes) one bit. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 00:29:37 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:29:37 -0800 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> References: , <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45AEA351.25421.1ECC2458@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 0:19, Jim Leonard wrote: > Where did you find the IDE-CF adapters? I'm in need of a few myself. DItto--I can use some of those too! Cheers, Chuck From vax9000 at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 00:34:22 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 01:34:22 -0500 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> References: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 1/18/07, Jim Leonard wrote: > > 9000 VAX wrote: > > After one hour of surfing the internet, I finally bought 4 IDE-CF > adapters > > (laptop and desktop versions, $2 each). One for the laptop, one for the > > pentium PC linux router, one for the 386 desktop. > > > > Just want to share the experience with you so you do not need to waste > > the 1 > > hour as I did. > > Where did you find the IDE-CF adapters? I'm in need of a few myself. >From that biggest on-line bazaar that many list members are bashing now for its lastest BS. vax, 9000 -- > Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ > Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ > Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ > A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ > From ak6dn at mindspring.com Thu Jan 18 00:39:37 2007 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:39:37 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <45AF1629.7090205@mindspring.com> Lyle Bickley wrote: > If you're going to write the person at eBay responsible for this new > policy, > contact Rob Chesnut, Senior Vice President, eBay Global Trust & Safety. > Here's his email address: > > Rob Chesnut > > I have already sent an email to him - with this theme: > > "I hope you understand the gravity of this newly implemented change. It > literally changes the entire character of eBay - and makes eBay a much > less > desirable auction site." > > Lyle Well, I sent Rob a note (see below) and received a response in about 20 minutes. If he can respond that fast he is not getting enough negative feedback emails... Don Chesnut, Rob wrote: > Don, thanks for your note. I don't like the new changes either. I wish > you were right about user education, but we've tried it, and much to > our frustration, it doesn't work outside a fairly narrow range of more > experienced users. If you saw the numbers of scams I saw, and were > familiar with what these fraudulent groups were able to do, I think > you would have come to the same conclusion we did. > > -------------------------- > Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Don North > To: Chesnut, Rob > Cc: Don North > Sent: Wed Jan 17 22:32:30 2007 > Subject: Latest EBAY User Interface Policy - Hidden bidder IDs > > "As the internet evolves, eBay continues to strike a balance between > preserving transparency and protecting our Community of members. eBay > has decided to change how bid history information is displayed so bad > guys cannot target bidders with fake offers using this information. In > certain cases, some bidders will no longer be able to view Bidder User > IDs on the Bid History page. Your User ID will be shown only to you and > the seller of the item you're bidding on. Other members will see an > anonymous name, such as Bidder 1, applied consistently to the Bid > History page." > > As a member of EBay for the last 6 years who has purchased well over > $25,000 worth of items (including many high ticket items over $500) I > deplore this latest change to the user interface. I feel it is a > misguided solution to a perceived problem (bogus second chance offers) > that flys in the face of an open Ebay user community. > > I have purchased many high-valued items via Ebay (mostly specialty > computer and test equipment) over the years and have received second > chance offers from time to time. Determining which offers are valid and > which ones are bogus is NOT a problem; the bogus offers invariably come > from outside the Ebay messaging mechanism and usually require payment in > cash via Western Union. Bogus second chance offers have never been a > problem in my experience. > > On the other hand, the anonymous bidder IDs now implemented for items > over $200 makes Ebay a much less attractive auction site for my use. I > cannot now determine who the other bidders are, which has always been an > important criteria for how I gauge the bids I will offer. I cannot > determine if one of the anonymous 'Bidder N's is a shill bidder that is > there to drive up the price. If I don't know who the other bidders are, > by both user ID and feedback, I can't make a quality decision on the > auction. > > If this practice of *hiding* user IDs continues, I will of necessity be > forced to find other auction sites that don't hide information from me. > Ebay will be relegated to low value, low ticket, low fee items for me. > > The solution to bogus second-chance offers is USER EDUCATION, not hiding > user information behind a smokescreen. > > Don North > ak6dn at mindspring.com > > > > From ak6dn at mindspring.com Thu Jan 18 00:55:17 2007 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:55:17 -0800 Subject: Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20) In-Reply-To: <45AE0F2E.25008.1C898097@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701161802.l0GI0w43062082@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <45AE6B69.7020506@arachelian.com>, <45AE776A.3020606@mindspring.com> <45AE0F2E.25008.1C898097@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45AF19D5.7010104@mindspring.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 17 Jan 2007 at 11:22, Don North wrote: >> Lisa (and Macintosh) used the original 68000 which was not capable of >> recovering from an arbitrary access (page) fault in the middle of an >> instruction (the updated 68010 fixed this, but Apple never used it). >> The 68000 did lot leave enough info on the fault stack to indicate >> which memory access within an instruction faulted, and which registers >> might have been auto-incremented/decremented. > > Exactly why I said that calling the Lisa architecture "virtual > memory" is misleading at best. One could not write a loop to move 2 > megabytes using a simple MOVEM/SUBQ/BNE loop as if all of the memory > were seamlessly continuous and present. The Lisa memory architecture was demand-segmented, not demand-paged. It was virtual in the sense that one could pull segments off the disk on demand, but the mechanism to do this was to use a specific instruction that was know to be 'well behaved' when it faulted. A few years earlier Apollo Computer came out with their first system that employed a 68000 that implemented a full demand paged virtual memory system. The trick they used was to have two separate 68000 processors, one for the user and the other to service page faults. When it was determined that the user processor would fault, that 68000 was frozen mid-access, then the system 68000 would service the fault, fix memory up, and then let the user 68000 continue. Actually kind of an innovative approach at the time. I remember going to a tech talk when Apollo came out of 'stealth mode'. It was in the Wang Computer building in Lowell, MA (next to Chelmsford) in the company cafeteria. The room was jammed to overflowing with DEC, DG, Wang, etc engineers all wanting to see and hear how they did it. > > I remember trying to make a list of 68K instructions that could be > restarted, wondering if it might be possible to construct a useful > subset. One of the gotchas was that the bus error handling in the > 68K gave you a P-counter that was only guaranteed to be "in the > vicinity" of the failing instruction. I gave up after awhile. > From javickers at solutionengineers.com Wed Jan 17 18:33:00 2007 From: javickers at solutionengineers.com (Ade Vickers) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:33:00 -0000 Subject: Latest eBay BS (very OT) In-Reply-To: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> References: <45AEBC69.7030601@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <011301c73a98$35a53d10$0f01a8c0@solution.engineers> Al Kossow Wrote: > > So now, you can't see who you're bidding against. > Frickin' wonderful. > Suits me. As someone who generally snipes auctions (yes, I know it's antisocial, but until eBay moves to a flexible auction end model - which doesn't seem likely - it's the best way to win auctions at deflated prices), I've been subject to occasional abuse from the previous high bidder. The only thing that WOULD be nice is if the actual f/b rating of the bidders was displayed, rather than the "between n and N". That way, if I see a bidding war between two newbies, I know not to bother. Cheers, Ade. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.16.13/632 - Release Date: 16/01/2007 From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Thu Jan 18 01:05:03 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:05:03 -0800 Subject: Another super-useful find: single Sun 200-pin 128MB DSIMM Message-ID: If you have an Ultra-class 200-pin machine with one broken 128MB DSIMM and you're wondering what to do with the other: 1 free 128MB DSIMM (no, it doesn't work in SPARCstation 20s) Renton, WA From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jan 18 01:09:25 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:09:25 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <45AF10F9.9030503@oldskool.org> References: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <45AF10F9.9030503@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200701172309.26065.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Wednesday 17 January 2007 22:17, Jim Leonard wrote: > William Donzelli wrote: > >> I would think a company like ebay would have to see a drop in the 10's > >> if not 100's of millions in revenue before they would even think about > >> changing > >> their policies back. Nobody will notice if everybody from this list quit > >> ebay forever. > > > > Gee, I guess we ought to just give up then. > > Yes. > > > Why bother voting, too. > > That's a terrible comparison. There are less than 1000 people on this > list, "voting" against a company of 90,000+ employees in a Fortune 100 > company. There are more efficient and useful ways to spend your time. I write my Representative and Senator often. I know they consider every person who writes as representing about 5,000 votes. So if I write and lots of others don't - guess who influences them more? If everyone on this list wrote eBay - believe me, they would pay attention... Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From wizard at voyager.net Thu Jan 18 01:14:55 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:14:55 -0500 Subject: HP2645As.... again In-Reply-To: <001101c73aa3$331b5ce0$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <001101c73aa3$331b5ce0$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <1169104495.22536.1.camel@linux.site> On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 20:51 -0500, Bob Shannon wrote: > I'm game for a terminal or two, if there is a bulk-buy. As am I. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Richard" > To: > Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:59 PM > Subject: HP2645As.... again > > > > Ebay item # 280070687500 > > > > The seller has zero feedback, indicating to me that he stumbled across > > these terminals and liquidating them gave him the impetus to create an > > ebay account. > > > > Jay, shall we try again at a bulk purchase? > > > > He's got 30 of them, and its not clear if they are all 2645As and > > some of them might be 2648As. > > > > The seller says some are used, some are new, although I don't know how > > you could tell from his picture of the pile :-). Maybe the "new" ones > > are the ones with the little cover for the switches on the upper left > > of the keyboard? > > -- > > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > > > > Legalize Adulthood! > > From c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com Wed Jan 17 20:02:47 2007 From: c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com (Murray McCullough) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:02:47 +0000 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 Message-ID: I agree. At least we're preserving some things. And we can! Experimenters of the 8-bit era are a hardy bunch and there still are 'artifacts' from that era still around. Will one be able to say the same thing about PCs of today 20 years down the road? Will they be worth preserving or saving from the scrap heap, hardware and software and such. Happy computing all! Murrray-- From thomas.gardner at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 17 22:07:55 2007 From: thomas.gardner at sbcglobal.net (Thomas E Gardner) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:07:55 -0800 Subject: Old Digital Disk Drives Message-ID: Hello: I'm working with the Computer History Museum, Mountain View CA, on a project to identify significant disk drives - the RP01 and RP02 have been so identified. Would anyone on this mail list have any knowledge of any such drives still in existence, operational or not? Tom Gardner Los Altos CA From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jan 18 01:38:00 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:38:00 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <200701172309.26065.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: >From: Lyle Bickley ---snip--- >> >If everyone on this list wrote eBay - believe me, they would pay >attention... > >Lyle Hi While I believe there are good reasons to not post the buyers name that would the best interest of the sellers. I've seen several posted in this group. Things such as not bidding against friends or writing leters to others to make deals on sharing the items are specifically against eBay rules. I find the most offensive aspect is that there is now no way for us to identify Shill bidders. In the past we could look for history of bidders. Several times I spotted obvious Shills. I reported these to eBay but I doubt much was done. I have contacted bidders through the seller several times because I'm not sure my messages were actually delivered. Most times, I am only interested in sharing information with the buyer. This is especially true for the rarer machines. Most times I provide valuable information and a few times, information I'm looking for is sent back. Only a couple times have I contacted an individual to sell an item. In these cases, it was specific items that based on the purchase, the buyer would be most interested in. While in these cases, I could have sold the item through eBay, I was more interested in getting these items to the person I knew would need them and only sold to recover my original cost. I can still use the contact through the seller method but catching shills is no longer possible. I believe if eBay wanted to really fix things, they could keep the same type of reports they used to have and simply has a fixed random number permanently assigned to each bidder. ID's would remain hidden and one could still look at history of bidders. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Invite your Hotmail contacts to join your friends list with Windows Live Spaces http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://spaces.live.com/spacesapi.aspx?wx_action=create&wx_url=/friends.aspx&mkt=en-us From wizard at voyager.net Thu Jan 18 01:43:04 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:43:04 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AE82C0.8882.1E4CEDCA@cclist.sydex.com> References: >, <45AE82C0.8882.1E4CEDCA@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1169106184.22536.5.camel@linux.site> On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 20:10 -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > You mean as in "keyboard"? Boy, there have been a bunch of > variations, haven't there? My most/least (love-hate) favorite was an > EBCDIC keyboard with individual enclosed dry reed switches for each > key (it was a George Risk model). A couple of Fairchild RTL ICs, > mostly a diode encoder matrix. Diecast housing. > > I used it for a time with my TV Typewriter--the control keys were set > to impose a higher resistance force than the others (remember the > Beehive Super Bee?). It would make you very tired using it for > extended periods. > > Does anyone have any idea what this may have belonged to? I'm just kind of vamping here, but it sounds like the keyboard on the standard main terminal for an RCA Spectra 70... Is there a larger than usual "step" between rows of keys? Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jan 18 01:55:33 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:55:33 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 References: Message-ID: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Murray McCullough" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 9:02 PM Subject: Re: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 > I agree. At least we're preserving some things. And we can! Experimenters > of the 8-bit era are a hardy bunch and there still are 'artifacts' from that > era still around. Will one be able to say the same thing about PCs of today > 20 years down the road? Will they be worth preserving or saving from the > scrap heap, hardware and software and such. > > Happy computing all! > > Murrray-- We have a never ending cycle of "today's PC are not interesting enough to preserve" so nobody bothers, which is what the people who made your favorite machine thought at the time. I guarantee you people down the road will be interested in everything people today might stick their nose up at now and did not bother to archive. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 02:15:44 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 03:15:44 -0500 Subject: Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20) In-Reply-To: <45AF19D5.7010104@mindspring.com> References: <200701161802.l0GI0w43062082@dewey.classiccmp.org> <45AE6B69.7020506@arachelian.com> <45AE776A.3020606@mindspring.com> <45AE0F2E.25008.1C898097@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF19D5.7010104@mindspring.com> Message-ID: On 1/18/07, Don North wrote: > A few years earlier Apollo Computer came out with their first system > that employed a 68000 that implemented a full demand paged virtual > memory system. The trick they used was to have two separate 68000 > processors, one for the user and the other to service page faults. > When it was determined that the user processor would fault, that > 68000 was frozen mid-access, then the system 68000 would service the > fault, fix memory up, and then let the user 68000 continue. Actually > kind of an innovative approach at the time. I don't know who did it first, but in the mid-1980s, I worked with a Perkin-Elmer workstation (can't recall the exact model number (7xxx?), running System III, ISTR) with a similar coupled 68000 page fault scheme. It was not a new box in 1985 when I first saw it. One distinct feature - it had several (10?) buttons built into the lower bezel on the console CRT that were referred to as "soft function keys". There was some way to twiddle the bottom line of text on the console to "label" the buttons, but we never used them. We mostly used the box as a C->68K assembler engine to feed a home-grown assembler to make embedded product images, but that has nothing to do with page demand VM. ;-) The 68010 came out a short time later, making all this effort a historical footnote. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 02:16:09 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:16:09 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <1169106184.22536.5.camel@linux.site> References: , <1169106184.22536.5.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <45AEBC49.18779.1F2DA99E@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 2:43, Warren Wolfe wrote: > I'm just kind of vamping here, but it sounds like the keyboard on > the standard main terminal for an RCA Spectra 70... Is there a larger > than usual "step" between rows of keys? As I recall, yes--but it's been years since I've actually had the thing in my hands. Someone once told me it looked like a relic from a Spectrola, but I could never verify it. Thanks, I can sleep tonight. ;) Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 02:39:26 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:39:26 -0800 Subject: Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20) In-Reply-To: <45AF19D5.7010104@mindspring.com> References: <200701161802.l0GI0w43062082@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <45AE0F2E.25008.1C898097@cclist.sydex.com>, <45AF19D5.7010104@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <45AEC1BE.24740.1F42F9BE@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2007 at 22:55, Don North wrote: > A few years earlier Apollo Computer came out with their first system > that employed a 68000 that implemented a full demand paged virtual > memory system. The trick they used was to have two separate 68000 > processors, one for the user and the other to service page faults. > When it was determined that the user processor would fault, that > 68000 was frozen mid-access, then the system 68000 would service the > fault, fix memory up, and then let the user 68000 continue. Actually > kind of an innovative approach at the time. I recall hearing about that. One 68K ran a clock or so ahead of the other. Sort of like navigating in the dark by sending someone with a rope tied around him a few paces ahead of you. If he drops into a pit, you can pull him out, step around the pit and keep going. My impression is that it was a fairly expensive way to do things, but there weren't a lot of microprocessor CPUs that could handle VM at the time. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 02:46:44 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:46:44 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> References: , <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 2:55, Teo Zenios wrote: > We have a never ending cycle of "today's PC are not interesting enough to > preserve" so nobody bothers, which is what the people who made your favorite > machine thought at the time. I guarantee you people down the road will be > interested in everything people today might stick their nose up at now and > did not bother to archive. There will still be plenty of the things around. One thing that just about guarantees this is the sheer numbers of them sold. So they'll go into basements, attics and barns and forgotten about. Civil War-era brass musical instruments still turn up from time to time--found hanging in a barn, or an attic or serviing as a table lamp. That's after two World Wars and a bunch of smaller ones with scrap brass collection drives. I imagine down the road a couple of decades, we won't have the general-purpose desktop computer in any recognizable form. Computers will largely be embedded in everything--including people's heads. Cheers, Chuck From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jan 18 03:01:12 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 04:01:12 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 References: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <003701c73adf$33eaeaa0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 3:46 AM Subject: Re: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 > On 18 Jan 2007 at 2:55, Teo Zenios wrote: > > > We have a never ending cycle of "today's PC are not interesting enough to > > preserve" so nobody bothers, which is what the people who made your favorite > > machine thought at the time. I guarantee you people down the road will be > > interested in everything people today might stick their nose up at now and > > did not bother to archive. > > There will still be plenty of the things around. One thing that just > about guarantees this is the sheer numbers of them sold. So they'll > go into basements, attics and barns and forgotten about. > > Civil War-era brass musical instruments still turn up from time to > time--found hanging in a barn, or an attic or serviing as a table > lamp. That's after two World Wars and a bunch of smaller ones with > scrap brass collection drives. > > I imagine down the road a couple of decades, we won't have the > general-purpose desktop computer in any recognizable form. Computers > will largely be embedded in everything--including people's heads. > > Cheers, > Chuck The machines and common cards will be, but drivers and exotic hardware/software will be long gone. It is hard to find drivers for some things now let alone in 20 years. From marvin at rain.org Thu Jan 18 07:03:32 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 05:03:32 -0800 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) Message-ID: <45AF7024.95B0E756@rain.org> > From: Jim Leonard > > William Donzelli wrote: > >> their policies back. Nobody will notice if everybody from this list quit > >> ebay forever. > > Gee, I guess we ought to just give up then. > Yes. > > Why bother voting, too. > That's a terrible comparison. There are less than 1000 people on this > list, "voting" against a company of 90,000+ employees in a Fortune 100 > company. There are more efficient and useful ways to spend your time. Voting is a terrific comparison. For some reason, you think that the only uproar is taking place on this listserver ... you are wrong there. Perhaps you (and others on this list) are not aware that among other things, people have reported that they can find out what the bidders proxy bid is using apparently legitimate software. Shill bidding *is* a concern and Ebay is doing their very best to prevent users from detecting shills. I see nothing to indicate that Ebay is doing anything other than attempting damage control. From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 18 07:50:07 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:50:07 -0600 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) References: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <00b501c73ab8$b79de400$0b01a8c0@game> <45AF10F9.9030503@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <006301c73b07$92d39c60$6600a8c0@BILLING> Jim wrote.... > That's a terrible comparison. There are less than 1000 people on this > list, That's news to me ;) It's about double that. Jay From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Jan 18 08:00:52 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:00:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AE180C.28494.1CAC23DF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070118140052.9E9035841E@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Chuck Guzis > > Feh. Most of the software of the 80's was written to floppy, an That is true for America, but for the C64 in Europe most of the game software was on tape as the floppy drives were so expensive there. Cheers, Bryan > excellent storage medium. Give me a 20-year old 8" floppy any day to > a 2-year old 1.44MB 3.5" diskette. How many 80's (not 70's) systems > used cassette tape as primary storage? True, the DC-xxxx carts are > starting to have problems, but in most cases, this was used as > backup, not a distribution medium. In many cases, the problem is > with the aging rubber in the drive, not the medium itself. > From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 08:24:09 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:24:09 -0700 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 17 Jan 2007 22:26:34 -0800. <45AEA29A.25038.1EC959AF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <45AEA29A.25038.1EC959AF at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > I don't miss terminals (or keypunches or teletypes) one bit. I don't know that I "miss" them in the sense of wanting to use them over what I have available to me now. Graphics on PCs these days blow away US$1E6 machines from ten years ago, never mind 20 or more years ago. However, since my first computing experiences were all through terminals (some of them graphical, notably HP2648A and Tektronix 4010), its defines the "nostalgia" element for me. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 18 08:36:32 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 08:36:32 -0600 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <006301c73b07$92d39c60$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <00b501c73ab8$b79de400$0b01a8c0@game> <45AF10F9.9030503@oldskool.org> <006301c73b07$92d39c60$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45AF85F0.2050807@yahoo.co.uk> Jay West wrote: > Jim wrote.... >> That's a terrible comparison. There are less than 1000 people on this >> list, > That's news to me ;) It's about double that. We're all subscribed twice, but shhhh! ;) From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 08:45:00 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:45:00 -0500 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <45AF10F9.9030503@oldskool.org> References: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <00b501c73ab8$b79de400$0b01a8c0@game> <45AF10F9.9030503@oldskool.org> Message-ID: > That's a terrible comparison. There are less than 1000 people on this > list, "voting" against a company of 90,000+ employees in a Fortune 100 > company. There are more efficient and useful ways to spend your time. OK, there are 1000 people on this list that could complain. Plus many 1000s of other lists, from Hummels to fishing tackle. As I see it, every group that uses Ebay is pretty pissed off. -- Will From sellam at vintagetech.com Thu Jan 18 09:09:17 2007 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:09:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Ebay idiocy Message-ID: I thought I'd weigh in on the latest policy change on eBay. I didn't know about the new change until someone e-mailed me about it. The only change I've noticed recently is that one is not now allowed to randomly send a message to another user with whom they have not done business, which leads one to ask why they have the fucking contact link there in the first place? Through the years there have been these recurring bitch sessions over eBay's increasingly idiotic policies. In the meantime, I and Patrick set up an alternate for the computer collecting community that was tailored for our specific needs and desires, taking into account all the bitching and pissing and moaning over eBay's abominable system. We got the first implementation off and running with big plans to expand it further, which have yet to materialize, and I'll get into that in a second. But first I want to take the time to congratulate the community for the big fuck you they gave to the VCM. It has always been the intention that we would start charging at some point for using it, but we never got to that point. The usage was so minimal anyway that it didn't make sense to start charging until we could get a reasonably active user base. Granted, we could've done a lot more to promote and advertise the site, but the CC list community here damn well knew about it and was constantly reminded about it by myself and Marvin, and inspite of that the activity just never materialized. Patrick has since gone on to bigger and better things, having washed his hands of the CC list and community at some point last year when he couldn't take anymore of the petty bickering and flame wars that regularly erupt (this is paraphrasing what he told to me). He turned the site and its maintenance over to me and I've been running it solo ever since, mostly just approving all the new accounts and handling the very rare issues that crop up. For the most part, the VCM has been there processing transactions (for FREE) on autopilot, and running rather well considering. If it wasn't for Marvin--who was fed up enough with eBay but, more importantly, savvy enough to realize that the VCM is better for selling a lot of stuff, especially when there are no listing fees--the VCM would effectively be dead. I know people are using it, because I see you swooping in and grabbing some of the better stuff being offered for great prices (someone just bought a nice IMSAI 8080 for around $1,200, which is a pretty good deal). I buy a lot of stuff from Marvin, who is listing a lot of fantastic stuff for extremely reasonable prices. There are other people regularly selling there too and probably making a decent amount of money, COMMISSION FREE. Now, getting back to the expansion of the system. I do still have a lot of plans for the service, mainly in the area of making it a bit more friendly in the interface. When we launched it we had a service that I felt was superior to eBay's crap system. In the meantime, eBay used their billions of dollars of capitalization to make their system easier to use, integrated a lot of stuff, etc. Me, I'm still sitting on my IPO until the next irrational dot.com boom, so my funds are limited, as is my time, as is my ability to make any changes to the VCM since Patrick owns and controls the server and wrote all the code (based on a system he'd already designed for a past client of his). Now that Patrick is out of the picture, I'm faced with having to port the entire system over to my own server, which I would like to do so I can finally take it into Phase 2 and beyond. But quite frankly, why the fuck should I even bother? You guys don't use it anyway. You keep using eBay, and you keep bitching about how stupid they are and get all up in arms when they make yet another bone-headed policy change, and there sits the VCM doing everything you want, allowing you to communicate with whoever the hell you want without any over-bearing surveillance system in place to make sure you aren't doing something sneaky to deprive us of revenue, with the guys who built and run the system completely available directly via e-mail for any suggestions, complaints, praise(?) [hardly any, if you're wondering], and doing it without asking you for one god damn penny. So tell me, seriously, why should I bother moving forward with the VCM? You want an alternative? It's already there, and I'd like to continue to build on it and improve it and make it the premier place for trading in old computers, a de facto replacement for eBay, like I originally intended. But I'm certainly not going to waste my time unless people actually decide to USE IT. Is there a reason you don't use it? Is there something about the interface you don't like? Is there one or two or three or five reasons why you don't like it or don't want to use it? If so, why didn't you say so? You could've always e-mailed either myself or Patrick, and like the few people who did bother to give us feedback, your comments and suggestions would've resulted in immediate changes to the system. Try getting that from eBay. As O. Sharp pointed out, try even finding a fucking way to communicate with eBay!! They make it nearly impossible for you to get a hold of them because THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU. They just want you to buy shit from sellers to that they can get a cut of their money and they want you to shut the fuck up. I see now that I've been relegated to ranting about eBay it's time to start winding this up. In conclusion, I'm quite serious about my queries. The VCM has been out there for years and inspite of the lack of advertising 1,881 people have managed to find it and sign up for an account. Logically, that would make for a very strong and active user base. As far as I can tell, about 1,800+ of them don't actually do anything once they get an account. Why? Why didn't they spread the word to other collectors and to sellers on eBay so that they could convince them to sell their stuff on the VCM instead? I'll tell you one reason why: sellers make more money on eBay. And that's fine. eBay is good for making money selling crap. eBay is a crap market. The VCM is a marketplace for the serious trade of vintage computers for serious vintage computer collectors, hobbyists and afficionados. If you want to buy/sell/trade crap, continue using eBay, and give them your money and shut the fuck up because they don't care about you (only your money). If you want an alternative that caters specifically to the vintage computing community, use the VCM. Tell everyone you buy from about it. Sell your fine vintage computers on it (sell your crap on eBay). Use the god damn system. It's there and for the foreseeable future, it's free. Use it or lose it. In closing, many thanks to Marvin (whom I am also proud to count as a good friend) for utilizing the VCM to its fullest, and congratulations for the many thousands of dollars he's made COMMISSION FREE selling his stuff there for the past several years, and congratulations to the other sellers, and to the many people who have bought stuff in the simple and relaxed environment that is the VCM. Marvin and the others are the ones who deserve the credit for keeping it alive. YOU could be the one who helps to make it THRIVE if you would just USE IT. http://marketplace.vintage.org or http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com Please direct any replies to me via e-mail. I am not subscribed to the list and might not see any follow-ups you post. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From useddec at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 09:28:57 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:28:57 -0600 Subject: Old Digital Disk Drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000a01c73b15$5fb22190$4200a8c0@main> Hi Tom, I had a client on the east coast that was still running RP03 and RP03 drives 0n 11/40's a few years ago. He had 4 or 5 systems running RSTS. I'll try to contact him soon. I might have some documentation on them. Thanks, Paul Anderson -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Thomas E Gardner Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 10:08 PM To: cctech at classiccmp.org Subject: Old Digital Disk Drives Hello: I'm working with the Computer History Museum, Mountain View CA, on a project to identify significant disk drives - the RP01 and RP02 have been so identified. Would anyone on this mail list have any knowledge of any such drives still in existence, operational or not? Tom Gardner Los Altos CA From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 18 09:25:10 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:25:10 -0600 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 18 Jan 2007 at 2:55, Teo Zenios wrote: > >> We have a never ending cycle of "today's PC are not interesting enough to >> preserve" so nobody bothers, which is what the people who made your favorite >> machine thought at the time. I guarantee you people down the road will be >> interested in everything people today might stick their nose up at now and >> did not bother to archive. > > There will still be plenty of the things around. One thing that just > about guarantees this is the sheer numbers of them sold. So they'll > go into basements, attics and barns and forgotten about. Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being available in 20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work and keep them running :-) Take a typical machine from 20 years ago and the datasheets for most of the chips are still available now, the schematics were often published and have survived, very few one-off parts were used, and the level of technology needed to work on the electronics is achievable by us mere mortals. Fast forward 20 years into the future, and I'm not so sure that will be the case; modern machines are a world of "closed source" complexity, using lots of proprietary components and designed to be assembled at the factory and then thrown away when they break. Pretty much anyone can learn how to solder, learn some electronics from any number of books, and get stuck in with old hardware - I just don't see that happening 20 years down the line with the current generation of systems. That means that maintaining these machines will be down to a *very* select few people. It's either that or they need to be available in sufficient numbers so that they can be "fixed" at some sort of board-swapping level, and given that a new PC motherboard seems to come out every week I'm not sure that the numbers of any given board available will be high enough to do that. > Civil War-era brass musical instruments still turn up from time to > time--found hanging in a barn, or an attic or serviing as a table > lamp. That's after two World Wars and a bunch of smaller ones with > scrap brass collection drives. Sure - but the point is that the understanding is there to repair the ones that do show up. I'm not saying that there aren't specialised techniques involved, but it's within the comprehension of everyday folk to learn those techniques, understand how the object works, and afford the tools needed to carry out the work. A couple of decades down the line I think we're going to have real problems - not just with computers, but with all sorts of modern gadgets - as the complexity is just too high and the necessary knowledge often locked away within companies. Understanding of parts, diagnosing faults, and fixing them won't get any easier I suspect, and sourcing those parts in the first place gets harder each day. cheers Jules From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 18 09:48:34 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:48:34 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 Message-ID: <45AF96D2.3090005@bitsavers.org> > A couple of decades down the line I think we're going to have real problems - > not just with computers, but with all sorts of modern gadgets We don't even have to wait that long. All of the consumer devices tied to backend services are a perfect example of devices that are absolutely useless once a company fails. Unfortunately, revenue models based on this model are on the increase. From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 18 09:47:45 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:47:45 -0600 Subject: Ebay idiocy References: Message-ID: <004901c73b18$02112380$6600a8c0@BILLING> Sellam, there's a lot you wrote there that I'd love to respond to and I will later when I don't have customers nipping at my heels and can afford a longer more well thought out response. It sounds as if you feel that the ClassicCMP membership has walked away from you/VCM and you're rather upset about it. You might want to consider that it might appear to some that you walked away from ClassicCMP earlier by "leaving" the list. However, you obviously still feel it's ok to lob a grenade in re: your previous post. I would suggest that if you want to post here, seek assistance/help from listmembers as you do here occasionally when you're looking for something, and work constructively with the ClassicCMP list you might consider not making a rather glaring point of how this list sucks so bad in your opinion, and making sure everyone knows you aren't subscribed. It's a two way street. I'm sorry that ClassicCMP has continued to flourish even though it isn't run exactly how you want. If ClassicCMP is nothing but "petty bickering and flame wars", they why do you regularly avail yourself of us when you need a manual or other artifact? Jay West From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 18 10:16:03 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 08:16:03 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 Message-ID: <45AF9D43.4050800@bitsavers.org> > The machines and common cards will be, but drivers and exotic > hardware/software will be long gone. It is hard to find drivers for some > things now let alone in 20 years. So the question is what should be saved? Is there something about the 'exotic hardware/software' that is historically significant? Was enough information released that you could actually do something with the device in the future? From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 10:43:29 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:43:29 -0700 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:09:17 -0800. Message-ID: Wow. Bitterness. I don't know the history here, but I'll tell you why I use ebay a lot more than VCM. Its simple, really. More of the stuff I'm interested in shows up regularly on ebay. So what. I use VCM if its apropos, just like I'll use dovebid, govliquidation.com and any other web site that has interesting stuff to me. It sounds to me like you're saying that unless 100% of the community is using VCM instead of ebay, then VCM somehow has "failed". I don't see it that way at all. I don't have any stuff to sell (yet), so VCM is only good to me as a buyer. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 10:54:04 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:54:04 -0700 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 08:16:03 -0800. <45AF9D43.4050800@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <45AF9D43.4050800 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > So the question is what should be saved? Is there something about the > 'exotic hardware/software' that is historically significant? Well, if you adopt the "only historically significant" things are to be collected mantra, you never would have had something like the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. *All* of the stuff he amassed for that collection was considered not historically significant at the time. Now its amazing to be able to walk down an aisle and see the evolution of the sewing machine, or the dishwasher or the clothes washer/dryer, etc. I think there are some things you can say have obvious historical value. Others aren't historically significant *by themselves* but allow you to make a realistic historical portait because they represent samples of devices over time. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 18 11:23:54 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:23:54 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 Message-ID: <45AFAD2A.7010800@bitsavers.org> >> So the question is what should be saved? Is there something about the >> 'exotic hardware/software' that is historically significant? > Well, if you adopt the "only historically significant" things are to > be collected mantra, you never would have had something like the Henry > Ford Museum in Michigan. *All* of the stuff he amassed for that > collection was considered not historically significant at the time. > Now its amazing to be able to walk down an aisle and see the evolution > of the sewing machine, or the dishwasher or the clothes washer/dryer, > etc. > > I think there are some things you can say have obvious historical > value. Others aren't historically significant *by themselves* but > allow you to make a realistic historical portait because they > represent samples of devices over time. This is an argument that people in archives and museums have to confront every day when donations come in. If there was infinite conditioned storage space time/money to process donations, much more would be accepted than happens in the real world. As a curator, I have to make the decision to commit CHM's resources to preserve something in perpetuity. From the time I have spent talking to Doron Swane about the British Science Museum's collecting policies this is not unique. "You cannot save everything, where would you put it?" isn't a joke when you are talking about collections expected to last hundreds of years. One of the most serious responsibilies that I have, along with the activities of physical and electronic artifact preservation at CHM is making the decision to accept an artifact into the collection. Things created in the PC era and forward are especially difficult, since there was so much produced in a fairly narrow product niche (personal computers). Do you need to save EVERY version of a software package (and all of the documentation)? Remember, storage and processing isn't free. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 18 11:25:26 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:25:26 -0600 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45AFAD86.9060908@yahoo.co.uk> Sellam Ismail wrote: > Is there a reason you don't use it? Is there something about the > interface you don't like? Is there one or two or three or five reasons > why you don't like it or don't want to use it? If so, why didn't you say > so? Personally, it always seemed to me like a very US-centric site with a predominantly US-based readership. It'd be interesting to know if that's not the case any more though (assuming you have any way of relating IP addresses to some vague notion of originating country) as I admit to not having looked for quite some time... :( If it is still mainly centred in one country though, I'm not quite sure what you can do about that as the amount of "marketing" needed to raise awareness in other countries probably outweighs the amount of traffic from those countries that you'll get in return. Personally, I know I've mentioned it before over on uk.comp.vintage, and I've always had the intention to have it listed on the museum website (along with other resources) when the rework's finished - but that's been a "work in progress" for months now. [I can't remember if you're on the "computer museum admins" mailing list - if so then asking there to see if members will add a link to their websites seems like an easy thing to do] Anyway, I'd be using it in preference to Ebay if I were either in the US or were selling things that were economical to ship to the US. In the meantime though, 99% of what I collect are UK machines centered around only a handful of manufacturers, and so there are plenty of far more specific mailing lists and/or newsgroups to interact with without the need (thankfully!) to go anywhere near Ebay at all to buy or sell. In short, I suspect that the VCM can and does provide a useful service - but remember that you're hoping to reach an international audience of people with a rather niche interest. As an "owner" I'd have serious reservations about expecting to make a profit from that, other than using it to promote other services which do generate money. I'd also be thinking twice about running it all if it needed a lot of effort (although if that turns out to be your feeling too, please don't just pull the plug - I'm sure willing people can be found to take over the hosting / management if required! :-) My two items of low-denomination currency, anyway. cheers Jules From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Jan 18 11:36:45 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:36:45 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AF96D2.3090005@bitsavers.org> References: <45AF96D2.3090005@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45AFB02D.6080903@atarimuseum.com> How true, you look at all of these internet terminals that you see people hacking. Many are hardwired to a service - like the Virgin Altantic internet terminals which need to have the BIOS replaced and you install your own embedded OS on to make then a vanilla system again. Sierratel wireless internet is another one that comes to mind. Imagine all those blackberries out there that could've become useless had RIM not worked something out. Curt Al Kossow wrote: > > A couple of decades down the line I think we're going to have real > problems - > > not just with computers, but with all sorts of modern gadgets > > We don't even have to wait that long. > > All of the consumer devices tied to backend services are a perfect > example > of devices that are absolutely useless once a company fails. > Unfortunately, > revenue models based on this model are on the increase. > > > From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 18 11:44:42 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:44:42 -0800 Subject: Ebay idiocy Message-ID: <45AFB20A.1090803@bitsavers.org> > My two items of low-denomination currency, anyway. Which goes to everyone EXCEPT Sellam, since he DOESN'T READ THE LIST! I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from posting. I suggest others do as well. From wizard at voyager.net Thu Jan 18 11:51:13 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:51:13 -0500 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1169142674.22536.34.camel@linux.site> On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 07:09 -0800, Sellam Ismail wrote: [ Large sections of rant removed in the interest of public safety. ] > I thought I'd weigh in on the latest policy change on eBay. > . . . > But first I want to take the time to congratulate the > community for the big fuck you they gave to the VCM. > . . . > But quite frankly, why the fuck should I even bother? > You guys don't use it anyway. > . . . > So tell me, seriously, why should I bother moving forward > with the VCM? > . . . > Is there a reason you don't use it? Is there something > about the interface you don't like? Is there one or two > or three or five reasons why you don't like it or don't > want to use it? If so, why didn't you say so? Perhaps, (and I'm just guessing here) you haven't insulted your potential customer base enough yet. In my one use of the system, I put together a bunch of Marvin's items I was interested in buying, and wrote to him, only to find, apparently, that the items had already sold. Had I seen THIS rant before I went there, I probably would not have gone in the first place. Running a consumer-based business is a lot like a relationship. Judging strictly by THIS e-mail, in this case it is like a relationship in which the female has decided to terminate the relationship, and the male is going to beat her until she tells him WHY she is leaving. You seem to have developed the opinion that potential customers owe you something; as long as that is true, it cannot possibly succeed. Let's take another example. Let's say I want to form a company to produce an operating system, because Microsoft does, in my opinion, a terrible job, releasing crappy, buggy code, and I feel that my friends and I can do a better job. (True, incidentally...) Even assuming I was correct in that feeling, do you have any idea how DAUNTING such a task would be? I don't mean writing the operating system, I mean going up against one of the most competent and ruthless marketing organizations on the planet; it may well be impossible, and certainly has a Olympic "difficulty" rating of at least three digits on a one-to-ten scale. eBay may not be as ruthless as Microsoft, but they, like Microsoft, have a market share position that even big competitors (Bidz, Yahoo!, etc.) cannot touch. Their name has become synonymous with sales on the 'net, and that is likely to be true for many years in any case. If I start my O/S company, I am almost certainly going down in flames. My sending of a foul-mouthed and insulting post to a list to which I do not subscribe (and what does THAT isolated little fact say?) to berate people, and essentially taunt them with "ALL of my bug reports have been completed, and all bugs repaired, so why are you JERKS still using that ridiculous Windows trash?" is the only way to simply GUARANTEE failure. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 18 11:49:34 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:49:34 -0600 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AFAD2A.7010800@bitsavers.org> References: <45AFAD2A.7010800@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45AFB32E.2040401@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: > >> So the question is what should be saved? Is there something about the > >> 'exotic hardware/software' that is historically significant? > > > Well, if you adopt the "only historically significant" things are to > > be collected mantra, you never would have had something like the Henry > > Ford Museum in Michigan. *All* of the stuff he amassed for that > > collection was considered not historically significant at the time. > > Now its amazing to be able to walk down an aisle and see the evolution > > of the sewing machine, or the dishwasher or the clothes washer/dryer, > > etc. > > > > I think there are some things you can say have obvious historical > > value. Others aren't historically significant *by themselves* but > > allow you to make a realistic historical portait because they > > represent samples of devices over time. > > This is an argument that people in archives and museums have to confront > every day when donations come in. If there was infinite conditioned storage > space time/money to process donations, much more would be accepted than > happens in the real world. As a curator, I have to make the decision to > commit CHM's resources to preserve something in perpetuity. The hardest bit I find is not deciding on what is or isn't obviously of merit now (whether it be a 'core' item or ephemera), but deciding the fate of things which might be potentially useful 20 or 30 years down the road when it's the next generation that are making the decisions on what gets passed over and what doesn't. When presented with an offer of a Foobar XYZ it's difficult to decide what to do when you know that the item is of no immediate use, but quite possibly some poor soul's going to be scratching around for one 25 years down the line. (ST506/412 interface hard disks are a good example of this - stockpile now for a rainy day, or use that space for other "immediate" things and just pray that you can source a usable drive later when you need it for a restoration?) Museums are a bit like icebergs, I suppose... > isn't a joke when you are talking about collections expected to last > hundreds of years. Exactly, and I do keep on bumping into people who only seem capable of thinking a few years into the future. > Things created in the PC era and forward are especially difficult, since > there was so much produced in a fairly narrow product niche (personal > computers). > > Do you need to save EVERY version of a software package (and all of the > documentation)? I hear ya. Tough call to make. Somewhere we have an entire collection of Wordperfect releases taking up space - but you just know that in a few decades time someone's going to come along wanting to do some major research paper on the differences between versions of wordprocessor software :-) cheers Jules From evan at snarc.net Thu Jan 18 11:58:14 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:58:14 -0500 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <45AFB20A.1090803@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <000801c73b2a$39f41070$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>>> I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from posting .... I suggest others do as well. That's ridiculous. Sellam made an excellent point WHEN he left this list -- I'm paraphrasing, but he noted that at least 50% of the list traffic here is just filler -- people says "me too" or whatever. That's not to say he doesn't find this list useful; quite the opposite, that's why he does still post here and thumbs through the archives now and then. Certainly we can all identify with his frustration from that issue. Jay: I'm not sure if this is already an option or not, but, does cctalk have a "no emails" option so that people can still be members but not get all the messages pushed to them? I suspect that a lot more people than just Sellam would like that option. It's one of the best features of web-based groups. (No, I'm not saying we should give up the email list and adopt a web group; I'm just saying that is a handy feature.) Usually when Sellam does post here, it's something constructive -- he rarely asks for our help without offering something beneficial in return. Al, your suggestion implies that Sellam posts critiques here and then runs and ducks from cover by not being on the list. That isn't the case. His points about the VCM are all valid. The man just wants some reassurance that his time and hard work will be appreciated. What's wrong with that? More people in our hobby should be that devoted! - Evan -----Original Message----- From: Al Kossow [mailto:aek at bitsavers.org] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 12:45 PM To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Ebay idiocy > My two items of low-denomination currency, anyway. Which goes to everyone EXCEPT Sellam, since he DOESN'T READ THE LIST! I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from posting. I suggest others do as well. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 18 11:53:40 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:53:40 -0600 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <45AFB20A.1090803@bitsavers.org> References: <45AFB20A.1090803@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45AFB424.9090309@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: > > My two items of low-denomination currency, anyway. > > Which goes to everyone EXCEPT Sellam, since he > DOESN'T READ THE LIST! He was on the To: list; I just figured that the discussion's interesting enough to have on-list too - perhaps I misjudged that :-) From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 12:03:07 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:03:07 -0500 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <45AFB20A.1090803@bitsavers.org> References: <45AFB20A.1090803@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45AFB65B.2090205@gmail.com> Al Kossow wrote: > > My two items of low-denomination currency, anyway. > > Which goes to everyone EXCEPT Sellam, since he > DOESN'T READ THE LIST! > > I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from > posting. > > I suggest others do as well. Don't be a baby. Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 11:53:24 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:53:24 -0700 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:44:42 -0800. <45AFB20A.1090803@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <45AFB20A.1090803 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > > My two items of low-denomination currency, anyway. > > Which goes to everyone EXCEPT Sellam, since he > DOESN'T READ THE LIST! Well, that's Sellam's loss, not mine. > I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from > posting. Eh. I couldn't care either way :-). If Sellam only wants to occasionally drop by and kick the hornet's nest, I can see why Jay might not approve his posts -- its my understanding that posts from non subscribers await manual approval. Hoever, I've been here for a year or so and this is the first hand grenade I've seen him toss into the tent, so I don't think its out of line. I can delete messages I don't like as long as it doesn't become a habit. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 11:50:26 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:50:26 -0700 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:23:54 -0800. <45AFAD2A.7010800@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <45AFAD2A.7010800 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > One of the most serious responsibilies that I have, along with the > activities of > physical and electronic artifact preservation at CHM is > making the decision t o > accept an artifact into the collection. That's entirely understandable and I hear what you're saying. That's why I think something like the Henry Ford Museum is so awesome -- the guy had the money to store vast quantities of stuff that otherwise would be lost or sprinkled around the country and not consolidated in one place. > Remember, storage and processing isn't free. As a guy who just loaded 40 linear feet of VMS docs into a closet, I hear ya :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 12:07:01 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:07:01 -0700 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:58:14 -0500. <000801c73b2a$39f41070$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: In article <000801c73b2a$39f41070$6401a8c0 at DESKTOP>, "Evan Koblentz" writes: > That's ridiculous. Sellam made an excellent point WHEN he left this list -- > I'm paraphrasing, but he noted that at least 50% of the list traffic here is > just filler -- people says "me too" or whatever. That's not to say he > doesn't find this list useful; quite the opposite, that's why he does still > post here and thumbs through the archives now and then. Certainly we can > all identify with his frustration from that issue. While this is true, the statement is put out there as if this is the only mailing list in the universe that has ever suffered this fate. Chat mailing lists like this one are like bars/pubs. Sometimes the conversation is on-topic and sometimes it wanders off and sometimes people have had too much to drink and say things in the heat of the moment :-). Manage the volume anyway you want, but don't blame the list for it. The phenomenon is intrinsic to the human condition, not this mailing list. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From evan at snarc.net Thu Jan 18 12:09:21 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:09:21 -0500 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <1169142674.22536.34.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <000901c73b2b$c72260e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>>> is the only way to simply GUARANTEE failure. .... Warren E. Wolfe Only if people jump to conclusions without really considering what he was saying. Sellam knows he's, shall we say, a "direct" communicator. That's why I like the dude. :) Anyway, the fact remains that his auction site DOES address all of the stuff we hate about ebay -- and if it's doesn't in some case, he will quickly fix it. Of course there's a paradox. Sellers won't post if there aren't buyers present, and buyers won't be present unless sellers post. I think we should all put aside personal feelings to DO WHAT'S BEST FOR THE HOBBY. I believe that what's best for the hobby is to encourage Sellam to keep up his work on the VCM, and I believe the best means of that encouragement is to USE HIS SITE. (And conversely, just because he doesn't technically subscribe to cctalk doesn't mean he no longer USES it.) -Evan From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 12:41:30 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:41:30 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> References: , <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com>, <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45AF4EDA.14814.216A2F4A@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 9:25, Jules Richardson wrote: > Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being available in > 20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work and keep > them running :-) But then, we're going back to the original argument that today's machines aren't built as well as the old ones. :) I've got a few early 90's bits of consumer electronics sitting in a corner of my shop, not to repair (not worth it) but waiting to be scavenged for parts. There's the stereo receiver with a wonderful great hunk of a power transformer and the portable TV with the blown FBT wating to have its CRT scavenged someday. (BTW, if anyone has a spare FBT for 14" Quimax PC monochrome display; I've got the rest of the unit if you want it). OTOH, someone dropped a no-name socket 462 mobo off (probably a victim of Chinese capacitor disease) when I wasn't home. No memory, no CPU, just the board. I scavenged the lithum coin cell off of it for my wife's metronome. There's nothing else worth taking on the board that I can see. There's no practical advantage to spending any time to repair the board, even if I could. Given the unrepairability of most modern consumer goods, I can't see that collecting these things other than for keeping inert bits of dead electronics for show will ever be practical. I'll hang on to things that are reparable or have parts to scavenge; the rest hits the waste (recycling) stream. Cheers, Chuck From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Thu Jan 18 12:46:32 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:46:32 -0500 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: References: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070118134258.012b7a70@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that 9000 VAX may have mentioned these words: >On 1/18/07, Jim Leonard wrote: >> >>9000 VAX wrote: >> > After one hour of surfing the internet, I finally bought 4 IDE-CF >>adapters >> > (laptop and desktop versions, $2 each). One for the laptop, one for the >> > pentium PC linux router, one for the 386 desktop. >> > >> > Just want to share the experience with you so you do not need to waste >> > the 1 >> > hour as I did. >> >>Where did you find the IDE-CF adapters? I'm in need of a few myself. > > > From that biggest on-line bazaar that many list members are bashing now for >its lastest BS. Ah yes... but if anyone actually *wanted* to support a Classic Computer company, you could buy them here: http://www.cloud9tech.com/ Not the cheapest, but hey - they're great guys and can be found over on the maltedmedia.com CoCo list. At the same time, you could pick up an IDE interface for your CoCo that has a built-in CF socket right on it... ;-) Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 12:57:06 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 10:57:06 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <45AF5282.21792.217878DA@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 7:24, Richard wrote: > However, since my first computing experiences were all through > terminals (some of them graphical, notably HP2648A and Tektronix > 4010), its defines the "nostalgia" element for me. Perhaps that explains why there's so much interest in DEC equipment here. A lot of folks had first work experience on the stuff--and it's readily available. If someone offered me an 026 keypunch, I don't know that I'd be eager to take it in, even though it probably has the same place in my mind that a terminal does in yours. What would I do with it? The hardware that used cards for I/O is long gone. It's sort of like having a victrola with no records to play. At least terminals can stilll be put to some use. Cheers, Chuck From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jan 18 13:02:37 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:02:37 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 52 Message-ID: <01C73B09.769A0BE0@MSE_D03> >Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:58:14 -0500 >From: "Evan Koblentz" >Subject: RE: Ebay idiocy >The man just wants some reassurance that his time and hard work >will be appreciated. What's wrong with that? More people in >our hobby should be that devoted! >- Evan -------------------- A rather naive perspective, I think. Aside from whatever personal interest he may have in classic computers, he's also in it for the money and apparently wants to generate enough traffic for VCM to generate revenue and potentially sell it for some ridiculous (IPO) amount. As Warren points out, competing with eBay is a rather dubious business proposition anyway, but ranting at and offending his potential customer base with foul language for doing business with his "competition" does not strike me as a very effective way of creating the good will that a successful business venture needs; he should spend his time advertising and promoting VCM instead. mike (cc to Sellam) From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 13:03:06 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:03:06 -0800 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20070118134258.012b7a70@mail.30below.com> References: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org>, , <5.1.0.14.2.20070118134258.012b7a70@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <45AF53EA.20773.217DF812@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 13:46, Roger Merchberger wrote: > Not the cheapest, but hey - they're great guys and can be found over on the > maltedmedia.com CoCo list. At the same time, you could pick up an IDE > interface for your CoCo that has a built-in CF socket right on it... What's the life expectancy of a CF card used as a primary hard drive, for say, a mailserver? Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 13:09:39 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:09:39 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AF5282.21792.217878DA@cclist.sydex.com> References: >, <45AF5282.21792.217878DA@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45AFC5F3.2010301@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > If someone offered me an 026 keypunch, I don't know that I'd be eager > to take it in, even though it probably has the same place in my mind > that a terminal does in yours. What would I do with it? The > hardware that used cards for I/O is long gone. It's sort of like > having a victrola with no records to play. Do me a favor. If you get offered an 026 keypunch, let me have it. 8-) I still have hardware that can use cards. Peace... Sridhar From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jan 18 13:25:48 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:25:48 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 52 References: <01C73B09.769A0BE0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <006401c73b36$757c9480$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "M H Stein" To: Cc: Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 2:02 PM Subject: RE: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 52 > >Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:58:14 -0500 > >From: "Evan Koblentz" > >Subject: RE: Ebay idiocy > > > >The man just wants some reassurance that his time and hard work > >will be appreciated. What's wrong with that? More people in > >our hobby should be that devoted! > > >- Evan > -------------------- > A rather naive perspective, I think. Aside from whatever personal > interest he may have in classic computers, he's also in it for the > money and apparently wants to generate enough traffic for VCM > to generate revenue and potentially sell it for some ridiculous > (IPO) amount. > > As Warren points out, competing with eBay is a rather dubious > business proposition anyway, but ranting at and offending his > potential customer base with foul language for doing business > with his "competition" does not strike me as a very effective way > of creating the good will that a successful business venture needs; > he should spend his time advertising and promoting VCM instead. > > mike > > (cc to Sellam) Good will is over rated in the business world. The few things I purchased from VCM were things that I wanted and were cheaper then I could find anywhere else. For the most part VCM does not have listed what I like to collect, or is more expensive then what I can find on ebay. Sellam seems to post on the list when he is looking for something to resell and make some money, I seem to recall he got pissed when I referred to him as a dealer. If Sellam expects the people here to do all his advertising and build up users for him so HE can someday cash out he is dumber then I thought. TZ From josefcub at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 13:30:50 2007 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:30:50 -0600 Subject: Compaq Portable III HDD replacement. (Was Re: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter) Message-ID: <9e2403920701181130i6b57aff7l6bb05f7e80240b2a@mail.gmail.com> On 1/17/07, 9000 VAX wrote: > > After one hour of surfing the internet, I finally bought 4 IDE-CF adapters > (laptop and desktop versions, $2 each). One for the laptop, one for the > pentium PC linux router, one for the 386 desktop. > As a pseudo on-topic aside, what do y'all think the chances are of this working in a machine like a Compaq Portable III or Portable/386? I've got one with the old 40MB Connor drive still ticking along, but I'd really like to make sure I can keep the old girl running after it finally spins down for the last time. Would I be stuck with a 32MB CF card, or would the BIOS not work with it at all? (I've currently got my rebadged P/386 running Linux, for various uses including serial and Ethernet telnet terminal). Josef -- "I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke." -- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs, "The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Jan 18 13:46:02 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:46:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 52 In-Reply-To: <01C73B09.769A0BE0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <20070118194602.55ACE585A6@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by M H Stein > > >Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:58:14 -0500 > >From: "Evan Koblentz" > >Subject: RE: Ebay idiocy > > > >The man just wants some reassurance that his time and hard work > >will be appreciated. What's wrong with that? More people in > >our hobby should be that devoted! > > >- Evan > -------------------- > A rather naive perspective, I think. Aside from whatever personal > interest he may have in classic computers, he's also in it for the > money and apparently wants to generate enough traffic for VCM > to generate revenue and potentially sell it for some ridiculous > (IPO) amount. > !! IMHO, he was *joking* about IPO'ing VCM... Cheers, Bryan From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 13:49:12 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:49:12 -0800 Subject: Compaq Portable III HDD replacement. (Was Re: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter) In-Reply-To: <9e2403920701181130i6b57aff7l6bb05f7e80240b2a@mail.gmail.com> References: <9e2403920701181130i6b57aff7l6bb05f7e80240b2a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <45AF5EB8.26830.21A82C5B@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 13:30, Josef Chessor wrote: > Would I be stuck with a 32MB CF card, or would the BIOS not work with > it at all? (I've currently got my rebadged P/386 running Linux, for > various uses including serial and Ethernet telnet terminal). Irrespective of the BIOS, one could always install an "extender" such as Ontrack Disk Manager or SpeedStor to accommodate whatever drive size you cared to use. Cheers, Chuck From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Thu Jan 18 14:04:22 2007 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:04:22 +0000 Subject: Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20) In-Reply-To: <200701180035.l0I0Yq7m012395@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701180035.l0I0Yq7m012395@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: > Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:31:05 -0500 > From: Ray Arachelian > Subject: Lisa (was Re: Olivetti M20) > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Message-ID: <45AE6B69.7020506 at arachelian.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Roger Holmes wrote: >>> >> Well OK 5k dollars is not much, but in January the following year for >> 10k, Apple's Lisa had several of the above, though I have to admit I >> have seen some spectacular crashes as it was possible to corrupt the >> sound buffers and also to seriously derange the CRT scanning. > Erm, I'm not sure how this is possible as the Lisa had no sound > buffers > at all. All it had was a bunch of resistors hooked up to a latch in > order to act as a volume control for the VIA's shift register. It > beeped in the same way as the Commodore PET. That is by setting > timer2 > on the VIA and setting a value in the SR, then setting the ACR to loop > the data in the SR. There was no sound buffer, there was no way to > play > anything other than beeps. Oh, I must be getting confused then. After developing for Lisa we continued to use the Lisas as hosts to develop software for the Mac using a serial cable to send the software and to run the debugger on the Lisa screen and the target software on the Mac. I think at first we had Lisas with twiggy drives so we could not write Mac discs on the Lisa, but maybe I've got it wrong again. I do know that Apple loaned us a Mac with a 5 1/4 inch slot in it for a twiggy drive, though there was a 3 1/2 inch installed in it. That would probably be worth something now. Back to the crashes, I remember they really made you jump out of your chair, the screen went haywire and the horrible sound it made like hitting bone with a coarse circular saw. Though the Lisa was black and white, the phosphor must have been made of a mixture of two, as you could get a purple effect if you crash made the screen flash at a particular frequency, and on another time it seemed to make one flash of pale green, though maybe thats the 'Pink Elephant' effect. Even with only square wave output you can make more than beeps, my old mainframe built in 1962 can play crude music. Not that Handel and Bach wrote crude music, it was the rendition which was crude. > > Nothing is available to the OS to derange the CRT scanning. All > you can > do is enable interrupts on the vertical retrace, or disable said > interrupts, and you can also select which 32K of memory to use as the > framebuffer. That's it. Yes thats all the system routines allow anyway, I just checked (on Lisa). As both 128k Macs and Lisa had a single built in CRT I can't see why the refresh rates would have been programmable, but thats just how it appeared. The only other option I can think of is we had somehow managed to do something which had affected the power supply rails, but the machines rebooted OK so there was no permanent damage. Could switching the position of the framebuffer between frames full of ones and ones full of zeroes cause this perhaps? I remember you could get the spark gap capacitors to fire on old monitors on the Apple ][ when you rapidly changed the screen image. The screen image would expand and contract while this happened. > > >> The compiler generated some strange code to 'touch' the new top of >> stack on subroutine entry so the OS could allocate all the extra >> space >> in one go rather than in little bits. One enterprising British >> software house even got Unix running on a Lisa with the (then) >> optional 5MB profile hard disk. It wasn't C.A.P. but one of the other >> big ones of the time. > There were two. Microsoft/SCO Xenix, and UniPlus. I'd love to get my > hands on UniPlus, but it seems to be rare. If this was something > else, > it would be wonderful to get a copy of it. Maybe the UK firm was merely selling one of these under licence. > > I'm not sure what the strange code is about, I suspect something to do > with the MMU. If you'd access a page that wasn't mapped to your > process, the OS would either load it from disk, or allocate more MMU > pages to your process, thus getting more memory. The Lisa Pascal compiler had an option for "automatic stack expansion". IIRC, this was off when compiling for Mac and on when compiling for Lisa. Each routine started with something like LINK A6,#constant where the constant was the space for the local variables and maybe the parameters too. If automatic stack expansion was on, the compiler would then generate the weird instruction, which was not useful to the program but would apparently cause the allocation of more stack space if necessary. I have just found the reference in the manual: "6.6.1 The Run-Time Stack Automatic stack expansion code makes procedure entries a little complicated. To ensure that the stack segment is large enough before the procedure is entered, the Compiler emits code to 'touch' the lowest point that will be needed by the pocedure. If we 'touch' an illegal location (outside the current stack bounds), the memory management hardware signal a bus error that causes the 68000 to generate a hardware exception and pass control to an exception handler. ... then allocate enough extra memory to the stack that the original instruction can be reexectuted without problem. To be able to back up, the instruction that causeed the exception must not change the registers, so a TST.W instruction with indirect addressing is used." It then goes on to talk about a compiler fudge factor and what gets generated if more than 32k of extra space is needed on the stack, and what is needed if working in assembly language. Best regards, Roger Holmes. From kth at srv.net Thu Jan 18 14:05:47 2007 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:05:47 -0700 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45AFD31B.4000204@srv.net> 9000 VAX wrote: > The laptop served me as a terminal, after the flyback transformer of my > VT320 died. (Side info: there are new VT320 flyback transformers on > ebay for > $4 each. But the news is too late for me.) If you go this way, make sure you test/replace the horizontal transistor also, or you might be looking for more replacements. > I was facing the question as what to do. Buy a real terminal? Buy another > 8086-386 laptop? Buy a mac SE? Buy a small used IDE HD? Buy serial > cable for > the HP 100LX I have? Replace the unreliable floppy drive? From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Thu Jan 18 14:05:31 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:05:31 -0500 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <45AF53EA.20773.217DF812@cclist.sydex.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20070118134258.012b7a70@mail.30below.com> <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> <5.1.0.14.2.20070118134258.012b7a70@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070118143311.0377f240@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Chuck Guzis may have mentioned these words: >On 18 Jan 2007 at 13:46, Roger Merchberger wrote: > > > Not the cheapest, but hey - they're great guys and can be found over on > the > > maltedmedia.com CoCo list. At the same time, you could pick up an IDE > > interface for your CoCo that has a built-in CF socket right on it... > >What's the life expectancy of a CF card used as a primary hard drive, >for say, a mailserver? Offtopically -- it depends on the load of the mailserver and what the spindles (ahem - not a physical spindle in CF's case, but the number & load of spindles on a mailserver are one of the [if not the] main things a mail admin considers... I/O is a primary bottleneck in that realm)... Last time I'd figured on trying to use CF for the queue directory (the hardest hit on a qmail server) on my mailserver at 10K writes per sector before gesplosion (;-) on a 1G CF card, I'd figured that it would've lasted about 2.5 to 3.5 months before bad sectors would start popping up. Doing research very recently, I've noticed some of the newer superfast CF cards (The RiData 150x 2G media, specifically) support 100K writes/sector before wearout, but even then personally I wouldn't chance it. Now, OTOH, as a boot drive I'm looking at using a 1G CF, reads are virtually unlimited FWIU, and that would spare me a "secondary use" on the one 15K RPM HD I do have in a server I'm building. Ontopically, in a CoCo, they're frelling *Kewl* - even losing 1/2 the storage of 512byte sectors in RSDOS, you get 255 emulated floppy drives *and* a 45Meg "hard drive" partition for NitrOS-9 on a 128Meg CF, a 256Megger would be as big as most people could need for both - but remember, turn off the computer, and swap CF -- you'll have all the storage you'll ever need, for cheap... 64Meg & 128Meg CF aren't expensive at all anymore. [[ I wish I could allocation fundage for a 4G CF card, just to try out a 4G drive under NitrOS-9... ;-) ]] Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me zmerch at 30below.com. | SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 18 13:56:49 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:56:49 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: from "Sellam Ismail" at Jan 18, 7 07:09:17 am Message-ID: > But first I want to take the time to congratulate the community for the > big fuck you they gave to the VCM. It has always been the intention that I've never sold anything on E-bay, and probably never will. If I have spare stuff, whether it's an empty cardboard box, or a complete minicomputer system, I;d rather it went to what I know to be a good home. So it's likely to go to somebody I know personally... I've bought a few things on E-bay, sure, and I don't like some of their policies. But I buy items there because it's the only place I can find them. At the moment I am mostly interested in the HP98x0 machines and more particularly their add-on ROM modules nad peripheral interfaces, since I have one of each of the main machines (9810, 9820, 9830, I'd love to find a 9821, but those are really rare I am told). Anywy. the interfaces seem to be pretty darn rare. I've been looking at E-bay seriously for 2 or 3 years now, and in that time I think I've only seen _6_ such modules, I won the bidding on 5 of them :-). And AFAIK not one of the sllers was a member of this list. Now, if such things were routinely sold on VCM, you can bet I'd bid there to0. As it is, I have ot buy from where they're being sold, and that's E-bay. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 18 13:59:17 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:59:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <004901c73b18$02112380$6600a8c0@BILLING> from "Jay West" at Jan 18, 7 09:47:45 am Message-ID: > to flourish even though it isn't run exactly how you want. If ClassicCMP is > nothing but "petty bickering and flame wars", they why do you regularly > avail yourself of us when you need a manual or other artifact? I was taught it was extremely bad Netiquette to ask for help (or physical items) on a list (or newsgroup) that you did not also contribute to, and in particular on a list that you didn't subscribe to. Somenbody helps you, you repay the community by helping somebody else. Seems reasonable to me. For that reason, I ignore any messages from Sellam now. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 18 13:38:35 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:38:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AE5627.4579.1D9EB8ED@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 17, 7 05:00:23 pm Message-ID: > > On 17 Jan 2007 at 17:14, Richard wrote: > > > Ditto. Except that I focus on graphics and terminals and you'd be > > surprised how many terminals have "already gone over the brink" as it > > were. People keep CPUs for nostalgia. They chuck the terminal. > > Richard, what you do for terminals is certainly worthwhile. However, > given the description of a terminal (e.g. user's manual), I can > easily emulate one or, if worse comes to worst, build one from modern OK, I have a terminal here. I also have the user manual, which takes up most of a bookshelf. I'd love to see you emulate _that_ easily. BTW, it's an Eveans and Sutherland PS390. Complete with tablet, twiddlebox (with LED displays to label the knobs), keyboard (with LED displays to lable the fucntion keys) and 3D spectacles. > components. > > A CPU is much harder. > > Peripherals (e.g. tapes, disks, printers) are the hardest. If I > were to collect something for preservation, it'd be peripherals. As an electroncis (as opposed to computer) enthusaist, I can see as much interest in, say, an unusual printer as in a CPU. So I try to preserve both. -tony From evan at snarc.net Thu Jan 18 14:20:26 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:20:26 -0500 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002501c73b3e$1758dfa0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Oh please ... Sellam is one of the most helpful people in our entire hobby. I've seen him puts huge amounts of time and money into helping hobbyists who he never even met. For starters, the VCF franchise has NEVER been about making money, it's purely to do something great for hobbyists and to hopefully not LOSE money. -----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell [mailto:ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 2:59 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Ebay idiocy > to flourish even though it isn't run exactly how you want. If > ClassicCMP is nothing but "petty bickering and flame wars", they why > do you regularly avail yourself of us when you need a manual or other artifact? I was taught it was extremely bad Netiquette to ask for help (or physical items) on a list (or newsgroup) that you did not also contribute to, and in particular on a list that you didn't subscribe to. Somenbody helps you, you repay the community by helping somebody else. Seems reasonable to me. For that reason, I ignore any messages from Sellam now. -tony From evan at snarc.net Thu Jan 18 13:09:39 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:09:39 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 52 In-Reply-To: <01C73B09.769A0BE0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <000f01c73b34$33ad44c0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>> apparently wants to generate enough traffic for VCM to generate revenue and potentially sell it for some ridiculous (IPO) amount. There aren't any IPO plans. He was joking .... duh. -----Original Message----- From: M H Stein [mailto:dm561 at torfree.net] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 2:03 PM To: 'cctalk at classiccmp.org' Cc: 'sellam at vintagetech.com' Subject: RE: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 52 >Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:58:14 -0500 >From: "Evan Koblentz" >Subject: RE: Ebay idiocy >The man just wants some reassurance that his time and hard work will be >appreciated. What's wrong with that? More people in our hobby should >be that devoted! >- Evan -------------------- A rather naive perspective, I think. Aside from whatever personal interest he may have in classic computers, he's also in it for the money and apparently wants to generate enough traffic for VCM to generate revenue and potentially sell it for some ridiculous (IPO) amount. As Warren points out, competing with eBay is a rather dubious business proposition anyway, but ranting at and offending his potential customer base with foul language for doing business with his "competition" does not strike me as a very effective way of creating the good will that a successful business venture needs; he should spend his time advertising and promoting VCM instead. mike (cc to Sellam) From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Jan 18 14:19:51 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:19:51 -0500 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <000901c73b2b$c72260e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000901c73b2b$c72260e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <45AFD667.5000501@atarimuseum.com> I whole heartedly agree Evan, Sellam can be a little errr "direct", I've been told I can be a bit "direct" myself as well and I would tend to agree. I've used VCM several times, both selling, but mostly buying and I do tend to use Ebay a lot more, because there are more eye's on it. So instead of banning the guy, rallying the village, and burning him at the stake for his venting, why not do what we are all here for in the first place - find information and resources, and in exchange we - work with others for a common interest in the classic computing fields help one another when we can with knowledge, advice, recommendations offer information and materials to help one another to maintain the knowledge base VCM is a good tool and resource that is there for all of us, its not mainstream like ebay, true, but with some support and backing (spreading its existence around a lot more) it could find a strong following by those outside of the cclist and other related area's, there-in lies the key, to get more eye's on the site. So with that, lets try to perhaps use and be involved with VCM a little more, a link or a banner (hey Sellam, a banner ad would be nice, huh! :-) on our sites, maybe make a mention about VCM here and there in responses, usenet posts, etc... could hurt right? Curt Evan Koblentz wrote: >>>>> is the only way to simply GUARANTEE failure. .... Warren E. Wolfe >>>>> > > Only if people jump to conclusions without really considering what he was > saying. > > Sellam knows he's, shall we say, a "direct" communicator. That's why I like > the dude. :) Anyway, the fact remains that his auction site DOES address > all of the stuff we hate about ebay -- and if it's doesn't in some case, he > will quickly fix it. > > Of course there's a paradox. Sellers won't post if there aren't buyers > present, and buyers won't be present unless sellers post. > > I think we should all put aside personal feelings to DO WHAT'S BEST FOR THE > HOBBY. I believe that what's best for the hobby is to encourage Sellam to > keep up his work on the VCM, and I believe the best means of that > encouragement is to USE HIS SITE. (And conversely, just because he doesn't > technically subscribe to cctalk doesn't mean he no longer USES it.) > > -Evan > > > From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jan 18 15:27:38 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:27:38 -0300 Subject: Ebay idiocy References: Message-ID: <03a601c73b47$8a10ebb0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > I was taught it was extremely bad Netiquette to ask for help (or physical > items) on a list (or newsgroup) that you did not also contribute to, and > in > particular on a list that you didn't subscribe to. > Somenbody helps you, you repay the community by helping somebody else. > Seems reasonable to me. Tony, this is a good point, but there are lots of people that has not much to offer. As an example: I have almost 20 MSX computers and parts a lot for them. A boy from the state I live appeared on the MSX list asking for help. He didn't know much about MSX, nor had something he could offer? Why would I deny help? The inverse: I don't think this list can help me much (ok, got a nice xilinx programmer from a friend made in this list. Thanks a lot!). But anyways I find it fun to read and dream of having (again) a VAX or getting an old SGI or like. But I try to offer my little electronics' knowledge for all. Free. Why shouldn't I answer a question that I **know** the answer, or offer a piece of hardware that I have 40 or 50 spares to someone I don't know? Internet for me is a way of giving. You always get back when you give. Greetz from Brazil Alexandre http://www.tabajara-labs.com.br From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 14:29:58 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:29:58 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <45AF9D43.4050800@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > Well, if you adopt the "only historically significant" things are to > be collected mantra, you never would have had something like the Henry > Ford Museum in Michigan. *All* of the stuff he amassed for that > collection was considered not historically significant at the time. > Now its amazing to be able to walk down an aisle and see the evolution > of the sewing machine, or the dishwasher or the clothes washer/dryer, > etc. Keep in mind, however, that the artifacts that he did save are the better examples from the group - it was not picked willy-nilly. For example, with the stoves, the timeline has the upper tier stuff (like the Chambers slate lined oven from 1948) rather than being overrun with crappy no-name brands. The same is true for computer collections. Yes, you could collect every model of PDP-11, but when it comes down to it, only a few really are worthwhile for the long run. And now the room is filled with PDP-11s, and you can not fit a PDP-10 in the collection. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 14:38:37 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:38:37 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> References: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: > Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being available in > 20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work and keep > them running :-) Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? Am I the only optimist on this list? Cripes... -- Will From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jan 18 14:46:20 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:46:20 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200701181546.20957.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 18 January 2007 15:38, William Donzelli wrote: > > Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being > > available in 20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out > > how they work and keep them running :-) > > Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? > > Am I the only optimist on this list? Cripes... No, some of the rest of us just aren't as vocal about it. :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jan 18 15:00:22 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:00:22 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 References: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Donzelli" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 3:38 PM Subject: Re: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 > > Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being available in > > 20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work and keep > > them running :-) > > Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? > > Am I the only optimist on this list? Cripes... > > -- > Will If we somehow develop technology that uses light instead of electrons to run computing I would think the tools of the new generation will not be able to be used on the older obsolete tech. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 15:10:11 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:10:11 -0700 Subject: dovebid: Compaq 386 painting 29x40" Message-ID: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 15:15:21 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:15:21 -0700 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:29:58 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > Keep in mind, however, that the artifacts that he did save are the > better examples from the group - it was not picked willy-nilly. [...] True and on a more personal example, I generally skip over the Wyse and Boundless terminals because they are all visually indistinguishable from one another. They are from that period in the development of the terminal when they were primarily used in a legacy mode or in a cost-conscious mode. In either case, there is no incentive to making a grander terminal, but instead the incentive is all for minimizing the cost of production. So they all tend to be highly integrated circuit boards that fit entirely in the CRT enclosure with the enclosure not being much larger than the tube itself. The keyboards have also become standardized in a consistent layout between manufacturers at that time, so there's no room to innovate there. The terminal had become a commodity by then and it was all about manufacturing cost and margin and not functionality. The X terminal took up the role of the innovative product for a while, but even there it has become a commodity product now -- either as an X terminal or as a Windows thinclient. But still, someone had to be paying enough attention to identify that stoves *should* be put aside somewhere as a document of the evolving technological landscape. At the time, even for the good items, I'm sure people looked at him weird like "dude, why are you collecting stoves?". -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Jan 18 15:17:52 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:17:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of In-Reply-To: <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <20070118211752.EE8EB5856C@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Teo Zenios > > > > > Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being > available in > > > 20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work and > keep > > > them running :-) > > > > Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? > > > > Am I the only optimist on this list? Cripes... > > > > -- > > Will > > If we somehow develop technology that uses light instead of electrons to run > computing I would think the tools of the new generation will not be able to > be used on the older obsolete tech. > Why couldn't you then use some sort of photosensor to turn the light pulses into an electronic signal? Cheers, Bryan From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 15:22:14 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:22:14 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> References: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: > If we somehow develop technology that uses light instead of electrons to run > computing I would think the tools of the new generation will not be able to > be used on the older obsolete tech. Yes, I realize when...no, never mind...I think some of you guys were born with grumpy old man syndrome fully in place. -- Will From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 15:23:23 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:23:23 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of In-Reply-To: <20070118211752.EE8EB5856C@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20070118211752.EE8EB5856C@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <45AFE54B.3090103@gmail.com> Bryan Pope wrote: >> If we somehow develop technology that uses light instead of electrons to run >> computing I would think the tools of the new generation will not be able to >> be used on the older obsolete tech. > > Why couldn't you then use some sort of photosensor to turn the light > pulses into an electronic signal? It would be more likely that you would need to go the other direction. If newer test equipment is using optical technology, you would need to have a device that probes electronically and then translates the signals into optical ones for the new test equipment. Sounds like a round-about way of doing things. Peace... Sridhar From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 15:33:04 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:33:04 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > But still, someone had to be paying enough attention to identify that > stoves *should* be put aside somewhere as a document of the evolving > technological landscape. At the time, even for the good items, I'm > sure people looked at him weird like "dude, why are you collecting > stoves?". When you have been in the collecting biz as long as I have, you will find that there is always someone, somewhere, collecting anything you can think of. And then they show you the newsletter of the collecting group they belong to... I can not think of anything that is not collected, modern or otherwise. Also, things on the top tier, like Chambers ovens, are almost always saved. People just hate to throw away something they spent so much money on. -- Will From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jan 18 15:33:21 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:33:21 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of In-Reply-To: <45AFE54B.3090103@gmail.com> References: <20070118211752.EE8EB5856C@mail.wordstock.com> <45AFE54B.3090103@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200701181633.21775.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 18 January 2007 16:23, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Bryan Pope wrote: > >> If we somehow develop technology that uses light instead of > >> electrons to run computing I would think the tools of the new > >> generation will not be able to be used on the older obsolete tech. > > > > Why couldn't you then use some sort of photosensor to turn the > > light pulses into an electronic signal? > > It would be more likely that you would need to go the other > direction. If newer test equipment is using optical technology, you > would need to have a device that probes electronically and then > translates the signals into optical ones for the new test equipment. Like one of those high-tech LEDs (or maybe a laser diode). :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 18 15:34:27 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:34:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <20070118132944.R51322@shell.lmi.net> > > If we somehow develop technology that uses light instead of electrons to run > > computing I would think the tools of the new generation will not be able to > > be used on the older obsolete tech. While there is a little traqnsition overlap, every generation of technology will always have some incompatibilites with those before and after. On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, William Donzelli wrote: > Yes, I realize when...no, never mind...I think some of you guys were > born with grumpy old man syndrome fully in place. Harrumph. It took a lot for me to get where I am. Why, we only had 0s and 1s, and the 0s were special order, uphill both ways. If it hadn't of been for IBM's patent of the brass roller, we never would have gotten photocell based card readers. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 15:41:44 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:41:44 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of In-Reply-To: <200701181633.21775.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <20070118211752.EE8EB5856C@mail.wordstock.com> <45AFE54B.3090103@gmail.com> <200701181633.21775.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <45AFE998.8040508@gmail.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: >>>> If we somehow develop technology that uses light instead of >>>> electrons to run computing I would think the tools of the new >>>> generation will not be able to be used on the older obsolete tech. >>> Why couldn't you then use some sort of photosensor to turn the >>> light pulses into an electronic signal? >> It would be more likely that you would need to go the other >> direction. If newer test equipment is using optical technology, you >> would need to have a device that probes electronically and then >> translates the signals into optical ones for the new test equipment. > > Like one of those high-tech LEDs (or maybe a laser diode). :) I have a feeling that getting a circuit like that calibrated properly would be a bit of a bitch. 8-) Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 15:42:19 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:42:19 -0700 Subject: storage solution? Message-ID: Its climate controlled and probably will end up being "priced to move" -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 15:45:29 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:45:29 -0700 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:33:04 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > I can not think of anything that is not collected, modern or otherwise. Sure. Now. But I don't think collecting housewares was common in Henry Ford's day. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Thu Jan 18 15:49:05 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:49:05 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070118161308.0473de10@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that William Donzelli may have mentioned these words: >>Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being available in >>20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work and keep >>them running :-) > >Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? Short answer: No. ;-) Heck, you can't get schematics, technical information, or anything on most newer hardware now, so one would need to reverse-engineer almost everything; and the tools that do evolve that are necessary to work on even today's stuff (fast oscilloscopes, etc.) are priced out of the hobbyist's pocketbook. Not to mention: Back in the day, there might've been more computer companies with more "different" computers and OSs back then, but at least each computer was "standardized" to a point. All CoCos ran a 6809, all Commies, Apples & 8-bit Ataris ran 6502s (or derivatives ;-)... Now, you get 10 people with PCs with an Asus motherboard, and you'll have 10 different motherboards, with 3 different CPUs, 2 different types of RAM, and gawd-knows-what for peripherals and interfaces. Even tho the OSs and whatnot are standardized, the underlying hardware is completely different from machine to machine. >Am I the only optimist on this list? Cripes... I like to be an optimist, but I tend to be a *realist* and IMHO, realistically, today's PCs aren't "hobbyist quality..." read: with no available schematics, very little available information, expensive tools necessary for board/component rework, and whatnot, that to me anyway, it would be very hard to consider today's hardware platforms a good basis for a hobby[1]. Now software & whatnot, sure... Anywho, that's just IMHO and all that. Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] And I say this with fairly decent "hobbyish" motherboard - Tyan 2462 Extended ATX Dual-Athlon w/Dual SCSI 160 & Dual Ethernet; takes up to 3.5G RAM (not bad for a 5-year-old board!) w/dual 2600+ AthlonMPs. A pretty rare critter in the home setting, and most servers with it are prolly still in service... 'Tis a workhorse to be sure - it's *still* a very viable machine even by todays standards... but if the sucker ever broke beyond leaky capacitors, I doubt I could repair it. -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 16:08:41 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:08:41 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Sure. Now. But I don't think collecting housewares was common in > Henry Ford's day. Think again. Actually, more people collected everyday objects back then, but not for collecting's sake - they used them. -- Will From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 18 16:04:13 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:04:13 -0600 Subject: "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45AFEEDD.4090205@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: >> Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being >> available in >> 20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work >> and keep >> them running :-) > > Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? Of course they will. But I suspect that there comes a point when you just can't practically figure out the function of some unknown chip for every possible state and input condition in order to emulate it - at least not in reasonable timescales and at reasonable expense. Think of trying now to reverse-engineer something like a 68000 CPU given just a faulty example of the chip and no supporting documentation whatsoever. I don't think that problem will get any harder or easier over the years; the tools readily available will track the advances in hardware fairly closely. But the point is that reverse-engineering a "complex" undocumented chip (from any era) is a difficult task at best, and I think it always will be. We're just fortunate at the moment in that *generally speaking* for "our" vintage equipment there's often documentation available, and any given chip found a home in lots of different systems, so there's a better chance of finding a straight replacement. cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 18 16:07:18 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:07:18 -0600 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45AFEF96.4020504@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: > Yes, I realize when...no, never mind...I think some of you guys were > born with grumpy old man syndrome fully in place. Yeah, but at least it's well documented :-) From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 16:16:30 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:16:30 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20070118161308.0473de10@mail.30below.com> References: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> <5.1.0.14.2.20070118161308.0473de10@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: > and the tools that do evolve that are necessary to work on even > today's stuff (fast oscilloscopes, etc.) are priced out of the hobbyist's > pocketbook. I CAN NOT believe I am hearing this. I thought we were so proud of ourselves because we can managed to get slightly obsolete, yet first class hardware for pennies on the dollar. I guess I am really wrong on this, and that everyone here does think a Tek 545A is THE SHIT. Anyway, I am tuning out. My tires are getting bald. -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 16:37:05 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:37:05 -0700 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:08:41 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > > Sure. Now. But I don't think collecting housewares was common in > > Henry Ford's day. > > Think again. > > Actually, more people collected everyday objects back then, but not > for collecting's sake - they used them. That's what I mean -- few people collected them at the time for collecting's sake. If you're getting objects for utilitarian purposes, I don't think that qualifies as "collecting". -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 16:48:17 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:48:17 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: <45AE5627.4579.1D9EB8ED@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 17, 7 05:00:23 pm, Message-ID: <45AF88B1.812.224C2367@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 19:38, Tony Duell wrote: > OK, I have a terminal here. I also have the user manual, which takes up > most of a bookshelf. I'd love to see you emulate _that_ easily. Point taken. But to be completely fair, this doesn't sound like the "hook-it-up-to-a-dialup-modem-and-look-at-the-text-scroll-by" widgets that most people think of when you mention "terminal". On the other hand, take the CDC Plato terminal. Plasma display, big box, and probably in the 5-digit pre-1980 dollar range in price. Move on a couple of years and the terminal's been given a CRT and is considerably smaller and cheaper. Move on a couple of years and it's a diskette one boots in an IBM PC. Very cheap and just as functional (perhaps even more so, now that one has access to colors). An ADM-3A? One could write an emulation program in an afternoon and still have time to watch "As the World Turns". Cheers, Chuck From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 16:50:48 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:50:48 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > That's what I mean -- few people collected them at the time for > collecting's sake. If you're getting objects for utilitarian > purposes, I don't think that qualifies as "collecting". Well, no, but for Ford (and others), it meant for much easier pickings. Henry Ford was not the only one to do this, but he is the most well known. Shelburne museum is also well known, and almost as big. There are also dozens of smaller groups around the country as well, and when you read the histories of how they came to be, more than a few were started by some nut that could not throw away anything. Like us. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 16:50:47 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:50:47 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: , <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk>, Message-ID: <45AF8947.24270.224E6BD6@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 15:38, William Donzelli wrote: > Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? > > Am I the only optimist on this list? Cripes... On the other hand, a 1 lb. roll of 60/40 rosin core solder will probably sell for more than the item you're trying to repair. :) From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 16:53:14 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:53:14 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> References: , <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45AF89DA.15539.2250A8F7@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 16:00, Teo Zenios wrote: > If we somehow develop technology that uses light instead of electrons to run > computing I would think the tools of the new generation will not be able to > be used on the older obsolete tech. We'll probably be growing our computers out of some kind of soup then. Already, much electronics produced is assembled by machine and not intended to be serviced by human hands. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 16:54:22 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:54:22 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20070118161308.0473de10@mail.30below.com> References: <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> <5.1.0.14.2.20070118161308.0473de10@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <45AFFA9E.5060800@gmail.com> Roger Merchberger wrote: > Rumor has it that William Donzelli may have mentioned these words: >>> Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being >>> available in >>> 20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work >>> and keep >>> them running :-) >> >> Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? > > Short answer: No. ;-) > > Heck, you can't get schematics, technical information, or anything on > most newer hardware now, so one would need to reverse-engineer almost > everything; and the tools that do evolve that are necessary to work on > even today's stuff (fast oscilloscopes, etc.) are priced out of the > hobbyist's pocketbook. That's fine for hobbyist-oriented stuff, but there have always been times when hobbyists have used mil-spec stuff. I don't think tools will ever disappear completely in the military realm. Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 16:55:46 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:55:46 -0700 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:48:17 -0800. <45AF88B1.812.224C2367@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <45AF88B1.812.224C2367 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > On the other hand, take the CDC Plato terminal. [...] I wish I could! Either Plasma or CRT-based, I don't know of *any* that have survived in anyone's collection. I think the CHM has *one*. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 18 16:59:14 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:59:14 -0700 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:50:48 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > > That's what I mean -- few people collected them at the time for > > collecting's sake. If you're getting objects for utilitarian > > purposes, I don't think that qualifies as "collecting". > > Well, no, but for Ford (and others), it meant for much easier pickings. Because noone else seems interested in terminals, I get "easy pickings" sometimes too. The most interesting terminal I have cost me 99 cents :-). My ESV workstations were free. > Henry Ford was not the only one to do this, but he is the most well > known. Shelburne museum is also well known, and almost as big. You mean this one? They seem like more of an art/craft museum than an artifact museum. > There > are also dozens of smaller groups around the country as well, and when > you read the histories of how they came to be, more than a few were > started by some nut that could not throw away anything. Like us. Heh heh. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 17:05:25 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:05:25 -0800 Subject: Early Unix micros; AT&T 3B5 Message-ID: <45AF8CB5.11529.225BD1B0@cclist.sydex.com> This mention of the Lisa, M20, Onyx, etc. running some flavor of Unix around 1982-84 and my memories of the Hated Plexus reminds me of an experience that I had about that time (i.e. right about the time of the Ma Bell breakup). I'd read in one of the trade rags about the AT&T 3B5 and thought it would make a great development machine. To this day, I don't know if my hunch was right or not. I called AT&T computer sales and got the runaround for at least a week. Fortunately, most of the referrals I was given were 800 toll-free ones. I never could find someone who could sell me one. It seems that everyone thought I was talking about the 6300. It was very frustrating--"We have dollars; we like trade them for computer. Don't want 6300; want 3B5. Ugh" Did anyone on this list ever succeed in acquiring one around that time? If so, how was the service and performance? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 17:05:25 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:05:25 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> References: , <00b801c73b43$abcfd300$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45AF8CB5.7791.225BD070@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 16:00, Teo Zenios wrote: > If we somehow develop technology that uses light instead of electrons to run > computing I would think the tools of the new generation will not be able to > be used on the older obsolete tech. We'll probably be growing our computers out of some kind of soup then. Already, much electronics produced is assembled by machine and not intended to be serviced by human hands. Cheers, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 18 17:19:39 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:19:39 -0600 Subject: Latest eBay BS (OT?) In-Reply-To: <006301c73b07$92d39c60$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: <200701172005.40191.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <00b501c73ab8$b79de400$0b01a8c0@game> <45AF10F9.9030503@oldskool.org> <006301c73b07$92d39c60$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45B0008B.5040109@oldskool.org> Jay West wrote: > Jim wrote.... >> That's a terrible comparison. There are less than 1000 people on this >> list, > That's news to me ;) It's about double that. Right, sorry. *2000* people against a 90,000+ Fortune 100 company. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 18 17:21:22 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:21:22 -0600 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: References: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45B000F2.6040503@oldskool.org> 9000 VAX wrote: >> Where did you find the IDE-CF adapters? I'm in need of a few myself. > > From that biggest on-line bazaar that many list members are bashing That's not very helpful; what kind of names did they have, what did you search for, is there a seller who has many of these that you were satisfied with, etc.? -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 17:23:38 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:23:38 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <45AF90FA.6203.226C7E36@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 15:55, Richard wrote: > I wish I could! Either Plasma or CRT-based, I don't know of *any* > that have survived in anyone's collection. I think the CHM has *one*. Chalk that up to CDC's not-so-imaginative "asset disposal" policy; things must be mangled beyond all usability before disposal. I saw CE's take sledgehammers to disk drives. There was much stuff that I wish I could have made disappear before it headed for the dumpster. Cheers, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 18 17:28:50 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:28:50 -0600 Subject: Compaq Portable III HDD replacement. (Was Re: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter) In-Reply-To: <45AF5EB8.26830.21A82C5B@cclist.sydex.com> References: <9e2403920701181130i6b57aff7l6bb05f7e80240b2a@mail.gmail.com> <45AF5EB8.26830.21A82C5B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B002B2.3010306@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 18 Jan 2007 at 13:30, Josef Chessor wrote: > >> Would I be stuck with a 32MB CF card, or would the BIOS not work with >> it at all? (I've currently got my rebadged P/386 running Linux, for >> various uses including serial and Ethernet telnet terminal). > > Irrespective of the BIOS, one could always install an "extender" such > as Ontrack Disk Manager or SpeedStor to accommodate whatever drive > size you cared to use. Is this kind of software still available? I never see it bundled with drives any more, and I can't find a download location at the moment. I have some multi-gig drives I'd like to install on an XT that are currently locked at 1024c/16h/64spt... -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jan 18 17:29:46 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:29:46 -0600 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <20070117194344.74358585A6@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20070117194344.74358585A6@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <45B002EA.1020906@oldskool.org> Bryan Pope wrote: > It sounds like he is implying in his article that nothing is being done to > preserve software.. TOSEC (The Old School Emulation Center @ > http://www.tosec.info ) is one place that is doing a very good job... Not really, since they don't make anything they've archived available. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 17:39:08 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:39:08 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <45AF90FA.6203.226C7E36@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45AF88B1.812.224C2367@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF90FA.6203.226C7E36@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 1/18/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Chalk that up to CDC's not-so-imaginative "asset disposal" policy; > things must be mangled beyond all usability before disposal. I saw > CE's take sledgehammers to disk drives. It's not just manufacturers (who are trying to comply with various regulations on scrapping equipment and taxes)... When I was at Lucent in Columbus, they started drilling through the HDAs of discarded drives, not to protect against data theft from a working drive, but against employee harvesting of the scrap bins. Saw a lot of things there I wish I could have saved, including a 3 cu ft box loaded with PDP-11 core memory, and other DEC items from the 1970s and 1980s. I would have happily have paid many times the gold scrap value of the boards, but, for obvious bean counter reasons, no mechanism exists for that. -ethan From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jan 18 18:52:02 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:52:02 -0300 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of theMicrocomputer, 1974-1994 References: , <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <049001c73b64$21f45ea0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > general-purpose desktop computer in any recognizable form. Computers > will largely be embedded in everything--including people's heads. I doubt that. People cannot cope with high levels of information. "information overload syndrome" is something that exists, and I already took ten days (!) at work with that. Forbidden to even aproach a computer. The first two days I got crazy, the rest of the week were the more peaceful times of my life. People needs to abstract, to disconnect, to get away from the net sometimes :oP From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 18 17:59:26 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:59:26 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036713@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> William Donzelli wrote: Yes, I realize when...no, never mind...I think some of you guys were born with grumpy old man syndrome fully in place. -- Will --------------------------------------------- Can't speak for the others, but I worked hard to earn my right to be a curmudgeon. After 45 years of dealing with all the bullshit in this field, I relish my chance to be cynical and know-it-all. Let the kids be nice - I'm gong to have fun. Billy From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jan 18 18:06:06 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:06:06 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 References: <20070117194344.74358585A6@mail.wordstock.com> <45B002EA.1020906@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <005001c73b5d$9dfd29c0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Leonard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 6:29 PM Subject: Re: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 > Bryan Pope wrote: > > It sounds like he is implying in his article that nothing is being done to > > preserve software.. TOSEC (The Old School Emulation Center @ > > http://www.tosec.info ) is one place that is doing a very good job... > > Not really, since they don't make anything they've archived available. > -- The archives are available in round about ways, this stuff is copyrighted material so they do not directly host it themselves. On the PC side I am still looking for a copy of Halo Desktop Imager (lost my original disks but have the manual and serial). I have yet to see this on ebay, and none of the groups you would think would have it do. This was a heavily advertised app (award winning also I believe) from the Win 3.1 era that I am sure many people heard about it. While most people have a digital copy of old Adobe, Microsoft, Borland, etc software, I find quite a few utils and lesser known apps have faded into oblivion and we are talking 90's era software. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jan 18 18:12:26 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:12:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: mouse for ATnT Unix PC Message-ID: Does anyone here have a spare mouse for an AT&T Unix PC lying around? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From ken at seefried.com Thu Jan 18 18:15:16 2007 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:15:16 -0500 Subject: Early Unix micros; AT&T 3B5 In-Reply-To: <200701182328.l0INRKs0033262@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701182328.l0INRKs0033262@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20070119001516.28761.qmail@seefried.com> From: "Chuck Guzis" > I'd read in one of the trade rags about the AT&T 3B5 and thought it > would make a great development machine. ... > Did anyone on this list ever succeed in acquiring one around that > time? If so, how was the service and performance? AT&T carpet bombed Georgia Tech with 3B stuff around the time I got there (1985). There were at least 2 3B20s (rebadged control processor for a 5ESS) brutally overloaded with freshmen writing Pascal programs, lots of 3B2 + AT&T 5620s and as I recall at least one 3B5. Compared to the Sun gear I got to use at the time (3/160 & 3/50), they were slooooow, but built to last. Seriously physically over-engineered. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 18 18:17:18 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:17:18 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036714@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: On 1/18/07, Chuck Guzis > wrote: > Chalk that up to CDC's not-so-imaginative "asset disposal" policy; > things must be mangled beyond all usability before disposal. I saw > CE's take sledgehammers to disk drives. It's not just manufacturers (who are trying to comply with various regulations on scrapping equipment and taxes)... When I was at Lucent in Columbus, they started drilling through the HDAs of discarded drives, not to protect against data theft from a working drive, but against employee harvesting of the scrap bins. Saw a lot of things there I wish I could have saved, including a 3 cu ft box loaded with PDP-11 core memory, and other DEC items from the 1970s and 1980s. I would have happily have paid many times the gold scrap value of the boards, but, for obvious bean counter reasons, no mechanism exists for that. -ethan ---------------------------------------------------- There is another reason for this. Warranty fraud has become a 7 digit problem for most OEM manufacturers. Get a good stock of scrap products, take parts off a good product, replace them with the bad parts and send the good product in for repair. Whether very little effort, you can amass a huge stock of good parts and sell or assemble them in units for resale. There are even places on the internet where you can get labels made, or do it yourself. The best way to discourage this type of fraud is to physically damage the parts so they can't be reused. At Philips, we specified a hydraulic punch through the PCBA and the Optical Pick Up unit. But by time this was implemented, Philips had lost several million dollars to the fraudsters. So most OEM companies have explicit protocol for scrap destruction. There are just too many people out there trying to make a buck out of it. Billy From mcesari at comcast.net Thu Jan 18 18:17:50 2007 From: mcesari at comcast.net (Mike Cesari) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:17:50 -0700 Subject: Early Unix micros; AT&T 3B5 In-Reply-To: <45AF8CB5.11529.225BD1B0@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45AF8CB5.11529.225BD1B0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Jan 18, 2007, at 4:05 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > This mention of the Lisa, M20, Onyx, etc. running some flavor of Unix > around 1982-84 and my memories of the Hated Plexus reminds me of an > experience that I had about that time (i.e. right about the time of > the Ma Bell breakup). > > I'd read in one of the trade rags about the AT&T 3B5 and thought it > would make a great development machine. To this day, I don't know if > my hunch was right or not. I called AT&T computer sales and got the > runaround for at least a week. Fortunately, most of the referrals I > was given were 800 toll-free ones. I never could find someone who > could sell me one. It seems that everyone thought I was talking > about the 6300. It was very frustrating--"We have dollars; we like > trade them for computer. Don't want 6300; want 3B5. Ugh" > > Did anyone on this list ever succeed in acquiring one around that > time? If so, how was the service and performance? > > Cheers, > Chuck > Heh. 3B5's were about the size of VAX 11/750's (which was the targeted competition). They had a bad reputation in-house (at least in the part of AT&T I was at) with performance about VAX 11/730ish and power supply reliability was not good. The replacement 3B15 was much better. The "micro's" were 3B300, 400, (500 and 600?) series. I liked the 3B400's. These were supposed to compete with MicroVAXen. 20+ year old memories may be suspect on exact details. Mike From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 18 18:26:12 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:26:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <03a601c73b47$8a10ebb0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <966379.73160.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> They say that violence is the last resort of a limited mind. Well I'd like to ask what should be said about the mind that from the outset uses the most odious language possible. Not many of us are kids here, but I don't really think language like that should be tolerated. And most of all by someone who doesn't even regularly contribute to the list. You aren't cool or sophisticated just because you know how to use curse words. Basically it just shows you're an idiot. I don't feel I owe a debt to VCF (particularly now, and especially after the few rotten experiences I have had). If it's something I find useful, I'll use it. If not - tah tah. There's nothing wrong with an alternative to eBay, but there's little in the way of checks and balances. Not typically a problem - I've bought things from people off the net who simply posted the item in say a yahoo group. But when the list is dominated by a few, and when items get sold out from under you (because you didn't to bother to check e-mails over a weekend), well it just ain't right. And talk about petty dialog and rants. What the hell was this thread all about??? I really could say more about personal experiences, but I'll leave it there. Jay, something really should be said and moreover done about language like that being used on the list. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't pick lemons. See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos. http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 18 18:55:15 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 16:55:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <585904.20830.qm@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> References: <585904.20830.qm@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070118164404.U64106@shell.lmi.net> > > Not unless you lift yourself by your bootstraps to do it. It is > > obviously a physical impossibility, just like using the operating > > system functions that are available once the OS is loaded, for loading > > the operating system. On Wed, 17 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > Oi. The code that's embedded in the system rom, which > is usually invoked by an "INT" is there whether the OS > is loaded or not, no? Not necessarily. The BIOS INTs are mostly in ROM. The OS INTs are loaded in a later stage of the bootstrapping. > My point was all the facilities > for formatting tracks, and reading and writing > individual sectors is present there. In general, yes. You might run into a few complications with setting configurations. > A very simple > program is required to copy the contents of a disk in > a: to a disk in b:. I remember doing this as an > exercise when I learned assembly language. Under 20 > lines iirc, and I did it w/debug. Therefore what would > be the problem of having the post, instead of handing > off control to bootstrap code, execute a snippet of > code which formats a disk, then copies the contents of > another disk to it. Of course this would require a > V9000 to have the ability to natively read a vanilla > IBM format. Are you sure that it can read PC style MFM without loading significant additional software? > And of course you'd need to add the code > to a custom eprom. In theory it should work. IF it can read PC style MFM, then I would recommend rewriting the boot code to boot from an MFM diskette. Most bootstrapping these days seems to consist of ROM code sufficient to display on the screen (THAT makes life easier!), and sufficient disk I/O in ROM to copy the first sector of a disk into a fixed RAM location and do a jump to that location. IF that code can handle MFM, then I'd recommend making a modified version of it that expects MFM. Then you can write any programs that you need in the first sector of a floppy disk, and expect it to be loaded into memory and jumped to. As you've mentioned, you can accomplish a LOT in 512 bytes. If THAT isn't enough, then you can include code in the first sector to load x additional sectors. Once you've written a bootstrap routine, the rest just follows from there, although be aware that porting Windoze to the Victor 9000 would be a helluva lot of work, and not well received by some. :-) Writing a DEBUG ROM would be especially useful. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 18:57:38 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:57:38 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > You mean this one? > They seem like more of an art/craft museum than an artifact museum. They certainly have lots of arts and crafts, but they also have lots of other stuff, too. Their tool building has something like 10,000 tools in it. And then their are the railroad lanterns... -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 19:06:27 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:06:27 -0500 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036714@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036714@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: > There is another reason for this. Warranty fraud has become a 7 digit > problem for most OEM manufacturers. Get a good stock of scrap products, > take parts off a good product, replace them with the bad parts and send the > good product in for repair. Whether very little effort, you can amass a > huge stock of good parts and sell or assemble them in units for resale. > There are even places on the internet where you can get labels made, or do > it yourself. I would sometimes see something similar at USR, but it was not for money, it was for laziness. Sometimes techs would "mistake" bad parts for good, use them in "repairs", and their productivity looks a lot higher. Often by the time the bad parts were recaught, the paper trail to the tech was gone. > So most OEM companies have explicit protocol for scrap destruction. There > are just too many people out there trying to make a buck out of it. USR had a seven or eight layer form (you had to press REALLY hard) to fill out for the bits of scrap. The bottom layer stayed with the scrap, and was destroyed with the scrap. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 19:13:41 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:13:41 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036713@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036713@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: > Can't speak for the others, but I worked hard to earn my right to be a > curmudgeon. After 45 years of dealing with all the bullshit in this field, > I relish my chance to be cynical and know-it-all. Let the kids be nice - > I'm gong to have fun. OK, Mr. Curmudgeon, what can you tell us kids about the CDC Mass Store System? I got a couple of cartridges in the mail today from a buddy that used to be in the supercomputer business. Nearly everything on the web is about the IBM noodlepicker. -- Will From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 18 19:19:10 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:19:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070118164404.U64106@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <771037.70258.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > Not necessarily. The BIOS INTs are mostly in ROM. > The OS INTs are loaded > in a later stage of the bootstrapping. Even if they weren't all in rom, I'm guessing I could isolate them *wherever they hide* and burn that into a modified system rom. Note this would be *real* difficult w/a Tandy 2000 due to the fact that the bios is loaded from disk. But conceivably *that* could be stitched into the preexisting system rom for a real groovy smorgasbord. That pog is winning new respect in my book, if for nothing else it's zaniness. > > My point was all the facilities > > for formatting tracks, and reading and writing > > individual sectors is present there. > > In general, yes. You might run into a few > complications with setting > configurations. No doubt there would complications. Oi > Are you sure that it can read PC style MFM without > loading significant > additional software? No. AAMOF at this point I'm sure it can't. Learned from a hoser yesterday that there was even an add on card that gave the Vickie IBM compatibility like the NEC APC III and the Zenith Z-1x0 series. Note that there was a portable version of the Victor 9000 known as the Vicky. > > And of course you'd need to add the code > > to a custom eprom. In theory it should work. > > IF it can read PC style MFM, then I would recommend > rewriting the boot > code to boot from an MFM diskette. Sure dude. I'll get right on it. LOL LOL > Most bootstrapping these days seems to consist of > ROM code sufficient to > display on the screen (THAT makes life easier!), and > sufficient disk I/O > in ROM to copy the first sector of a disk into a > fixed RAM location and do > a jump to that location. IF that code can handle > MFM, then I'd recommend > making a modified version of it that expects MFM. > Then you can write any > programs that you need in the first sector of a > floppy disk, and expect it > to be loaded into memory and jumped to. As you've > mentioned, you can > accomplish a LOT in 512 bytes. If THAT isn't > enough, then you can include > code in the first sector to load x additional > sectors. Once you've > written a bootstrap routine, the rest just follows > from there, although be > aware that porting Windoze to the Victor 9000 would > be a helluva lot of > work, and not well received by some. :-) These days? > Writing a DEBUG ROM would be especially useful. Sure would. And which version of Windont am I porting to the Vickie? Vista maybe. LOL LOL LOL. Curious if there ever was patches to allow Win 1.x to run on it. Yes, you're right, the necessary code could simply be added to a floppy disk, and the facilities inherent in the bios could be utilized also (but you would have to make absolute jumps...there is no interrupt vector table, so and INT ain't possible, right?). Yes sir I would love to figure out how to make the thing recognize mfm formats. Oi I think I'll have to hit the books a bit more. This is all for fun you know. Someone did volunteer to send me the bootdisk. But it's DOS 1.25. Now just have to figure out how to get the images of 2.? to run. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html From jrkeys at concentric.net Thu Jan 18 19:20:43 2007 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:20:43 -0600 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 References: >, <45AF5282.21792.217878DA@cclist.sydex.com> <45AFC5F3.2010301@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00c601c73b68$1623c8f0$2a406b43@66067007> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sridhar Ayengar" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 1:09 PM Subject: Re: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> If someone offered me an 026 keypunch, I don't know that I'd be eager to >> take it in, even though it probably has the same place in my mind that a >> terminal does in yours. What would I do with it? The hardware that used >> cards for I/O is long gone. It's sort of like having a victrola with no >> records to play. > > Do me a favor. If you get offered an 026 keypunch, let me have it. 8-) > > I still have hardware that can use cards. > > Peace... Sridhar Well that makes the 10 punches I have now trash I guess? Since they can run without having a computer I still enjoy playing on them. Most who see them remember the days in school that they sat at one. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 19:41:39 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:41:39 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <00c601c73b68$1623c8f0$2a406b43@66067007> References: Message-ID: <45AFB153.7587.22EAD909@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2007 at 19:20, Keys wrote: > Well that makes the 10 punches I have now trash I guess? Since they can run > without having a computer I still enjoy playing on them. Most who see them > remember the days in school that they sat at one. The nub of my statement was that having a keypunch wouldn't enable me to do anything useful, except generate chad. I can still think of a couple of uses for a terminal. Running a keypunch again would do little more than remind me how noisy the darned things were--and how people kept stealing my drum cards. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 18 19:59:41 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:59:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <771037.70258.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <771037.70258.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070118174606.N67565@shell.lmi.net> > > Most bootstrapping these days seems to consist of On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > These days? Yeah. They don't give you a front panel with toggle switches anymore. > > Writing a DEBUG ROM would be especially useful. > Sure would. > And which version of Windont am I porting > to the Vickie? Vista maybe. LOL LOL LOL. NT would be the most practical; it's about 90+% portable C code, and MICROS~1 even did ports to a few other types of machines. > Curious if > there ever was patches to allow Win 1.x to run on it. doubtful > Yes, you're right, the necessary code could simply be > added to a floppy disk, and the facilities inherent in > the bios could be utilized also (but you would have to > make absolute jumps...there is no interrupt vector > table, so and INT ain't possible, right?). The interrupt vector table exists, and during the bootstrapping process, sections of it get filled in. Therefore, BIOS INTs MIGHT be ready to go, but OS INTs, NO. > Yes sir I would love to figure out how to make the > thing recognize mfm formats. Oi I think I'll have to > hit the books a bit more. This is all for fun you > know. Why else would we do this stuff? > Someone did volunteer to send me the bootdisk. > But it's DOS 1.25. Now just have to figure out how to > get the images of 2.? to run. 2.11 would probably be the best; I don't think that they ever got to 3.31 for the Victor. (1.25, 2.11, and 3.31 seem to be the most common versions for "less compatible" DOS machines) On "more compatible" machines, 1.25 can handle double sided 8 sector per track, but not the 9 sector per track used in 2.xx 'Course, once you get 1.25 booted, then you can write programs to format a 2.xx diskette, and read the content through the serial port and write it to disk. Be aware that 1.25 doesn't know from sub-directories, nor "File handles", so you'll have to use FCBs for any file I/O. But, you'll have a version of DEBUG! The DeSmet C compiler tends to be a good choice for developing in a DOS 1.25 environment. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 18 20:12:17 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:12:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20070118161308.0473de10@mail.30below.com> from "Roger Merchberger" at Jan 18, 7 04:49:05 pm Message-ID: > >Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? > > Short answer: No. ;-) > > Heck, you can't get schematics, technical information, or anything on most > newer hardware now, so one would need to reverse-engineer almost > everything; and the tools that do evolve that are necessary to work on even > today's stuff (fast oscilloscopes, etc.) are priced out of the hobbyist's > pocketbook. I think it's worth considering if the necessary tools to non-destructively reverse-engineer a modenr machine exist now _at any price_. I think they do not. If you think back 20 years, logic analysers existed. They were beyond the reach of most, if not all, hobbyists, but they existed. Now, of course, many hobbyists have one. Ditto for a 'scope. I think it's very likely that the hobbyists of the future will have fast 'scopes, BGA rework facilities, and the like. But there's more to it than that. Suppose you have a modern PC motherboard with some ASIC in the middle. You will be able to remove and replace it. You will be able to connect it into a test circuit. But I am going to assume that such an ASIC has many bits of hidden 'state'. I also don't believe there will be any more laws of digitial logic discorvered (I think that subject is pretty well understood now), so there'll be no new way of determining said 'state' from the external connections, or of forcing the chip into every possilbe state, or... So, what aew you going to do? Risk uncapping the package and looking at the die? Will you be able to make anything out of it? (speaking from experience I know that a large board of discrete transistors ia about the worst possible thing to have to reverse-engineer, you have no idea what the various sections do, whereas, say, a microprocessor pretty much ties things down. Soing an ASIC would be like the former, only worse). Maybe there'll be CAD tools that will help, I am certainly not holding my breath, since I've yet to see _anything_ available today that can really help. And uncapping the package will certainly risk damaging the IC. Would you want to risk doing that on what is a one-of-a-kind machine? Think of doing the HP01 watch _now_. It's a single ceramic hybrid module inside contiaining 5 or so silicon dice. The watch is rare. It's also reasonably well understood, since it's knwon to a be a 48 bit version of the 56 bit chipset used in HP calculators of the time. But if you had one would you want to ceack open that module to reverse-engineer it? I wouldn't. -tony From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Jan 18 20:34:59 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:34:59 -0800 Subject: Looking for Intel SDK-51/MCS-51 System Design Kit User's Guide / Assembly Manual / Monitor Listing Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701181834y37f2724o4f0884baedfc33fa@mail.gmail.com> Does anyone have hard copies or scans of these Intel SDK-51/MCS-51 manuals? 121588-002 SDK-51/MCS-51 System Design Kit User's Guide 121589-002 SDK-51 MCS-51 System Design Kit Assembly Manual 121590-003 SDK-51 Monitor Listing Manual From richardlynch3 at comcast.net Thu Jan 18 20:37:07 2007 From: richardlynch3 at comcast.net (Richard Lynch) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:37:07 -0600 Subject: HP2645As.... again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 1/17/07 10:20 PM, Richard at legalize at xmission.com wrote: > > In article <001001c73ab5$fdefa0e0$6700a8c0 at HPLAPTOP>, > "Jay West" writes: > >> I suspect it's the same seller as last time, and for me anyways - I won't >> deal with him. > > Is it the same location geographically? I thought it was different > this time. Basically the same. The first time it was Tyler Texas. This time it's "Ben Wheeler" which is a little closer to Dallas but in the same area. I live near Dallas - maybe I should ask him if I could inspect them. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 20:37:43 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:37:43 -0800 Subject: Burroughs S40? Message-ID: <45AFBE77.20622.231E2E3C@cclist.sydex.com> I just came across a binder in my library with a (roughly) 200 page document labeled: Burroughs Confidential System Specification 3704 3833 S40 System Software Disk Subsystem Design Specification Release Rev B Burroughs Machines Ltd. Software Engineering Livingston, Scotland Date: 03 OCT 1986 It seems to describe the disk software interface to some system. Is this of interest to anyone? Al, would you like it to add to the library? I believe that I was sent this as part of a conversion program I did for someone. Exactly who escapes me. Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 18 20:45:49 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:45:49 -0800 Subject: Burroughs S40? Message-ID: <45B030DD.90901@bitsavers.org> > Al, would you like it to add to the > library? absolutely! I can forward my adr if you need it. From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jan 18 22:11:07 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:11:07 -0500 Subject: Ebay idiocy Message-ID: <01C73B56.0C5D0F00@MSE_D03> >Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:09:21 -0500 >From: "Evan Koblentz" >Subject: RE: Ebay idiocy >Sellam knows he's, shall we say, a "direct" communicator. That's why I like >the dude. :) Anyway, the fact remains that his auction site DOES address >all of the stuff we hate about ebay -- and if it's doesn't in some case, he >will quickly fix it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interesting that you, who took offense when someone used the word "Jew" for its phonetic value without, as far as I can see, in any way casting aspersions on people of that faith, likes what you call "direct" communication, i.e. using the "F" word six times in 13 paragraphs without any consideration of whether that might offend some of the 2000 or so readers of this list, not to mention what it says about this list to someone stumbling across it through the Web. If he'd just reminded us that VCM was there and asked us for more support, fine; I'd probably have clicked on it right away and bookmarked it. As it was, however, I found his message quite offensive, FWIW. I assumed that his comment about the IPO was meant tongue-in-cheek (as he pointed out to me in a similarly "directly" worded, ("F"'ing) off-list reply), but I suspect that if he really did give eBay a run for its money and someone offered him a bag full of money (not so ridiculous these days), he just might say yes. Nevertheless, if he were truly as altruistic as you say, why is he ranting at us so forcefully for, essentially, not generating enough traffic for him to be able to justify charging for his service? I imagine that Jay and the moderators donate far more time gratis running this list than VCM demands of Sellam... Not that I see anything wrong with it, but perhaps it is relevant that he does make money from renting out equipment, sourcing obscure items, etc. I doubt that he will be able to address the stuff we grudgingly like about eBay: the wider selection of available items (and price range) for buyers, and the vastly larger number of potential buyers for the sellers; blaming us for that is pretty silly. Maybe good will isn't worth what it once was, but I don't think ranting at and offending potential customers has quite made it on the list of successful business tactics yet. m From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 21:34:29 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:34:29 -0800 Subject: Victor 9000 and bootstrapping; was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <771037.70258.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20070118164404.U64106@shell.lmi.net>, <771037.70258.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45AFCBC5.31088.235224F5@cclist.sydex.com> You know, a little google goes a long way. I found this in the google cache at: http://www.electrocution.com/biosc.htm "On an IBM-compatible, you will find the BIOS embedded into a ROM on the motherboard, together with hard disk utilities and a CMOS setup program, although this will depend on the manufacturer. The ROM will usually occupy a 64K segment of upper memory at F000 if you have an ISA system, and a 128K segment starting at E000 with EISA or similar. It's on a chip so it doesn't get damaged if a disk fails, as sometimes used to happen on the Victor 9000/Sirius, which had both the BIOS and the system on the boot floppy." So, you've got your work cut out for you if you're going to bootstrap from nothing. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 18 22:22:10 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:22:10 -0800 Subject: Unrealistic price? Message-ID: <45AFD6F2.29503.237DCEA2@cclist.sydex.com> $148,995 starting bid for a 32GB AS/400 memory. http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:IBM%203017%2032GB%20CHIP:216674201 Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jan 18 22:48:23 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:48:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <000901c73b2b$c72260e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000901c73b2b$c72260e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <200701190459.XAA21196@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Anyway, the fact remains that his auction site DOES address all of > the stuff we hate about ebay -- For what values of "we"? For me, the VCM shares one of the largest deal-breakers with ebay - they demand that I agree to foreign legal jurisdiction, and, worse, the jurisdiction they want me to agree to is in one of the most problematically litigous countries going. > and if it's doesn't in some case, he will quickly fix it. Really? I pointed the jurisdictional issue out to them back when the VCM was brought into being, and they still haven't fixed it as of a few minutes ago. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Thu Jan 18 23:16:14 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:16:14 -0600 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <200701190459.XAA21196@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <000901c73b2b$c72260e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <200701190459.XAA21196@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <45B0541E.3050706@brutman.com> I like VCM a lot. I've been browsing it for over a year. It's always fun to speculate on what Marvin is holding onto based on what he has listed. :-) Sadly, I haven't found anything I want to purchase. My particular weak spot (the PCjr) doesn't show up there. If I were to unload something, VCM is the first place I'm going to go. I'd rather sell to a group of like-minded individuals first. If it doesn't sell there after a reasonably long period of time, then I would consider eBay. As for Sellam, I've never met the guy. I've heard a lot. :-) Some of you point out that he does a lot for the community. I observe him occasionally popping in on the list looking for something very particular, and doing it for commercial reasons. He doesn't subscribe to the list, and he seems to make an effort to point that out even when he needs something. Coming on the list just to throw a grenade doesn't do much good. I'm not aware that he is part of the life force behind VCM, which is a good thing. But I've also just witnessed a temper tantrum .. I'm a very direct person too. And the words don't particularly offend me. But civility means that even if you like to be direct, you have to control yourself. The last time I cussed a purple stream like that I was a pedestrian that had just been hit by a pickup truck while I was in a cross walk with the right of way in my favor. I think that was justified. I don't think Sellam's grenade is, unless there is a lot more to the story that I don't know. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jan 18 23:36:41 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:36:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Cracking (was Digital archaeology) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701190544.AAA01813@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Yeah, you get harder to decruft stuff from a good programmer, but > even a bad programmer can make your life hell by inserting tons of > checkForValidLicense() calls sprinkled throughout the code. Naw, just means you have to patch checkForValidLicense() itself. :) >> [...] so at least in my experience, there were definitely some >> "no-op the branch" and you're done, but that was a far minority of >> programs. > I have no experience in these matters, merely suspicions :-). I have little experience, but I did once spend quite a while poring over ROM dumps from the Tempest video game. 24K of ROM, I think it was, and they got a whole game - one of the most playable games I've ever seen! - into it. They just don't make 'em like that any more. I bring it up here because, in my grubbing about in the code, I found some copy-protection. It was designed not to prevent verbatim copying of the game (that would have been a hopeless task in this case), but rather to ensure that the copyright notice message appeared when it should. (The code was a bit buggy; one of the checks fired even in legitimate copies of the game, and is responsible for easter-egg lists for Tempest of the form "die with score ending in XY between levels N and M and this magic thing happens".) They had defense in comparative depth, with code to checksum the copyright message itself and the code to display it, more code to make sure it made it into the display list, and I think (it's been a while) yet more code to watch to make sure the other checks were intact. Given how constrained they were, I thought they did a remarkably good job. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jan 19 00:02:39 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:02:39 -0600 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <966379.73160.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> References: <966379.73160.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45B05EFF.4050004@oldskool.org> Chris M wrote: > Jay, something really should be said and moreover > done about language like that being used on the list. On the flip side, doing so is censorship... if you consider the list a public forum... which it isn't :-) (It's provided by a private entity) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From g at kurico.com Fri Jan 19 00:13:40 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:13:40 -0600 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <45B05EFF.4050004@oldskool.org> References: <966379.73160.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <45B05EFF.4050004@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45B06194.2070600@kurico.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > Chris M wrote: >> Jay, something really should be said and moreover >> done about language like that being used on the list. > > On the flip side, doing so is censorship... if you consider the list a > public forum... which it isn't :-) (It's provided by a private entity) Nothing wrong with a little censorship in the context of this mailing list. If someone wanted to post commercial ads or actually had text with truly explicit sexual content then few people would disagree with censoring that content (heck we'd just need to create a news group if that's what we wanted right :). This is not to say that I necessarily agree about censoring Sellam though. By their very nature topic specific forums have implicit censoring if not very explicit censoring. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 00:15:54 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:15:54 -0500 Subject: Scrap equipment and fraud (was Re: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994) Message-ID: On 1/18/07, Billy Pettit wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > It's not just manufacturers (who are trying to comply with various > regulations on scrapping equipment and taxes)... When I was at Lucent > in Columbus, they started drilling through the HDAs of discarded > drives, not to protect against data theft from a working drive, but > against employee harvesting of the scrap bins. > > There is another reason for this. Warranty fraud has become a 7 digit > problem for most OEM manufacturers. Get a good stock of scrap products, > take parts off a good product, replace them with the bad parts and send the > good product in for repair.... I did not witness this, but I heard at a DECUS that some time in the late 1980s, DEC had a different kind of scrap problem - they would scrap numerous things at the factory, load them into bins and sell them to gold scrappers. The problem came with a gold scrapper started selling bits and pieces (like MicroVAX CPU and memory boards) to other parties which would end up in the 3rd-party resale stream and end up in customers' hands. The damage was two-fold... 1) reputation, and 2) the IRS discovering that "scrapped" items were being bought and sold. The solution, I heard, was to get a chipper that could reduce boards, racks, etc., into postage-stamp-sized chunks before handing the waste over to the salvage companies. I understand that the first guys to get a bin of metal and PCB chips rather than boards and boxes they could cherry pick, were a bit surprised. OTOH, one of my co-workers from Software Results took a pile of boards from the scrap bin and drilled and mounted them to make a 1.5m-tall PCB Xmas tree (the solder mask was green). The bean counters were initially upset until the drilled holes were pointed out to them - clearly the boards had been damaged sufficiently that nobody was going to be mistaking them for usable product. -ethan From marvin at rain.org Fri Jan 19 00:39:03 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:39:03 -0800 Subject: VCM, was Re: Ebay idiocy Message-ID: <45B06787.F96774BD@rain.org> > From: "Michael B. Brutman" > > I like VCM a lot. I've been browsing it for over a year. It's always > fun to speculate on what Marvin is holding onto based on what he has > listed. :-) That is *really* hard to do since I generally list things as I find them ... and there is a lot to find :). > Sadly, I haven't found anything I want to purchase. My particular weak > spot (the PCjr) doesn't show up there. Yet :). > If I were to unload something, VCM is the first place I'm going to go. > I'd rather sell to a group of like-minded individuals first. If it > doesn't sell there after a reasonably long period of time, then I would > consider eBay. One of the things I tried to do was to put enough stuff there that others would also start to list. And I do have another motive as well ... if something doesn't sell on VCM, depending on what it is, I already have the listing done to port it over to Ebay. It is unfortunately a fact of life that stuff will sell better on Ebay. It is also a *very* unfortunate fact of life that I either need to buy this house or move. VCM will not provide enough money to do that, and the reality is that Ebay will. But I still try and list somewhat uncommon items on VCM that are unlikely to generate ebay bids. > As for Sellam, > > I've never met the guy. I've heard a lot. :-) What I like about Sellam and a lot of other people here is that they *DO* rather than just talk. VCF started out as a thought here, but he was the one that took it and ran with it to create VCF. And ditto for Jay when ClassicCmp needed a new site. Jay didn't just say woe is us, but took the ball and ran. And with his hosting other classic computer related websites, all I can say is that I greatly respect the man ... and I've never met him :). And look at Al with what he has done with Bitsavers, and Erik, and Curt, and ... The amount of knowledge available on this listserver and what is being done is truly incredible. I've met quite a few people on this listserver, and at times it is fun to just talk and listen. It would be nice if everyone would just get along and not jump on every annoyance that comes along. From spc at conman.org Fri Jan 19 01:19:05 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:19:05 -0500 Subject: VAX Assembly question Message-ID: <20070119071905.GA23456@linus.groomlake.area51> I'm currently perusing _Computer Programming and Architecture: The VAX-11_ by Levy and Eckhouse and I come across the description of the CALLG and CALLS instructions. They go on to describe the stack frame created by the CALL* instruction: Condition handler (initially 0) <- FP SPA | S | 0 | MASK | PSW | 0 FP + 4 Saved AP etc ... Saved FP Saved PC Saved R0 . . . Saved R11 My question is about the condition handler. In the text, it's described as: A longword condition handler address. Here, the calling routine may store the address of an error-handling routine to be called if an exceptional error condition arises in the procedure. This is the only section (as far as I can tell) where this is described, and I'm curious as to how exactly it worked. It appears that while the CPU may set this location to 0, its purpose isn't really dictated by the hardware, but it a convention used by VMS. But then (as I was typing this), I was struct by this bit: ... the calling routine may store ... Huh? How? The calling routine either does a: argsize: .long 0 arg1: .long 0 arg2: .long 0 arg3: .long 0 arg4: .long 0 movl #4,argsize ; use fixed memory movl filehandle,arg1 ; for the arguments moval somememory,arg2 movl #0,arg3 movl #4096,arg4 callg argsize,dump_memory or pushl #4096 ; use the stack pushl #0 ; for the arguments pushal somememory pushl filehandle calls #4,dump_memory (forgive if my assembly isn't quite right, I'm going from the book rather quickly here). How can the calling code set the condition handler? The CPU creates the stack frame (as diagrammed above), not the calling routine. Am I missing something? -spc (Really curious about this ... ) From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Jan 19 01:22:25 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:22:25 -0800 Subject: Sellam Message-ID: Since there have been many people asking about Sellam's posts: In the past he was a very active poster, and he has the collection and documents to be able to give very detailed answers. If I recall correctly, the major reason that he withdrew from the list was because he became a father and had very little spare time. Perhaps when his children require less time he'll come back. This is not to be read as an endorsement of his post, writing style, hairdo, or method of eating asparagus- just as an answer to the Sellam FAQ. From rick at companje.nl Thu Jan 18 20:05:03 2007 From: rick at companje.nl (Rick Companje) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 03:05:03 +0100 Subject: Sanyo MBC 55x Message-ID: Hello Don, I just read your forum post from 2002 regarding a bootdisk image (MS-DOS v2.11) for the Sanyo MBC 555. Can you please send me a copy by email? I'm running 1.25. Do you know what kind of software is available for this machine besides Basic, Wordstar and Calcstar? Regards, Rick Companje From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 02:06:54 2007 From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:06:54 +1100 Subject: Apple Lisa on eBay Australia References: Message-ID: <038101c73ba0$ca5babc0$0100a8c0@pentium> Not mine - but may be of interest on this list : http://cgi.ebay.com.au/LISA-2-with-manuals-an-ORIGINAL-in-excellent-condition_W0QQitemZ200069631992QQihZ010QQcategoryZ80286QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem cheers, Lance // http://www.commodore128.org Commodore 128 forums & more! // From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Fri Jan 19 02:20:22 2007 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:20:22 +0100 Subject: VAX Assembly question In-Reply-To: <20070119071905.GA23456@linus.groomlake.area51> References: <20070119071905.GA23456@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <20070119082021.GU487@lug-owl.de> On Fri, 2007-01-19 02:19:05 -0500, Sean Conner wrote: > > I'm currently perusing _Computer Programming and Architecture: The VAX-11_ > by Levy and Eckhouse and I come across the description of the CALLG and > CALLS instructions. They go on to describe the stack frame created by the > CALL* instruction: > > Condition handler (initially 0) <- FP > SPA | S | 0 | MASK | PSW | 0 FP + 4 > Saved AP etc ... > Saved FP > Saved PC > Saved R0 > . > . > . > Saved R11 > > My question is about the condition handler. In the text, it's described > as: > > A longword condition handler address. Here, the calling routine > may store the address of an error-handling routine to be called if > an exceptional error condition arises in the procedure. The _VAX Architecture Reference Manual_ (ISBN 0-932376-86-X, DEC Order-No. EY-3459E-DP) handles this a little better, but doesn't explain it's real-world usage as well: In order to preserve the state, the CALL instructions form a structure on the stack termed a call frame or stack frame, shown in Figure 3.2. This structure contains the saved registers, the saved PSW, the register save mask, and several control bits. The frame also includes a longword that the CALL instructions clear; this is used to implement the VAX/VMS condition-handling facility. Refer to the /VAX/VMS Run Time Library Reference Manual/. At the end of execution of the CALL instruction, FP contains the address of the stack frame. The RET instruction uses the contents of FP to find the stack frame and restore state. The condition-handling facility assumes that FP always points to the stack frame. Note that the saved condition codes and the saved trace enable (PSW) are cleared. Figure 3.2 (showing the stack frame's organization) is similar to yours, but (FP + 4) is different: SPA | S | mask<11:0> | Z | saved PSW<14:5> | 0 with Z described as "Always cleared by CALL. Can be set by software to force a reserved operand fault on a RET." > This is the only section (as far as I can tell) where this is described, > and I'm curious as to how exactly it worked. It appears that while the CPU > may set this location to 0, its purpose isn't really dictated by the > hardware, but it a convention used by VMS. But then (as I was typing this), > I was struct by this bit: I googled for it and this (http://www.math-cs.gordon.edu/courses/cs222/lectures/exceptions.html) showed up. It makes sense, but it's not authoritative :) MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de +49-172-7608481 Signature of: Gib Dein Bestes. Dann ?bertriff Dich selbst! the second : From wizard at voyager.net Fri Jan 19 02:54:18 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 03:54:18 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036713@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036713@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <1169196858.6313.0.camel@linux.site> On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 15:59 -0800, Billy Pettit wrote: > William Donzelli wrote: > > Yes, I realize when...no, never mind...I think some of you guys were > born with grumpy old man syndrome fully in place. > > -- > Will > > --------------------------------------------- > > Can't speak for the others, but I worked hard to earn my right to be a > curmudgeon. After 45 years of dealing with all the bullshit in this field, > I relish my chance to be cynical and know-it-all. Let the kids be nice - > I'm gong to have fun. Yeah, and all you kids keep off my lawn! Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From arcarlini at iee.org Fri Jan 19 03:09:45 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:09:45 -0000 Subject: VAX Assembly question In-Reply-To: <20070119071905.GA23456@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <008a01c73ba9$910f7690$0404010a@uatempname> Sean Conner wrote: > ... the calling routine may store ... > > Huh? How? The calling routine either does a: > > argsize: .long 0 > arg1: .long 0 > arg2: .long 0 > arg3: .long 0 > arg4: .long 0 > > movl #4,argsize ; use fixed memory > movl filehandle,arg1 ; for the arguments > moval somememory,arg2 > movl #0,arg3 > movl #4096,arg4 > callg argsize,dump_memory > > or > > pushl #4096 ; use the stack > pushl #0 ; for the arguments > pushal somememory > pushl filehandle > calls #4,dump_memory > > (forgive if my assembly isn't quite right, I'm going from the book > rather quickly here). How can the calling code set the condition > handler? The CPU creates the stack frame (as diagrammed above), not > the calling routine. Am I missing something? The calling routine does: MOVAB G^COND_HANDLER, (FP) to set COND_HANDLER as _its own_ condition handler, then it does ; PUSH stuff ... CALLS #n, G^WHATEVER WHATEVER may well set its own condition handler (WHATEVER_HANDLER). So now if a a routine invoked by WHATEVER goes bang the OpenVMS code looks for a non-zero 0(FP) and if it finds one it invokes it. If it doesn't, then it walks the stack frames until it finds one or realises that the process has no specific handler set. If WHATEVER_HANDLER exists, it gets invoked and does whatever it does. It may handle the condition itself or it may decide that this one is not for it and resignal (in which case the search for a handler continues). Next COND_HANDLER gets asked whether it would like to deal with the condition ... and so on through successive stack frames. I think the internals manual deals with this is some detail. Antonio From sellam at vintagetech.com Fri Jan 19 04:55:17 2007 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 02:55:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: eBay idiocy Message-ID: I find it necessary to clear up some misconceptions and outright lies that have been posted here about me, and to respond to some of the attacks on my personal character. This will naturally be unnecessarily wordy, so if you don't have the stomach for it then just move on now. First of all, I'm sorry that so many people seem to have taken my message as a personal assault. In re-reading the message, it seems the primary reason some people got upset is because I expressed my speech freely, and I also expressed some rather unflattering truths. My tone was angry, yes, but my anger was directed at eBay primarily (because I hate them), and secondarily at the same old useless bitching about eBay that seems to never end here. I think it's pretty clear that I was looking for constructive feedback and/or criticism. Well, unfortunately I got mostly criticism, and little constructive feedback (I do appreciate the replies from Jules and Curt). Since I did not single out any individual, I can only imagine that those that took personal offense may well have a guilty conscience(?) Since many people seemed to have missed the point, it is this: many people just like to bitch and gripe for the sake of bitching and griping, and because it's easier than actually going out and changing what you don't like. This is what Patrick and I did in building the Vintage Computer Marketplace. We did this primarily to create a nice alternative to eBay for the trading of vintage computers. It was designed and built specifically with the computer collector in mind. It was our hope that the site would be embraced and utilized by the community, eventually becoming a thriving trading site, and ideally becoming commercially viable to make the effort worthwhile. I am fully prepared to admit that the promotion of the site can be greatly improved, but there's only so many times I can mention it on the list (which I used to do regularly when I was actively subscribed) and there aren't many other ways to promote it. I did hear one good suggestion actually (from Curt in private e-mail), which is to promote it on mainstream sites like craigslist, etc. I like ideas like that. Now, on to the personal assaults (you know I can't let them pass without a rebuke). Tony Duell: > I was taught it was extremely bad Netiquette to ask for help (or > physical items) on a list (or newsgroup) that you did not also > contribute to, and in particular on a list that you didn't subscribe to. > > Somenbody helps you, you repay the community by helping somebody else. > Seems reasonable to me. Tony, before I unsubscribed, I had been continuously subscribed to the list (with the exception of a brief stint after the first VCF when I decided I needed a break) since the list began in 1997. I was one of the charter members. In the time I was subscribed, I contributed hundreds of thousands of words, most of which I (and I'm sure many others) would consider "useful". I helped countless people with questions, both on and off list (and continue to do so). If you can't recall the thousands of messages that I contributed here in your presence then please have your head checked. In short, I think I've earned the right to continue to both contribute and draw from a mailing list that I helped to build, regardless of your petty concepts of "netiquette". I don't feel it should be necessary to toot my own horn, but I can count the number of people to whom I've provided free hardware, software, manuals, etc., often covering shipping costs as well, in the dozens. I'm not going to bother going into the promotion I've given and attention I've attracted for the hobby (for better or worse), without which we might've still just been a small throng of nerds playing with obsolete computers. I've been out on the front pushing this hobby forward for ten years now, something one can't do from the comfort of their parents' basement. You might also recall the many times I privately responded to your regular public laments about not being able to find a job by trying to encourage you to move out to the US (this was during the dot.com boom) where your considerable talents would've been in high demand (you always found some excuse to stay within your comfortable little bubble). > For that reason, I ignore any messages from Sellam now. Well, as long as we're being petty, I tuned out your incessant (and often off-topic) jabbering long before I unsubscribed. Richard: > Wow. Bitterness. No, bitterness would've been me taking down the VCM right after I posted my rant. I'm not bitter at all. Quite the contrary, I'm proud that I actually put in the effort and succeeded in creating venues and tools to let collectors express their appreciation of vintage computers and facilitate their interest in the hobby. I would like to see more people take advantage of those tools, and not just keep re-hashing the same old tired gripes about eBay. Look, eBay is always going to act in the interest of their sellers and that's it. Like I said, they don't give a shit about the buyers as long as they are buying, because their money goes to the sellers, and a cut of that goes to eBay. That's their business model. It's a great business model. I wish I could have 1% of 1% of eBay's business. Whatever, my point, again, is that the complainers are never going to get the satisfaction out of eBay that they desire, because the complainers are mostly buyers, and buyers on eBay are just so many cattle grazing at the trough. I wasn't content with just venting. I had a vision and I implemented it. Patrick and I built and deployed a free alternative to eBay that caters specifically to this community; buyer and seller; hobbyists. But the last step in that project is one that has to be taken by the community: we can't also be expected to fill the Marketplace with stuff too. If enough people turned their bitching into action and resolved to use the VCM on at least, let's say, a quarter of their transactions rather than eBay then the site might eventually grow to the point where critical mass would be reached. The last step has to be taken by the community. If the community is so truly fed up with eBay, why aren't they using the VCM? Oh, because they're still using eBay. I fully understand that eBay has the most eyeballs and therefore the most stuff, and also gets you the most money for your stuff. So if it's more important for you to get top dollar for your stuff then great, eBay is a natural choice. But it's also possible to do very well on the VCM, with a trading partner that you know appreciates this stuff as much as you do and will treat it with the proper care and reverence when packing and shipping it. That $1,200 IMSAI 8080 was a good deal for the buyer (relative to what one might expect to pay on eBay) and it was still a pretty good deal for the seller (plus he didn't have to pay listing fees or commissions; that was good for around 40 bucks). But again, as critical mass is finally reached, with lots of eyeballs at the VCM (thanks to the efforts of the community), the prices at the VCM would start to rise as competition increases. Sellers would be getting good money, buyers would be getting good selection. It's an obvious win-win for the community, something that the community could have taken credit for helping to create. But the community ignored it and just continued to suffer eBay. Lamentably. Finally, the reason eBay nets you top dollar is because of the tricks eBay pulls, like the very one that started this whole brouhaha rolling. eBay's system works in favor of the seller, and in doing so it encourages artificial price inflation. To deny this is folly: it is in eBay's interest to push prices up because that means more commissions for them. I guarantee you that if eBay didn't become the premier place for buying and selling vintage computers (or vintage anything) we wouldn't be talking about $2,000 Altairs and IMSAI's (I still insist those values are inflated, though not as much as they used to be). That's an argument I don't want to get into yet again. I refer you to the CC archives where many (IMHO well-laid) arguments of mine can be found. So if eBay is supplanted as the premier trading place for vintage computers by a venue that has a much more equitable trading mechanism between buyer and seller (i.e. the VCM) prices might naturally deflate. Is this undesirable? Or perhaps this is desirable? Mike Stein: > A rather naive perspective, I think. Aside from whatever personal > interest he may have in classic computers, he's also in it for the money > and apparently wants to generate enough traffic for VCM to generate > revenue and potentially sell it for some ridiculous (IPO) amount. and Teo Zenios: > Sellam seems to post on the list when he is looking for something to > resell and make some money, I seem to recall he got pissed when I > referred to him as a dealer. If Sellam expects the people here to do all > his advertising and build up users for him so HE can someday cash out he > is dumber then I thought. This is patently ridiculous. First, I'll address your ignorance. I have a 4,500 square foot warehouse filled with around 2,000 computers going back to the 1950s, thousands of peripherals of all kinds, thousands of software packages, thousands of books, tens of thousands of magazines, plus all manner of computer related ephemera and things. This warehouse currently costs me $3,646.20 a month to lease. As you might imagine, I also have other costs, such as insurance, utilities, wages, etc. In short, it costs me a lot of money to store all this stuff. Now, if I was in this for the money, why the hell would I be stupid enough to incur thousands of dollars of expenses every month to store all this stuff for the past 10+ years of my life? Why did I pour all my money into acquiring old computers rather than landscaping my backyard, which to this day I'm embarrased to admit is still a field of weeds? If I was someone only in it for the money, my warehouse would be a rented storage shed and I would've been doing a brisk trade out of it. And if I were so inclined, I'd be driving a Lamborghini by now. But I don't. And do you want to know why? I will tell you. It is the same reason I started the Vintage Computer Festival 10 years ago and have been doing it year after year ever since, in fact growing it to multiple events around the world, with a wash (in terms of cash) to show for it (and that's only if you count expenses and don't take my time into account). It is the same reason I used to charter a bus at my expense at the VCF so that people could take a tour of the nascent Computer Museum History Center (now the Computer History Museum) while they were in town for the VCF and raise its exposure. It's the same reason I actively contributed to this list for nearly nine years, never deleting a single message without first reading it. I do this because I have a passion for vintage computing and a love of computer history. It is what I have done since I was a teenager. It is my life's work. This is why I do it. So hopefully you'll understand why I think your comments are incredibly insulting and demeaning, bordering on libelous, and why I now have nothing but contempt for both of you for ascribing such a shallow motivation to my life's work, especially Teo, who is reading nothing new here. You've questioned my integrity before and I explained to you quite adequately that I am not someone who merely buys low and sells high. If you do this again then you and I will tangle, but in a serious fashion. As for how I am able to afford to keep all this material preserved while earning a living, it's no secret. I've explained it before, and every e-mail message I send out has a link to my business' website which explains my work. Regarding those periodic requests I post to the list? Those are what I call bounties. They are opportunities for hobbyists to make a little money in their hobby, sometimes a lot of money. Among other things, I do consulting for law firms in the field of patent litigation. I perform research to uncover prior art, and then I go out and try to acquire that prior art for my client (the law firm). Am I doing well by it? You bet. And as the many people who've successfully responded to one of my bounties can attest, it can be quite lucrative for them as well. If I was just using the list for my sole personal gain then yeah, I can see how that would be annoying. However, and here I will unashamedly toot my own horn, I'm actually spreading the wealth. Now tell me, what's wrong with that? Now, as for selling computers for profit, I do this very, very rarely. Most of what I provide to my law clients are items on temporary loan from my (or someone else's) collection. In the rare event when I do sell, I only consider profit motives when selling to businesses because I won't feel guilty about adding a considerable mark up. With individuals (i.e. fellow collectors) my primary motivation is doing a fair trade. In many cases I just give stuff away to other collectors for the prospect of a future favor returned (it's a concept I learned from a good friend called "enlightened self-interest"). By the way, the most exotic thing I ever sold from my own collection, an IMSAI 8080 for $3,500 on eBay, was to fund VCF 3.0. The next most exotic thing was an Apple //e. But enough of the self-adulation. I'll be honest and admit that I am exploiting my hobby, which I've managed to make into my work, for money, and as much as I can. It's the only way I can afford to maintain and grow this wonderful archive that I've built. So I do it shamelessly. Al Kossow: > I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from posting. Wow, Al. If that's how you treat your friends, I'd hate to know what you do to your enemies. Thanks, I'll remember this. Other people posted nasty comments about me, but I'm not responding to you because I consider you irrelevant. I should add that this does not apply to Jay, with whom I am having an off-list conversation. I would like to sincerely thank those that came to my defense. I count all of them as friends. Finally, to respond to Jay's follow-up to my initial posting, nowhere did I insult either Jay or the list, but rather I paraphrased what Patrick Rigney related to me when he decided to leave the list and the computer collecting community altogether. Go back and read my original posting. This thread is representative of the aspects of this community on which Patrick's disgust was rightly founded. Lastly, I am not going to apologize for any particular language that I choose to use. I've addressed this at length before and don't find a need to re-visit the argument, suffice it to say that I believe people who find any kind of words "dirty" because of their sexual connotations suffer from arrested development and need to mature. I'm stating my opinion. If you can't handle it that's your problem. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From rick at rickmurphy.net Fri Jan 19 05:50:00 2007 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:50:00 -0500 Subject: VAX Assembly question In-Reply-To: <20070119071905.GA23456@linus.groomlake.area51> References: <20070119071905.GA23456@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <200701191150.l0JBo3T0006177@mail.itm-inst.com> At 02:19 AM 1/19/2007, Sean Conner wrote: > My question is about the condition handler. In the text, it's > described >as: > > A longword condition handler address. Here, the calling routine > may store the address of an error-handling routine to be > called if > an exceptional error condition arises in the procedure. > > This is the only section (as far as I can tell) where this is > described, >and I'm curious as to how exactly it worked. It appears that while >the CPU >may set this location to 0, its purpose isn't really dictated by the >hardware, but it a convention used by VMS. But then (as I was typing >this), >I was struct by this bit: > > ... the calling routine may store ... > > Huh? How? The calling routine can store a condition handler in *it's own* stack frame prior to a call. Any exceptions that occur in the called routine are first handled by the called routine's condition handler (if there is one) and are then passed down if necessary to the caller's condition handler. The caller can not set the called routine's condition handler (by convention that would be wrong as it breaks the nesting (handlers called top-to-bottom). More importantly, the CALL* instruction would overwrite the stack location that contains the called routine's handler with a zero. How this is very frequently used in VMS code is for message printing; you enable a condition handler in the main function that decodes the arguments and prints a message. Upper layers just signal() a condition and let the lower layers decide what to do with it, with the default being the main function's message printer. An intermediate function that expects a possible exception can enable their own handler to suppress errors that they're expecting. -Rick From sellam at vintagetech.com Fri Jan 19 06:13:21 2007 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:13:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: eBay idiocy Message-ID: M H Stein said: > I suspect that if he really did give eBay a run for its money and > someone offered him a bag full of money (not so ridiculous these days), > he just might say yes. Yeah, you know what? Under the right conditions I probably would, because I just can't see myself still running something like that when I'm your age. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jan 19 08:24:47 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:24:47 -0300 Subject: Unrealistic price? References: <45AFD6F2.29503.237DCEA2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <06ab01c73bd5$ac4a1ec0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > $148,995 starting bid for a 32GB AS/400 memory. What is that? 32GB of RAM memory? :oO Looks like a HD :P From gordon at gjcp.net Fri Jan 19 02:28:04 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:28:04 +0000 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <45B05EFF.4050004@oldskool.org> References: <966379.73160.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <45B05EFF.4050004@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45B08114.7020006@gjcp.net> Jim Leonard wrote: > Chris M wrote: >> Jay, something really should be said and moreover >> done about language like that being used on the list. > > On the flip side, doing so is censorship... if you consider the list a > public forum... which it isn't :-) (It's provided by a private entity) Meh. We've got all the censorship we need. What's this little button here, just a little to the right of my key? Why, it's a Message-ID: <000901c73be2$b1c369d0$0100a8c0@screamer> I agree, based on the language used alone. Also... If your trying to compete with eBay, you had better offer a superior product. People will not switch to your product because YOU don't like eBay. eBay may have some issues, but they do offer services and protections far beyond those on VCM. But the real reason VCM cannot compete with eBay (in my opinion) is exposure. eBay plays to a huge market. VCM is very obscure. This is NOT the fault of VCM users. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Kossow" To: Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 12:44 PM Subject: Re: Ebay idiocy > > My two items of low-denomination currency, anyway. > > Which goes to everyone EXCEPT Sellam, since he > DOESN'T READ THE LIST! > > I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from > posting. > > I suggest others do as well. > > > > > > > From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 19 10:13:46 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:13:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Victor 9000 and bootstrapping; was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <45AFCBC5.31088.235224F5@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070119161346.23928.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > You know, a little google goes a long way. > > I found this in the google cache at: > http://www.electrocution.com/biosc.htm > > "On an IBM-compatible, you will find the BIOS > embedded into a ROM on > the motherboard, together with hard disk utilities > and a CMOS setup > program, although this will depend on the > manufacturer. The ROM will > usually occupy a 64K segment of upper memory at F000 > if you have an > ISA system, and a 128K segment starting at E000 with > EISA or similar. > It's on a chip so it doesn't get damaged if a disk > fails, as > sometimes used to happen on the Victor 9000/Sirius, > which had both > the BIOS and the system on the boot floppy." > > So, you've got your work cut out for you if you're > going to bootstrap > from nothing. There's sufficient code to load the boot record from a disk present in the firmware, this we know for a fact. We can get into definitions of bootstrapping, and you would be far more qualified to give it accurate and thorough justice, but "boot code" has to be present in any computer. But again there is the possibility that the bios code, *whoops* that resides on disk just like a Tandy 2000, could be burned to an eprom. And I only say possiblity because the though images that are floating around doubtless contain the necessary bios routines, neither I nor anyone I've spoken to have made *effective* use of them. I haven't even tried yet. Thanks for pointing out that there's more work involved with the hack then I initially thought. Thanks an awful lot grrrr. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Need a quick answer? Get one in minutes from people who know. Ask your question on www.Answers.yahoo.com From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 19 10:50:21 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:50:21 -0700 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 18 Jan 2007 19:57:38 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > > You mean this one? > > They seem like more of an art/craft museum than an artifact museum. > > They certainly have lots of arts and crafts, but they also have lots > of other stuff, too. Their tool building has something like 10,000 > tools in it. And then their are the railroad lanterns... Alright, I like railroad stuff. We have a few railroad museums here in Utah and of course there's the Golden Spike National Monument. Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be in CT anytime soon... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 19 11:57:29 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:57:29 -0800 Subject: NOS librascope heads for rpc4000 Message-ID: <45B10689.203@bitsavers.org> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=250075354898 these appear to be for the RPC4000 From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 19 12:03:37 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 10:03:37 -0800 Subject: Victor 9000 and bootstrapping; was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives? In-Reply-To: <20070119161346.23928.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> References: <45AFCBC5.31088.235224F5@cclist.sydex.com>, <20070119161346.23928.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45B09779.8978.266DDAB1@cclist.sydex.com> On 19 Jan 2007 at 8:13, Chris M wrote: > There's sufficient code to load the boot record from > a disk present in the firmware, this we know for a > fact. We can get into definitions of bootstrapping, > and you would be far more qualified to give it > accurate and thorough justice, but "boot code" has to > be present in any computer. But again there is the > possibility that the bios code, *whoops* that resides > on disk just like a Tandy 2000, could be burned to an > eprom. Oh, true. If I were to set out to bring something like MS-DOS 2.11 over to the Victor, the first thing I'd be coding right now is a simple loader/debugger that worked over the serial port. Most UART/USART chips are fairly well documented and straightforward to program. I could then load bits of code into the machine via a second system and observe the operation. Eventually, I could get enough code in to get MS-DOS to run without trying to figure out how to get it onto floppy in the right format. I might be better off starting with CP/M-86 however-- the internals as far as customization are well-documented and very straightforward. Just a random thought or two. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 19 12:46:57 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:46:57 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:41:36 -0800. <200701040141.l041fa72003944@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: OK, back on this subject again... Suppose the drives were from the Lilith/Eve workstations. Would the unix trick of using dd still work? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 19 13:12:28 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:12:28 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives Message-ID: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org> Suppose the drives were from the Lilith/Eve workstations. Would the unix trick of using dd still work? -- nope. they had their own custom drive interface. same is true for pretty much every disc before SCSI common command set. while 512 byte block scsi or ide interfaced mass storage devices now seem like the only things that ever existed, before the mid 80's there was no real block-level hard disc standard across manufacturers. the closest would have been hpib, but that was really only used by HP. From wizard at voyager.net Fri Jan 19 13:21:15 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:21:15 -0500 Subject: VCM Idiocy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1169234476.12245.60.camel@linux.site> On Fri, 2007-01-19 at 04:13 -0800, Sellam Ismail wrote: > M H Stein said: > > > I suspect that if he really did give eBay a run for its money and > > someone offered him a bag full of money (not so ridiculous these days), > > he just might say yes. > > Yeah, you know what? Under the right conditions I probably would, because > I just can't see myself still running something like that when I'm your > age. Ooh, good one. I'll bet he STILL feels that. So, from this, a few other clues, and your personal hate mail to me, I take it that you have decided that insulting your potential customers en masse isn't effective (or personal) enough, and that you intend to insult them all one-by-one? So... What are you doing this afternoon? I find it hard to believe that someone attempting to run a business in a hobbyist community would be so starkly DIM that they would see insulting customers as anything other than micturating in their own well. Starting a business is hard work, and success is difficult. About 75% of businesses fail in the first five years. Marketplace businesses, such as auction sites, REQUIRE large numbers of sellers, and large numbers of buyers to function efficiently. With an utterly dominating force, eBay, which has become a cultural icon, in place, it is exceptionally difficult to even get started, let alone prosper, even if it is a big company, with plenty of publicity and financial backing. Ask Yahoo! if you don't believe me. They haven't made a dent in eBay, and they're a powerhouse on the 'Net. The best a competitor can hope for is a niche market, a small group they cater to, and whose special needs become paramount to the competitor. Feeding off the edges of a market dominated by a giant is a workable strategy, albeit difficult and somewhat limited in scope. Making a venture in such a market requires a nearly fanatical devotion from the members of that niche, who rely on personal loyalty, rather than their own self-interest, to make their decisions. At the risk of stating the obvious, fostering an adversarial relationship with much of that community essentially guarantees failure. The only reasonable spin I can put on your actions is that you need VCM to fail for tax purposes. Failing that, I cannot see a reason which does not involve massive immaturity and lack of emotional control, a financial death wish, stupidity bordering on organic brain damage, or combinations of those factors. By all means, if I have missed something, let me know. What in bloody blue blazes were you trying to accomplish with your tirade against both eBay and your potential customers? (By the way, while I feel it inappropriate for the list, or any other civilized or pseudo-civilized discussion, anyone who wishes to see the e-mail exchange between Sellam and myself should e-mail me off-list, and I will be happy to send them a copy.) Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 19 13:20:49 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:20:49 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45B11A11.7090008@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: > while 512 byte block scsi or ide interfaced mass storage devices now > seem like the only things that ever existed, before the mid 80's there > was no real block-level hard disc standard across manufacturers. Actually, I've never needed to try this - but is it reasonable to expect a "modern" system to be able to archive (using dd) a SCSI drive that's been formatted to something other than a 512 byte block size? There were a few systems about that used SCSI drives formatted to 256 byte block sizes, and I expect that 1024 byte blocks aren't unheard of either. (plus there are many more systems with ST506/412 drives and SCSI bridge boards that present something other than 512 byte blocks to the user) I suppose dd should still cope OK - but the question's maybe one of whether the underlying SCSI drivers will cope... cheers Jules From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 19 13:35:29 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:35:29 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives Message-ID: <45B11D81.3090603@bitsavers.org> > Actually, I've never needed to try this - but is it reasonable to expect a > "modern" system to be able to archive (using dd) a SCSI drive that's been > formatted to something other than a 512 byte block size? I think it is. Modern systems will be the ones that have mass storage systems and networks capable of dealing with disc dumps. When I've done this, though, I've written my own disc dumping code using SCSI command blocks to the low-level interface. This was necessary for archiving TI Explorer discs, which have 256 byte blocks but are SCSI devices (MFM drive and ACB 4000 host adapter). From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Fri Jan 19 13:55:59 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:55:59 +0100 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B1224F.8040102@bluewin.ch> Richard wrote: > OK, back on this subject again... > > Suppose the drives were from the Lilith/Eve workstations. Would the > unix trick of using dd still work? Early Liliths use a 10MB Cartridge drive from Honeywell/Bull ( Mididisk D120) I did not find any info on this drive, The chap that wrote Medos also has no info any more, the drive interface is totally unknown, the drive itself contains a big PCB with around 200 TTL, with housenumbers instead of the normal 74xxx. It is THE showstopper in bringing my Lilith back to live. 'dd' does not stand a chance.... Later Liliths use an ST506 type drive. This might be slightly easier. I believe the Eve uses early SCSI drives, you should be able to tell by listing the exact type of the drives in your machines. Jos Dreesen From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 19 14:19:33 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:19:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sanyo MBC 55x In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070119121756.L8284@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Rick Companje wrote: > Hello Don, > I just read your forum post from 2002 regarding a bootdisk image (MS-DOS > v2.11) for the Sanyo MBC 555. > Can you please send me a copy by email? I'm running 1.25. Do you know what > kind of software is available for this machine besides Basic, Wordstar and > Calcstar? Don Maslin is dead. There are no more bootdisks any more. From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 19 14:20:45 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:20:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <1169196858.6313.0.camel@linux.site> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036713@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> <1169196858.6313.0.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <20070119122019.K8284@shell.lmi.net> > > Yes, I realize when...no, never mind...I think some of you guys were > > born with grumpy old man syndrome fully in place. > > --------------------------------------------- > > Can't speak for the others, but I worked hard to earn my right to be a > > curmudgeon. After 45 years of dealing with all the bullshit in this field, > > I relish my chance to be cynical and know-it-all. Let the kids be nice - > > I'm gong to have fun. > > Yeah, and all you kids keep off my lawn! Damn straight. From teoz at neo.rr.com Fri Jan 19 14:35:42 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:35:42 -0500 Subject: eBay idiocy References: Message-ID: <006201c73c09$63f855e0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sellam Ismail" To: "Classic Computers Mailing List" Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 5:55 AM Subject: re: eBay idiocy > > and Teo Zenios: > > > Sellam seems to post on the list when he is looking for something to > > resell and make some money, I seem to recall he got pissed when I > > referred to him as a dealer. If Sellam expects the people here to do all > > his advertising and build up users for him so HE can someday cash out he > > is dumber then I thought. > > This is patently ridiculous. > > First, I'll address your ignorance. I have a 4,500 square foot warehouse > filled with around 2,000 computers going back to the 1950s, thousands of > peripherals of all kinds, thousands of software packages, thousands of > books, tens of thousands of magazines, plus all manner of computer related > ephemera and things. This warehouse currently costs me $3,646.20 a month > to lease. As you might imagine, I also have other costs, such as > insurance, utilities, wages, etc. In short, it costs me a lot of money to > store all this stuff. > > Now, if I was in this for the money, why the hell would I be stupid enough > to incur thousands of dollars of expenses every month to store all this > stuff for the past 10+ years of my life? Why did I pour all my money into > acquiring old computers rather than landscaping my backyard, which to this > day I'm embarrased to admit is still a field of weeds? > > If I was someone only in it for the money, my warehouse would be a rented > storage shed and I would've been doing a brisk trade out of it. And if I > were so inclined, I'd be driving a Lamborghini by now. > > But I don't. And do you want to know why? I will tell you. It is the > same reason I started the Vintage Computer Festival 10 years ago and have > been doing it year after year ever since, in fact growing it to multiple > events around the world, with a wash (in terms of cash) to show for it > (and that's only if you count expenses and don't take my time into > account). It is the same reason I used to charter a bus at my expense at > the VCF so that people could take a tour of the nascent Computer Museum > History Center (now the Computer History Museum) while they were in town > for the VCF and raise its exposure. It's the same reason I actively > contributed to this list for nearly nine years, never deleting a single > message without first reading it. I do this because I have a passion for > vintage computing and a love of computer history. It is what I have done > since I was a teenager. It is my life's work. This is why I do it. > > So hopefully you'll understand why I think your comments are incredibly > insulting and demeaning, bordering on libelous, and why I now have nothing > but contempt for both of you for ascribing such a shallow motivation to my > life's work, especially Teo, who is reading nothing new here. You've > questioned my integrity before and I explained to you quite adequately > that I am not someone who merely buys low and sells high. If you do this > again then you and I will tangle, but in a serious fashion. > > As for how I am able to afford to keep all this material preserved while > earning a living, it's no secret. I've explained it before, and every > e-mail message I send out has a link to my business' website which > explains my work. > > Regarding those periodic requests I post to the list? Those are what I > call bounties. They are opportunities for hobbyists to make a little > money in their hobby, sometimes a lot of money. Among other things, I do > consulting for law firms in the field of patent litigation. I perform > research to uncover prior art, and then I go out and try to acquire that > prior art for my client (the law firm). Am I doing well by it? You bet. > And as the many people who've successfully responded to one of my bounties > can attest, it can be quite lucrative for them as well. If I was just > using the list for my sole personal gain then yeah, I can see how that > would be annoying. However, and here I will unashamedly toot my own horn, > I'm actually spreading the wealth. Now tell me, what's wrong with that? > > Now, as for selling computers for profit, I do this very, very rarely. > Most of what I provide to my law clients are items on temporary loan from > my (or someone else's) collection. In the rare event when I do sell, I > only consider profit motives when selling to businesses because I won't > feel guilty about adding a considerable mark up. With individuals (i.e. > fellow collectors) my primary motivation is doing a fair trade. In many > cases I just give stuff away to other collectors for the prospect of a > future favor returned (it's a concept I learned from a good friend called > "enlightened self-interest"). > > By the way, the most exotic thing I ever sold from my own collection, an > IMSAI 8080 for $3,500 on eBay, was to fund VCF 3.0. The next most exotic > thing was an Apple //e. > > But enough of the self-adulation. I'll be honest and admit that I am > exploiting my hobby, which I've managed to make into my work, for money, > and as much as I can. It's the only way I can afford to maintain and grow > this wonderful archive that I've built. So I do it shamelessly. > > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage mputers ] > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] Hmm where to begin. How am I questioning your integrity? The VCM was setup for selling on the ebay model (but with only computer related equipment) and if it was popular a fee would be charged from all sales so it was setup with the idea of making a profit down the road (if not then why bother mentioning fees at all). I don't have a problem with using ebay when I can find a deal, same with using VCM to buy (I don't sell just acquire it seems). If you could IPO the VCM and make a few million then more power to you, just don't freak out when it isn't doing so well because of little or no advertisement outside of this small list. You are smart enough to know why ebay does well and the VCM is not, scolding the buyers and sellers will not make it work. You are not a list member, but do show up when you need something (items you offer a bounty for, or information needed to prove prior art). You also mentioned earlier that you had clients who gave you a credit card to acquire equipment for them. So you are mining the list for information directly related to you making a living, plus you have been known to deal equipment (even if it is somebody else's). All I did was state facts, which tend to annoy you for some reason (go talk to a shrink about it). If I stated something that was not a fact (don't give me 5000 words about the motivation behind it, just the fact was wrong), then I will retract my statement and offer an apology. I don't have a problem with people making a living off of their hobby, but once you do its not JUST a hobby anymore now is it. I am sure you have spent a great deal of time and some money advancing this hobby, but that does not give you the right to treat this list the way you have been lately, especially since you are not an active member any longer. TZ From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 14:36:00 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:36:00 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <20070119122019.K8284@shell.lmi.net> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036713@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> <1169196858.6313.0.camel@linux.site> <20070119122019.K8284@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45B12BB0.4020602@gmail.com> Fred Cisin wrote: >>> Yes, I realize when...no, never mind...I think some of you guys were >>> born with grumpy old man syndrome fully in place. >>> --------------------------------------------- >>> Can't speak for the others, but I worked hard to earn my right to be a >>> curmudgeon. After 45 years of dealing with all the bullshit in this field, >>> I relish my chance to be cynical and know-it-all. Let the kids be nice - >>> I'm gong to have fun. >> Yeah, and all you kids keep off my lawn! > > Damn straight. I once wrote a haiku. I got an "A" for it. I said to that kid, Who came here that one morning, "Get off my lawn, punk!" 8-) Peace... Sridhar From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 19 14:42:53 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:42:53 -0800 Subject: Lilith (was Archiving workstation hard drives) Message-ID: <45B12D4D.2000300@bitsavers.org> > Early Liliths use a 10MB Cartridge drive from Honeywell/Bull ( Mididisk > D120) I did not find any info on this drive Are copies of the hardware documentation around anywhere that could be copied/scanned for the system? I've searched the CHM archives, and we don't appear to have anything other than the user's manual (which I've put up on bitsavers) It would be nice to find this, since we have a Lilith. From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 19 14:49:32 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:49:32 -0600 Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. References: <006201c73c09$63f855e0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <00c401c73c0b$54bb8230$6600a8c0@BILLING> Please terminate this thread as of midnight 1/19/2007. Any posts pouring gas on the flames of this post after that time will result in 2 week ban from the list. It has been posted here publicly by someone (as well as privately, perhaps by someone else) that they don't see why I allowed Sellam's post to the list in the first place. Let me clear that up by stating that Sellam never technically unsubscribed from the list, instead he set the "no mail" flag on his account. This means that he would not receive any list traffic, but as far as the list software is concerned he was still a member. This setting is built into the list software and is typically used by people going on vacation, changing email accounts, etc. As a result, his post was immediately accepted and dispersed without any moderation required. If it HAD been flagged for moderation, I'm quite sure I would have emailed Sellam privately off-list first and asked him to tone it down a bit. Jay From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 19 14:52:13 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:52:13 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:12:28 -0800. <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <45B1181C.50503 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > Suppose the drives were from the Lilith/Eve workstations. Would the > unix trick of using dd still work? > > -- > > nope. they had their own custom drive interface. Are you sure this is the case for the Eve? I mean, this thing has Bernoulli cartridge disks on it, which certainly would not have been made custom for the Eve. It looks like a standard SCSI interface and the discs look stock SCSI as well. How would I differentiate the custom disk interface from a stock SCSI interface? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 19 14:53:14 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:53:14 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:35:29 -0800. <45B11D81.3090603@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <45B11D81.3090603 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > When I've done this, though, I've written my own disc dumping code using SCSI > command blocks to the low-level interface. Is this tool available, should it be necessary? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 19 14:54:17 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:54:17 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:55:59 +0100. <45B1224F.8040102@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: In article <45B1224F.8040102 at bluewin.ch>, Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel writes: > I believe the Eve uses early SCSI drives, you should be able to tell by > listing the exact type of the drives in your machines. These are definately Eves and not Liliths; I'll post some info. With my installation of shelving in my basement, I can get to the Eves again. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Jan 19 14:53:23 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:53:23 -0500 Subject: eBay idiocy Message-ID: <01C73BE2.14365060@MSE_D03> Sellam: I'm sorry you took my reply (and others) as a "personal assault" and yes, perhaps I should have prefaced them with a paean to your indeed considerable contributions to the CC community; I did NOT say that you are "only" in it for the money, nor do I see any problem with your generating income that helps defray your costs and/or puts $$s in your pocket. More power to ya! I was just reminding Evan ("The man just wants some reassurance that his time and hard work will be appreciated. What's wrong with that? More people in our hobby should be that devoted!") that money was also a factor: >But first I want to take the time to congratulate the community for the >big fuck you they gave to the VCM. It has always been the intention that >we would start charging at some point for using it, but we never got to >that point. I wasn't offended by your language per se, but by the contempt and lack of consideration it expresses for the members of this list and the fact that you are blaming us for the VCM not becoming a viable revenue generator. I thought I was also offering you what I thought was constructive criticism, that perhaps your time and energy might be better spent in promoting VCM instead of alienating at least some of your potential customers by ranting at us for not beating a path to your door . FWIW, the same thing happened between you and me back when we were talking about some things I was going to send you; your talking to me in the same manner made me decide that I didn't really care to deal with you. But if it works for you to alienate people, good luck to ya. mike cc: Sellam From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jan 19 15:03:08 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:03:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B11A11.7090008@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org> <45B11A11.7090008@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200701192106.QAA06687@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Actually, I've never needed to try this - but is it reasonable to > expect a "modern" system to be able to archive (using dd) a SCSI > drive that's been formatted to something other than a 512 byte block > size? Depends on the system. :) Last tiem I looked, NetBSD, at least, couldn't do anything sensible with a SCSI disk with other than 512-byte blocks. That was quite a while ago, but I haven't heard anything on the lists to make me think the status has changed. I have a big/small (full-height 5?", but holding probably no more than about 1G) drive formatted with 1K sectors, and a SCSI floppy drive that uses 256-byte sectors, which I keep specifically as examples of non-512-byte disks. I think the former came from a NeXT, but don't recall definitely enough to be sure; the latter I forget the source of. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From g at kurico.com Fri Jan 19 15:07:58 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:07:58 -0600 Subject: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: <006201c73c09$63f855e0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <006201c73c09$63f855e0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45B1332E.6040906@kurico.com> Teo Zenios wrote: > Hmm where to begin. > > How am I questioning your integrity? > > The VCM was setup for selling on the ebay model (but with only computer > related equipment) and if it was popular a fee would be charged from all > sales so it was setup with the idea of making a profit down the road (if not > then why bother mentioning fees at all). I don't have a problem with using > Not defending Sellam but just wanted to make a point. Just because he mentioned "fees" does in no way only imply that he is trying to make a profit. Bandwidth costs money, maintenance takes effort (i.e. time), adding new features takes time, listing fees can be used to help offset these expenses and run, maintain, enhance the site without ever thinking about making a "profit". If I had items for sale on VCM, I'd have absolutely no problem paying a small fee to help keep the site going (as I'm sure many here wouldn't have a problem as well). Many other enthusiasts sites do exactly this, collect just enough to maintain the site and keep it healthy, not to make it's maintainers rich. Now it may be that Sellam really does want to eventually sell VCM to Google for $240mil, or simply collect millions in listing fees every month. My point is simply that one shouldn't just jump to this conclusion simply by the mentioning of the "f" word. George From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 19 15:00:55 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:00:55 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B11D81.3090603@bitsavers.org> References: <45B11D81.3090603@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45B13187.3060907@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: > > Actually, I've never needed to try this - but is it reasonable to > expect a > > "modern" system to be able to archive (using dd) a SCSI drive that's > been > > formatted to something other than a 512 byte block size? > > I think it is. Modern systems will be the ones that have mass storage systems > and networks capable of dealing with disc dumps. > > When I've done this, though, I've written my own disc dumping code using > SCSI command blocks to the low-level interface. > > This was necessary for archiving TI Explorer discs, which have 256 byte > blocks but are SCSI devices (MFM drive and ACB 4000 host adapter). Interesting. What OS platform and HBA was this for? I've been on the lookout for some sort of solution for a few years, but so far haven't found anything for Linux, DOS, or Windows that'll do the job. I don't mind coding SCSI commands in C using such as Linux's 'sg' interface, but I wouldn't know where to start when it came to programming a HBA itself. I know that Linux "offlines" any device that doesn't meet more modern SCSI protocols (in particular it hates anything that doesn't support a native Inquiry command at boot time - which rules out a lot of vintage SCSI devices even though they're otherwise compatible electrically). Perhaps other OSes are better suited though and I've just not stumbled across the right code anywhere. It may be that you were just "lucky" though. I have a feeling that the ACB4000 may well be unusual for devices of that sort of time period, in that it's "proper" SCSI rather than SASI or "SCSI with bits missing". It well just cooperate with low-level drivers well enough to allow the user access once the OS has booted. Devices from Emulex, Xebec and OMTI are probably less-compliant (and the most recent I've found is the Philips VP-415 laserdisc player), but as a community we could do with a way of talking to them from "modern" hardware. cheers Jules From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 15:10:17 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:10:17 -0500 Subject: Looking for OS/278 to boot up a DECmate I Message-ID: Hello, fellow 12-bitters, I know this has been discussed recently (as in, "how can I boot my DECmate?"), but IIRC, the "easiest" way to get OS/278 to a DECmate I is by copying a boot floppy and putting it in the mail. Can anyone on the list assist me with this? I have NOS blank RX01s, so I can do a diskette swap, or a mail-and-return, or whatever arrangement is required; but at the moment, I have no way to hang an 8" floppy off of modern hardware, so I'm pretty much limited to solutions that are based on 100% DEC and DEC-compatible hardware. All I have for my DECmate I is WPS-8, not all that interesting, frankly. One of my goals, BTW, is to snarfle off images of my PDP-8 RX01 and RX02 disks for preservation and sharing. I have a few boxes of disks from the 1978-1985 timeframe, up to the time I stopped using a PDP-8 on a daily/weekly basis. Thanks for any assistance, -ethan From g at kurico.com Fri Jan 19 15:12:41 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:12:41 -0600 Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. In-Reply-To: <00c401c73c0b$54bb8230$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: <006201c73c09$63f855e0$0b01a8c0@game> <00c401c73c0b$54bb8230$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45B13449.4020205@kurico.com> Jay West wrote: > Please terminate this thread as of midnight 1/19/2007. Any posts > pouring gas on the flames of this post after that time will result in > 2 week ban from the list. > Jay, for the benefit of the "thread snipers" out there, please specify the timezone ;) From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 19 15:13:21 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:13:21 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:03:08 -0500. <200701192106.QAA06687@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: In article <200701192106.QAA06687 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, der Mouse writes: > > Actually, I've never needed to try this - but is it reasonable to > > expect a "modern" system to be able to archive (using dd) a SCSI > > drive that's been formatted to something other than a 512 byte block > > size? > > Depends on the system. :) [...] I'm most likely to attach these to a Sun SPARCstation 5. I believe it has Solaris on it, or maybe even SunOS. If that doesn't work (wrong type of SCSI?), I may get out the Sun 3/110, which is definately SunOS and not Solaris, but I haven't powered up either of these two systems since I acquird them. I just figured that Sun + SCSI + dd = least hassles. Is that a reasonable assumption? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 19 15:16:38 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:16:38 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <200701192106.QAA06687@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org> <45B11A11.7090008@yahoo.co.uk> <200701192106.QAA06687@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <45B13536.8090503@yahoo.co.uk> der Mouse wrote: >> Actually, I've never needed to try this - but is it reasonable to >> expect a "modern" system to be able to archive (using dd) a SCSI >> drive that's been formatted to something other than a 512 byte block >> size? > > Depends on the system. :) I thought it might ;) > Last tiem I looked, NetBSD, at least, > couldn't do anything sensible with a SCSI disk with other than 512-byte > blocks. That was quite a while ago, but I haven't heard anything on > the lists to make me think the status has changed. The thing that got me wondering though - surely in the PC world, SCSI CDROM drives all use something like 2048-byte blocks? They're still mass storage devices - albeit removeable ones - and so presumably the low level code *has* to be capable of working with "odd" block sizes. I'm sure there's lots of filesystem-level code that's hard-coded to expect 512 byte blocks, but it was the CDROM aspect that got me wondering whether at the lowl level (dd <==> device) it's most likely to work. > I have a big/small (full-height 5?", but holding probably no more than > about 1G) drive formatted with 1K sectors, and a SCSI floppy drive that > uses 256-byte sectors, which I keep specifically as examples of > non-512-byte disks. I think the former came from a NeXT, but don't > recall definitely enough to be sure; the latter I forget the source of. I've got various things that operate at 256 byte block sizes - the problem being that they're not quite "SCSI enough" to work with modern HBA BIOSes and OS low-level SCSI drivers. Until that problem's solved, there's just no way to archive them using modern equipment, whether the archive step is done using 'dd' or something else. :-( cheers Jules From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 19 15:27:46 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:27:46 -0600 Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. References: <006201c73c09$63f855e0$0b01a8c0@game><00c401c73c0b$54bb8230$6600a8c0@BILLING> <45B13449.4020205@kurico.com> Message-ID: <011c01c73c10$aa29adf0$6600a8c0@BILLING> George wrote.... > Jay, for the benefit of the "thread snipers" out there, please specify > the timezone ;) I intended to, thought I did. Obviously I didn't :) CST Jay From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Fri Jan 19 15:32:55 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:32:55 +0100 Subject: Lilith In-Reply-To: <45B12D4D.2000300@bitsavers.org> References: <45B12D4D.2000300@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45B13907.3000804@bluewin.ch> Al Kossow wrote: > > Early Liliths use a 10MB Cartridge drive from Honeywell/Bull ( Mididisk > > D120) I did not find any info on this drive > > Are copies of the hardware documentation around anywhere that could > be copied/scanned for the system? > > I've searched the CHM archives, and we don't appear to have anything > other than the user's manual (which I've put up on bitsavers) > > It would be nice to find this, since we have a Lilith. > I was told by someone who maintained the Lilith's at the ETH that they have nothing left. No parts, no documents, except of course the various PHD reports, like the Medos one you have put on bitsavers. I will try again after my head is free again (i.e. after the next tapeout...) Jos Dreesen From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 19 15:45:03 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:45:03 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B13536.8090503@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org>, <200701192106.QAA06687@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, <45B13536.8090503@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45B0CB5F.16246.27389847@cclist.sydex.com> On 19 Jan 2007 at 15:16, Jules Richardson wrote: > The thing that got me wondering though - surely in the PC world, SCSI CDROM > drives all use something like 2048-byte blocks? They're still mass storage > devices - albeit removeable ones - and so presumably the low level code *has* > to be capable of working with "odd" block sizes. Indeed--and add to that many of the MO drives--some use 1024 and some 2048 byte sectors. I can't imagine that any raw interface that has to deal with these devices will be intolerant of disks with other than 512 byte sectors. Cheers, Chuck From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Fri Jan 19 15:54:56 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:54:56 -0500 Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. In-Reply-To: <011c01c73c10$aa29adf0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200701192155.l0JLt2j5082401@keith.ezwind.net> On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:27:46 -0600, Jay West wrote: >George wrote.... >> Jay, for the benefit of the "thread snipers" out there, please specify >> the timezone ;) >I intended to, thought I did. Obviously I didn't :) >CST >Jay Unfair Bias :) The Left Coast always seems to get the last word over the Midwest, while the Eastern time zone people are use to having news at 11, and if important, will deal with it in the morning.... I think GMT is a better choice, as it is only about an hour fro now and universal ! Sorry Digest people, you loose .... The other Bob From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jan 19 16:11:37 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:11:37 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036719@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> William Donzelli wrote: OK, Mr. Curmudgeon, what can you tell us kids about the CDC Mass Store System? I got a couple of cartridges in the mail today from a buddy that used to be in the supercomputer business. Nearly everything on the web is about the IBM noodlepicker. -- Will ------------------------ Sorry, but I never worked on it. Saw it in action a few times and was fascinated with the picker arm moving so fast over the honeycomb. I don't believe a lot were sold. I saw one status report that only had 18 of them world wide. There may have been more sold, but I doubt it. The lack of compatibility with legacy tapes was a huge detractor. Pople who needed big tape libraries already had thousands of tapes and didn't want to convert them one by one. I do know that they were great job security. It required a full time field engineer. Don't think I have a manual on it, though I may have some Sales literature. I'll check the controlfreaks twiki and see if any info is there. Billy From teoz at neo.rr.com Fri Jan 19 16:16:16 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:16:16 -0500 Subject: eBay idiocy References: <006201c73c09$63f855e0$0b01a8c0@game> <45B1332E.6040906@kurico.com> Message-ID: <009f01c73c17$703e6480$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Currie" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 4:07 PM Subject: Re: eBay idiocy > Teo Zenios wrote: > > Hmm where to begin. > > > > How am I questioning your integrity? > > > > The VCM was setup for selling on the ebay model (but with only computer > > related equipment) and if it was popular a fee would be charged from all > > sales so it was setup with the idea of making a profit down the road (if not > > then why bother mentioning fees at all). I don't have a problem with using > > > Not defending Sellam but just wanted to make a point. Just because he > mentioned "fees" does in no way only imply that he is trying to make a > profit. Bandwidth costs money, maintenance takes effort (i.e. time), > adding new features takes time, listing fees can be used to help offset > these expenses and run, maintain, enhance the site without ever thinking > about making a "profit". If I had items for sale on VCM, I'd have > absolutely no problem paying a small fee to help keep the site going (as > I'm sure many here wouldn't have a problem as well). Many other > enthusiasts sites do exactly this, collect just enough to maintain the > site and keep it healthy, not to make it's maintainers rich. > > Now it may be that Sellam really does want to eventually sell VCM to > Google for $240mil, or simply collect millions in listing fees every > month. My point is simply that one shouldn't just jump to this > conclusion simply by the mentioning of the "f" word. > > George Yes, I thought of that too. My thinking was since fees were mentioned at the beginning there was some thought of the site being visited by more then just the list community and therefore it could be a profitable setup. If it was just for the people here it would be more efficient to setup something like the Google group LEM Swap where Apple/Mac parts are traded among the members that are signed up (but does not allow known businesses to advertise). If he started asking for a small fee at the start I think people would not have minded and it would have paid for the hosting (maybe not but helped a little), but by not collecting the fee at the start I sense he was waiting for it to become much larger then just this group here and possible profitable. People have been using it, new items are listed every once in a while and things are being sold so it IS being used as a tool for the list members if that is what it was meant for. Sellams rant just made me think it was more for profit then a community tool, which is why I said what I said. I can't crawl into peoples minds to know why they do things, so I look at what is said and done and conclude from that and possible I was wrong. People have to understand that the world views you from their perception of your words and actions (based on their own experiences) and not on what you might have meant but never clarified. TZ From sellam at vintagetech.com Fri Jan 19 16:08:09 2007 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:08:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: VCM idiocy Message-ID: > Ooh, good one. I'll bet he STILL feels that. Oh jeez, shut up already. > Starting a business is hard work, and success is difficult. Right, but what would you know about this, Donald Trump? > (By the way, while I feel it inappropriate for the list, or any other > civilized or pseudo-civilized discussion, anyone who wishes to see the > e-mail exchange between Sellam and myself should e-mail me off-list, and > I will be happy to send them a copy.) By all means, please do. But why not just post it here for all to see? It doesn't fall below the level of your Tourettes-induced outburst. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 19 16:14:27 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:14:27 -0600 Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. References: <200701192155.l0JLt2j5082401@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <000701c73c17$32427900$6600a8c0@BILLING> > Unfair Bias :) ...snip... > I think GMT is a better choice, as it is only about an hour fro now and > universal ! No problem. The deadline is 6am, 1/20/2007, GMT. J From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 19 16:18:24 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:18:24 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 19 Jan 2007 11:35:29 PST." <45B11D81.3090603@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <200701192218.l0JMIOPV028667@mwave.heeltoe.com> Al Kossow wrote: > > Actually, I've never needed to try this - but is it reasonable to expect a > > "modern" system to be able to archive (using dd) a SCSI drive that's been > > formatted to something other than a 512 byte block size? > >I think it is. Modern systems will be the ones that have mass storage systems >and networks capable of dealing with disc dumps. > >When I've done this, though, I've written my own disc dumping code using SCSI >command blocks to the low-level interface. yes, I found linux to be incapable of dealing with scsi disks formatted to non-512 byte multiple blocks... you end up having to write your own code or hack the o/s to deal with it. -brad From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 19 16:05:40 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:05:40 -0700 Subject: dovebid is a good source for wire racks/shelving Message-ID: FYI, There are scads of lots up there right now... dunno what they will sell for, but I'm guessing lots cheaper than the several hundred you would have to pay for these new. If you're not local to the sale location, you'll have to add shipping, but they are light and when disassembled can be shipped rather easily by a company like Craters & Freighters. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 19 16:26:20 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:26:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. In-Reply-To: <011c01c73c10$aa29adf0$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: <006201c73c09$63f855e0$0b01a8c0@game><00c401c73c0b$54bb8230$6600a8c0@BILLING> <45B13449.4020205@kurico.com> <011c01c73c10$aa29adf0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <20070119133531.E8284@shell.lmi.net> "Everybody said they'd stand behind me When the game got rough But the joke was on me There was nobody even there to call my bluff I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough." Sellam is not the only one who has expresses some dissatisfaction with eBay! But, he tried to do something about it. He set up a "competing" system. 'Course he badly underestimated the "critical mass" factor. You can build a better mousetrap, and the world will still beat a path to MICROS~1's door. If ENERYBODY had enthusiastically participated in VCM, then maybe it might have been able to get off the ground. But, "I'm looking for stuff that shows up on eBay more often". "I need to get maximum dollar, and that's on eBay." "there isn't enough activity on VCM" There are plenty of reasons, many quite valid, for sticking with the industry dominating big guy. Sellam mis-estimated the level of that. Now, he feels disappointed, and even a little betrayed by the fact that he never got the level of support for it that people had expressed, or even promised. That was inevitable. He lashed out in frustration. We don't want to be blamed for the failure of his attempt to do something, but, even so, the vocabulary used is hardly the real issue. Yes, he is brash, and even abrasive, in his email rants. But, he devotes his life to this stuff, and in person can be VERY helpful. When I had to close down the operations of XenoSoft, (mostly due to health collapse), Frank McConnell, Uncle Roger, Eric Smith, and Sellam were the only responses that I got in my desperate need to move out 1000 square feet of computer stuff. The Humane Society was glad to get my office furniture, but who would want "obsolete" computers, "obsolete" peripherals (It isn't easy to give away monitors and printers!), and bizarre ephemera from more than 20 years of computer faires, Comdex's, etc. Even Computer Currents and Microtimes had no interest in a collection of their own back issues. Comdex directories? Who would WANT a Diebold motorized rotating file cabinet that holds a thousand 8" diskettes? My best friend tried to help, but he has congestive heart failure. If not for Sellam's efforts, I would have had to pay big money in hauling and disposal fees. Can you IMAGINE how depressing it would be to have to haul your entire collection to the dump? Although my house is now barely habitable, absolutely NOTHING was dumpstered! The four collectors paid me money for some items, and made their own arrangements to pass on some items that they had no use for. But, they also gave me realistic estimates for everything on how much I "could" get for each item on eBay, etc. None of them fell into the temptation to take advantage of my situation. Yes, the totes full of Epson HC20 and Gavilan stuff could have fetched far more on eBay, but the few hundred dollars cash was at the moment more preferable. Frank even went and got me more totes wehn my Costco ran out. When Don Maslin needed some help figuring out the file system of NEC "Stand-Alone BASIC" diskettes, Sellam put us in touch with each other, and we succeeded in deciphering the disks. I won't condone Sellam using "coarse" language in a situation where people are easily offended. I can't make excuses for him lashing out in frustration and disappointment when things didn't work out. (although I will tell HIM, "I told ya so!" (VCF works, but VCM is faced with insurmountable inertia)) If my only contact with him were to have been his email posts, things might be different. But, his actions are far better than his words, and therefore, I'm not ashamed to say that I consider him to be a friend. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 19 16:32:07 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:32:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. In-Reply-To: <200701192155.l0JLt2j5082401@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200701192155.l0JLt2j5082401@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <20070119142752.M8284@shell.lmi.net> > >> Jay, for the benefit of the "thread snipers" out there, please specify > >> the timezone ;) > >I intended to, thought I did. Obviously I didn't :) > >CST On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Bob Bradlee wrote: > Unfair Bias :) > The Left Coast always seems to get the last word over the Midwest, > while the Eastern time zone people are use to having news at 11, > and if important, will deal with it in the morning.... Hey! EST (NY, etc.) will get to continue until after midnight! But PST (CA, etc.) will have to stop mid evening. Oh, well. When it stops, we can all go over to Woot, and see if they've got anything interesting. > I think GMT is a better choice, as it is only about an hour fro now and > universal ! I agree. 'course we could go with 90 South (New Zealand time?), and declare that it's already over. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From g at kurico.com Fri Jan 19 16:44:13 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:44:13 -0600 Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. In-Reply-To: <20070119142752.M8284@shell.lmi.net> References: <200701192155.l0JLt2j5082401@keith.ezwind.net> <20070119142752.M8284@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45B149BD.30207@kurico.com> Fred Cisin wrote: >> Unfair Bias :) >> The Left Coast always seems to get the last word over the Midwest, >> while the Eastern time zone people are use to having news at 11, >> and if important, will deal with it in the morning.... >> > > Hey! EST (NY, etc.) will get to continue until after midnight! > But PST (CA, etc.) will have to stop mid evening. Oh, well. > When it stops, we can all go over to Woot, and see if they've got anything > interesting. > > > >> I think GMT is a better choice, as it is only about an hour fro now and >> universal ! >> > > I agree. > > > 'course we could go with 90 South (New Zealand time?), and declare that > it's already over. > > I know, I think we should come up with a alternative to this whole "time zone" mess. It's obvious that it unfairly favours those in the east. And all those weird exceptions and rules (e.g. Mountain zone), obviously setup to only benefit, "The Man". I of course expect EVERYONE on this list to support this alternative, and learning from Sellam's mistakes, that we should charge a fee from the get-go (btw, does anyone have the number for the M&A dept at Google?). George From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 19 16:27:38 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:27:38 -0700 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:18:24 -0500. <200701192218.l0JMIOPV028667@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: In article <200701192218.l0JMIOPV028667 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, Brad Parker writes: > yes, I found linux to be incapable of dealing with scsi disks formatted > to non-512 byte multiple blocks... How about Solaris/SunOS? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 19 16:57:04 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:57:04 -0800 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036719@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036719@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <45B0DC40.22918.277A85C0@cclist.sydex.com> On 19 Jan 2007 at 14:11, Billy Pettit wrote: > Sorry, but I never worked on it. Saw it in action a few times and was > fascinated with the picker arm moving so fast over the honeycomb. Same here. "Beer cans in a pigeon coop". I was told by the fellow showing it off that it was better than the IBM version because it used hydraulics for the picker arm. I was told by the same person that the double arms on the IBM unit were there because they tended to fail often, so the unit could limp along with only one. Don't know if that was true or not. Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 19 17:07:30 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:07:30 -0600 Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. In-Reply-To: <45B149BD.30207@kurico.com> References: <200701192155.l0JLt2j5082401@keith.ezwind.net> <20070119142752.M8284@shell.lmi.net> <45B149BD.30207@kurico.com> Message-ID: <45B14F32.7060802@yahoo.co.uk> George Currie wrote: > I know, I think we should come up with a alternative to this whole "time > zone" mess. It's obvious that it unfairly favours those in the east. > And all those weird exceptions and rules (e.g. Mountain zone), obviously > setup to only benefit, "The Man". I of course expect EVERYONE on this > list to support this alternative It's been done: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time ... and more than likely several times before that, too. :-) cheers Jules (currently sitting on the Greenwich meridian) From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jan 19 17:26:55 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:26:55 -0600 Subject: VCM Idiocy In-Reply-To: <1169234476.12245.60.camel@linux.site> References: <1169234476.12245.60.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <45B153BF.8080403@oldskool.org> Warren Wolfe wrote: > I take it that you have > decided that insulting your potential customers en masse isn't effective > (or personal) enough, and that you intend to insult them all one-by-one? Oh, I don't think he makes his living off of onesy-twosy individual sales. I'm fairly certain the bulk of his income comes from the legal field. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 19 18:18:17 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:18:17 -0500 Subject: macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:53:14 MST." Message-ID: <200701200018.l0K0IHoS001406@mwave.heeltoe.com> Someone approached me about some "prior art" and I am now looking at some 1/4" carts marked "quadra 950 retrospect 2.0 mac os" I made in the early 1990's. If somehow I could find a working 1/4" drive (scsi) and got it connected to a macintosh, Is there any hope I could find a copy of retrospect 2.0? anyone else ever try this? it's probably hopeless, but it might be a fun ride. hard to say. good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) -brad From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Jan 19 18:21:05 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:21:05 -0000 (GMT) Subject: Sanyo MBC 55x In-Reply-To: <20070119121756.L8284@shell.lmi.net> References: <20070119121756.L8284@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1249.192.168.0.4.1169252465.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> On Fri, January 19, 2007 20:19, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Rick Companje wrote: >> Hello Don, >> I just read your forum post from 2002 regarding a bootdisk image (MS-DOS >> v2.11) for the Sanyo MBC 555. >> Can you please send me a copy by email? I'm running 1.25. Do you know >> what >> kind of software is available for this machine besides Basic, Wordstar >> and >> Calcstar? > > Don Maslin is dead. > There are no more bootdisks any more. Hello Fred, Thankyou for your helpful and incisive post in this hobby of ours that we'd like to preserve. You're going great guns here, it's easy to see why Sellam had such a problem with this list. -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 19 18:39:00 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:39:00 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:27:38 MST." Message-ID: <200701200039.l0K0d0gw015806@mwave.heeltoe.com> Richard wrote: > >In article <200701192218.l0JMIOPV028667 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, > Brad Parker writes: > >> yes, I found linux to be incapable of dealing with scsi disks formatted >> to non-512 byte multiple blocks... > >How about Solaris/SunOS? never tried that. interesting - is solaris (or sunos) more tolerant? -brad From bpope at wordstock.com Fri Jan 19 18:44:09 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:44:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. In-Reply-To: <20070119133531.E8284@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20070120004409.B945252BA7@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Fred Cisin > > Sellam is not the only one who has expresses some dissatisfaction with > eBay! > > But, he tried to do something about it. He set up a "competing" system. > 'Course he badly underestimated the "critical mass" factor. You can build > a better mousetrap, and the world will still beat a path to MICROS~1's > door. > > If ENERYBODY had enthusiastically participated in VCM, then maybe it might > have been able to get off the ground. But, > "I'm looking for stuff that shows up on eBay more often". > "I need to get maximum dollar, and that's on eBay." > "there isn't enough activity on VCM" > So now after midnight CST 12/19/2006 there will be no more "ebay sucks" posts? ;) > There are plenty of reasons, many quite valid, for sticking with the > industry dominating big guy. > > Sellam mis-estimated the level of that. Now, he feels disappointed, and > even a little betrayed by the fact that he never got the level of support > for it that people had expressed, or even promised. That was inevitable. > He lashed out in frustration. > IIRC, at the time when Sellam and friends posted that they were going to create VCM, pretty much everybody was excited and behind him.. Now when Sellam is throwing up his arms and saying "Where to f*** is everybody", "everybody" now says "Watch your tone" and "ebay isn't that bad"... > We don't want to be blamed for the failure of his attempt to do something, > but, even so, the vocabulary used is hardly the real issue. > > > Yes, he is brash, and even abrasive, in his email rants. > > But, he devotes his life to this stuff, and in person can be VERY helpful. > > Fred, Thank-you very much for detailing how Sellam has gone above and beyond for you! Cheers, Bryan From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jan 19 18:45:10 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:45:10 -0800 Subject: macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036720@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> * Brad Parker wrote: Someone approached me about some "prior art" and I am now looking at some 1/4" carts marked "quadra 950 retrospect 2.0 mac os" I made in the early 1990's. If somehow I could find a working 1/4" drive (scsi) and got it connected to a macintosh, Is there any hope I could find a copy of retrospect 2.0? anyone else ever try this? it's probably hopeless, but it might be a fun ride. hard to say. good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) -brad ------------------------------------------ Don't know if it helps or not, but I have a wheeled table in the garage with an 8600 that I use for testing SCSI drives, peripherals. Was working last time I fired it up. I used to use a 9500. It is still on the floor; was working when I pulled it out. It's yours if you want it. (This is in Pleasanton, California.) I think I kept both systems at 8.6, since that was last of the good SCSI support drivers. (If any interest, write me off line: billy.pettit at wdc.com - only good on week days. Weekends are for fun not computers!) Billy From gkicomputers at yahoo.com Fri Jan 19 18:48:22 2007 From: gkicomputers at yahoo.com (steve) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:48:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <681196.95673.qm@web51604.mail.yahoo.com> --- Sellam Ismail wrote: > Among other things, I do > consulting for law firms in the field of patent > litigation. I perform > research to uncover prior art, and then I go out and > try to acquire that > prior art for my client (the law firm). sorry to see you fell into that black hole, and sorry to see your interests changing so much in the past few years ____________________________________________________________________________________ Need a quick answer? Get one in minutes from people who know. Ask your question on www.Answers.yahoo.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 19 18:47:41 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:47:41 +0000 (GMT) Subject: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: from "Sellam Ismail" at Jan 19, 7 02:55:17 am Message-ID: > > First of all, I'm sorry that so many people seem to have taken my message > as a personal assault. In re-reading the message, it seems the primary > reason some people got upset is because I expressed my speech freely, and > I also expressed some rather unflattering truths. My tone was angry, yes, > but my anger was directed at eBay primarily (because I hate them), and > secondarily at the same old useless bitching about eBay that seems to > never end here. I think it's pretty clear that I was looking for Hang on a second... Last time I checked, the owner/moderator of this list was Jay West. Not you. Now, if Jay says that moaning about E-bay is forbidden here, then we'd better all shut up, it's his list he gets to make the rules. But I don;t see any justification for you to tell us what we can talk about. You remind me of a certain person well-known in HP calculator circles. A commonly held view in HPCC (UK HP club) is that since he founded the first such club he feels he has the right to tell _all_ such clubs how they should be run, what they should do, etc. And this does not go down well with certain HPCC members I can tell you. [...] > > Tony Duell: > > > I was taught it was extremely bad Netiquette to ask for help (or > > physical items) on a list (or newsgroup) that you did not also > > contribute to, and in particular on a list that you didn't subscribe to. > > > > Somenbody helps you, you repay the community by helping somebody else. > > Seems reasonable to me. > > Tony, before I unsubscribed, I had been continuously subscribed to the > list (with the exception of a brief stint after the first VCF when I > decided I needed a break) since the list began in 1997. I was one of the > charter members. In the time I was subscribed, I contributed hundreds of I do not dispute this. However, IMHO it is irrelevant. You are no longer contributing useful infromation _to this list_. > thousands of words, most of which I (and I'm sure many others) would > consider "useful". I helped countless people with questions, both on and That claim could be made by many other long-time members here, including myself. Anyway, as I've said before, in the context of which books are useful/good value, I do not regard number of words as being a good metric of usefulness of information. > off list (and continue to do so). If you can't recall the thousands of > messages that I contributed here in your presence then please have your > head checked. In short, I think I've earned the right to continue to both > contribute and draw from a mailing list that I helped to build, regardless > of your petty concepts of "netiquette". > > I don't feel it should be necessary to toot my own horn, but I can count > the number of people to whom I've provided free hardware, software, > manuals, etc., often covering shipping costs as well, in the dozens. I'm Again, I can make exactly the same claim. As can, for excample, Al Kossow (for setting up Bitsavers), and many, many, more. > not going to bother going into the promotion I've given and attention I've > attracted for the hobby (for better or worse), without which we might've > still just been a small throng of nerds playing with obsolete computers. > I've been out on the front pushing this hobby forward for ten years now, I hate to tell you this, but I've been 'pushing the hobby' for nearly 21 years. Long before this list. Long before the Web, in fact. Long before the CCS/Bletchley Park. I've been getting people interested in saving classic machines, writing repair information, supplying parts, and generally spreading the word. > something one can't do from the comfort of their parents' basement. > > You might also recall the many times I privately responded to your regular > public laments about not being able to find a job by trying to encourage > you to move out to the US (this was during the dot.com boom) where your > considerable talents would've been in high demand (you always found some > excuse to stay within your comfortable little bubble). I really don't see what this has to do with anything, but... Firstly, I am not sure quite what use my skills would have been, since I keep on telling you I am not a programmer and very little of the .com boom seems to be hardware-related). And from what I've heard from friends in the States, there certainly aren't jobs over there _now_ for eccentric hardware hackers. I therefore feel I did the right thing not to come over to the States. Moving and converting even a small subset of my hardware would have been 'interesting' as I mentioned at the time. And I'd have had to do the reverse a few years later. Ouch. I don't see why I should have to justify not wnating to some to the States. Maybe it's because I don't think I'd care for the American way of life. Maybe it's because I want to stay near my friends and family over here. Maybe it's bcause I don't want to have ot do 60Hz conversions to all my hardware. Maybe it's because I can't darn well afford the flight. Whatever. It's my business. > > > For that reason, I ignore any messages from Sellam now. > > Well, as long as we're being petty, I tuned out your incessant (and often > off-topic) jabbering long before I unsubscribed. Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading useless information. [...] > for the VCF and raise its exposure. It's the same reason I actively > contributed to this list for nearly nine years, never deleting a single > message without first reading it. I do this because I have a passion for And yet you jsut said you didn't read my messages. Hmmm... Can you please be consistent. > Lastly, I am not going to apologize for any particular language that I > choose to use. I've addressed this at length before and don't find a need > to re-visit the argument, suffice it to say that I believe people who find > any kind of words "dirty" because of their sexual connotations suffer from > arrested development and need to mature. I'm stating my opinion. If you > can't handle it that's your problem. No, I think it's most defineitely your problem if you can't see that some language is appropriate for some situations and not others. There are things that I would say to a couple of friends who I know well and who I know won't be seriously offended, which I would most certainly not say in public, or on a public mailing list. I you can't understand that, well... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 19 18:21:13 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:21:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <45B0541E.3050706@brutman.com> from "Michael B. Brutman" at Jan 18, 7 11:16:14 pm Message-ID: > control yourself. The last time I cussed a purple stream like that I > was a pedestrian that had just been hit by a pickup truck while I was in > a cross walk with the right of way in my favor. I think that was > justified. I don't think Sellam's grenade is, unless there is a lot > more to the story that I don't know. I've used, shall we say, strong language when I've dropped an R80 on my foot, or when the EHT in my Barco monitor flasehd over to my hand, or... In the heat of the mmment I tend to relieve stress in that way. However, posting to this list is not done (I would hope) in the heat of the momennt, You should take time to think about what you're saying. To sum up, I am not 'offended' by such language, but I don't think it's appopriate on this list. -tony From teoz at neo.rr.com Fri Jan 19 19:17:36 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:17:36 -0500 Subject: macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup References: <200701200018.l0K0IHoS001406@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <00e601c73c30$c56ab530$0b01a8c0@game> I have a legit copy of Retrospect 2.1 on my shelf and plenty of Quadra 950's as well but no 1/4" (QIC I would think) drives, just DDS 1,2,4 DAT Drives. I can make a few disk images if you want the Retrospect program (should work on 68K as well as PPC Mac). There is Retrospect sold for the PC as well that should read the Mac versions tape, QIC drives are cheap and plentiful for the PC. If you try to read them on a PC just make sure that the restore drive does not use FAT for formatting since it will screw up the Mac data fork making the files unusable (unless they were compressed with something like Stuffit before they were backed up). NTFS will not harm old Mac files. PS My copy of Retrospect could read files saved on the Apple Workgroup Server 95 which was an Apple 950 plus a special PDS SCSI card that ran A/UX 3 which had a unix version of Retrospect built in (I have that as well). TZ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad Parker" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 7:18 PM Subject: macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup > > Someone approached me about some "prior art" and I am now looking at > some 1/4" carts marked "quadra 950 retrospect 2.0 mac os" I made in the > early 1990's. > > If somehow I could find a working 1/4" drive (scsi) and got it connected > to a macintosh, > > Is there any hope I could find a copy of retrospect 2.0? > > anyone else ever try this? > > it's probably hopeless, but it might be a fun ride. hard to say. > > good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) > > -brad From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 19 19:19:13 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:19:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sanyo MBC 55x In-Reply-To: <1249.192.168.0.4.1169252465.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> References: <20070119121756.L8284@shell.lmi.net> <1249.192.168.0.4.1169252465.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: <20070119171640.E8284@shell.lmi.net> > > Don Maslin is dead. > > There are no more bootdisks any more. On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Witchy wrote: > Hello Fred, > Thankyou for your helpful and incisive post in this hobby of ours that > we'd like to preserve. > You're going great guns here, it's easy to see why Sellam had such a > problem with this list. I can see how it would be read that way. I apoligize to all who didn't have the context needed to know what my comment was actually about. There should be some 2.11 Sanyo disks SOMEWHERE. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jan 19 19:21:32 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:21:32 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <200701192218.l0JMIOPV028667@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701192218.l0JMIOPV028667@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <45B16E9C.4080604@yahoo.co.uk> Brad Parker wrote: >> When I've done this, though, I've written my own disc dumping code using SCSI >> command blocks to the low-level interface. > > yes, I found linux to be incapable of dealing with scsi disks formatted > to non-512 byte multiple blocks... That does surprise me. I can well believe that certain filesystems won't work except at a fixed (typically 512) byte block size, but with my other post in mind about CDROM drives I would have expected the low-level access to stand a reasonable chance of working. I wonder what the problem is - I hope there's not some hack in there which runs along the lines of "if it's a non-removeable mass storage device then we expect it to use 512 bytes per block only". From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 19 19:40:53 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:40:53 -0500 Subject: macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:45:10 PST." <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036720@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <200701200140.l0K1erYg018718@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Billy Pettit" wrote: > >Don't know if it helps or not, but I have a wheeled table in the garage with >an 8600 that I use for testing SCSI drives, peripherals. I have a couple of machines with scsi - but thanks. >(This is in Pleasanton, California.) heh. I used to live off Hopyard road and ride my minibike around the army fields dodging the security trucks :-) all houses by now I suspect. >I think I kept both systems at 8.6, since that was last of the good SCSI >support drivers. good info - thanks! I assume I can find 8.6 on apple.com (I thought all 7.x and 8.x were free now) -brad From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 19 19:48:49 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:48:49 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:21:32 CST." <45B16E9C.4080604@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200701200148.l0K1mndr020087@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jules Richardson wrote: >Brad Parker wrote: >>> When I've done this, though, I've written my own disc dumping code using SC >SI >>> command blocks to the low-level interface. >> >> yes, I found linux to be incapable of dealing with scsi disks formatted >> to non-512 byte multiple blocks... > >That does surprise me. I can well believe that certain filesystems won't work >except at a fixed (typically 512) byte block size, but with my other post in >mind about CDROM drives I would have expected the low-level access to stand a >reasonable chance of working. > >I wonder what the problem is - I hope there's not some hack in there which >runs along the lines of "if it's a non-removeable mass storage device then we >expect it to use 512 bytes per block only". there's a case statement in the code which.... ah yes: ... if (sector_size != 512 && sector_size != 1024 && sector_size != 2048 && sector_size != 4096 && sector_size != 256) { printk("%s : unsupported sector size %d.\n", nbuff, sector_size); ... Pretty much hard codes it. (this from a 2.4.29 kernel - 2.6.x is the same) -brad From rescue at hawkmountain.net Fri Jan 19 20:21:00 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:21:00 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B17C8C.2020900@hawkmountain.net> Richard wrote: > In article , > "William Donzelli" writes: > > >>> You mean this one? >>> They seem like more of an art/craft museum than an artifact museum. >>> >> They certainly have lots of arts and crafts, but they also have lots >> of other stuff, too. Their tool building has something like 10,000 >> tools in it. And then their are the railroad lanterns... >> > > Alright, I like railroad stuff. We have a few railroad museums here > in Utah and of course there's the Golden Spike National Monument. > > Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be in CT anytime soon... > eh... VT.. not CT... Been to the museum... they have LOTs of stuff that I don't think I've seen anywhere else (not that I particularly went looking though :-) ). If anyone is into that kind of museum, budget a lot of time to see what Shelburne Museum has to offer.... I did like the Ticonderoga (steamship... ON LAND !) ok... nuff off topic... nobody going to answer my Qs regarding CQD-220A/TM jumper info from bitsavers ? (to bring it back on topic) -- Curt From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 19 20:30:48 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:30:48 -0800 Subject: cqd220 jumpers Message-ID: <45B17ED8.3050805@bitsavers.org> got a follow up email from the person that the jumper list came from: While working with this new CQD220A document I found an error where "W6-5" is listed twice, and "W6-3" is skipped. Here is the original section: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- W6-1 OUT Adaptive DMA enabled (F) W6-2 OUT Adaptive DMA Dwell Time enabled (F) W6-4 W6-5 IN IN 0.8-ms DMA dwell time OUT IN 1.6-ms DMA dwell time IN OUT 3.2-ms DMA dwell time OUT OUT 6.4-ms DMA dwell time W6-5 OUT Block mode DMA enabled (F) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I expect it should be something like this: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- W6-1 OUT Adaptive DMA enabled (F) W6-2 OUT Adaptive DMA Dwell Time enabled (F) W6-3 W6-4 IN IN 0.8-ms DMA dwell time OUT IN 1.6-ms DMA dwell time IN OUT 3.2-ms DMA dwell time OUT OUT 6.4-ms DMA dwell time W6-5 OUT Block mode DMA enabled (F) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- But I am not sure. My card had a jumper installed on W6-3, and I am thinking it set the DMA dwell time to 3.2ms. Removing it, change to 6.4ms, seemed to help with a crashing problem. From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jan 19 20:30:13 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:30:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup In-Reply-To: <200701200140.l0K1erYg018718@mwave.heeltoe.com> from Brad Parker at "Jan 19, 7 08:40:53 pm" Message-ID: <200701200230.l0K2UDJW018332@floodgap.com> > good info - thanks! I assume I can find 8.6 on apple.com (I thought all > 7.x and 8.x were free now) Sadly, no. Only 7.5.3 is available free (with the 7.5.5 update). 7.1, 7.6, 8.x and 9.x are all still "pay" (but I wonder what the Service Center would say if you asked for 7.1 on 800K floppies). -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- It is a tremendous Mitzvah to be happy always! -- Reb. Nachman ------------- From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 21:03:07 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:03:07 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <200701200039.l0K0d0gw015806@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701200039.l0K0d0gw015806@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On 1/19/07, Brad Parker wrote: > >How about Solaris/SunOS? > > never tried that. interesting - is solaris (or sunos) more tolerant? Never tried it with Solaris, but Sun used to ship SCSI drives based on ESDI bridges, etc., that I doubt supported the SCSI IDENT packet. I have a couple of these old disk boxes around, but I have yet to try to use one - I'd rather wrestle with the OS than some cantankerous disks when I can find embedded SCSI drives from a similar era (I still have a few 200MB Maxtors, for example). SunOS, unlike Linux, isn't as particular about certain details (like the whole IDENT requirement). It's not that Linux _couldn't_ support, say, an ACB4000 w/MFM drives, but AFAIK, it never has., even back in the old days (I started with 0.97 with an embedded SCSI drive). -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 21:03:55 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:03:55 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: References: <200701200039.l0K0d0gw015806@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On 1/19/07, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 1/19/07, Brad Parker wrote: > > >How about Solaris/SunOS? > > > > never tried that. interesting - is solaris (or sunos) more tolerant? > > Never tried it with Solaris, but Sun used to ship SCSI drives based on > ESDI bridges, etc., that I doubt supported the SCSI IDENT packet... Whoops... responded to the wrong thread. Sorry. -ethan From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 19 21:39:48 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:39:48 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives Message-ID: <45B18F04.9080202@bitsavers.org> > This was necessary for archiving TI Explorer discs, which have 256 byte > blocks but are SCSI devices (MFM drive and ACB 4000 host adapter). Interesting. What OS platform and HBA was this for? -- TI Explorer Lisp Machines. The Eve should be readable, I was thinking of the Lilith. This is how I read 256 byte blocks under Mac OS9. Bad blocks are filled with 0x0bad /* * DoReadDiscBlocks.c */ /* */ #include "SCSISimpleSample.h" #include /* * Read block zero from the indicated device.. */ void DoReadDiscBlocks( DeviceIdent scsiDevice /* -> Bus/target/LUN */ ) { char msg[256]; FILE *fp; int badblkcnt; int blklen; unsigned long count, maxblocks; unsigned char badBlockData[512]; ScsiCmdBlock scsiCmdBlock; SCSI_Capacity_Data getCapacity; unsigned long transferLength; for(count = 0; count<512; count+=2){ /* init the bad data */ badBlockData[count] = 0xb; badBlockData[count+1] = 0xad; } #define SCB (scsiCmdBlock) ShowSCSIBusID(scsiDevice, "\pGet Capacity"); CLEAR(SCB); SCB.scsiDevice = scsiDevice; SCB.command.scsi6.opcode = kScsiCmdReadCapacity; SCB.command.scsi6.len = 0; SCB.bufferPtr = (Ptr) &getCapacity; SCB.transferSize = sizeof getCapacity; SCB.transferQuantum = 1; /* Force handshake */ /* All other command bytes are zero */ DoSCSICommandWithSense(&scsiCmdBlock, TRUE, TRUE); blklen = getCapacity.len1; blklen |= getCapacity.len2 <<8 ; blklen |= getCapacity.len3 <<16; blklen |= getCapacity.len4 <<24; if(blklen != 256){ ShowSCSIBusID(scsiDevice, "\pBlock Len != 256!"); return; } maxblocks = getCapacity.lbn1; count = getCapacity.lbn2; maxblocks |= (count << 8); count = getCapacity.lbn3; maxblocks |= (count << 16); count = getCapacity.lbn4; maxblocks |= (count << 24); maxblocks++; /* * */ sprintf(msg, "%lu blocks", maxblocks); LOG(c2pstr(msg)); fp = fopen("discDump","wb"); ShowSCSIBusID(scsiDevice, "\pStarting Dump"); #define kLogicalBlockLength 256 #define kNumberOfBlocks 1 transferLength = 256; /* allways do a block at a time */ CLEAR(SCB); SCB.scsiDevice = scsiDevice; /* * The 6-byte read command can read up to 128 blocks of data (1-127 * reads that number of blocks, while zero reads 128 blocks). For more * flexibility, you should use the 10-byte Read command. */ SCB.command.scsi6.opcode = kScsiCmdRead6; SCB.command.scsi6.len = transferLength / kLogicalBlockLength; SCB.bufferPtr = NewPtrClear(transferLength); if (SCB.bufferPtr == NULL){ LOG("\pNo Memory for ReadBlockZero data buffer"); return; } SCB.transferSize = transferLength; SCB.transferQuantum = kLogicalBlockLength; badblkcnt = 0; for(count = 0; count < maxblocks; count++){ SCB.command.scsi6.lbn3 = (count >>16 ) & 0xff; /* set the blk # */ SCB.command.scsi6.lbn2 = (count >> 8 ) & 0xff; SCB.command.scsi6.lbn1 = (count ) & 0xff; DoSCSICommandWithSense(&scsiCmdBlock, TRUE, TRUE); if (SCB.status == noErr){ fwrite(SCB.bufferPtr, 256, 1, fp); /* write the data */ } else { badblkcnt++; fwrite(badBlockData, 256, 1, fp); /* write a bad block */ sprintf(msg, "blk %lx bad\n", count); LOG(c2pstr(msg)); } if((count % 256) == 0){ sprintf(msg, "blk %ld\n", count); LOG(c2pstr(msg)); } } DisposePtr(SCB.bufferPtr); fclose(fp); #undef SCB ShowSCSIBusID(scsiDevice, "\pDump Done"); sprintf(msg, "%d bad blocks\n", badblkcnt); LOG(c2pstr(msg)); } From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 21:57:05 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:57:05 -0800 Subject: desperately seeking pertec cables In-Reply-To: References: <1e1fc3e90701131715ncd01037g957c65f619f2821e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701191957w5b083009i949a7c76055e947d@mail.gmail.com> On 1/14/07, Richard wrote: > > > Let us know if you find a cheap source. > > Definately; I'm in the same boat. I have a Fujitsu M2444 9-track > drive with a pertect interface and a Q-bus pertec interface card but > no appropriate cable to connect the two. > -- I went ahead and ordered some 50-conductor flat ribbon cable and I'll pick up some IDC socket and card edge connectors and see if I can build up a set of working pertec interface cables. If it works I'll have extra flat ribbon cable to build another set or two. Twisted ribbon cable might be better for longer runs, but I couldn't find a cheap supply of that yet. -Glen From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Jan 19 21:40:26 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:40:26 -0500 Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. Message-ID: <01C73C1D.4B718F00@mse-d03> From: "Jay West" Subject: Re: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. >Please terminate this thread as of midnight 1/19/2007. Any posts pouring gas >on the flames of this post after that time will result in 2 week ban from >the list. -------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, Jay, for once again stepping in to calm the troubled waters (i.e., settling down us unruly kiddies). Interesting that Sellam started this, while chastising us for the "bitching" that goes on here and which caused his VCM partner to leave... But if his aim was to publicize VCM, I guess it worked. mike From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Jan 19 21:57:25 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:57:25 -0500 Subject: Sanyo MBC 55x Message-ID: <01C73C1D.8BCF8660@mse-d03> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:19:33 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin Subject: Re: Sanyo MBC 55x On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Rick Companje wrote: >> Hello Don, >> I just read your forum post from 2002 regarding a bootdisk image (MS-DOS >> v2.11) for the Sanyo MBC 555. >> Can you please send me a copy by email? I'm running 1.25. Do you know what >> kind of software is available for this machine besides Basic, Wordstar and >> Calcstar? >Don Maslin is dead. >There are no more bootdisks any more. -------------------------------------------------- As a matter of fact, the post he's referring to is probably the exchange between Don and myself in 08/02, when he was kind enough to send me that image. Here's my chance to pass it on; I've sent it to Rick off-list. Don is sorely missed... mike From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 19 22:37:18 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:37:18 -0600 Subject: Ebay idiocy References: Message-ID: <01f501c73c4c$ab0103e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Where to begin.... Random points in no particular order I feel Sellam's pain. I completely understand it. I have no problem with the idea behind his post, but I do have a real problem with the way he expressed it. I'm not going to say that any profanity whatsoever is forbidden. It's not. We're chronologically adults here, so we can deal with a bit of that and I'm not going to start censoring particular words, etc. However, there is something called "going overboard" and that was certainly illustrated here IMHO. A word in a post will probably be ignored by most. Bear in mind that a few more than that and it reflects badly on you to some others on the list (which you may or may not care about, that's your call). More than that and I'll come down hard on it. It's not going to be accepted. There will be even less tolerance for political or religious statements of an antagonistic nature and zero tolerance for personal attacks. I reserve the right to handle these on a case by case basis. If someone sees banning from the list as being "a baby", then I'm a baby. If people don't follow the above they will be banned without any apologies from me. I can not read every post to the list. If someone sees something I should know about, feel free to email me privately about it in case I missed it. Don't expect that I will handle it how or when you want, I'll deal with it in my own way or perhaps not at all if I don't think it's warranted. I will publicly repeat my offer for classiccmp to have a link to VCM, and would think VCM would return the favor. We all should do our best to support VCM as best we can. I know that can't always happen for obvious reasons. When I need moochobucks for an item that is only on ebay, I need to get moochobucks selling something there so I can buy it. But that doesn't mean we can't try to support VCM (and I'm not saying people haven't). I have a great respect for Sellam's actions & achievements. I have a great respect for the contribution he's made to the hobby. I don't feel that those sentiments are diminished by the fact that I am not particularly thrilled when he just posts to the list when he's looking for something. I'm not saying he should stop posting those requests to the list, nor am I minimalizing his contributions to the hobby by expressing this sentiment. I'm expressing my own opinion and encourage others to form their own opinions about that for themselves. I don't believe anyone questioned his devotion to the hobby. However, see the first paragraph above - that devotion does not grant a right to say anything in anyway one wants. Someone said he was just "being direct". Rude is rude, no matter what you choose to call it. There's a lot of 'tit-for-tat' posts on this topic that I would like to have weighed in on. But after some thought I've decided to step back (and also because I've run out of time and would like to respect my own deadline). I'd rather not see responses to this post on the list primarily because above I'm stating policies that don't need discussion, or I'm stating my own opinions just for clarification and I'm not asking for a debate. Best regards, Jay From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 19 23:38:14 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:38:14 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 Message-ID: So I get this pair of free SS20s today at the weekly geek lunch at the Chinese restaurant down the street - one nice, clean one, and one that, um... well... was corroded inside due to an unfortunate meeting with a dog, I'm told. I stripped down the soiled unit before I even got home to recover a (clean) 1"-tall Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM, two (clean) SM50 processor modules, and a mixed pile of DIMMs with some corrosion on the fingers. The motherboard was a total loss, as was the chassis. I have washed and brushed the SIMMs, a mix of 8MB and 32MB - not sure about a couple of them, but most seem to be visually intact. I was planning on an alkalai wash before testing them. The other box being clean made it a good candidate to boot up... it had a single SM50 (now two), 48MB of RAM, a TGX framebuffer, and an internal SCSI drive of a type I'd never seen before. I had to google it - an ST5660NC. I was surprised to confirm that even though it was an SCA-connector drive, it was a whopping 545MB, and *narrow* (thus the "NC"). I didn't know anyone made a) SCA drives below 1GB, and b) narrow SCSI SCA drives. I think the drive bracket is probably one of the most expensive things in the box, really. I think there was some recent list traffic about using an SS20 as, essentially, an X terminal with that optional internal frame buffer, but since I don't have one, I'm thinking "headless server". Not as powerful as the cheapest of "haul-it-away" commodity boxes, but substantially more robust. At least I'd expect this box to stay up for 6 months at a time. At least it runs Solaris 9. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 20 00:02:26 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:02:26 -0800 Subject: Ebay idiocy In-Reply-To: <01f501c73c4c$ab0103e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: , <01f501c73c4c$ab0103e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <45B13FF2.24463.28FFF071@cclist.sydex.com> On 19 Jan 2007 at 22:37, Jay West wrote: > Where to begin.... I have only one nasty thing to say about this whole business: "Jade Goody" (If you don't know about her, google. She would like this thread.) Sorry, Chuck From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jan 20 00:06:02 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:06:02 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 References: Message-ID: <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ethan Dicks" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:38 AM Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 > So I get this pair of free SS20s today at the weekly geek lunch at the > Chinese restaurant down the street - one nice, clean one, and one > that, um... well... was corroded inside due to an unfortunate meeting > with a dog, I'm told. I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used as a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them? While looking around for a spare Mac IIfx I ran across a person who had a Mac IIx (he thought it was a IIfx) with a DOVE accelerator card in it and the pictures he sent looked decent from the outside (Mac IIs tend to discolor badly). Once he opened it up he found out a mouse had made a nest and used it for a latrine. The guy said he would clean it up, but while I have dealt with some smokers tar and dust bunnies that look older then I am I never had to deal with pee and poo in a machine before. So what do you guys do in a situation where this has happened? How toxic would the bodily fluids be to chips and circuit boards? I hear rat excrement can carry some nasty deadly diseases. Any opinions? TZ From vp at drexel.edu Sat Jan 20 00:09:50 2007 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:09:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: eBay idiocy Message-ID: <200701200609.l0K69oIF007650@dune.cs.drexel.edu> ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > > Well, as long as we're being petty, I tuned out your incessant (and often > > off-topic) jabbering long before I unsubscribed. > > Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting > my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading > useless information. Let me just say that I for one enjoy reading Tony's postings. Sure a few are not interesting to me, but I can skip them. I much admire the technical insights in Tony's articles and the advice he so gladly gives. Keep up the good work Tony! **vp From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 20 00:34:28 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:34:28 -0800 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> References: , <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> On 20 Jan 2007 at 1:06, Teo Zenios wrote: > I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used as > a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them? I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year. By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off the substrate in places. I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore. Cheers, Chuck From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jan 20 00:45:38 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:45:38 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 References: <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <020c01c73c5e$9870a520$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 1:34 AM Subject: Re: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 > On 20 Jan 2007 at 1:06, Teo Zenios wrote: > > > I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used as > > a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them? > > I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to > leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year. > By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off > the substrate in places. > > I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore. > > Cheers, > Chuck The cat, the board, or both? lol I have a bunch of cats in the house, they use the kitty litter just fine. But I did find a hairball on a machine once, that's bad enough. Oh and Chinese manufactured KVM cables must taste like catnip to young cats (glad they grew out of that). Cat urine seems to be very concentrated ammonia, but the copper traces on a circuit board would be green and show damage unless the board coating did not get penetrated. In other words the damage should be clear to see if it was damaged. From technobug at comcast.net Sat Jan 20 01:32:43 2007 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:32:43 -0700 Subject: macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup In-Reply-To: <200701200308.l0K37m59054816@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701200308.l0K37m59054816@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:18:17 -0500, Brad Parker wrote: > Someone approached me about some "prior art" and I am now looking at > some 1/4" carts marked "quadra 950 retrospect 2.0 mac os" I made in > the > early 1990's. > > If somehow I could find a working 1/4" drive (scsi) and got it > connected > to a macintosh, > > Is there any hope I could find a copy of retrospect 2.0? I have a couple of early copies of Retrospect - they are from 95 and 97, but don't label their version. I also have 4 and 5 available. > > anyone else ever try this? You might want to find a SCSI tape deck that is currently supported and then try a recent version (4 or 5) to attempt to read the tapes. Dantz did a fairly good job of being able to read old backups with current versions and I've pulled off some really old stuff when I was using 4. > > it's probably hopeless, but it might be a fun ride. hard to say. > > good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) Probably too early to do any good... CRC From keith at harrells.net Fri Jan 19 16:05:36 2007 From: keith at harrells.net (keith harrell) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:05:36 -0500 Subject: Need help Imsai Floppy disk system Message-ID: <45B140B0.8040001@harrells.net> I now have a working Imsai now need to try to get the 8" Imsai floppy sub system working. I have a number of floppy disk controller but no Imsai FD controller. I have Cromemco 4fdc, Cromemco 64fdcCromemco 16fdc, dual systems FDC and some CCS fdc. I'm not sure of the cable connection from the Imsai disk to the controllers. I had heard the Caldisk pin out is not the same as the Shugart I do have CP/M working on another 64k Imsai using the CCS controller for 8" shugart and a Northstar controller for 5 1/4". Has anyone gotten the old Imsai drive working using CP/M? Thanks. From rescue at hawkmountain.net Sat Jan 20 07:41:34 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 08:41:34 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: References: <200701200039.l0K0d0gw015806@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <45B21C0E.5060706@hawkmountain.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 1/19/07, Brad Parker wrote: >> >How about Solaris/SunOS? >> >> never tried that. interesting - is solaris (or sunos) more tolerant? > > Never tried it with Solaris, but Sun used to ship SCSI drives based on > ESDI bridges, etc., that I doubt supported the SCSI IDENT packet. I > have a couple of these old disk boxes around, but I have yet to try to > use one - I'd rather wrestle with the OS than some cantankerous disks > when I can find embedded SCSI drives from a similar era (I still have > a few 200MB Maxtors, for example). They used to use the ACB4000A SCSI-MFM bridge (in Sun-2, and early Sun-3), then the Emulex MD-21 in Sun-3, and early Sun-4. The ACB-4000A is weak on the command side, and doesn't support IDENT... the MD-21 was better... not sure on IDENT, but it was 'more standard'. Although I wasn't able (at the time anyway) to get an MD-21 working on a PC ISA SCSI card.... I ended up getting an MD-25A (late prototype I believe from an (ex?) Emulex employee). The MD-25A worked great on the PC, and I used it to drive 4 300M Micropolis ESDI drives in an external case... they appeard on 4 LUNs on 1 target... I thought that was awesome back when I did it (1 G on a PC... for a great price (the drives were free... only had to buy the case and the MD-25)). I still have several bridge controllers around... -- Curt > > SunOS, unlike Linux, isn't as particular about certain details (like > the whole IDENT requirement). It's not that Linux _couldn't_ support, > say, an ACB4000 w/MFM drives, but AFAIK, it never has., even back in > the old days (I started with 0.97 with an embedded SCSI drive). > > -ethan From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 09:02:53 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:02:53 -0300 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 References: , <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game><45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <0a4301c73ca4$4bbe1500$f0fea8c0@alpha> > A couple of decades down the line I think we're going to have real > problems - not just with computers, but with all sorts of modern gadgets - > as the complexity is just too high and the necessary knowledge often > locked away within companies. Understanding of parts, diagnosing faults, > and fixing them won't get any easier I suspect, and sourcing those parts > in the first place gets harder each day. But Jules, I doubt much of we have today will be a "collectible". Computers has no more soul, what differs a dell from a compaq notebook? A pc from another? I don't think there will be so much collectables. You save a 11/750, a macintosh 128, something like that because they have soul, they have so much connected with you. But what connections we have to a PC nowadays? Speaking of gadgets: Many of these things are widely avaiable. I can't enumerate something that is not produced by milions! I have a Nokia 6600 telephone I'm sure I'll use up to the day I can afford a iPhone, if it breaks? I can fix! If I can't fix? Well, there are some milions of 6600 units, it is cheaper to have 4 or 5 save for the future. Maybe the age of collectibles is going to an end - although who though an Altair would have so much value in the future? From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 09:04:40 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:04:40 -0300 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 References: <45AF96D2.3090005@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <0a6201c73ca5$02f3c8f0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > All of the consumer devices tied to backend services are a perfect example > of devices that are absolutely useless once a company fails. > Unfortunately, > revenue models based on this model are on the increase. No, it isn't. I'm yet to see a consumer device tied to a backend that cannot be reverse-engineered. Take a look at the MS tv boxes, as an example. Nowadays it is EASIER to figure out how something works than before, because we have the internet, we have datasheets and we have communication between all people in earth - incluiding the developers of that device. Things are getting easier! From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 09:08:47 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:08:47 -0300 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter References: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org><45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> <5.1.0.14.2.20070118134258.012b7a70@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <0a6301c73ca5$032f4b50$f0fea8c0@alpha> > http://www.cloud9tech.com/ Wasn't Cloud9 the company from Steve Woz? AKA: god? From trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu Sat Jan 20 08:12:26 2007 From: trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu (joe heck) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 09:12:26 -0500 Subject: pertec cables- 50 conductor twisted available In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90701191957w5b083009i949a7c76055e947d@mail.gmail.com> References: <1e1fc3e90701131715ncd01037g957c65f619f2821e@mail.gmail.com> <1e1fc3e90701191957w5b083009i949a7c76055e947d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <45B2234A.1030403@splab.cas.neu.edu> FWIW, I have available various lengths of 50 conductor twisted pair cable. Pay for postage and packing (I'll just drop it off at a UPS store, and let them pack it) and you (plural) can have it. I prefer to spread it around if possible. For all cables listed, every 2 feet the wires untwist so an IDC connector can be used. 15' Spectra Strip cable, T&B/Ansley "Centronics" style female connector on one end, 25x2 (.100"?) header connector on other. Came from "LEX" system. 8' LL31941 CSA AWM T2 cable, DB-50 (non-idc) on one end, 25x2 (.100"?) header connector on other. Labeled Prime PR 3/88, CBL10218-001 Rev. B 10' Spectra Strip Cable, 25x2 (.100"?) header connector on one end. Other connector was removed. 6' Spectra Strip Cable, see previous 10' description. 10' Spectra Strip Cable, 25x2 (.100"?) header connector on one end, "Centronics" style male connector on other. 10' Spectra Strip Cable, "Centronics" style male connector on one end, other end has been cut up. 22' 60 CONDUCTOR Spectra Strip cable, Edge connector on one end, Berg 2x30 (.100"?) header connector on other. Labeled Prime CBL3715-902 Rev. D. Only one I have, so don't take it unless you can use it. I also have dozens of 50 conductor regular cables, various lengths and connectors, if they will help anybody's project. I've been meaning to clean out some more, and maybe this will start it. Joe Heck Glen Slick wrote: > On 1/14/07, Richard wrote: > >> >> > Let us know if you find a cheap source. >> >> Definately; I'm in the same boat. I have a Fujitsu M2444 9-track >> drive with a pertect interface and a Q-bus pertec interface card but >> no appropriate cable to connect the two. >> -- > > > I went ahead and ordered some 50-conductor flat ribbon cable and I'll > pick up some IDC socket and card edge connectors and see if I can > build up a set of working pertec interface cables. > > If it works I'll have extra flat ribbon cable to build another set or > two. Twisted ribbon cable might be better for longer runs, but I > couldn't find a cheap supply of that yet. > > -Glen > From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 09:11:00 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:11:00 -0300 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter References: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org>, , <5.1.0.14.2.20070118134258.012b7a70@mail.30below.com> <45AF53EA.20773.217DF812@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha> > What's the life expectancy of a CF card used as a primary hard drive, > for say, a mailserver? Low, very low. Remember: You have a hundred thousand or so recordings in each byte of the card. It has a special mechanism to "distribute wear" but it will come to an end someday. And when you say about no-flash-oriented software, you are talking about a lot of writes. And it wears FAST! From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 09:09:47 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:09:47 -0300 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 References: >, <45AF5282.21792.217878DA@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0a7a01c73ca5$a5ecabd0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > If someone offered me an 026 keypunch, I don't know that I'd be eager > to take it in, even though it probably has the same place in my mind > that a terminal does in yours. What would I do with it? The > hardware that used cards for I/O is long gone. It's sort of like > having a victrola with no records to play. Maybe not for you, but I'd love to. I have enough hardware knowledge to make it become a serial-feed keypunch (no, I can't, I'm in Brazil) From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 09:16:27 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:16:27 -0300 Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> Is MSX a classic and old enough computer to be considered a classic? Any MSX collectors here? From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 09:19:29 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:19:29 -0300 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of theMicrocomputer, 1974-1994 References: , <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk>, <45AF8947.24270.224E6BD6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0af101c73ca6$dea4d2d0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > On the other hand, a 1 lb. roll of 60/40 rosin core solder will > probably sell for more than the item you're trying to repair. :) These will be cheap in Brazil, believe me... :o? From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 09:33:53 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:33:53 -0300 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 References: <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <0b6201c73ca8$a2e027c0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used > as > a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them? If it is a very common computer, toss it If it is an Apple Lisa, clean it even if you have to use your dirty hands and your tongue :oD > So what do you guys do in a situation where this has happened? How toxic > would the bodily fluids be to chips and circuit boards? I hear rat > excrement > can carry some nasty deadly diseases. Any opinions? There is a cleaning fluid in Brazil called "creolina" (please google for that). It is a powerful disinfectant and mainly inert for computers. When I have to deal with something like that (and man...it DO HAPPENS!) I prepare a bath of pure creolina (maybe "creoline" in english?) and let it rest there for one day or two, components face down (because all the dirty will go to the botton of the pan). After that I take the board out (with gloves, of course) and give it a good wash. If the board is still dirty, more creolina with a medium brush and more water, until it is clean enough or declared too troublesome to save. There are so much trash I find here somedays... From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 09:35:08 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:35:08 -0300 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 References: , <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0b6301c73ca8$a30d5240$f0fea8c0@alpha> > I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to > leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year. > By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off > the substrate in places. > I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore. Cat Pee is something VERY corrosive. But a nice curiosity - it reacts to UV! If you use a UV lantern and take a look at your collection (on the dark, of course!) you'll see where the d at mm bastard peed. Love cats, but hate their pee. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 09:12:58 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:12:58 -0500 Subject: Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <0a4301c73ca4$4bbe1500$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <002401c73ad6$08618690$0b01a8c0@game> <45AEC374.1399.1F49AAF3@cclist.sydex.com> <45AF9156.6060009@yahoo.co.uk> <0a4301c73ca4$4bbe1500$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: > But Jules, I doubt much of we have today will be a "collectible". > Computers has no more soul, what differs a dell from a compaq notebook? A pc > from another? I don't think there will be so much collectables. You save a > 11/750, a macintosh 128, something like that because they have soul, they > have so much connected with you. But what connections we have to a PC > nowadays? They will become collectable and historically significant. Everything does, technical or not. It is like a bus sized boulder rolling down a mountain - you can not stop it. -- Will From brad at heeltoe.com Sat Jan 20 09:40:02 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:40:02 -0500 Subject: macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 20 Jan 2007 00:32:43 MST." Message-ID: <200701201540.l0KFe22S030390@mwave.heeltoe.com> CRC wrote: >> >> good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) > >Probably too early to do any good... It has a scsi connector (I have the adapter) and 68040 (ec I think). -brad From dan at ekoan.com Sat Jan 20 10:50:48 2007 From: dan at ekoan.com (Dan Veeneman) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 11:50:48 -0500 Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20070120114702.0a50fb20@mail.marcal.com> At 07:47 PM 1/19/07, you wrote: > > Well, as long as we're being petty, I tuned out your incessant (and often > > off-topic) jabbering long before I unsubscribed. > >Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting >my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading >useless information. For me, not useless at all. Tony has been extremely helpful, both on the list and via private e-mail, in getting a few old HP calculators back up and running. I, for one, appreciate his postings. Please continue! Cheers, Dan From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 20 11:01:02 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 09:01:02 -0800 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 In-Reply-To: <0a7a01c73ca5$a5ecabd0$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: Message-ID: <45B1DA4E.21079.2B5AE460@cclist.sydex.com> On 20 Jan 2007 at 12:09, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Maybe not for you, but I'd love to. I have enough hardware knowledge to > make it become a serial-feed keypunch Wonderful. What would you do with the cards thus punched? Cards are another thing about the old gear that I don't miss. Undoubtedly, they were one of the things that kept programmer productivity down. At 2000 cards per box, 10,000 statements took 5 boxes--and a very nervous trip down to the CPU room until the cards could be written to tape---several times (Use several loadpoints on a tape; use the first copy until the tape starts giving errors, whack off the first loadpoint and use the second copy...). Having some idiot (including yours truly) knock a box of cards to the floor or watching the card reader going through a mulch-and-mangle cycle was SO much fun. People not raised on card methods really don't appreciate the difficulties. When you're punching, you really can't see what you've typed (on an 026/029 at least--some later keypunches buffered the whole card up before punching) and mistakes are not reversible except by repunching the entire card. A good memory and absoute accuracy was essential. On the other hand, it was great that CDC Sunnyvale ops viewed used cards as a nuisance. We had a bunch of volunteers who'd go around to all of the waste paper-and-card bins outside of every sixpack every evening and collect paper and cards for recycling to raise money for the Sierra Club. It went wonderfully until the SC decided to give us an achievement award for contributing something like $50K one year. Other company activities clubs got wind of that and wanted a piece of the pie. Unfortuantely, they couldn't get the dedicated volunteer labor and the whole affair collapsed and was eventually turned over to a paid employee, which didn't leave much money left over. Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Jan 20 11:04:08 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:04:08 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701201204.08676.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 20 January 2007 00:38, Ethan Dicks wrote: > internal SCSI drive of a type I'd never seen before. I had to google > it - an ST5660NC. I was surprised to confirm that even though it was > an SCA-connector drive, it was a whopping 545MB, and *narrow* (thus > the "NC"). I didn't know anyone made a) SCA drives below 1GB, and b) > narrow SCSI SCA drives. I think the drive bracket is probably one of > the most expensive things in the box, really. I've seen them quite a bit in machines from Purdue, mostly in SS5's. SS20's are expensive enough that I'm not sure why someone would use that drive... > I think there was some recent list traffic about using an SS20 as, > essentially, an X terminal with that optional internal frame buffer, > but since I don't have one, I'm thinking "headless server". Not as > powerful as the cheapest of "haul-it-away" commodity boxes, but > substantially more robust. At least I'd expect this box to stay up > for 6 months at a time. I think I've got some VSIMM's laying around somewhere. Probably next to my E4000's. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From djg at pdp8.net Sat Jan 20 11:06:14 2007 From: djg at pdp8.net (djg at pdp8.net) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:06:14 -0500 Subject: Looking for OS/278 to boot up a DECmate I Message-ID: <200701201706.l0KH6Es20429@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> >the "easiest" way to get OS/278 to a DECmate I >is by copying a boot floppy and putting it in the mail. Can anyone on >the list assist me with this? > I can make them and send them. I have most of the bits for a DECmate I but not enough to be functional. I did make these images for people but never heard back if they worked ok. http://www.pdp8.net/images/images/os8/DECmate_I.shtml They are also RX02 format which is what their machines seemed to be set up for. Is yours set for RX02? I can put these on floppies or if you know of a known good RX01/RX02 image for a DECmate I can use it. >One of my goals, BTW, is to snarfle off images of my PDP-8 >RX01 and RX02 disks for preservation and sharing. I have a few boxes >of disks from the 1978-1985 timeframe, up to the time I stopped using >a PDP-8 on a daily/weekly basis. > If your doing that the disks will be free. If you don't have a program to dump I have one at ftp://ftp.pdp8.net/software/dumprest/ which can dump RX01 and RX02 over the serial port. The code will need to be modified to use the serial port on the DECmate. Kermit source should show that. Mine makes image useable by SIMH which is the same format they are on my website. David Gesswein http://www.pdp8.net/ -- Run an old computer with blinkenlights Have any PDP-8 stuff you're willing to part with? From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 11:17:31 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:17:31 -0500 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: On 1/20/07, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > Is MSX a classic and old enough computer to be considered a classic? I would certainly say so. > Any MSX collectors here? I saw a few in shop windows when I was in the UK in 1985, but I was heavily into the C-64 at the time and never saw much MSX hardware when I returned home. There were plenty of articles of how the economic power of Japanese hardware vendors and their ability to tuck MSX components into TVs, stereos, etc., would make them the dominant players. Obviously that never happened, but it was all the rage to report that it was _going_ to happen. Perhaps someone from Europe or Asia should chime in on how the MSX wave hit their corner of the planet. In the States, it was barely a whisper. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 11:29:48 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:29:48 -0500 Subject: Looking for OS/278 to boot up a DECmate I In-Reply-To: <200701201706.l0KH6Es20429@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> References: <200701201706.l0KH6Es20429@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> Message-ID: On 1/20/07, djg at pdp8.net wrote: > >the "easiest" way to get OS/278 to a DECmate I > >is by copying a boot floppy and putting it in the mail. Can anyone on > >the list assist me with this? > > > I can make them and send them. I have most of the bits for a DECmate I > but not enough to be functional. I did make these images for people > but never heard back if they worked ok. > http://www.pdp8.net/images/images/os8/DECmate_I.shtml I'd be curious to hear if those worked, too. > They are also RX02 format which is what their machines seemed to be > set up for. Is yours set for RX02? I have a single set of RX02s in my pedestal, and I could add a second set (or use an external table-top enclosure from a MINC-11) if I built/aquired a Y cable. > I can put these on floppies or if you know of a known good RX01/RX02 > image for a DECmate I can use it. I do not know of any verified-good DECmate I images. > >One of my goals, BTW, is to snarfle off images of my PDP-8 > >RX01 and RX02 disks for preservation and sharing... > If your doing that the disks will be free. Thanks! > If you don't have a program to dump I have one at > ftp://ftp.pdp8.net/software/dumprest/ > which can dump RX01 and RX02 over the serial port. Sounds perfect. I remember reading about dumprest, but have never gotten a PDP-8 with more than one serial port installed since I heard about it. > The code will need to be modified to use the serial port on the DECmate. > Kermit source should show that. IIRC, it should just be a matter of changing the serial port IOTs, right? (or did DEC do something screwy with the AUX port as well as the console port?) > Mine makes image useable by SIMH which is the same format they are on my website. An excellent format. Thanks, David. -ethan From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 20 11:39:02 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 09:39:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <20070120173902.39537.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> TMK the only *commonly* found MSX unit here in the US was the Yamaha CX5, and I have that but never used it. An interesting topic thats mostly foreign here. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Want to start your own business? Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-index From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jan 20 11:34:55 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:34:55 -0700 Subject: Archivin ESDI/ST-506 drives Message-ID: OK, on closer look it appears as though these Eve drives might be ESDI/ST-506 and not SCSI. If they are ESDI, how could I archive them? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 11:45:35 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:45:35 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <200701201204.08676.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200701201204.08676.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On 1/20/07, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Saturday 20 January 2007 00:38, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > internal SCSI drive of a type I'd never seen before. I had to google > > it - an ST5660NC... > > I've seen them quite a bit in machines from Purdue, mostly in SS5's. > SS20's are expensive enough that I'm not sure why someone would use that > drive... The sticker on the front suggests that this box left a university surplus for $25 some time ago... I'm sure the innards were wonked around with a bit, especially as there were only 2 DIMMs in it (48MB total). > > I think there was some recent list traffic about using an SS20 as, > > essentially, an X terminal with that optional internal frame buffer... > > I think I've got some VSIMM's laying around somewhere. Probably next to > my E4000's. :) What do VSIMMs go for these days? -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 11:48:49 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:48:49 -0500 Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20070120114702.0a50fb20@mail.marcal.com> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20070120114702.0a50fb20@mail.marcal.com> Message-ID: On 1/20/07, Dan Veeneman wrote: > > Tony Duell wrote wrote: > >Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting > >my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading > >useless information. > > For me, not useless at all. Tony has been extremely helpful, both on the > list and via private e-mail, in getting a few old HP calculators back up and > running. > > I, for one, appreciate his postings. Please continue! As do I. I can't count the number of Tony's postings that have really taught me something (laser printer engines, basic electronics...). Please, Tony, do continue. Cheers, -ethan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jan 20 12:21:34 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:21:34 -0600 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Perhaps someone from Europe or Asia should chime in on how the MSX > wave hit their corner of the planet. In the States, it was barely a > whisper. They never seemed that common in the UK either - possibly because the UK had such a thriving computer industry of its own (without even taking into account systems filtering over from the US, France, Germany etc.). As you say, there seems to have been something of a media storm about MSX systems at the time - but the reality as I saw it was that they just didn't sell. The majority of the UK machines available either outstripped the MSX technically, or had massive established user bases and backing from the big software companies of the time. Either of those was enough to put people off investing in MSX technology, I believe. cheers Jules From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 20 13:50:21 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 11:50:21 -0800 Subject: Archivin ESDI/ST-506 drives Message-ID: <45B2727D.5090008@bitsavers.org> > OK, on closer look it appears as though these Eve drives might be > ESDI/ST-506 and not SCSI. If they are ESDI, how could I archive them? 1) what were the drives connected to? If it is a custom controller you either have to have enough knowledge about the machine to write a block level dump program, or build something that can extract and then interpret the data stream off of the disc. BTW, ST-506 is no easier than ESDI if you are down at the bit level (other than the ESDI data separator was on the drive) 2) if it was a standard thing like a scsi to st506 or ESDI bridge board, things are much easier. ESDI was new enough that bridge boards like the Emulex MD21 had inquiry commands so you can get the drive geometry. older boards require the system to configure the board with that information, so you had to know in advance what kind of drive is out there. From ken at seefried.com Sat Jan 20 14:22:27 2007 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:22:27 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <200701201708.l0KH7mUG062759@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701201708.l0KH7mUG062759@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20070120202227.28121.qmail@seefried.com> I've had a couple of WTF moments from SS20s. Best one was when I got a retired SS20 that I cracked open to find one SM71 MBus CPU and one Dual Ross 100 MBus CPU. It had been in reliable production, as a 3 proc box, for a couple of years with one 70MHz, 1MB cache CPU and 2 100MHz, 256KB cache CPUs. Solaris reports that it's using all 3. That's some robust architecture. From ken at seefried.com Sat Jan 20 14:35:43 2007 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:35:43 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <200701201708.l0KH7mUG062759@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701201708.l0KH7mUG062759@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20070120203543.28512.qmail@seefried.com> From: "Teo Zenios" > I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been > used as a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them? Urine is very acidic (with acidity varying by type of animal), but by and large it's just like any other acidic corrosive (smell notwithstanding). If the damage isn't that bad, search the list archives for remediation. If it's corroded the traces of the PCB, well, in theory you can patch it...you make the call. Almost any board that my cats manage to whiz on are usually totaled > I hear rat excrement can carry some nasty deadly diseases. Possibly, but you're probably thinking of mouse urine, which for certain specific types of mice can carry hantavirus, at least in the Southwestern US. Not good. From henk.gooijen at oce.com Sat Jan 20 15:04:30 2007 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:04:30 +0100 Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy References: <6.1.2.0.2.20070120114702.0a50fb20@mail.marcal.com> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE09B3F890@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> On 1/20/07, Dan Veeneman wrote: > > Tony Duell wrote wrote: > >Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting > >my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading > >useless information. > > For me, not useless at all. Tony has been extremely helpful, both on the > list and via private e-mail, in getting a few old HP calculators back up and > running. > > I, for one, appreciate his postings. Please continue! As do I. I can't count the number of Tony's postings that have really taught me something (laser printer engines, basic electronics...). Please, Tony, do continue. Cheers, -ethan ------------ And I would like to add that Tony's postings are, besides educational, also helpful when you are stuck in a problem. Simply by posting some information it gave me the momentum to carry on to get my RK611 fixed for example. It would be a loss if Tony turned away! But that's my personal opinion. There is lots of stuff posted here that I do not read, but if there is one kind of posting that I *always* read, they must be the technical stuff. It sure did not make me dumber! Other people on this list can express that better, as English is not my native language. - Henk, PA8PDP This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for use by the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a 'reply' message. Thank you for your co-operation. From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jan 20 11:03:09 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:03:09 +0000 Subject: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. In-Reply-To: <20070119133531.E8284@shell.lmi.net> References: <006201c73c09$63f855e0$0b01a8c0@game><00c401c73c0b$54bb8230$6600a8c0@BILLING> <45B13449.4020205@kurico.com> <011c01c73c10$aa29adf0$6600a8c0@BILLING> <20070119133531.E8284@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45B24B4D.4050504@gjcp.net> Fred Cisin wrote: > Who would WANT a Diebold motorized rotating file cabinet that holds a > thousand 8" diskettes? My best friend tried to help, but he has Me. You're too far away though. Gordon From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jan 20 11:37:38 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:37:38 +0000 Subject: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B25362.6060001@gjcp.net> Tony Duell wrote: > You remind me of a certain person well-known in HP calculator circles. > A commonly held view in HPCC (UK HP club) is that since he founded the > first such club he feels he has the right to tell _all_ such clubs how > they should be run, what they should do, etc. And this does not go down > well with certain HPCC members I can tell you. To quote one of Terry Pratchett's characters, "My bum's been a bum for a long time, but it doesn't mean I want to listen to it" > Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting > my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading > useless information. Not by me, and not, I suspect, by the vast majority of the mailing list population. Gordon. From dmabry at mich.com Sat Jan 20 15:45:47 2007 From: dmabry at mich.com (Dave Mabry) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 16:45:47 -0500 Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE09B3F890@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20070120114702.0a50fb20@mail.marcal.com> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE09B3F890@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: <45B28D8B.1050207@mich.com> Gooijen, Henk wrote: > > >On 1/20/07, Dan Veeneman wrote: > > >>>Tony Duell wrote wrote: >>>Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting >>>my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading >>>useless information. >>> >>> >>For me, not useless at all. Tony has been extremely helpful, both on the >>list and via private e-mail, in getting a few old HP calculators back up and >>running. >> >>I, for one, appreciate his postings. Please continue! >> >> > >As do I. I can't count the number of Tony's postings that have really >taught me something (laser printer engines, basic electronics...). >Please, Tony, do continue. > >Cheers, > >-ethan > >------------ > >And I would like to add that Tony's postings are, besides educational, >also helpful when you are stuck in a problem. Simply by posting some >information it gave me the momentum to carry on to get my RK611 fixed >for example. It would be a loss if Tony turned away! But that's my >personal opinion. There is lots of stuff posted here that I do not read, >but if there is one kind of posting that I *always* read, they must be >the technical stuff. It sure did not make me dumber! Other people on this >list can express that better, as English is not my native language. > >- Henk, PA8PDP > > > I must have missed the start of this thread. It must have started with the grenade lobbed by Sellam. For my 2 cents (how much is that in BP?) I very much enjoy Tony's postings and consider them a major benefit of this list. So please, Tony, don't let something that was started by Sellam dissuade you from this list. Your help in the past has been very educational for me. Remember the failed Intel MDS floppy controllers? Dave From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 20 15:59:21 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:59:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: In defense of Tony In-Reply-To: <45B25362.6060001@gjcp.net> References: <45B25362.6060001@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <20070120135031.K66148@shell.lmi.net> Although this thread came out of a currently ended thread, hopefully its content is sufficiently orthogonal to the other thread as to not offend anyone. > Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting > my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading > useless information. If that view is held by ANYONE, it is indeed "wildly held", and certainly not "widely held". Tony's technical information is extraordianarily helpful. I just wish that Tony had more storage space. We could easily fill a full size cargo container with goodies for him. If he even just had some inconspicous outdoor space, we could paint one grey, or his favourite colour. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 17:27:53 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 20:27:53 -0300 Subject: Is MSX on topic? References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <0c5f01c73cea$a7bc2e50$f0fea8c0@alpha> http://201.79.73.200:8080 Maybe not on time, but we are repairing some msx here :) From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jan 20 16:31:51 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:31:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <20070120173902.39537.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> from Chris M at "Jan 20, 7 09:39:02 am" Message-ID: <200701202231.l0KMVpR0014742@floodgap.com> > TMK the only *commonly* found MSX unit here in the US > was the Yamaha CX5, and I have that but never used it. > An interesting topic thats mostly foreign here. The CX5M isn't even all that common. It took me a bit to track one down, although I was trying to find one with the piano keyboard, so maybe that narrowed my options more than most. (I did find one, including with software.) However, there are also the almost-MSX Spectravideo units, and those were heavily advertised. They're not impossible to find either. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Okay, who stopped payment on my reality check? ----------------------------- From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 20 16:37:37 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:37:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <0c5f01c73cea$a7bc2e50$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> <0c5f01c73cea$a7bc2e50$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <20070120143635.G66148@shell.lmi.net> We bought an MSX machine from Mitchell Waite. They were trying to decide whether it would be worth it to publish an MSX book. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Jan 20 16:43:23 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 14:43:23 -0800 Subject: Looking for OS/278 to boot up a DECmate I Message-ID: <45B29B0B.8070606@bitsavers.org> > I can put these on floppies or if you know of a known good RX01/RX02 > image for a DECmate I can use it. We have orig distribs for OS78 V4 and some DEC apps at CHM. I'll see about reading them. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 20 16:27:08 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:27:08 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jan 20, 7 12:17:31 pm Message-ID: > Perhaps someone from Europe or Asia should chime in on how the MSX > wave hit their corner of the planet. In the States, it was barely a > whisper. They were not common in the UK as far as I remember, most people over here had Spectrums or BBC micros. Based on the number of add-ons for them published as projects in Elektor magazine, I would guess they were more common in the Netherlands. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 20 16:18:15 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:18:15 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 19, 7 10:34:28 pm Message-ID: > I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to > leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year. > By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off > the substrate in places. > > I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore. Our priorities differ :-). My cat, fortunately, doesn't regard my classic computers as toilets, if he did, I'd find some way of keeping said computers well away from the cat. But no way would I get rid of said cat, I love him (and the previous cat I had, and ...) more than any computer. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 20 16:45:12 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:45:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: A sneaky fault Message-ID: Please forgive me for the marginal off-topic nature of this post. The machine in qurstion is an HP9820, which is, I think, a programmable calculator (the distinction being that it has a key-per-function type of keyboard, not a full alphanumeric one where you type out the keywords). But anyway... I'm working on an HP9220,. For those who know nothing about this series of machines, its one of the few common-ish bit-serial procesors (and is intereting for that reason alone). The processor has 2 accumulators (A and B), program counter (P), current instruction (Q -- stands for 'qualifier,' I am told), extension (E -- only 4 bits wide), I/O, memory address (M) and memory data (T) registers. It's microcoded (256 28 bit words). Binary operations are done bit-serially, BCD operations (which have to be between the A and T registers, with the result going into A) are done 1 nybble at a time. The ALU is actually a pair of programmed PROMs, not 'normal' logic. Oh, nnd to add to the fun, the memory system uses some odd voltages. The ROMs are HP custom chips with chip select lines that have to be driven to +12V (all other I/O line are TTL compatible). THhe RAMs are Intel 1103 DRAMs, they're PMOS and use 16V logic levels with a further 3V bius supply on top of that (so there are +16V and +19V lines to the RAM boards). Anyway, the fault was 'no display'. That is not a suprise. Since the display is software-scanned, almost all the machine has to be working to get a display. Well, I started off checking the PSU lines (actually with all the logic boards removed), they were all fine. Then it's worth knowing that the clock board will run on its own. If you power up just the clock board, you get a muclock pulse (microcode clock) for every 16 bitclock pulses (shift register clocks). That was fine too. Now there are 2 ways to procesed. The hard and sure way -- look at various signals, work out what the machine is doing, compare to what it should be doing, and figure out what must be causing the problem. And the easy and uncertain way -- it's a bit-serial machine so just about everything should be changing. If something is stuck, that's a likely place to start looking. The M and T register bits are brought out on a test connector on the memory box. So I looked there. It turend out that M(15) down to M(12) were all toggling, the remaining 12 M lines were all stuck low. Rememebr the M register is a 16 bit shift register, loaded from the MSB end. And it's built from 4 7495 chips. So it seemed 'obvious' that the chip that handles bits 11..8 had failed. It wasn't accepting data, it was providing 0's to the next lower chip. Getting a replacement was not easy, but I mamanged it. Soldering it in was trivial (pin-through-hole on a very well-made PCB). But would you believe the fault was the same. Of course I'd checked the clocks and mode control line were getting to all the chips in the M register. Puzzeled, I looked again and M(12). It was toggling alright, but when I sampled it with a logic analyser, I found high time of the pulses was only the bitclock pulse high-time width. Which clearly can't be right for a shift register made up of D-types clcokced form bitclock. Moreover M(12) as always low just before the active edge of bitclock. so the next shift register in the chain would always clock in 0's. Out came the most significant nybble of the M register, and it was replaced with the ship I'd removed ffrom M(11)..M(8). And the machine then sprang to life. So be careful. A signal can appear to be doing the right thing but can have nasty timing problems... -tony From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 20 17:07:01 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:07:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <646764.24778.qm@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> there was at least one Brazilian made unit, with a detachable keyboard. Ive heard a rumor to the effect that they were somewhat common in Mexico. Anyone? --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Perhaps someone from Europe or Asia should chime in on how the MSX > > wave hit their corner of the planet. In the States, it was barely a > > whisper. > > They were not common in the UK as far as I remember, most people over > here had Spectrums or BBC micros. > > Based on the number of add-ons for them published as projects in Elektor > magazine, I would guess they were more common in the Netherlands. > > -tony ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 20 17:08:19 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:08:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <129633.52977.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> which one? --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > We bought an MSX machine from Mitchell Waite. > They were trying to decide whether it would be worth it to publish an MSX > book. > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for earth-friendly autos? Browse Top Cars by "Green Rating" at Yahoo! Autos' Green Center. http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/ From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 20 17:13:36 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:13:36 -0800 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: References: <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 19, 7 10:34:28 pm, Message-ID: <45B231A0.7797.2CAFFBAF@cclist.sydex.com> On 20 Jan 2007 at 22:18, Tony Duell wrote: > Our priorities differ :-). My cat, fortunately, doesn't regard my classic > computers as toilets, if he did, I'd find some way of keeping said > computers well away from the cat. But no way would I get rid of said cat, > I love him (and the previous cat I had, and ...) more than any computer. Oh, I didn't get rid of the cat. He lived a full life until age 18. His female companion recently passed after 17 years with me. But I have dogs now and don't intend to adopt another cat--I've had cats around pretty much continuously for 30 years. My three golden retrievers know to leave my gear alone (I've had dogs around almost continuously for the last 20 years). FWIW, the dogs got along just fine with the cats... Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 20 17:25:23 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:25:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <129633.52977.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <129633.52977.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070120152401.O66148@shell.lmi.net> It was a Yamaha, but I don't remember what model. On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > which one? > --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > wrote: > > We bought an MSX machine from Mitchell Waite. > > They were trying to decide whether it would be worth > it to publish an MSX > > book. > > > > > > -- > > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 20 17:50:18 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:50:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <337395.5362.qm@web61016.mail.yahoo.com> ah, charcoal gray, CX5. Models with or without the synthesizer. What about in Canada? ____________________________________________________________________________________ TV dinner still cooling? Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 20 17:50:25 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:50:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <545927.92603.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> ah, charcoal gray, CX5. Models with or without the synthesizer. What about in Canada? --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > It was a Yamaha, but I don't remember what model. > > On Sat, 20 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > > > which one? > > --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > wrote: > > > We bought an MSX machine from Mitchell Waite. > > > They were trying to decide whether it would be worth > > it to publish an MSX > > > book. > > > > > > > > > -- > > > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Don't get soaked. Take a quick peak at the forecast with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Sat Jan 20 18:05:34 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 00:05:34 -0000 (GMT) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <2854.192.168.0.4.1169337934.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> On Sat, January 20, 2007 18:21, Jules Richardson wrote: > The majority of the UK machines available either outstripped the MSX > technically, or had massive established user bases and backing from the > big > software companies of the time. Either of those was enough to put people > off > investing in MSX technology, I believe. People didn't like the MSX because it arrived just as the UK computer industry was crashing badly - 85/86, and they also didn't like it because it didn't offer anything new. I'd love to add that it was because it was another attempt by BG III to take over the world but hey ho, his glory would come later. The longevity and price of the MSX can be seen by looking for the following keyword: HX10 Of course, some MSX machines do sell well, but they're all MSX2 which didn't really break out of Japan. -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jan 20 20:12:23 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:12:23 -0300 Subject: Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994 References: <45B1DA4E.21079.2B5AE460@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0cf001c73d01$b3186310$f0fea8c0@alpha> >> Maybe not for you, but I'd love to. I have enough hardware knowledge >> to >> make it become a serial-feed keypunch > Wonderful. What would you do with the cards thus punched? Feed a punched-card reader? :) > off the first loadpoint and use the second copy...). Having some > idiot (including yours truly) knock a box of cards to the floor or > watching the card reader going through a mulch-and-mangle cycle was > SO much fun. Didn't it had a cover? :oO From rescue at hawkmountain.net Sat Jan 20 21:45:34 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:45:34 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B2E1DE.3070006@hawkmountain.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > So I get this pair of free SS20s today at the weekly geek lunch at the > Chinese restaurant down the street - one nice, clean one, and one > that, um... well... was corroded inside due to an unfortunate meeting > with a dog, I'm told. I stripped down the soiled unit before I even > got home to recover a (clean) 1"-tall Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM, two (clean) > SM50 processor modules, and a mixed pile of DIMMs with some corrosion > on the fingers. The motherboard was a total loss, as was the chassis. > I have washed and brushed the SIMMs, a mix of 8MB and 32MB - not sure > about a couple of them, but most seem to be visually intact. I was > planning on an alkalai wash before testing them. > > The other box being clean made it a good candidate to boot up... it > had a single SM50 (now two), 48MB of RAM, a TGX framebuffer, and an > internal SCSI drive of a type I'd never seen before. I had to google > it - an ST5660NC. I was surprised to confirm that even though it was > an SCA-connector drive, it was a whopping 545MB, and *narrow* (thus > the "NC"). I didn't know anyone made a) SCA drives below 1GB, and b) > narrow SCSI SCA drives. I think the drive bracket is probably one of > the most expensive things in the box, really. > > I think there was some recent list traffic about using an SS20 as, > essentially, an X terminal with that optional internal frame buffer, > but since I don't have one, I'm thinking "headless server". Not as > powerful as the cheapest of "haul-it-away" commodity boxes, but > substantially more robust. At least I'd expect this box to stay up > for 6 months at a time. If you are looking to add better video... I have some Sun SS20 8MB VSIMMS brand new in the box. I used an SS20 (at different times with a single HS180, and dual SM71s) (under Solaris 8), and with decent drives and not shortchanging it on RAM, I found it to be a fairly nice system. The VSIMM (SX video), gives you 24 bit video, and drops it right on the memory bus... so it has the best speed your going to get in a SS20 too. Contact me off list of you are interested in one of these for your 20... I kept 2 for mine... as I managed to obtain one of the rare 2nd VSIMM 13W3 add in boards that extend the video out to the back for the 2nd VSIMM... but my 20 is currently in mothballs... (working on other stuff). -- Curt > > At least it runs Solaris 9. > > -ethan From josefcub at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 21:45:54 2007 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:45:54 -0600 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <45B231A0.7797.2CAFFBAF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> <45B231A0.7797.2CAFFBAF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <9e2403920701201945g58c58a83p3ad67396684091db@mail.gmail.com> On 1/20/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > FWIW, the dogs got along just fine with the cats... "Dogs and cats living together... Mass hysteria!" ;-D -- "I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke." -- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs, "The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein From rescue at hawkmountain.net Sat Jan 20 21:59:51 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:59:51 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45B2E537.6010802@hawkmountain.net> Teo Zenios wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ethan Dicks" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:38 AM > Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 > > > >> So I get this pair of free SS20s today at the weekly geek lunch at the >> Chinese restaurant down the street - one nice, clean one, and one >> that, um... well... was corroded inside due to an unfortunate meeting >> with a dog, I'm told. >> > > I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used as > a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them? > > While looking around for a spare Mac IIfx I ran across a person who had a > Mac IIx (he thought it was a IIfx) with a DOVE accelerator card in it and > the pictures he sent looked decent from the outside (Mac IIs tend to > discolor badly). Once he opened it up he found out a mouse had made a nest > and used it for a latrine. The guy said he would clean it up, but while I > have dealt with some smokers tar and dust bunnies that look older then I am > I never had to deal with pee and poo in a machine before. > > So what do you guys do in a situation where this has happened? How toxic > would the bodily fluids be to chips and circuit boards? I hear rat excrement > can carry some nasty deadly diseases. Any opinions? > I personally have only dealt with this 3 times.... 1 time for a friend with an IBM PC portable... and the electronics didn't get touched... but the cat urine corroded the shielding.... he never completed the project (and the computer belonged the school he was working for even when at home his cat peed in it !). I still have the computer guts... just not the case/kb/etc.... The second time was inside a all in one mac (early powerpc generation... the ones where the mainboard slid in from the rear).... I scrapped it... saving a few parts from it.... it was free... so I didn't particularly care. The most recent time was I was driving by a home on trash day and saw a computer and monitor at the side of the road. I stopped, and decided to grab the computer (for parts only... it was a bit beat up).... after I got it home... I discovered it was urinated on by an animal (in the trash, in the home ? don't know). I wanted parts only... so I gutted it (the pee never made it into anything except possibly the power supply). Everything worked except the power supply... which made a very nasty noise when I tested it... (it got scrapped). But I did end up with a mainboard, Celeron 1100, a 256MB PC100 or PC133 DIMM (I forget the speed), a CD-ROM drive, and a floppy drive (there was no hd). As I had been looking for some 256MB modules, I was happy to get one for free... and the mainboard was transfered into an old e-machines PC that I obtained for free... and lives on. My general take... unless it has particular value... I wouldn't give urinated on components any of my time.... it does a number on the metals used in circuits/boards if not immediately removed. -- Curt > TZ > > From rescue at hawkmountain.net Sat Jan 20 22:03:50 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:03:50 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B2E626.1060904@hawkmountain.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 20 Jan 2007 at 1:06, Teo Zenios wrote: > > >> I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used as >> a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them? >> > > I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to > leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year. > By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off > the substrate in places. > > I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore. > I didn't think anybody owned cats..... I thought they were kind hearted enough to let people live in THEIR homes... :-) -- Curt > Cheers, > Chuck > > From rescue at hawkmountain.net Sat Jan 20 22:17:56 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:17:56 -0500 Subject: Archivin ESDI/ST-506 drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B2E974.8060306@hawkmountain.net> Richard wrote: > OK, on closer look it appears as though these Eve drives might be > ESDI/ST-506 and not SCSI. If they are ESDI, how could I archive them? > I think ESDI didn't have (but I could be wrong... brain bit rot and all... been a while since I used ESDI) the problems in moving drives between conrollers like MFM and RLL. Although you might still have the possibility of an odd blocksize that might give you problems. If this is correct you could hang the ESDI drive off a SCSI-ESDI bridge then on a SCSI bus to image it... or use a PC with a good ESDI controller, and make the image there. If course if ESDI had similar problems to MFM/RLL in moving drives between different controllers, all bets are off.... I only used ESDI for a short time, but I thought they had 'fixed' that problem vs the MFM/RLL drive days... but I could be wrong... maybe someone who had more ESDI experience could comment on moving drives between different controllers. -- Curt From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 20 22:22:26 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:22:26 -0600 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <2854.192.168.0.4.1169337934.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> <2854.192.168.0.4.1169337934.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: <45B2EA82.6090600@oldskool.org> Witchy wrote: > People didn't like the MSX because it arrived just as the UK computer > industry was crashing badly - 85/86, and they also didn't like it because > it didn't offer anything new. I disagree on the "nothing new" part -- didn't it come with an incredibly powerful music synthesizer as standard equipment? On a related note, I was SO looking forward to the music I could create with a IIgs until I learned that the Ensoniq embedded on the thing could access a grand total of 64KB total sample data. Made the chip nearly worthless :-( -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 20 22:23:37 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:23:37 -0600 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <45B231A0.7797.2CAFFBAF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 19, 7 10:34:28 pm, <45B231A0.7797.2CAFFBAF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B2EAC9.1050100@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > But I have dogs now and don't intend to adopt another cat--I've had We have both dogs and cats, but cats can sit on your monitor and watch you work ;-) (Yes, I vacuum the grill on top occaisionally!) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jan 20 22:35:26 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:35:26 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 References: <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> <45B231A0.7797.2CAFFBAF@cclist.sydex.com> <45B2EAC9.1050100@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <006d01c73d15$92fb51a0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Leonard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 11:23 PM Subject: Re: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > But I have dogs now and don't intend to adopt another cat--I've had > > We have both dogs and cats, but cats can sit on your monitor and watch > you work ;-) > > (Yes, I vacuum the grill on top occaisionally!) > The younger cats like to attack the screen mouse pointer once in a while, but mostly watch it move . I have a L shaped desk in my lab with a few monitors and the cats do like sitting on them watching me do whatever I am doing. The cats are either interested in what I am doing or just like the heat from the 17" monitors. TZ From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jan 20 22:46:35 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 20:46:35 -0800 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 Message-ID: <39360b2b2baf19ea350eddad72529803@valleyimplants.com> So, what's a VSIMM run in US$ currently? From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jan 20 23:08:45 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:08:45 -0800 Subject: 33C93 SCSI woes Message-ID: <6cd3edb661b812243afee2cea79e0a86@valleyimplants.com> Another long-distance e-troubleshooting quandary: Machine: SGI Personal IRIS 4D/20 (WDC 33C93A SCSI, single channel) All disks pop up as unknown type, for instance the main system disk comes up under the PROM as Unknown SCSI type 191 / removable: scsi (0,1) drive settings: -ID: 1 -Time monitoring is disabled -Read-Ahead caching is enabled -Normal operational mode -LED active when drive connected to bus -CHECK CONDITION posted (unit attention response) -Unlimited 250ms, 128 retries (scsi time monitoring) -SCSI-2(scsi level) -SAVE DATA POINTER is issued for disconnection (message mode) -CHECK CONDITION status not posted(error report at mode select parameter rounding) -0 (PER default value) -Motor start on power up (motor start timing) -Executed by IDD (scsi bus parity check) -CHECK CONDITION status not posted (synchronous mode transfer rate) -Disabled (OPEN 1.2 to 2.67MB/s) -Power is supplied to the terminating resistor from the IDD and TERMPWR pin. Power is also supplied to the TERMPWR pin from the IDD. (Pin 26 of the interface) (scsi terminating power) new SCSI cable tried, terminator known working, drive visible from a different machine (Linux PC). The devices pop up at the proper SCSI IDs, but all are misidentified as Type 191 (I suppose this is a decimal representation of the hex SCSI identifier numbers.) Is this likely a dead 33C93A or is there somewhere else to look? P.S. - we love you, Tony- Don't leave. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jan 20 23:41:39 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 00:41:39 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <39360b2b2baf19ea350eddad72529803@valleyimplants.com> References: <39360b2b2baf19ea350eddad72529803@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: On 1/20/07, Scott Quinn wrote: > So, what's a VSIMM run in US$ currently? There's a 4MB VSIMM on "that place" right now at $5 with no bids. I suspect the demand for something like that is rather low, overall. -ethan From geoffr at zipcon.net Sun Jan 21 01:11:20 2007 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoff Reed) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:11:20 -0800 Subject: Anyone out there looking for an RX-50 drive? In-Reply-To: <20070120202227.28121.qmail@seefried.com> References: <200701201708.l0KH7mUG062759@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20070120202227.28121.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <32ae01c73d2b$5a8d0d70$0701a8c0@liberator> I am clearing out some things from my mothers storage unit (she was kind enough to store there for me when I lost my house a couple years ago) and I came across an RX-50 drive that was in working order when it was pulled from a dec-Rainbow to replace it with a 1/2 height 720K 5.25" and a 720K 1/2 height 3.5" drive. I currently have no rainbows anymore so I don't have a way to test this, am looking for a decent offer plus shipping. From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jan 20 16:53:27 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 22:53:27 +0000 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B29D67.7060702@gjcp.net> Tony Duell wrote: >> Perhaps someone from Europe or Asia should chime in on how the MSX >> wave hit their corner of the planet. In the States, it was barely a >> whisper. > > They were not common in the UK as far as I remember, most people over > here had Spectrums or BBC micros. > > Based on the number of add-ons for them published as projects in Elektor > magazine, I would guess they were more common in the Netherlands. I had a couple of Toshiba MSXes that weren't working, but I binned them. All the ICs had the numbers ground off... Gordon From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Sun Jan 21 07:02:56 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:02:56 -0000 (GMT) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <45B2EA82.6090600@oldskool.org> References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> <2854.192.168.0.4.1169337934.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> <45B2EA82.6090600@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <3012.192.168.0.4.1169384576.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> On Sun, January 21, 2007 04:22, Jim Leonard wrote: > Witchy wrote: >> People didn't like the MSX because it arrived just as the UK computer >> industry was crashing badly - 85/86, and they also didn't like it >> because >> it didn't offer anything new. > > I disagree on the "nothing new" part -- didn't it come with an > incredibly powerful music synthesizer as standard equipment? Not that I remember, apart from the Yamaha CX5M which was a dedicated music machine with full size keyboard: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Yamaha/cx5m.php > On a related note, I was SO looking forward to the music I could create > with a IIgs until I learned that the Ensoniq embedded on the thing could > access a grand total of 64KB total sample data. Made the chip nearly > worthless :-( Only 64K? What was the point of that? -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jan 21 08:23:53 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:23:53 -0300 Subject: Is MSX on topic? References: <646764.24778.qm@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0dce01c73d68$4a645150$f0fea8c0@alpha> > there was at least one Brazilian made unit, with a > detachable keyboard. Ive heard a rumor to the effect > that they were somewhat common in Mexico. Anyone? In Brazil there were: - Expert 1.0 (detachable kbd) - Expert 1.1 (same, different ROM) - Expert Plus (same, but black, different innards - Expert DDPlus (same as plus, but with internal floppy drive) - Hotbit 1.0 (white and gray) - Hotbit 1.1 (same, different ROM) - Hotbit "1.2" (black, but everything the same as 1.0) They are somewhat common in argentina, but I don't know about mexico. Ask me if you want to know something else From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 21 09:23:42 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 09:23:42 -0600 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <3012.192.168.0.4.1169384576.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> <2854.192.168.0.4.1169337934.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> <45B2EA82.6090600@oldskool.org> <3012.192.168.0.4.1169384576.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: <45B3857E.10705@yahoo.co.uk> Witchy wrote: >> I disagree on the "nothing new" part -- didn't it come with an >> incredibly powerful music synthesizer as standard equipment? > > Not that I remember, apart from the Yamaha CX5M which was a dedicated > music machine with full size keyboard Yes, I thought MSXes were just based around some common sound chip. Perhaps the AY-whatever-it-was as used in the later Sinclair machines (and doubtless countless others). From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 21 11:30:34 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 09:30:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <535519.18282.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> IIRC the sound paraphenalia was the same or similar to that used in the TI home computer. --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Witchy wrote: > >> I disagree on the "nothing new" part -- didn't it come with an > >> incredibly powerful music synthesizer as standard equipment? > > > > Not that I remember, apart from the Yamaha CX5M which was a dedicated > > music machine with full size keyboard > > Yes, I thought MSXes were just based around some common sound chip. Perhaps > the AY-whatever-it-was as used in the later Sinclair machines (and doubtless > countless others). > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 21 11:35:02 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 09:35:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <511812.40105.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> which do you own? Are they easy (whatever that means) to find? --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > > there was at least one Brazilian made unit, with a > > detachable keyboard. Ive heard a rumor to the effect > > that they were somewhat common in Mexico. Anyone? > > In Brazil there were: > - Expert 1.0 (detachable kbd) > - Expert 1.1 (same, different ROM) > - Expert Plus (same, but black, different innards > - Expert DDPlus (same as plus, but with internal floppy drive) > - Hotbit 1.0 (white and gray) > - Hotbit 1.1 (same, different ROM) > - Hotbit "1.2" (black, but everything the same as 1.0) > > They are somewhat common in argentina, but I don't know about mexico. > Ask me if you want to know something else > ____________________________________________________________________________________ We won't tell. Get more on shows you hate to love (and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list. http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/265 From trag at io.com Sun Jan 21 11:26:41 2007 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:26:41 -0600 Subject: macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup In-Reply-To: <200701210947.l0L9kJPC073101@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701210947.l0L9kJPC073101@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:40:02 -0500 >From: Brad Parker >CRC wrote: >>> >>> good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) >> >>Probably too early to do any good... > >It has a scsi connector (I have the adapter) and 68040 (ec I think). Retrospect 2 ran fine on my Mac IIci back in the day. Ah, here are the "Minimum Requirements" off of the side panel on the box: Macintosh Plus, Hard Disk System 6.0.5 (2 MB RAM) or System 7 (4 MB RAM) So a PowerBook 145 should work fine. A PowerBook 100 should also work okay.... You might run into problems with a much later machine or OS and Retrospect 2, although as someone mentioned, later versions of Retrospect will probably read your older tapes just fine. I have a vague memory that when I went to OS 8+ and started using a PCI based Mac I had to upgrade my version of Retrospect, but I'm not certain any more whether that upgrade was necessary or just something I wanted to do--or maybe to get later tape drive support. Anyway, this came up in my emailed saved search for Retrospect on Ebay today which is a sealed version of Retrospect 2.0 with a $5 BIN and $5 shipping. Again, as someone else mentioned, the tough part is going to be coming up with a compatible (with your tape) working tape drive. Also, once you have everything hooked up you'll need to run the "Repair or Recreate a Storage Set" under the Tools menu. Under Retrospect 2 that's a "Tools" sidebar icon and the selection is "Repair/Recreate Catalog". Presumably you no longer have the "Storage Set" file that Retrospect created when it made the tape. So the first thing it will need to do is to scan through the tape and recreate the storage set files for that tape, I think. After that you'll be able to recover the contents. This always seemed like the most clunky aspect of Retrospect to me. Presumably, if you've had a complete hard drive failure, the catalog will be gone (absent multiple hard drives or server backup), so why doesn't it store the catalog file at the end of the tape where it could scan to the end and pick it up there instead of recreating the thing from all the contents of the tape? Perhaps tape can't work that way? Ah well, anyway, there's a copy of R. 2.0 available and it should work on any ancient Mac. They all had SCSI ports (except the very early 128K and 512K and KE but they don't have 2 MB RAM anyway) You just need to find a tape drive. Oh, and OS 6.08 and 6.05 are free downloads from Apple, as well as the version of 7 mentioned earlier, and any of those will work with R. 2.0. So really, you just need a Mac old enough to run early OSs, or find one with a later OS already on board or with OS media. Jeff Walther From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 21 11:37:13 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:37:13 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B18F04.9080202@bitsavers.org> References: <45B18F04.9080202@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45B3A4C9.20101@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: > > This was necessary for archiving TI Explorer discs, which have 256 byte > > blocks but are SCSI devices (MFM drive and ACB 4000 host adapter). > > Interesting. What OS platform and HBA was this for? > > -- > > This is how I read 256 byte blocks under Mac OS9. Bad blocks are > filled with 0x0bad Al, Thanks for that! No macs here but I can source one easily enough so will have to give that a go. Although as I mentioned I'm speculating that the ACB4000 is a bit of an oddity and is "full SCSI" anyway, so will probably work on a Linux PC. As Brad mentioned, there are some hard-coded sector sizes in there, but there does seem to be support for 256 byte sector sizes (I'm not sure if I've ever come across a SCSI block device with a sector size of 128 bytes, although there may well be some around!) cheers Jules From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jan 21 12:20:01 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:20:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701211822.NAA13073@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Well, as long as we're being petty, I tuned out your incessant (and >> often off-topic) jabbering long before I unsubscribed. > Is this view wildly held? I don't know about widely - or even wildly - but *I* sure don't hold it. Rather the opposite, in fact. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 21 12:29:02 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 10:29:02 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives Message-ID: <45B3B0EE.4030900@bitsavers.org> > Thanks for that! No macs here but I can source one easily enough so will have > to give that a go. That was only the subroutine for dealing with disc reading. It's part of a larger kludge I use for tape and disc reading. The point was just to show what low-level scsi commands you need to send to dump a disc. Would make more sense to translate that to something that would work with the generic SCSI driver under Linux. From curt at atarimuseum.com Sun Jan 21 12:47:46 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:47:46 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <01ff01c73c59$1046f4b0$0b01a8c0@game> <45B14774.20886.291D42DC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B3B552.6050207@atarimuseum.com> What is it with cats and electronics? When I was yonger and liiving in my parents house, I had a computer setup in the back room for everyone to use, damned cats would pee all over the power paks underneath the desk, too bad the little SOB's didn't electrocute themselves. Curt Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 20 Jan 2007 at 1:06, Teo Zenios wrote: > > >> I was wondering what you people think about machines that have been used as >> a latrine by animals, do you clean them up or toss them? >> > > I once owned a very sneaky tomcat. He made one of my PCB's a place to > leave his calling card--and I didn't discover it for about a year. > By the time I got to it, the urine had corroded the copper right off > the substrate in places. > > I threw it out. I don't own cats anymore. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > From g-wright at att.net Sun Jan 21 12:57:30 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:57:30 +0000 Subject: General Automation Zebra! Message-ID: <012120071857.15793.45B3B798000D45FF00003DB121587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> Jay Wrote ..... > Jerry wrote.... > > My Zebra says 2510 on the botton sticker if I remember correctly > > has a 8" drive and a Qic Tape. > Nice to know there's 2500's around still. I sold a lot of 'em :) However, in > the entire history of General Automation's Zebra Pick line, I was pretty > confident none were ever sold with 8" floppy (or floppies at all for that > matter). How odd. I'd love to see a picture of this. The 2500's were > tabletop machines, perhaps around 20 inches wide, 25 inches deep, 8 inches > tall... had a creame/beige side & top (one piece) and a black plastic front. > I seem to recall only two buttons on front, power and reset. > Thats it, Very Nice machine I ment a 8" Hard drive not a Floppy > > Still Boots pick OS. I have > > the same tape you have but did not know how to to use it. > Are you sure it's a "dealer.sysgen" tape, and not just a tape that was MADE > by a dealer.sysgen tape? I did see a lot of folks label the output of the > dealer.sysgen account as a 'sysgen' tape which it really isn't. If you can > boot off the tape (BOOT CT from executive), it's not a dealer.sysgen. > Dealer.sysgen tapes were just account saves and useless without a machine > already running. You could always put it in and do a "dummy SEL-RESTORE" and > see what it pulls off. > Yes, It is The Dealer Tape. Label say Zebra/Pick Operatiing System, Revison 3.3b, 750/1350/1750/3760 Version 53a00124a01-a, Dealer Sysgen Tape Qic 24 Format Copyright 1980 Pick Systems with General Automation at the bottom The problem I have with booting is that it has Disk errors and I would guess it is no stable enough to make a bootable tape if that is even possible. Do you have any of the manuals on these or OS on how to Make a tape ?? I would like to try and see if this tape will even work. I was able to "DD" it with out errors > > My machine model did not show up on the label of the tape either. > I seem to recall there was something special/different about the QIC tape > drives in the oldest zebras vs. all the later zebras... a different > recording method or something making them bidirectionally incompatible. The > sysgen account could create tapes for these machines, but only if the target > machine was retrofitted with the newer style QIC drive. I'm sure the 2500 > was one of the old style drives normally. The 1750 could be either style. > Everything else was the later style I believe. > The tape drive I have will Only write to a DC300A. it errors on a DC600A > Jay > > Jerry Jerry Wright g-wright at att.net From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 21 15:02:51 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:02:51 -0800 Subject: General Automation Zebra! In-Reply-To: <012120071857.15793.45B3B798000D45FF00003DB121587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> References: <012120071857.15793.45B3B798000D45FF00003DB121587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <45B3647B.8872.315EA586@cclist.sydex.com> ...alternatively, given the size of the drive, writing a simple DOS utility to use the ASPI interface to dump said disk would be almost trivial. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 21 15:30:35 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:30:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <3012.192.168.0.4.1169384576.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> <2854.192.168.0.4.1169337934.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> <45B2EA82.6090600@oldskool.org> <3012.192.168.0.4.1169384576.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: <20070121132409.G11570@shell.lmi.net> Witchy wrote: > People didn't like the MSX because it arrived just as the UK computer > industry was crashing badly - 85/86, and they also didn't like it > because it didn't offer anything new. Good point. By that time, the 8 bit MS-DOS machines (8088) were being replaced by 16 bit (80286). That kind of cuts into the demand for a Z80 machine. OTOH, if MSX had come out 5+ years earlier, it could have supplanted CP/M, due to similar specs, and standardized disk format!. I once asked Gary Kildall, "With all of the machines going to smaller drives, what format is the standard for 5.25 inch ?" He replied "8 inch single density." -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 21 14:13:13 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:13:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Archivin ESDI/ST-506 drives In-Reply-To: <45B2E974.8060306@hawkmountain.net> from "Curtis H. Wilbar Jr." at Jan 20, 7 11:17:56 pm Message-ID: > > Richard wrote: > > OK, on closer look it appears as though these Eve drives might be > > ESDI/ST-506 and not SCSI. If they are ESDI, how could I archive them? > > > I think ESDI didn't have (but I could be wrong... brain bit rot and > all... been > a while since I used ESDI) the problems in moving drives between conrollers > like MFM and RLL. Although you might still have the possibility of an > odd blocksize that might give you problems. I've never seriously used ESDI, but I was under the impression that, like ST412, it was a 'raw; interface with the bitstream to/from the heads on the interface connector. In whcih case there's always the possibility of the controller foing something unusual and not, say, recording the same sector headers as other controllers. Maybe 99% of ESDI controllers did do the same things, but it's that odd 1% that we're likely to have to deal with :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 21 14:19:38 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:19:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 33C93 SCSI woes In-Reply-To: <6cd3edb661b812243afee2cea79e0a86@valleyimplants.com> from "Scott Quinn" at Jan 20, 7 09:08:45 pm Message-ID: > new SCSI cable tried, terminator known working, drive visible from a > different machine (Linux PC). The devices pop up at the proper SCSI > IDs, but all are misidentified as Type 191 (I suppose this is a decimal Two thoughts... SCSI IDs are send by a 1-of-N code on the data lines, so the fact that devices show up at the correct IDs means that the host can assert data lines. But 191 is 10111111 (hex BF) IIRC. Now that seems to be a significant bit pattern, particularly as bit 6 is the '0' -- your host adapater wouldn't happen to be device 6 on the SCIS bus, would it? (it's a common address for the host adapter). Do you have any idea what the 'Type' should be? > representation of the hex SCSI identifier numbers.) Is this likely a > dead 33C93A or is there somewhere else to look? I weould think it's certainly a strong possibility. But maybe not. (No help, I know...) -tony From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 21 15:57:57 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 15:57:57 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness Message-ID: I've been active on classiccmp for a good many years now and up until now have rather enjoyed making custom and hard to find cables for others in the classicmp community. Recently, someone on eBay managed to get their hands on a spool of genuine DEC flat cord, bought a knock-off MMJ type tool (I saw him purchase it) and started selling poor quality MMJ cables. I couldn't compete and quit making standard MMJ cables, but this weekend he started making H8571-J work-alike adapters to undercut me there too. I know this person is active on the classiccmp mailing list. He started listing his cables shortly after my post when I asked which length of MMJ cables would be the most useful to the majority of the list members. His eBay id is currently "cheshire-cat-computers" but he had been going by "ggggmmmm" up until Jan 5th. I've been going in the hole now for 2-3 months with the listings for cables and I think after today I won't be listing any more. I've now run out of 6-conductor flat cable and I'm down to less than 2 dozen loose MMJ plugs and I'm thinking that its just not worth the trouble anymore. I still have some adapter kits that I made up a few weeks ago, but I think I'm just going to toss them in the junk box and forget about them. I just have no desire to compete with someone who wants to undercut me the way he has done as it appears my time is worth a lot more to me than his is to him. It was certainly fun while it lasted, and I shipped cables all over the place, from Australia to Germany to the UK, and of course the USA and got to talk to all kinds of people. I even had a few go to a couple of people in the armed forces, so I guess they are still using DEC gear too :) -Toth From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jan 21 16:31:01 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:31:01 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I know this person is active on the classiccmp mailing list. He started > listing his cables shortly after my post when I asked which length of MMJ > cables would be the most useful to the majority of the list members. Welcome to the real world of capitalism. Yes, this has heppened to me, by someone I know well - but it is business. The best thing to do is move on with no hard feelings. -- Will From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sun Jan 21 16:40:59 2007 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:40:59 -0500 Subject: Archivin ESDI/ST-506 drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070121224059.BCB90BA42B7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > I've never seriously used ESDI, but I was under the impression that, like > ST412, it was a 'raw; interface with the bitstream to/from the heads on > the interface connector. Mostly true. Not completely raw, the drive incorporates most of the clock and data recovery circuitry. (Actually this is true on some MFM/RLL drives too!) In that way a little more like most SMD implementations. > In whcih case there's always the possibility of the controller foing > something unusual and not, say, recording the same sector headers as > other controllers. Maybe 99% of ESDI controllers did do the same things, > but it's that odd 1% that we're likely to have to deal with :-) On PC-clones, most all the controllers were using the standard WD chipset and will have standard sector headers etc. One issue is that the largest ESDI drives used higher datarates (18MHz or 20MHz or higher) and not all controllers can handle such data rates. Outside of PC-clones, and into mini's/mainframes, some really funky bitstreams/sectoring were being used in drive arrays (where large numbers of >600MByte drives were sold to). In some cases the ESDI drives were used to emulate CKD drives, where the concept of a single fixed sector length doesn't exist at all (replaced by records and record lengths) and every time a dataset was laid down it effectively reformatted the track. In the early/mid-90's large numbers of ESDI drives were coming out of mainframe storage arrays and hitting the surplus market. Gees, that was 10 or 15 years ago :-). More modern CKD drive arrays use drives with conventional sectoring and do the funky stuff by packing up the emulated tracks into the regular-ish sectors. (I say "regular-ish" because it is still common to use 4096 or 8192 byte sectors, often plus a few extra bytes for overhead). This makes much more sense because a modern drive's track or cylinder will be larger than the whole disk the CKD array is emulating! Tim. From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sun Jan 21 16:45:58 2007 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:45:58 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20070121224558.D7696BA42B7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "William Donzelli" wrote: > > I know this person is active on the classiccmp mailing list. He started > > listing his cables shortly after my post when I asked which length of MMJ > > cables would be the most useful to the majority of the list members. > > Welcome to the real world of capitalism. Yes, this has heppened to me, > by someone I know well - but it is business. The best thing to do is > move on with no hard feelings. Was that me Will? For a short period I was selling such stuff (largely old DEC stock but some crimped together in my basement). If it wasn't me then there has been at least 5 or 6 of us making MMJ cables on this list over the years! "But it is business" is hard for me to claim when at best the cable side was profit-neutral to complement system integration (where the real money is). Tim. From fernande at internet1.net Sun Jan 21 17:19:27 2007 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:19:27 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> Tothwolf wrote: > Recently, someone on eBay managed to get their hands on a spool of > genuine DEC flat cord, bought a knock-off MMJ type tool (I saw him > purchase it) and started selling poor quality MMJ cables. How are the cables poor quality? There isn't much to them. If it's the right wire, right connectors, and the crimper crimps as it should, how is that poor quality? Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sun Jan 21 17:46:57 2007 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:46:57 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> Message-ID: <20070121234658.1C84DBA42B9@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> C Fernandez wrote: > Tothwolf wrote: > > Recently, someone on eBay managed to get their hands on a spool of > > genuine DEC flat cord, bought a knock-off MMJ type tool (I saw him > > purchase it) and started selling poor quality MMJ cables. > > How are the cables poor quality? There isn't much to them. If it's the > right wire, right connectors, and the crimper crimps as it should, how > is that poor quality? To me, the AMP MMJ connectors (available from Digikey in the 90's) were never quite as good as the ones that DEC sold, especially w.r.t. the plastic tab that holds them in. Tim. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 21 18:24:02 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:24:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <807975.37105.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> MSX machines were mainly home machines, no? I doubt too many homies were buying 286s in 85-6. And is MSX-dos? kinda like c/pm? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a PS3 game guru. Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games. http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121 From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 21 18:25:25 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:25:25 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, C Fernandez wrote: > Tothwolf wrote: > >> Recently, someone on eBay managed to get their hands on a spool of >> genuine DEC flat cord, bought a knock-off MMJ type tool (I saw him >> purchase it) and started selling poor quality MMJ cables. > > How are the cables poor quality? There isn't much to them. If it's the > right wire, right connectors, and the crimper crimps as it should, how > is that poor quality? Don't fool yourself, there is a lot involved in making high quality cables than just crimping on a couple of plugs. I haven't seen his connectors, so I can't say if he is using the "right" connectors or not, but I do know that I've been buying AMP brand MMJ plugs and I have genuine AMP tooling. The junk crimper he bought off of eBay is a knock-off of the non-ratchet Ideal Telemaster. Anyone who has done much in way of cable assembly knows how poorly those type of tools preform. Short term, a cable made with that type of crimper might test ok, but it isn't going to produce the consistent crimps that the AMP crimper does so it may exhibit problems later. I'll admit that I do tend to put a lot more time into making cables than most people do, but I want something to be 100% reliable (when used under reasonable conditions, of course). To quote a late friend of mine, and I believe Tony has also said this a couple of times: I can't afford cheap tools :) -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 21 18:29:48 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:29:48 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <20070121234658.1C84DBA42B9@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <20070121234658.1C84DBA42B9@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Tim Shoppa wrote: > To me, the AMP MMJ connectors (available from Digikey in the 90's) were > never quite as good as the ones that DEC sold, especially w.r.t. the > plastic tab that holds them in. They seem to have improved some. I know what you mean too, as I came across some old stock AMP plugs and the tab seemed to be weaker than the newer type. I figure they probably changed plastics or possibly retooled the molds slightly. I've been very happy with the plating on the contacts on the AMP plugs though. I've not had any trouble with the copper corroding under the gold as I've seen with the really cheap no-name plugs. I've also seen some really cheap plugs where the plastic reacted badly with the metal contacts and caused them to corrode. -Toth From evan at snarc.net Sun Jan 21 18:43:00 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:43:00 -0500 Subject: Test, please ignore Message-ID: <200701220044.l0M0htpQ019732@keith.ezwind.net> Sent from the Treo 700p of Evan Koblentz ... Evan at snarc.net From fernande at internet1.net Sun Jan 21 18:46:09 2007 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:46:09 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> Message-ID: <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> Tothwolf wrote: > I haven't seen his connectors, so I can't say if he is using the "right" > connectors or not, but I do know that I've been buying AMP brand MMJ > plugs and I have genuine AMP tooling. The junk crimper he bought off of > eBay is a knock-off of the non-ratchet Ideal Telemaster. I have a Ideal crimper and Ideal connectors, unfortunately, I can't find them right now to look at them more closely. Any idea who actually makes the Ideal connectors? > To quote a late friend of mine, and I believe Tony has also said this a > couple of times: > > I can't afford cheap tools :) That sounds like Tony.... and I agree, I don't like cheap tools. Onve in a while, I'll buy something less expensive if I know I'm not going to be using it a lot, and the money would be better used someplace else. Hopefully, the Ideal crimper that I bought is pretty good.... I certainly paid enough for it....and have hardly used it. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jan 21 19:02:12 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:02:12 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <20070121224558.D7696BA42B7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <20070121224558.D7696BA42B7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: > Was that me Will? For a short period I was selling such stuff (largely > old DEC stock but some crimped together in my basement). If it wasn't > me then there has been at least 5 or 6 of us making MMJ cables on this list > over the years! No, it was for tube sockets. For a while I had pretty much the world supply of Johnson 213s (a real oddball, and quite desirable), but then someone I know started manufacturing new ones! Yes, my sales went down - oh well. No big deal. -- Will From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jan 21 19:09:03 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:09:03 -0800 Subject: 33C93 SCSI woes Message-ID: <52b9b34f39775a2bb58af7e23b984dba@valleyimplants.com> > Two thoughts... SCSI IDs are send by a 1-of-N code on the data lines, > so > the fact that devices show up at the correct IDs means that the host > can > assert data lines. That's similar to what I was thinking > > But 191 is 10111111 (hex BF) IIRC. Now that seems to be a significant > bit > pattern, particularly as bit 6 is the '0' -- your host adapater > wouldn't > happen to be device 6 on the SCIS bus, would it? (it's a common address > for the host adapter). Do you have any idea what the 'Type' should be? SGIs all have the SCSI host adaptor at SCSI ID 0. Generally, the PROM matches known types to user-identifiable strings (e.g. SCSI Disk: dksc(0,1); SCSI Tape: dksc(0,4)) I know that CD-ROM devices were not included in the PROM, and they appear as "Unknown SCSI type 5 / removable: SCSI (0,6)" [or whatever the address is], which correlates to the decimal conversion of the "Perepheral Device Type" field returned in byte 0 by the inquiry command (CD-ROM=0x5). I'm not sure where 0xBF is coming from- that doesn't look like a valid type. So there must either be a spurious signal (or excessive skew) or a bad host controller. It sounds like the 0xBF is being reported for all types, including a tape drive (should be 0x1), ZIP, and something else that I can't find in an email right now, but I think it was a MO. bear made a suggestion that it might be a problem with the termpwr. Hmm- he says he's already desoldered the 33C93A and put in a socket, so I might just go ahead and scavenge another 33C93A from a board in the garage and send it to him (the PI owner, not bear). From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 21 19:11:13 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 01:11:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> from "C Fernandez" at Jan 21, 7 07:46:09 pm Message-ID: > > To quote a late friend of mine, and I believe Tony has also said this a > > couple of times: > > > > I can't afford cheap tools :) > > That sounds like Tony.... and I agree, I don't like cheap tools. Onve It was me (or I think I actually said 'I am not rich enough to buy cheap tools' which is much the same thing). > in a while, I'll buy something less expensive if I know I'm not going to > be using it a lot, and the money would be better used someplace else. Well, it's partly that the good tool will last longer (and I am likely to be using it a lot), but also, as here, a cheap tool may well do an inferior job and may damage the workpiece or some other part of the system. A trivial example. There are tools to remove the screw-fitted backs on wristwatches, including the HP01. I bought a genuine 'JAXA' brand one. Sure it was about 3 times the price of the 'knock offs'. But the tips are better ground, the holder has less play in it, etc. If a cheap tool slipped while removing the back of an HP01 and made a nasty scratch on said back, the time/toruble in trying to remove said scratch would pay for the JAXA tool many times over. Or as here, a cheap crimp tool may well not produce a reliable connection. Now think of having to track down an intermittant fault that turns out to be due to a bad contact in a cable and you'll see why I'd rather buy a quality tool in th first place. -tony From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Jan 21 19:17:44 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:17:44 -0600 Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE09B3F890@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20070120114702.0a50fb20@mail.marcal.com> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE09B3F890@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: <45B410B8.6020000@mdrconsult.com> Gooijen, Henk wrote: > > > On 1/20/07, Dan Veeneman wrote: >>> Tony Duell wrote wrote: >>> Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting >>> my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading >>> useless information. > ------------ > > And I would like to add that Tony's postings are, besides educational, > also helpful when you are stuck in a problem. Simply by posting some > information it gave me the momentum to carry on to get my RK611 fixed > for example. It would be a loss if Tony turned away! But that's my > personal opinion. There is lots of stuff posted here that I do not read, > but if there is one kind of posting that I *always* read, they must be > the technical stuff. It sure did not make me dumber! Other people on this > list can express that better, as English is not my native language. Yes, Tony's replies to some of my questions here have been extremely valuable (his explanation of Unibus NPG comes to mind), but I think his contribution here goes deeper than that. More than specific diagnostic information, very often what Tony offers is a diagnostic *mindset*. Information is reasonably easy to acquire. The capacity to get from here to the desired state with that information is a lot harder. Rarest of all is the ability to impart that diagnostic mindset - to show the "student" how to think through any problem instead of how to fix this particular problem. I train people in system administration, and teaching that mindset is part of my job. Tony's example has greatly improved my success in that. Doc From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 21 20:02:10 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:02:10 -0800 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> References: , , <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> Message-ID: <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> On 21 Jan 2007 at 19:46, C Fernandez wrote: > I have a Ideal crimper and Ideal connectors, unfortunately, I can't find > them right now to look at them more closely. Any idea who actually > makes the Ideal connectors? One of the smartest purchases I made during the 80's was picking up various crimpers and tools from bankruptcy auctions during the 80's-- most folks just passed them by. It'd take a loaded gun to pry my Molex terminal crimpers out of my hands. When you have the right tools, jobs get a lot easier. I'm still looking for a really good set of flush cutting miniature diagonals, though. Current Klein dikes aren't nearly as well made as the old ones. Any suggestions? I've got some Japanese brand that aren't too bad, but I miss my old Kleins. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 21 20:26:21 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:26:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <807975.37105.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> References: <807975.37105.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070121182350.D23631@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > MSX machines were mainly home machines, no? Yes > I doubt too many homies were buying 286s in 85-6. I would agree for 83-84 > And is MSX-dos? kinda like c/pm? MSX is quite a bit like CP/M. 'Course so is MS-DOS. I think that MSX is between CP/M and a Z80 MS-DOS. MSX was sorta a competitor to CP/M; too late. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jan 21 20:38:55 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:38:55 -0600 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <20070121182350.D23631@shell.lmi.net> References: <807975.37105.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> <20070121182350.D23631@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45B423BF.3030102@yahoo.co.uk> Fred Cisin wrote: >> I doubt too many homies were buying 286s in 85-6. > > I would agree for 83-84 That depends on location, of course. In the UK the PC "revolution" happened very late, partly because the spec of the home-grown machines that the PC was intended to replace was so good, and partly due to the country having been hit by several years of recession - people just weren't interested in buying new machines when what they already had did the job. Back in '86 on the UK side I bet there weren't many people using IBM systems for the kind of market the MSX was aimed at, although they were likely starting to make inroads with big businesses - probably largely off the back of the IBM name rather than for reasons of cost saving or real functionality. cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 21 21:17:51 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:17:51 -0800 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <20070121182350.D23631@shell.lmi.net> References: <807975.37105.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com>, <20070121182350.D23631@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45B3BC5F.27514.32B5F3FA@cclist.sydex.com> On 21 Jan 2007 at 18:26, Fred Cisin wrote: > MSX is quite a bit like CP/M. 'Course so is MS-DOS. > I think that MSX is between CP/M and a Z80 MS-DOS. > MSX was sorta a competitor to CP/M; too late. I would imagine that even in Japan at that time, MSX received a lukewarm reception. NEC had the lion's share of the PC market then. TRON was more of a success, at least in the ITRON embedded area; were there any CTRON platforms successfully marketed? Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Sun Jan 21 21:27:18 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:27:18 -0700 Subject: ST-506/ESDI connecctor pinouts added to WikiPedia Message-ID: I got these out of "Upgrading and Repairing PCs", 3rd ed., which is a wonderful source of information on all sorts of PC-related gear. In case others need them, I added the pinouts to WikiPedia. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Jan 21 21:27:43 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:27:43 -0800 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" ---snip--- > >I'm still looking for a really good set of flush cutting miniature >diagonals, though. Current Klein dikes aren't nearly as well made as >the old ones. Any suggestions? I've got some Japanese brand that >aren't too bad, but I miss my old Kleins. I used to have a real nice pair of carbide flush cutters until a friend thought they'd be good to cut piano wire :( Dwight > >Cheers, >Chuck > _________________________________________________________________ Turn searches into helpful donations. Make your search count. http://click4thecause.live.com/search/charity/default.aspx?source=hmemtagline_donation&FORM=WLMTAG From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 21 21:44:59 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:44:59 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <20070121224558.D7696BA42B7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <20070121224558.D7696BA42B7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Tim Shoppa wrote: > Was that me Will? For a short period I was selling such stuff (largely > old DEC stock but some crimped together in my basement). If it wasn't me > then there has been at least 5 or 6 of us making MMJ cables on this list > over the years! Yes...but my real complaint is that he has started copying my H8571-J equivalent adapter kits. Those require much more work than a crimping a pair of MMJ plugs onto 6 conductor cable. Crimping the D-sub contacts when you have more than one wire to crimp in the same contact is not easy to do properly. I have no idea if he is even doing the DTR/DSR wiring. A lot of the less expensive H8571-J equivalent adapters that I've seen did not handle hardware flow control signals properly. The genuine DEC adapters were certainly well made though :) -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 21 21:53:55 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:53:55 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 21 Jan 2007 at 19:46, C Fernandez wrote: > >> I have a Ideal crimper and Ideal connectors, unfortunately, I can't >> find them right now to look at them more closely. Any idea who >> actually makes the Ideal connectors? > > One of the smartest purchases I made during the 80's was picking up > various crimpers and tools from bankruptcy auctions during the 80's-- > most folks just passed them by. It'd take a loaded gun to pry my Molex > terminal crimpers out of my hands. When you have the right tools, jobs > get a lot easier. > > I'm still looking for a really good set of flush cutting miniature > diagonals, though. Current Klein dikes aren't nearly as well made as > the old ones. Any suggestions? I've got some Japanese brand that > aren't too bad, but I miss my old Kleins. Are you talking about a lead trimmer type flush cutter? I still use the Klein D275-5 for trimming 28-22ga copper wiring for telecom work (I keep a pair in each of my toolkits/bags), but I much prefer Sandvik Lindstrom http://www.lindstromtools.com/ brand cutters for PC board work. Xuron http://www.xuron.com/ also makes a pretty good product, but I still prefer the Lindstrom cutters. -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 21 21:57:37 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:57:37 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, dwight elvey wrote: >> From: "Chuck Guzis" > ---snip--- >> >> I'm still looking for a really good set of flush cutting miniature >> diagonals, though. Current Klein dikes aren't nearly as well made as >> the old ones. Any suggestions? I've got some Japanese brand that >> aren't too bad, but I miss my old Kleins. > > I used to have a real nice pair of carbide flush cutters until a friend > thought they'd be good to cut piano wire :( Dwight Ouch. I had a pair of really nice Benner Nawman coax cutters (for hardline coax) ruined by someone who thought they would work for cutting 5/16" strand. My 3" cable cutter also has a few nicks in its blades from the same type of thing, though I could probably work those out with a 2nd cut or smooth file if I ever feel like spending the time on it. -Toth From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 21 22:11:23 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:11:23 -0800 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: , <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <45B3C8EB.31754.32E6F4F8@cclist.sydex.com> On 21 Jan 2007 at 21:53, Tothwolf wrote: > Are you talking about a lead trimmer type flush cutter? I still use the > Klein D275-5 for trimming 28-22ga copper wiring for telecom work (I keep a > pair in each of my toolkits/bags), but I much prefer Sandvik Lindstrom > http://www.lindstromtools.com/ brand cutters for PC board work. Xuron > http://www.xuron.com/ also makes a pretty good product, but I still prefer > the Lindstrom cutters. Yes--for trimming leads. Thanks for the leads (ow!) on alternate suppliers. Cheers, Chuck From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 21 22:17:15 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:17:15 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, C Fernandez wrote: > Tothwolf wrote: > >> I haven't seen his connectors, so I can't say if he is using the >> "right" connectors or not, but I do know that I've been buying AMP >> brand MMJ plugs and I have genuine AMP tooling. The junk crimper he >> bought off of eBay is a knock-off of the non-ratchet Ideal Telemaster. > > I have a Ideal crimper and Ideal connectors, unfortunately, I can't find > them right now to look at them more closely. Any idea who actually > makes the Ideal connectors? Some of them were made by Stewart Connector http://www.belfuse.com/StewartConnector/ (now owned by Bel Fuse). Those from Stewart tend to be of fairly high quality, but I've also come across some poor quality no-name plugs in the Ideal kits in the past too. Stewart also made (makes?) the plugs that GMP http://www.gmptools.com/ sells under their brand. Speaking of which, if you are into high end modular plug tooling, one of the best plug pressers out there for day to day use is the one from GMP http://www.gmptools.com/nf/index_MPP.htm I personally own 4 of them, and if it weren't for the fact that the resale on them tends to only be about 30% of what they cost new, I'd sell off the brand new one that's in with my spare tools. One that I own is in the kit type case and the other 3 are in holsters. For general purpose RJ45 crimping, I still rather enjoy using the Paladin 8000 series handle with either the WE/SS or AMP die sets. It doesn't require any break over force and I find its almost as nice to use as the GMP plug presser. >> I can't afford cheap tools :) > > That sounds like Tony.... and I agree, I don't like cheap tools. Onve > in a while, I'll buy something less expensive if I know I'm not going to > be using it a lot, and the money would be better used someplace else. > > Hopefully, the Ideal crimper that I bought is pretty good.... I > certainly paid enough for it....and have hardly used it. The ratchet version of the Ideal Telemaster isn't too bad, and I carry one in with my spare tools, but its not my first choice and I don't think I've used it in about 3 years now. The non-ratchet version is just junk IMO though. -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 21 22:22:03 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:22:03 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, Tony Duell wrote: >>> To quote a late friend of mine, and I believe Tony has also said this >>> a couple of times: >>> >>> I can't afford cheap tools :) >> >> That sounds like Tony.... and I agree, I don't like cheap tools. Onve > > It was me (or I think I actually said 'I am not rich enough to buy cheap > tools' which is much the same thing). I was thinking you had said something similar in the past, but I couldn't remember how you phrased it. >> in a while, I'll buy something less expensive if I know I'm not going >> to be using it a lot, and the money would be better used someplace >> else. > > Well, it's partly that the good tool will last longer (and I am likely > to be using it a lot), but also, as here, a cheap tool may well do an > inferior job and may damage the workpiece or some other part of the > system. > Or as here, a cheap crimp tool may well not produce a reliable > connection. Now think of having to track down an intermittant fault that > turns out to be due to a bad contact in a cable and you'll see why I'd > rather buy a quality tool in th first place. Modular plugs can be really finicky at times too. If the contacts aren't pressed hard enough, the teeth won't make reliable contact with the wire, but if they are pressed too hard, they will bite though the wire and into the plastic shell. A lot of people don't understand why I'm so picky about tooling when it comes to connectors, but this is one of the reasons. -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Sun Jan 21 22:31:36 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:31:36 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B3C8EB.31754.32E6F4F8@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com>, <45B3C8EB.31754.32E6F4F8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 21 Jan 2007 at 21:53, Tothwolf wrote: > >> Are you talking about a lead trimmer type flush cutter? I still use the >> Klein D275-5 for trimming 28-22ga copper wiring for telecom work (I >> keep a pair in each of my toolkits/bags), but I much prefer Sandvik >> Lindstrom http://www.lindstromtools.com/ brand cutters for PC board >> work. Xuron http://www.xuron.com/ also makes a pretty good product, but >> I still prefer the Lindstrom cutters. > > Yes--for trimming leads. Thanks for the leads (ow!) on alternate > suppliers. ;P For the budget conscious, Xuron is probably the way to go. If you do a lot of trimming though, Lindstrom is probably the best out there. You could probably buy several pair of entry level Xuron cutters for what a basic pair of Lindstrom cutters would cost. Lindstrom does offer a ton of options on their cutters though, and I honestly don't know of anyone who offers as many head shapes and blade angles as they do. Stay away from the Xcelite (Cooper Tools) cutter though. Ever since Cooper bought Xcelite, the quality has gone downhill, and their current flush cutter offering is junk. I went though two of them while building a dozen 3"x4" prototype PC boards. The rivet was the weak point and would loosen after awhile so the blades would become misaligned. -Toth From fernande at internet1.net Sun Jan 21 23:39:19 2007 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 00:39:19 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> Message-ID: <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> Tothwolf wrote: > The ratchet version of the Ideal Telemaster isn't too bad, and I carry > one in with my spare tools, but its not my first choice and I don't > think I've used it in about 3 years now. The non-ratchet version is just > junk IMO though. Ok, found it..... I don't have either of the Ideal tools your talking about. Mine is a Ideal Crimpmaster. It does ratchet, which I assume is benefit since it doesn't release until the full crimp has been placed on the connector. It's 30-525 on Ideals web page, if your not familiar with it. I was a bit surprised to find it's made in Taiwan. Its got to be the most expensive Taiwanese tool I've even purchased at $55. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 22 00:03:54 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 01:03:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B13536.8090503@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org> <45B11A11.7090008@yahoo.co.uk> <200701192106.QAA06687@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <45B13536.8090503@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200701220607.BAA21147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Last time I looked, NetBSD, at least, couldn't do anything sensible >> with a SCSI disk with other than 512-byte blocks. That was quite a >> while ago, but I haven't heard anything on the lists to make me >> think the status has changed. > The thing that got me wondering though - surely in the PC world, SCSI > CDROM drives all use something like 2048-byte blocks? Yes. If you have a 2048-byte-sector disk and can convince the cd driver to attach to it instead of the sd driver, it might work. :-) > They're still mass storage devices - albeit removeable ones - and so > presumably the low level code *has* to be capable of working with > "odd" block sizes. Sufficiently low level, yes. The common SCSI code that both cd and sd use, that isn't what's causing the trouble. The problems are either in the disk subsystem assuming DEV_BSIZE sectors or the sd driver assuming that. (If the former, the cd driver must be faking it.) The suggestion of using whatever generic SCSI facilities are available strikes me as a good one. If I had the time and interest I'd hack something together myself to do that. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From gordon at gjcp.net Sun Jan 21 05:02:36 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:02:36 +0000 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <45B2EA82.6090600@oldskool.org> References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> <2854.192.168.0.4.1169337934.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> <45B2EA82.6090600@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45B3484C.1010708@gjcp.net> Jim Leonard wrote: > Witchy wrote: >> People didn't like the MSX because it arrived just as the UK computer >> industry was crashing badly - 85/86, and they also didn't like it because >> it didn't offer anything new. > > I disagree on the "nothing new" part -- didn't it come with an > incredibly powerful music synthesizer as standard equipment? The Yamaha one at least had something like the guts of a DX21 grafted on inside > On a related note, I was SO looking forward to the music I could create > with a IIgs until I learned that the Ensoniq embedded on the thing could > access a grand total of 64KB total sample data. Made the chip nearly > worthless :-( Well, that's only twice as much sample memory as the Ensoniq Mirage... I think the Ensoniq ESQ1 has only got 64kB of wave rom inside. There's a trick you've got to do with bank switching, which might not be possible in the IIGS. Gordon From j.e.vandergeest at zonnet.nl Sun Jan 21 05:04:47 2007 From: j.e.vandergeest at zonnet.nl (j.e. van der geest) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 12:04:47 +0100 Subject: Looking for Kaypro 4/88 MSDOS 2.21 Message-ID: <000501c73d4b$f96ab530$0701a8c0@AMD> Hi I was surfing on the internet and saw your interest in kaypro co-power 88. I have a kaypro 10 and the co-power processorboard. My problem is that I only have a loader for the 256 kb Ramdisk but not the loader for running Msdos2.11 Are you willing to mail me a copy of the software . Thanks. Jos From gordon at gjcp.net Sun Jan 21 05:11:59 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:11:59 +0000 Subject: EDAX 9100 photos are on-line. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B34A7F.9030300@gjcp.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I've thought about something like that with a more modern twist - I > have a few 40x2 LCDs - I got them from BG Micro, but I think they were > originally from a satellite TV box - one could mount some shaft > encoders above and below the LCD and have 8-10 chars per dial, or one > could mount it above the function keys and do something similar to > what this terminal is doing. Like the front panel of a Yamaha A4000 sampler, perhaps? Gordon From m.gedeon at comcast.net Sun Jan 21 19:36:48 2007 From: m.gedeon at comcast.net (Gedeon) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:36:48 -0800 Subject: Selling Intel 8096/196 Emulators, Message-ID: <000701c73dc5$c910edd0$6601a8c0@DELLCOMP> Hi Robo, I saw an old email from you, do you still have any of the VLS96 emulators for sale? I want to start learning about this chip. Thanks, MG From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jan 22 02:46:13 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:46:13 -0300 Subject: Is MSX on topic? References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk> <2854.192.168.0.4.1169337934.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> <45B2EA82.6090600@oldskool.org><3012.192.168.0.4.1169384576.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> <45B3857E.10705@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <0f8601c73e02$413d46a0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > Yes, I thought MSXes were just based around some common sound chip. > Perhaps the AY-whatever-it-was as used in the later Sinclair machines (and > doubtless countless others). AY-3-8910 From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jan 22 02:45:51 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:45:51 -0300 Subject: Is MSX on topic? References: <0aaa01c73ca6$275e5600$f0fea8c0@alpha><45B25DAE.8030403@yahoo.co.uk><2854.192.168.0.4.1169337934.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk><45B2EA82.6090600@oldskool.org> <3012.192.168.0.4.1169384576.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: <0f8501c73e02$4114b000$f0fea8c0@alpha> > Not that I remember, apart from the Yamaha CX5M which was a dedicated > music machine with full size keyboard: CX5M wasn't a dedicated music machine. It was a MSX as all of them, but with an optional music module that was something between a DX-7 and a DX-21. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jan 22 02:50:52 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:50:52 -0300 Subject: Is MSX on topic? References: <511812.40105.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0f9501c73e02$90bcaf90$f0fea8c0@alpha> > which do you own? Are they easy (whatever that means) > to find? Almost all of them. Experts are very easy to spot here in pawn shops and "ferros velhos" (place where you sell scrap metal). Hotbits are more scarce but no one likes it, it is too easy to break, the internal PCBs are too fragile and almost all MSX hobbist likes to open his puter to mess around. Take a look at http://www.tabajara-labs.com.br and http://www.msxpro.com (both in portuguese but you can at least take a look at the figures, or use babelfish). There are many interesting photos of MSX. About my "collection", I have: - Some expert 1.0 - Some expert 1.1 - one Expert Plus - One expert DDPlus with pc power supply, floppy drive/controller, megaRAM, SCC chip, 2+ kit, 256K memory mapper and lots of small mods - Some hotbit (white model, 1.0/1.1) - NO black hotbits :( - Panasonic A1-WSX (2+, great puter) - Philips VG8235 (2.0) And lots of other brazilian puters non-related to MSX From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jan 22 02:54:44 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:54:44 -0300 Subject: Is MSX on topic? References: <807975.37105.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0f9c01c73e02$fa679ea0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > MSX machines were mainly home machines, no? I doubt > too many homies were buying 286s in 85-6. And is > MSX-dos? kinda like c/pm? More or less. In Brazil the MSX line was launched in times of "market reserve" - we couldn't import computers, the only avaiable computers were made in Brazil. Of course you could buy a VERY EXPENSIVE Pc-XT-Clone or something out of a gray market. But since it was so expensive, MSX were used to all things you can think of: Process control, industrial machines, databases, you name it! It could be used with ROM cartridges, so it was fairly easy to create a program, burn a PROM, make a cart out of it and seal the entire msx into the machine, it would work for years with very less trouble than a PC, since it has a very low part count and was fairly reliable. From ggs at shiresoft.com Mon Jan 22 01:55:35 2007 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 23:55:35 -0800 Subject: Unibus Analyzer now available Message-ID: <45B46DF7.20009@shiresoft.com> I *finally* had enough time to write the manual for the UA11 Unibus Analyzer, so it's now available for sale. Go to http://www.shiresoft.com/products & http://www.shiresoft.com/docs for more information. I now use it almost exclusively for debugging problems and getting systems to work. I only pull out the 'scope or LA if the problem isn't observable on the Unibus. (sorry, hopeless plug.) -- TTFN - Guy From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 22 02:05:08 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 03:05:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200701220806.DAA29266@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I'm still looking for a really good set of flush cutting miniature > diagonals, though. My favourite pair (which admittedly I don't use for cutting anything tougher than nails - fingernails and toenails, that is) was created by using a grinding wheel to shave down a non-flush-cut pair. Not ideal, but a lot better than nothing. No, I'm not the person who ground them down. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jan 22 03:33:08 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:33:08 -0300 Subject: Fw: Re: Re: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <0fc101c73e08$573d63d0$f0fea8c0@alpha> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexandre Souza" <> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 5:50 AM Subject: Re: Re: Re: Is MSX on topic? >> which do you own? Are they easy (whatever that means) >> to find? > > Almost all of them. Experts are very easy to spot here in pawn shops > and "ferros velhos" (place where you sell scrap metal). Hotbits are more > scarce but no one likes it, it is too easy to break, the internal PCBs are > too fragile and almost all MSX hobbist likes to open his puter to mess > around. > > Take a look at http://www.tabajara-labs.com.br and > http://www.msxpro.com (both in portuguese but you can at least take a look > at the figures, or use babelfish). There are many interesting photos of > MSX. > > About my "collection", I have: > - Some expert 1.0 > - Some expert 1.1 > - one Expert Plus > - One expert DDPlus with pc power supply, floppy drive/controller, > megaRAM, SCC chip, 2+ kit, 256K memory mapper and lots of small mods > - Some hotbit (white model, 1.0/1.1) > - NO black hotbits :( > - Panasonic A1-WSX (2+, great puter) > - Philips VG8235 (2.0) > > And lots of other brazilian puters non-related to MSX From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 22 05:22:40 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:22:40 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <200701220607.BAA21147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org> <45B11A11.7090008@yahoo.co.uk> <200701192106.QAA06687@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <45B13536.8090503@yahoo.co.uk> <200701220607.BAA21147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk> der Mouse wrote: >>> Last time I looked, NetBSD, at least, couldn't do anything sensible >>> with a SCSI disk with other than 512-byte blocks. That was quite a >>> while ago, but I haven't heard anything on the lists to make me >>> think the status has changed. >> The thing that got me wondering though - surely in the PC world, SCSI >> CDROM drives all use something like 2048-byte blocks? > > Yes. If you have a 2048-byte-sector disk and can convince the cd > driver to attach to it instead of the sd driver, it might work. :-) Hmm, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at there - but I've never had any problems whatsoever with Linux's SCSI CDROM / DVD-ROM support. I've never poked deeply enough in the code though to see what's going on behind the scenes. From what Brad said and what I found in sd.c, it looks like disks at least support powers-of-2 raw sector sizes between 256 and 4096 bytes; any problems dealing with those drives are either down to SCSI incompatibilities (SASI devices and/or not-quite-complete device firmware support), incorrect setup (device needs some vendor-specific voodoo to work), or in trying to impose a filesystem on the device which is expecting a specific block size. > The suggestion of using whatever generic SCSI facilities are available > strikes me as a good one. If I had the time and interest I'd hack > something together myself to do that. Using Linux's sg interface to throw raw SCSI commands around is easy enough; I wrote a userspace driver to do some data archival via a SCSI floppy controller not so long ago. However, the problem is that for old devices, they often not quite SCSI-compliant which upsets the HBA drivers themselves; Linux chokes on anything that doesn't support Inquiry, for instance - which results in the kernel not giving you a sg device handle to work with for such a device. It would seem that (from Al's example) the Mac is perhaps a bit better, in that you can throw a command at any SCSI device on the bus whether the OS thinks there's one there or not. To get oddball SCSI devices going, what's almost needed is a way of intercepting the kernel boot process such that the user can send a few vendor-specific setup commands, fake Inquiry data etc. between HBA driver load and subsequent kernel querying of attached devices. One the kernel thinks there's a valid device there it'll give you a sg handle to it and you can do whatever you like. As I recall that's how the Linux OMTI bridge drivers worked (they were before the days of sg, but allowed the board to appear as a two-LUN disk device to the HBA driver), but unfortunately the kernel's changed beyond all recognition since those patches were current. There is of course the additional problem that a lot of vintage equipment's actually SASI rather than SCSI, and Linux HBA drivers probably won't cope with that (even if there's just the HBA and SASI device on the bus). I haven't tried though because it's a lost cause without some way of faking Inquiry data anyway :-) What I'd really like I suppose is a user-space driver for a widget that provided SCSI and SASI support via a *totally* dumb HBA (i.e. polled I/O and twiddling of bus lines "directly") - in other words, one step less intelligent still than most "dumb" HBAs (which still use some sort of SCSI IC). It'd be slow as molasses, but speed isn't the critical factor compared to flexibility and ease of driving. Unfortunately a PC parallel port doesn't quite have enough I/O lines, I wouldn't have a clue how to make a USB solution (ick!), and building an ISA card (say) would require kernel drivers (and all the complexity involved there). One possibility is just to use two parallel ports, but that severely limits the portability of the device - although I'm getting to the point where that's preferable to not having any solution at all. cheers Jules From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Jan 22 06:10:12 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:10:12 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:22:40 CST." <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200701221210.l0MCACwS032366@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > >What I'd really like I suppose is a user-space driver for a widget that >provided SCSI and SASI support via a *totally* dumb HBA (i.e. polled I/O and >twiddling of bus lines "directly") - in other words, one step less intelligent > >still than most "dumb" HBAs (which still use some sort of SCSI IC). It'd be >slow as molasses, but speed isn't the critical factor compared to flexibility >and ease of driving. There's no reason you can't do this now using linux (and other *nix's no doubt). You just mmap the device space into user space and start poking. You can't use interrupts but you can poll. And it's not that slow, to be honest. I do this all the time to debug embedded h/w - sometimes even for production code if the need is just to wack a few things do something simple. and simple 5380 style isa scsi cards 9 (i.e. DTC) are easy to find on ebay. -brad From gordon at gjcp.net Mon Jan 22 02:36:46 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 08:36:46 +0000 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <200701220806.DAA29266@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: , , <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> <200701220806.DAA29266@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <45B4779E.6080204@gjcp.net> der Mouse wrote: >> I'm still looking for a really good set of flush cutting miniature >> diagonals, though. > > My favourite pair (which admittedly I don't use for cutting anything > tougher than nails - fingernails and toenails, that is) was created by > using a grinding wheel to shave down a non-flush-cut pair. Not ideal, > but a lot better than nothing. I've done that, although I use nail scissors on my nails. I'm not at all averse to modifying an existing tool, or making one from scratch (I *could* buy a special tool for working on my car suspension, but I'm more inclined to weld a loop of motorbike chain to the jaws of a pair of mole grips...) Gordon From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 09:52:28 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:52:28 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <45B2E1DE.3070006@hawkmountain.net> References: <45B2E1DE.3070006@hawkmountain.net> Message-ID: <45B4DDBC.5080303@gmail.com> Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote: > If you are looking to add better video... I have some Sun SS20 8MB VSIMMS > brand new in the box. > > I used an SS20 (at different times with a single HS180, and dual > SM71s) (under Solaris 8), and with decent drives and not > shortchanging it on RAM, I found it to be a fairly nice system. The > VSIMM (SX video), gives you 24 bit video, and drops it right on the > memory bus... so it has the best speed your going to get in a SS20 > too. Isn't it unaccelerated 24-bit video though? Did Sun ever make an accelerated 24-bit card? Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 10:02:12 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:02:12 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> Message-ID: <45B4E004.6030405@gmail.com> Tothwolf wrote: > Don't fool yourself, there is a lot involved in making high quality > cables than just crimping on a couple of plugs. Indeed. > I haven't seen his connectors, so I can't say if he is using the "right" > connectors or not, but I do know that I've been buying AMP brand MMJ > plugs and I have genuine AMP tooling. The junk crimper he bought off of > eBay is a knock-off of the non-ratchet Ideal Telemaster. Anyone who has > done much in way of cable assembly knows how poorly those type of tools > preform. Short term, a cable made with that type of crimper might test > ok, but it isn't going to produce the consistent crimps that the AMP > crimper does so it may exhibit problems later. Indeed. When I first started making my own MMJ console cables I used to borrow the Ideal Telemaster of a local DEC dude. Then a couple of weeks later, my brother bought me an Ideal Crimpmaster with a full set of dies. The difference was like between night and day. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 10:04:56 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:04:56 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B4E0A8.2010100@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I'm still looking for a really good set of flush cutting miniature > diagonals, though. Current Klein dikes aren't nearly as well made as > the old ones. Any suggestions? I've got some Japanese brand that > aren't too bad, but I miss my old Kleins. I use Erems. They're precise enough for me. Plus, I like the feel of the grips. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 10:05:55 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:05:55 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: , , <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B3AAA2.6506.3270AB57@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B4E0E3.1050704@gmail.com> Tothwolf wrote: > Are you talking about a lead trimmer type flush cutter? I still use the > Klein D275-5 for trimming 28-22ga copper wiring for telecom work (I keep > a pair in each of my toolkits/bags), but I much prefer Sandvik Lindstrom > http://www.lindstromtools.com/ brand cutters for PC board work. Xuron > http://www.xuron.com/ also makes a pretty good product, but I still > prefer the Lindstrom cutters. I used to use the Lindstroms, but I've found I like the Erems better. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 10:07:59 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:07:59 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> Message-ID: <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com> C Fernandez wrote: >> The ratchet version of the Ideal Telemaster isn't too bad, and I carry >> one in with my spare tools, but its not my first choice and I don't >> think I've used it in about 3 years now. The non-ratchet version is >> just junk IMO though. > > Ok, found it..... I don't have either of the Ideal tools your talking > about. Mine is a Ideal Crimpmaster. It does ratchet, which I assume is > benefit since it doesn't release until the full crimp has been placed > on the connector. That's not the only benefit. The Crimpmaster has interchangeable dies. Peace... Sridhar From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 22 10:03:00 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:03:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <45B4DDBC.5080303@gmail.com> References: <45B2E1DE.3070006@hawkmountain.net> <45B4DDBC.5080303@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200701221608.LAA02283@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> I used an SS20 [...] I found it to be a fairly nice system. The >> VSIMM (SX video), gives you 24 bit video, and drops it right on the >> memory bus... > Isn't it unaccelerated 24-bit video though? Yes and no. There's some special hardware there, such as a DMA engine that I think can be used as a screen-to-screen blitter, but in typical Sun fashion it's undocumented. :-( > Did Sun ever make an accelerated 24-bit card? See the SUNW,leo that I mentioned earlier - it occupies two slots, but it's got 24 bits of colour depth and according to Sun's doc is has quite a lot of 3D rendering hardware - though, again, it's not documented as far as I've been able to find. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 22 10:24:10 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:24:10 -0600 Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00f201c73e41$c15380e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> > That's not the only benefit. The Crimpmaster has interchangeable dies. I've got the crimpmaster in my bag. Worked very well for years. Ok, I'll reveal my ignorance... what's this talk of a flush cutter for trimming leads? I have a pair of electricians scissors that work wonderfully. Can someone educate me on what I'd need something like the flush cutter's mentioned previously for? Jay From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 10:39:55 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:39:55 -0500 Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ In-Reply-To: <00f201c73e41$c15380e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com> <00f201c73e41$c15380e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45B4E8DB.9020706@gmail.com> Jay West wrote: >> That's not the only benefit. The Crimpmaster has interchangeable dies. > I've got the crimpmaster in my bag. Worked very well for years. > > Ok, I'll reveal my ignorance... what's this talk of a flush cutter for > trimming leads? I have a pair of electricians scissors that work > wonderfully. Can someone educate me on what I'd need something like the > flush cutter's mentioned previously for? It's just a finer instrument. It does the same job. If you want to trim a lead flush to a surface, it's very difficult to do with a pair of scissors. Peace... Sridhar From fernande at internet1.net Mon Jan 22 10:43:37 2007 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:43:37 -0500 Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ In-Reply-To: <00f201c73e41$c15380e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com> <00f201c73e41$c15380e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45B4E9B9.7020900@internet1.net> Jay West wrote: >> That's not the only benefit. The Crimpmaster has interchangeable dies. > I've got the crimpmaster in my bag. Worked very well for years. Good to know.... I would hate to have found I bought junk. I haven't used it enough to find out for myself. > Ok, I'll reveal my ignorance... what's this talk of a flush cutter for > trimming leads? I have a pair of electricians scissors that work > wonderfully. Can someone educate me on what I'd need something like the > flush cutter's mentioned previously for? I've been wondering the same thing. My guess is that what I would normally call "wire cutters", just wont work for some of the picky types on the list ..... like Tony and Toth :-) Chad From ggs at shiresoft.com Mon Jan 22 10:50:23 2007 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 08:50:23 -0800 Subject: Unibus Analyzer now available In-Reply-To: <45B46DF7.20009@shiresoft.com> References: <45B46DF7.20009@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <45B4EB4F.8000204@shiresoft.com> Guy Sotomayor wrote: > I *finally* had enough time to write the manual for the UA11 Unibus > Analyzer, so it's now available for sale. Go to > http://www.shiresoft.com/products & http://www.shiresoft.com/docs for > more information. > > I now use it almost exclusively for debugging problems and getting > systems to work. I only pull out the 'scope or LA if the problem > isn't observable on the Unibus. (sorry, hopeless plug.) > Just to let those "early adopters" out there know, I just updated the docs to fix a stupid mistake. So you'll want to re-download the manual. It's dated today and version 1.0A. -- TTFN - Guy From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 22 11:05:55 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:05:55 -0600 Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com><00f201c73e41$c15380e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> <45B4E8DB.9020706@gmail.com> Message-ID: <001301c73e47$949ff6e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Sridhar wrote... > It's just a finer instrument. It does the same job. > > If you want to trim a lead flush to a surface, it's very difficult to do > with a pair of scissors. Ahhh this makes sense. Example... trimming the excess from an IDC type connector. This flush cutter would get right next to the wall of the connector as my scissors won't. Gotcha. Jay From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jan 22 11:09:16 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 09:09:16 -0800 Subject: PAiA 8700 Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D24C50B@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> I suppose I'll be sorry for this, but I want to mention that one of the hardest to find early 6502 systems just showed up on eBay: the PAiA 8700. But it wasn't on the vintage list; it was on the music instrument category. Most of these were built into keyboards. I've been looking for one of these for 5 years and only seen 3 of tem on eBay. Always get outbid. Had to stop bidding on this one at $93.. Anyway, if anyone else wants one for their collection, take a look at this: 110079964730 You can see the keyboard and the display in one picture. The description gives it away. So if you are looking for these, do a search pointed to midi keyboards or PAiA. Billy From marvin at rain.org Mon Jan 22 11:09:45 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 09:09:45 -0800 Subject: FS: LD-V1000 Message-ID: <45B4EFD9.93F9DAAC@rain.org> I just got in some LD-V1000 laserdisk players that are basically NOS units. The LD-V1000 was used for a number of laserdisk games including Cinamatronics Space Ace. They were powered up quite a few years ago and there is a sticker on each one with the measured laser output (76 mW for the one in front of me.) While the units themselves are pretty much prisitine, the boxes are in probably very good condition and show signs of mice/rats having visited. $125.00 plus $10.00 packing and shipping from zipcode 93105. They will be shipped in another box 30" x 24" x 12". Each one will be tested to make sure it will play okay, and will be shipped with the lens cap and a shipping screw of some sort (these had the shipping screw removed, and I'm not sure yet exactly what they look like.) No paperwork except the registration card on the outside of the box. From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 22 11:12:03 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:12:03 -0700 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:52:28 -0500. <45B4DDBC.5080303@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <45B4DDBC.5080303 at gmail.com>, Sridhar Ayengar writes: > [...] Did Sun ever make an > accelerated 24-bit card? Yes, they made a bunch of different 3D accelerators during the 90s (and most likely beyond, but I haven't been attending SIGGRAPH often enough to say for sure). Ironically, they didn't start making good 3D accelerators until they hired ex-Evans & Sutherland engineers. I can concur that working at E&S was good training in 3D! They really knew their engineering, its such a shame that marketing and management were utter failures. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jan 22 11:23:51 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 09:23:51 -0800 Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036722@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> C Fernandez wrote: I've been wondering the same thing. My guess is that what I would normally call "wire cutters", just wont work for some of the picky types on the list ..... like Tony and Toth :-) Chad ---------------------------------------------- I have to disagree. There are many instances where you want the component flush. For example, an RF can - don't want the leg to touch. Same for a daughter board. Or a PCB that fits into a tight case. And so on. Flush cutters are an extremely useful tool and you want one that give a clean sharp cut with damaging the surface of the PCB. It's the same principle as using a saw with no tooth offset to trim a dowel pin - cut but don't damage. Billy From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 22 11:25:52 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:25:52 -0700 Subject: Eve hard drives... Message-ID: One of them is a Quantum Q280 and a couple of the other drives are also made by Quantum. These are drives that were accompanying the Eves but not attached internally. Doesn't that imply that these Eves have been upgraded to a SCSI bus from what the Lilith had? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 22 11:54:59 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 09:54:59 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org>, <200701220607.BAA21147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45B489F3.30002.35D8FD89@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2007 at 5:22, Jules Richardson wrote: > Unfortunately a PC parallel port doesn't quite have enough I/O lines, I > wouldn't have a clue how to make a USB solution (ick!), and building an ISA > card (say) would require kernel drivers (and all the complexity involved > there). One possibility is just to use two parallel ports, but that severely > limits the portability of the device - although I'm getting to the point where > that's preferable to not having any solution at all. ...or you can use one of the commodity data acquisition boards for a PC. Plenty of I/O lines and simple enough to program from MS- DOS/Windows 9x (lmits you to a file size of 4GB, but that should be enough for older drives). I've got a PCI model here that uses 3 8255 PPI's (please, I know they're far from perfect) that cost about $60. The ISA version of the card is even cheaper. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 12:20:37 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:20:37 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B50075.9040209@gmail.com> Richard wrote: >> [...] Did Sun ever make an >> accelerated 24-bit card? > > Yes, they made a bunch of different 3D accelerators during the 90s > (and most likely beyond, but I haven't been attending SIGGRAPH often > enough to say for sure). Ironically, they didn't start making good 3D > accelerators until they hired ex-Evans & Sutherland engineers. I can > concur that working at E&S was good training in 3D! They really knew > their engineering, its such a shame that marketing and management were > utter failures. Just to be sure, these cards were Sbus and not UPA, right? Peace... Sridhar From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 22 12:22:29 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:22:29 -0800 Subject: Selling Intel 8096/196 Emulators, Message-ID: <45B500E5.6040404@bitsavers.org> > Hi Robo, > > I saw an old email from you, do you still have any of the VLS96 emulators for sale? I want to > start learning about this chip. Could we change the list such that the replies to emails older than a year don't get reposted to the list? Clearly people don't realize that they are not replying to an individual when they come upon some ancient message (ex. the recent posting directed to Don Maslin). From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Mon Jan 22 12:41:17 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:41:17 +0100 Subject: Eve hard drives... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B5054D.6080007@bluewin.ch> Richard wrote: > One of them is a Quantum Q280 and a couple of the other drives are > also made by Quantum. > > These are drives that were accompanying the Eves but not attached > internally. > > Doesn't that imply that these Eves have been upgraded to a SCSI bus > from what the Lilith had? That is what I thought all along... The Lilith 1 interface is neither ST506, ESDI, SCSI or IDE. Another interesting bit on the Lilith is the ethernet interface : it is the very early 3 mbit standard, therefore incompatible to all later Ethernet standards. The (external) floppy disk interface uses an actual Apple-II controller card. Do these Eve boards also have a 200 finger PCB contact ? Each time I remove a board from the Lilith I end up with bloody fingers ( mine that is...) Jos From lbickley at bickleywest.com Mon Jan 22 12:44:02 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:44:02 -0800 Subject: Unibus Analyzer now available In-Reply-To: <45B4EB4F.8000204@shiresoft.com> References: <45B46DF7.20009@shiresoft.com> <45B4EB4F.8000204@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <200701221044.02409.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Monday 22 January 2007 08:50, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > I *finally* had enough time to write the manual for the UA11 Unibus > > Analyzer, so it's now available for sale. Go to > > http://www.shiresoft.com/products & http://www.shiresoft.com/docs for > > more information. > > > > I now use it almost exclusively for debugging problems and getting > > systems to work. I only pull out the 'scope or LA if the problem > > isn't observable on the Unibus. (sorry, hopeless plug.) > > Just to let those "early adopters" out there know, I just updated the > docs to fix a stupid mistake. So you'll want to re-download the > manual. It's dated today and version 1.0A. Won't have time to look at the updated manual until later - but here's a couple of things I found: Pg 9 Mispelling "hight" - height Pg 7 Second item 10nf should be 10 pf? Pg 12 You might want to define which vias can be used (although anyone building this board can probably figure it out). Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 22 12:47:46 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:47:46 -0800 Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ In-Reply-To: <001301c73e47$949ff6e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: , <001301c73e47$949ff6e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45B49652.6272.36095285@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2007 at 11:05, Jay West wrote: > Ahhh this makes sense. Example... trimming the excess from an IDC type > connector. This flush cutter would get right next to the wall of the > connector as my scissors won't. Gotcha. I've never used them for that--I've always used a sharp Xacto knife held so it rides against the connector, but tilted slightly, so it doesn't dig into the connector body. Makes a clean cut and is very fast. There's a certain aesthetic purpose to using flush cutters on a PCB. Many of the cheap Asian boards that I've run into leave a couple of millimeters of component lead extending above the board surface. Heaven help you if you have to reach between two boards and manage to snag the back of your hand on the exposed leads. It's like sharp edges on stamped metal parts--there's no reason other than economy to leave them that way. I don't know how many times I've opened a finger on the edge of someone's PC case. Taking that last little step; cutting component leads flush and rounding off sharp edges is important to me--it looks good and is safer. This week I'm finishing up the refurbishment of a tuba that bounced out of a moving pickup truck bed onto a freeway. After disassembling the instrument, removing dents, brazing broken braces and then reassembly, I've got a horn that plays again. Now, I'll spend the next couple of days cleaning up solder joins (so they don't show), buffing and lacquering. These last days will add nothing to the functionality of the instrument, but the result will be something that is pleasing to see and touch. Such things are important. When electronics equipment used to be hand-wired in a chassis, the sign of a good builder was adequte use of tie strips and neatly placed (and laced) wires. "Point to point" wiring with components flopping every which way among a rat's nest of wiring was the sign of a hack, even though both construction techniques produced a working device. Cheers, Chuck From ggs at shiresoft.com Mon Jan 22 13:03:02 2007 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:03:02 -0800 Subject: Unibus Analyzer now available In-Reply-To: <200701221044.02409.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <45B46DF7.20009@shiresoft.com> <45B4EB4F.8000204@shiresoft.com> <200701221044.02409.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <45B50A66.5080707@shiresoft.com> Lyle Bickley wrote: > On Monday 22 January 2007 08:50, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >> Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> >>> I *finally* had enough time to write the manual for the UA11 Unibus >>> Analyzer, so it's now available for sale. Go to >>> http://www.shiresoft.com/products & http://www.shiresoft.com/docs for >>> more information. >>> >>> I now use it almost exclusively for debugging problems and getting >>> systems to work. I only pull out the 'scope or LA if the problem >>> isn't observable on the Unibus. (sorry, hopeless plug.) >>> >> Just to let those "early adopters" out there know, I just updated the >> docs to fix a stupid mistake. So you'll want to re-download the >> manual. It's dated today and version 1.0A. >> > > Won't have time to look at the updated manual until later - but here's a > couple of things I found: > > Pg 9 Mispelling "hight" - height > OK. > Pg 7 Second item 10nf should be 10 pf? > Nope, nf = nano-farad. > Pg 12 You might want to define which vias can be used (although anyone > building this board can probably figure it out). > I thought about that...maybe next rev. :-) > Cheers, > Lyle > > > -- TTFN - Guy From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Jan 22 13:10:41 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:10:41 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 65 Message-ID: <01C73E2F.407BF900@mse-d03> >Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:05:55 -0600 >From: "Jay West" >Subject: Re: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ >Sridhar wrote... >> It's just a finer instrument. It does the same job. >> >> If you want to trim a lead flush to a surface, it's very difficult to do >> with a pair of scissors. >Ahhh this makes sense. Example... trimming the excess from an IDC type >connector. This flush cutter would get right next to the wall of the >connector as my scissors won't. Gotcha. >Jay ------------------- A sharp utility knife has always done that for me. m From fryers at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 13:18:15 2007 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:18:15 +0000 Subject: Offer: Epson Tractor Unit #8304 V Message-ID: Dear All, I have a Epson Tractor Unit #8304 V that I would like to lose. It is currently in Swindon UK. However it can be in Bristol, Bath, Oxford, Cheltenham, Bletchley or London if required. Unit is free. I am happy to put it in the post providing I get reimbursed postage. Thanks. Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 22 13:59:17 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 12:59:17 -0700 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:20:37 -0500. <45B50075.9040209@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <45B50075.9040209 at gmail.com>, Sridhar Ayengar writes: > Richard wrote: > >> [...] Did Sun ever make an > >> accelerated 24-bit card? > > > > Yes, they made a bunch of different 3D accelerators during the 90s > > (and most likely beyond, but I haven't been attending SIGGRAPH often > > enough to say for sure). Ironically, they didn't start making good 3D > > accelerators until they hired ex-Evans & Sutherland engineers. I can > > concur that working at E&S was good training in 3D! They really knew > > their engineering, its such a shame that marketing and management were > > utter failures. > > Just to be sure, these cards were Sbus and not UPA, right? I don't recall, since I never had one. Evans & Sutherland Freedom series graphics accelerators were available for Sun machines in the early 1990s. These were essentially a separate box with a host interface card. The host interface for a Sun was Sbus based. I can't say what Sun's accelerators used to talk to the host, but I'd assume Sbus for mid 90s models. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 22 14:00:54 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:00:54 -0700 Subject: Eve hard drives... In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:41:17 +0100. <45B5054D.6080007@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: In article <45B5054D.6080007 at bluewin.ch>, Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel writes: > Another interesting bit on the Lilith is the ethernet interface : it is > the very early 3 mbit standard, therefore incompatible to all later > Ethernet standards. I'm not even sure if these Eves have an ethernet interface. > The (external) floppy disk interface uses an actual Apple-II controller > card. These don't have floppies, they have Bernoulli cartridge drives. > Do these Eve boards also have a 200 finger PCB contact ? I'd have to check. I have access to the Eves now, but I still have more work to do before I can get into them in any serious way. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 22 13:56:25 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:56:25 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B489F3.30002.35D8FD89@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org>, <200701220607.BAA21147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk> <45B489F3.30002.35D8FD89@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 22 Jan 2007 at 5:22, Jules Richardson wrote: > >> Unfortunately a PC parallel port doesn't quite have enough I/O lines, I >> wouldn't have a clue how to make a USB solution (ick!), and building an ISA >> card (say) would require kernel drivers (and all the complexity involved >> there). One possibility is just to use two parallel ports, but that severely >> limits the portability of the device - although I'm getting to the point where >> that's preferable to not having any solution at all. > > ...or you can use one of the commodity data acquisition boards for a > PC. Plenty of I/O lines and simple enough to program from MS- > DOS/Windows 9x (lmits you to a file size of 4GB, but that should be > enough for older drives). I've got a PCI model here that uses 3 8255 > PPI's (please, I know they're far from perfect) that cost about $60. > The ISA version of the card is even cheaper. Hmm. DOS does have the advantage of not getting in the way of doing such things (and I've already got a DOS PC for Imagedisk work). Plus it's nice to have short startup times (and even faster shutdown ;) The only downsides: 1) Lack of long filename support (if I'm archiving something I prefer to give it a long name rather than having to poke into the archive contents to see what something is), 2) Lack of remote administration (control via serial port or network would be handy in some cases). Longer term I could get around problem #1 if I built some sort of network support into the application (FTP is perhaps the easiest) - I've been thinking about doing this with Imagedisk anyway. So far I've not stumbled across any good programming information for the various DOS TCP/IP stacks, though. Problem #2 isn't a showstopper - it's just nice to be able to tuck the box out of the way and control it via another system rather than it needing its own keyboard / display taking up space. So yes... DOS may well be the way forward (something probably not heard often :-) cheers Jules From spc at conman.org Mon Jan 22 14:20:54 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:20:54 -0500 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk> <45B489F3.30002.35D8FD89@cclist.sydex.com> <45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20070122202054.GD18741@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great Jules Richardson once stated: > > Hmm. DOS does have the advantage of not getting in the way of doing such > things (and I've already got a DOS PC for Imagedisk work). Plus it's nice > to have short startup times (and even faster shutdown ;) > > The only downsides: > > 1) Lack of long filename support (if I'm archiving something I prefer to > give it a long name rather than having to poke into the archive contents to > see what something is), > 2) Lack of remote administration (control via serial port or network > would be handy in some cases). You can do #2---in the late 80s/early 90s, I used to log in to my friend's BBS and drop to DOS to fix problems. The limitations were pretty tough though---I couldn't run any programs that bypassed MS-DOS for I/O (so the only editor I could use was EDLIN for instance). But yes, it's fairly straightforward. -spc (Which, horrid as it was, was much more user friendly than Unix's ed ... ) From geoffr at zipcon.net Mon Jan 22 15:39:40 2007 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoff Reed) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:39:40 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org>, <200701220607.BAA21147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk><45B489F3.30002.35D8FD89@cclist.sydex.com> <45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <02e701c73e6d$d2a514e0$0701a8c0@liberator> -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 11:56 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Archiving workstation hard drives -snip- Hmm. DOS does have the advantage of not getting in the way of doing such things (and I've already got a DOS PC for Imagedisk work). Plus it's nice to have short startup times (and even faster shutdown ;) The only downsides: 1) Lack of long filename support (if I'm archiving something I prefer to give it a long name rather than having to poke into the archive contents to see what something is), 2) Lack of remote administration (control via serial port or network would be handy in some cases). ----- Ok, to get around #1, use IBm dos 7, DR-DOS, I think there's also OPENDOS, all of which support LFN IIRC. And on #2, there were remote control utilities for dos, I don't have any of them handy anymore unfortunately that allowed remote use of a dos box via serialport (modem) or network. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 22 15:57:15 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:57:15 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org>, <45B489F3.30002.35D8FD89@cclist.sydex.com>, <45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45B4C2BB.19588.36B6CC3D@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2007 at 13:56, Jules Richardson wrote: > The only downsides: > > 1) Lack of long filename support (if I'm archiving something I prefer to > give it a long name rather than having to poke into the archive contents to > see what something is), > 2) Lack of remote administration (control via serial port or network would > be handy in some cases). (1) Just load DOSLFN in your config.sys--you get long filename support (at least under DOS 7.x) without having to run Windoze. (2) Run under Win9x--you get TCP/IP support as well as support for a few other protocols. Win9x doesn't get in the way of doing direct port access, generally speaking. No, I'm not an MS booster, but I do like as little interference as possible when I'm twiddling bits on ports. Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 22 16:11:54 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:11:54 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B4C2BB.19588.36B6CC3D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org>, <45B489F3.30002.35D8FD89@cclist.sydex.com>, <45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> <45B4C2BB.19588.36B6CC3D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B536AA.60503@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 22 Jan 2007 at 13:56, Jules Richardson wrote: > >> The only downsides: >> >> 1) Lack of long filename support (if I'm archiving something I prefer to >> give it a long name rather than having to poke into the archive contents to >> see what something is), >> 2) Lack of remote administration (control via serial port or network would >> be handy in some cases). > > (1) Just load DOSLFN in your config.sys--you get long filename > support (at least under DOS 7.x) without having to run Windoze. Hmm, that's interesting. Might give that one a try. > (2) Run under Win9x--you get TCP/IP support as well as support for a > few other protocols. Win9x doesn't get in the way of doing direct > port access, generally speaking. I'm wary of going anywhere near Win95 to be honest - seems like that would be asking for stability issues, particularly for any machine that might be left on for any length of time. DOS on the other hand was always pretty stable :) cheers Jules From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 22 17:02:36 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:02:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B4779E.6080204@gjcp.net> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jan 22, 7 08:36:46 am Message-ID: > I've done that, although I use nail scissors on my nails. I'm not at > all averse to modifying an existing tool, or making one from scratch (I No am I, particularly if the right tool is not available ready-made. I've made special pullers to get the driver rollers of HP desktop calculator magnetic card readers. for example. > *could* buy a special tool for working on my car suspension, but I'm > more inclined to weld a loop of motorbike chain to the jaws of a pair of > mole grips...) Dismantling Citroen hydraulic cylinders? I rememebr seeing the tool in the workshop manual. That was one job I never had to do, fortunately. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 22 17:11:11 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:11:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 22, 7 05:22:40 am Message-ID: [...] > What I'd really like I suppose is a user-space driver for a widget that > provided SCSI and SASI support via a *totally* dumb HBA (i.e. polled I/O and > twiddling of bus lines "directly") - in other words, one step less intelligent > still than most "dumb" HBAs (which still use some sort of SCSI IC). It'd be > slow as molasses, but speed isn't the critical factor compared to flexibility > and ease of driving. The lack of a decent 'user port' on PCs is a major pain for hardware hackers like me :-). Peronally, I'd probably use something like an HP9000/200 series machine (neat, repairable, and has an exceellent 16 bit parallel I/O card availalbe), but that's hardly a universal solution. > > Unfortunately a PC parallel port doesn't quite have enough I/O lines, I Could yuo not add some latches/buffers to tha parallel port to get more I/O lines, and use a couple of the 'handshake' outputs to select between them? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 22 16:54:14 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:54:14 +0000 (GMT) Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: <45B410B8.6020000@mdrconsult.com> from "Doc Shipley" at Jan 21, 7 07:17:44 pm Message-ID: > Yes, Tony's replies to some of my questions here have been extremely > valuable (his explanation of Unibus NPG comes to mind), but I think his > contribution here goes deeper than that. > > More than specific diagnostic information, very often what Tony > offers is a diagnostic *mindset*. Information is reasonably easy to > acquire. The capacity to get from here to the desired state with that > information is a lot harder. Rarest of all is the ability to impart > that diagnostic mindset - to show the "student" how to think through any > problem instead of how to fix this particular problem. Thankl you. That is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me :-) THere are many reasons why I rarely simply post the answer to a specific probkem. The first is that often I don't lnow the answer. I can't. It's impossibe to know what's weong with a machine you've never seen based on some 'high level' fault description. Sure there may be a common cause of that fault --a n example on the PDP11/44 is that the '?CP DIDN'T START' error message is almost always cased by an open grant chain. Notice I said 'almost always'. There are other possibilities. and if you don't realise that you'll be 'bitten' one day. I may not have even seen an example of the machine in question, but I may have worked on related machines. Hopefully I can give some pointers to likely areas to look at for the fault, together the owner of said machine and I can figure out just what is going on. The second reason is that, like it or not, I am not going to be around for ever. I could be killed by an omnibus tommorow (either run over by a Routemaster or electrocuted by the PSU ina PDP8/e). I'd like to ensure that there will still be poople around who can keep these fine old computers running. And that means knowning how to do fault tracing. A thrid reason is that I find some aspects of the hardware of these machiens to be very beautiful. And I'd like others to experience that beauty, by understanding the schematics. So if nobody objects (and FWIW I've receiced not one message that supports Sellam's view), I'll carry on posting as I've always done. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 22 17:05:22 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:05:22 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <0f8601c73e02$413d46a0$f0fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jan 22, 7 05:46:13 am Message-ID: > > > Yes, I thought MSXes were just based around some common sound chip. > > Perhaps the AY-whatever-it-was as used in the later Sinclair machines (and > > doubtless countless others). > > AY-3-8910 There are actually 3 such chips, all have 3 sound channels and the noise channel, all are software-compatible. The AY-3-8910 )40 pin DIL) has 2 8 bit I/O ports, the AY-3-8912 has one port, and the AY-3-8913 has none. -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jan 22 18:41:30 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:41:30 -0300 Subject: Is MSX on topic? References: Message-ID: <12d401c73e87$5c869760$f0fea8c0@alpha> >> > Yes, I thought MSXes were just based around some common sound chip. >> > Perhaps the AY-whatever-it-was as used in the later Sinclair machines >> > (and >> > doubtless countless others). >> AY-3-8910 > There are actually 3 such chips, all have 3 sound channels and the noise > channel, all are software-compatible. The AY-3-8910 )40 pin DIL) has 2 8 > bit I/O ports, the AY-3-8912 has one port, and the AY-3-8913 has none. But the MSX uses only the AY-3-8910. And the MSX-music standard uses the YM2413, but is factory-installed only on some 2.0 and all 2+ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 22 17:47:13 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:47:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <20070121182350.D23631@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <715746.57093.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > > I doubt too many homies were buying 286s in 85-6. > > I would agree for 83-84 Hmm, can't say I knew too many people buying 286 based units as early as 85-86. I would guess some businesses, but even then they'd have to be cutting edge. Perhaps my area of Long Island wasn't affluent enough :(. I don't have specific memories of a 5170 or the like sitting in Computerland in Bohemia. I do remember when the Mac II's came out. And come to think of it, wasn't Sears authorized to sell IBM stuff in those days? > > And is MSX-dos? kinda like c/pm? > > MSX is quite a bit like CP/M. 'Course so is MS-DOS. > I think that MSX is between CP/M and a Z80 MS-DOS. > MSX was sorta a competitor to CP/M; too late. Someone likened the built in OS to dos 1.0. There were actual cp/m's for these things also. I don't know alot about it. I'll have to learn... ____________________________________________________________________________________ TV dinner still cooling? Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 22 17:53:07 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:53:07 -0500 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <12d401c73e87$5c869760$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <12d401c73e87$5c869760$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: On 1/22/07, Alexandre Souza wrote: > But the MSX uses only the AY-3-8910... I don't have an MSX computer, but I do have a robot with an AY-3-8910 in it - when I get it unpacked again, one of the things I'm trying to get working is the sound/speech board. Having read through the spec sheet many times, my understanding of it is that it's a powerful chip that can do many interesting things, but during the MSX era, I gave this chip a pass because I was busy programming the C-64 for money, and delving into the SID chip. Time to learn about this old guy, I guess. -ethan From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jan 22 19:07:12 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:07:12 -0300 Subject: Is MSX on topic? References: <12d401c73e87$5c869760$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <133401c73e8b$16bfe700$f0fea8c0@alpha> > Having read through the spec sheet many times, my understanding of it > is that it's a powerful chip that can do many interesting things, but > during the MSX era, I gave this chip a pass because I was busy > programming the C-64 for money, and delving into the SID chip. > Time to learn about this old guy, I guess. You'll love it! This is a nice chip to hack! From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jan 22 18:09:23 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:09:23 -0800 Subject: SPEC Computer Trainer Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D24C560@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> In the summer of 1961, I worked on a computer made by CCC (California Computer Co. ?) It used a magneto-resistive delay line for main memory. The model number was SPEC, which stood for Special Purpose Educational Computer. It was aimed at computer training in the military (I was in the Army at the time). It was a small sub-desk size computer, certainly not a mini. Only had 128 words of meory. I thought my memory was betraying me until I recently found a brochure that has a poor picture of it. And I found one of my coding sheets from the class. But that's all. Does any one on the list have anything else? Would love to see more pictures or a schematic. How about a manual? Or even more basic - has anyone else even heard of it? Billy From robo58 at optonline.net Mon Jan 22 18:20:22 2007 From: robo58 at optonline.net (ROBO58) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:20:22 -0500 Subject: Selling Intel 8096/196 Emulators, In-Reply-To: <45B500E5.6040404@bitsavers.org> References: <45B500E5.6040404@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <0205B69C-5DC1-41AD-B404-4C06FC871D15@optonline.net> Hi Al, Actually I have more Intel 8096/196 emulators now than when I posted long ago. Also a training board and all the Intel software/compilers. Give me an email address and we can talk. Robo On Jan 22, 2007, at 1:22 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > > Hi Robo, > > > > I saw an old email from you, do you still have any of the VLS96 > emulators for sale? I want to > > start learning about this chip. > > Could we change the list such that the replies to emails older than > a year > don't get reposted to the list? > > Clearly people don't realize that they are not replying to an > individual when > they come upon some ancient message (ex. the recent posting > directed to Don Maslin). > > > From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 22 18:28:59 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:28:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <20070123002859.88085.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> --- Alexandre Souza wrote: > > What's the life expectancy of a CF card used as a > primary hard drive, > > for say, a mailserver? > > Low, very low. > > Remember: You have a hundred thousand or so > recordings in each byte of > the card. It has a special mechanism to "distribute > wear" but it will come > to an end someday. And when you say about > no-flash-oriented software, you > are talking about a lot of writes. And it wears > FAST! This is what I was made to understand, but there was a guy on some yahoo group (for Stylistics or some "slate" computer I think) who claimed he knew someone who used a flash card w/Win95 or 98 installed, and got a year or two out of it. Don't ask me... ____________________________________________________________________________________ Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html From wmaddox at pacbell.net Mon Jan 22 18:46:00 2007 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:46:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: SPEC Computer Trainer In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D24C560@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <20070123004600.35049.qmail@web82607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Billy Pettit wrote: > In the summer of 1961, I worked on a computer made > by CCC (California > Computer Co. ?) CCC, or 3C, wsa the Computer Control Company. They were later bought out by Honeywell, and became the division that made the DDP-516 and H316 of Arpanet IMP fame. > Does any one on the list have anything else? Would > love to see more > pictures or a schematic. How about a manual? 3C must have made several kinds of trainers. I have a brochure for a large trainer with an oversized front panel, as if it were deliberately enlarged to allow a lecturer to present it to a classroom. Unfortunately, it is only a brochure -- no manual or schematics. I can scan it and send you a copy, though. --Bill From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 22 18:49:51 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:49:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <715746.57093.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> References: <715746.57093.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070122164259.J80799@shell.lmi.net> > > > I doubt too many homies were buying 286s in 85-6. > > I would agree for 83-84 On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > Hmm, can't say I knew too many people buying 286 > based units as early as 85-86. I would guess some > businesses, but even then they'd have to be cutting > edge. Perhaps my area of Long Island wasn't affluent > enough :(. I don't have specific memories of a 5170 or > the like sitting in Computerland in Bohemia. I do > remember when the Mac II's came out. And come to think > of it, wasn't Sears authorized to sell IBM stuff in > those days? IBM retail computer stores, Computerland, Businessland? The AT started in 1984. Some areas (both geographic, and social) immediately went for it, and some put it off as long as they could, since the IBM/MICROS~1 software didn't provide any real incentive to upgrade other than high density drives and a little faster; until Windoze 3.1 and OS/2. 'course, soon after that, intel made the 80386, and Bill Gates called the 80286 "brain dead". -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 22 18:54:07 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:54:07 -0800 Subject: SPEC Computer Trainer In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D24C560@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D24C560@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <45B4EC2F.26923.3758B880@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2007 at 16:09, Billy Pettit wrote: > In the summer of 1961, I worked on a computer made by CCC (California > Computer Co. ?) It used a magneto-resistive delay line for main memory. > The model number was SPEC, which stood for Special Purpose Educational > Computer. It was aimed at computer training in the military (I was in the > Army at the time). It was a small sub-desk size computer, certainly not a > mini. Only had 128 words of meory. CCC = Computer Control Corporation? (later subsumed into Honeywell). Sounds really close to this one: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61-c.html Cheers, Chuck From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jan 22 19:04:31 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:04:31 -0800 Subject: SPEC Computer Trainer Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D03672E@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> William Maddox wrote: 3C must have made several kinds of trainers. I have a brochure for a large trainer with an oversized front panel, as if it were deliberately enlarged to allow a lecturer to present it to a classroom. Unfortunately, it is only a brochure -- no manual or schematics. I can scan it and send you a copy, though. --Bill ----------------------------------------------- I'd love to have a scan of it. Even if it is a different model, it helps bring back memories. after years of looking, I was beginning to doubt my memories. Billy From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jan 22 19:07:38 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:07:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: SPEC Computer Trainer In-Reply-To: <45B4EC2F.26923.3758B880@cclist.sydex.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D24C560@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> <45B4EC2F.26923.3758B880@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 22 Jan 2007 at 16:09, Billy Pettit wrote: > > > In the summer of 1961, I worked on a computer made by CCC (California > > Computer Co. ?) It used a magneto-resistive delay line for main memory. > > The model number was SPEC, which stood for Special Purpose Educational > > Computer. It was aimed at computer training in the military (I was in the > > Army at the time). It was a small sub-desk size computer, certainly not a > > mini. Only had 128 words of meory. > > CCC = Computer Control Corporation? (later subsumed into Honeywell). > > Sounds really close to this one: > > http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61-c.html It says there that the computer used 0.4 kilowatts (400 watts) of power. Is that right? I'm not terribly informed on how much power machines of that type and vintage took, but it seems rather low. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 22 19:07:44 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:07:44 -0800 Subject: SPEC Computer Trainer In-Reply-To: <20070123004600.35049.qmail@web82607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D24C560@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com>, <20070123004600.35049.qmail@web82607.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45B4EF60.1134.37652F10@cclist.sydex.com> http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL64-c.html In particular, see the 6B4, 6F2 and 6F4 trainers. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 22 19:08:57 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:08:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <20070122164259.J80799@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <213614.31782.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > The AT started in 1984. Some areas (both > geographic, and social) > immediately went for it, and some put it off as long > as they could, since > the IBM/MICROS~1 software didn't provide any real > incentive to upgrade > other than high density drives and a little faster; > until Windoze 3.1 and OS/2. I think price had a lot to do with it also. For most people (the ones I knew anyway) it was out of their league. Still, being compared to the IBM PC/AT was a selling point in my selecting the Tandy 2000, but it was primarily due to it's enhanced graphics. I did eventually buy a real compatible, but it was somewhat dated by the time I got it in '89, and in fact was a surlpus item from some vendor in Ohio, an ITT Xtra XP. Not a true "AT", but rather a hybrid that was 8-bit in every other respect save for the uP. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a PS3 game guru. Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games. http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121 From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jan 22 19:14:28 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:14:28 -0800 Subject: SPEC Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D03672F@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Found it!! Ed Thelen posted a picture of it from the BRL Survey of 1961. See: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61-0852.jpg From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Jan 22 19:17:03 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:17:03 -0600 Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B5620F.7000101@mdrconsult.com> Tony Duell wrote: > So if nobody objects (and FWIW I've receiced not one message that > supports Sellam's view), I'll carry on posting as I've always done. Groovy. Doc From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Jan 22 19:19:22 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:19:22 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 65 In-Reply-To: <200701221801.l0MI0v6K093562@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701221801.l0MI0v6K093562@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <6e04c1f3cab1722f9f95f11dd2ffd9d8@valleyimplants.com> > > > Message: 5 > Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 10:12:03 -0700 > From: Richard > Subject: Re: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Message-ID: > > > In article <45B4DDBC.5080303 at gmail.com>, > Sridhar Ayengar writes: > >> [...] Did Sun ever make an >> accelerated 24-bit card? > > Yes, they made a bunch of different 3D accelerators during the 90s > (and most likely beyond, but I haven't been attending SIGGRAPH often > enough to say for sure). Ironically, they didn't start making good 3D > accelerators until they hired ex-Evans & Sutherland engineers. I can > concur that working at E&S was good training in 3D! They really knew > their engineering, its such a shame that marketing and management were > utter failures. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for > download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > There was, I believe, something that could be paired with a CG9 in the Sun-3/early Sun-4 days. Ah yes, here it is: the GP2 graphics processor. VME based, with Weitek engines. Then there was the Leo/ZX option for SBUS. Can't tell you anything about performance of either of these two. With the introduction of the UPA bus things got better: Sun introduced Creator/Creator3d and Elite3d. Of course, none of these graphics could touch what SGI was putting out, but it was a valiant attempt. Creator3d used the SPARC for geometry but had onboard Z-buffer calculations, Elite3d had a full graphics pipeline but not much texture cache. Can't say anything about the really off-topic stuff for the current machines. From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jan 22 19:35:27 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:35:27 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 65 In-Reply-To: <6e04c1f3cab1722f9f95f11dd2ffd9d8@valleyimplants.com> References: <200701221801.l0MI0v6K093562@dewey.classiccmp.org> <6e04c1f3cab1722f9f95f11dd2ffd9d8@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200701222035.27968.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 22 January 2007 20:19, Scott Quinn wrote: > There was, I believe, something that could be paired with a CG9 in the > Sun-3/early Sun-4 days. Ah yes, here it is: the GP2 graphics > processor. VME based, with Weitek engines. > > Then there was the Leo/ZX option for SBUS. Is the CG13 accelerated? It's big enough (2 board and consumes 3 SBUS slots) that it definately could be accelerated (and I know that it's 24bit). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 22 19:53:40 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:53:40 -0700 Subject: Sun graphics options (was: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:19:22 -0800. <6e04c1f3cab1722f9f95f11dd2ffd9d8@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: In article <6e04c1f3cab1722f9f95f11dd2ffd9d8 at valleyimplants.com>, Scott Quinn writes: > There was, I believe, something that could be paired with a CG9 in the > Sun-3/early Sun-4 days. Ah yes, here it is: the GP2 graphics processor. > VME based, with Weitek engines. I think I have one of these GP2 things... its a separate pedestal enclosure with a VME card that goes into the main Sun box. It was reportedly a dog. I have the pedestal and guts but not the interface card. I would love an interface card, if someone has one :-). > Then there was the Leo/ZX option for SBUS. I seem to remember the "Leo" being talked about while I was at E&S. > Can't tell you anything about performance of either of these two. The GP2 reportedly sucked, compared to competitors at the time :-). > Can't say anything about the really off-topic stuff for the current > machines. The stuff I'm remembering is from the 1990-1995 period, so it would be "apopros" vis-a-vis the 10 year rule, which isn't a rule, really more a rule of thumb or a guideline, well not really a guideline, more like a hint, well not really a hint, but whatever Jay says it is... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 22 20:02:41 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:02:41 -0800 Subject: Is MSX on topic? Message-ID: <45B4FC41.10026.37977C91@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2007 at 16:49, Fred Cisin wrote: > The AT started in 1984. Some areas (both geographic, and social) > immediately went for it, and some put it off as long as they could, since > the IBM/MICROS~1 software didn't provide any real incentive to upgrade > other than high density drives and a little faster; > until Windoze 3.1 and OS/2. More than a little faster, at least to my recollection. Something like 3 times as fast. 16 bit disk I/O and a CPU with nearly 4 times the transistor count of the 8088. A lot of folks who bought the original 6 MHz PC AT discovered overclocking. While you could find 8 and 9 MHz 8088/8086 systems, neither came close to a 6 MHz AT in terms of performance. And if you were adventuresome and clocked that PC AT at 12 or (I've heard it was done) 20 MHz, the gains were breathtaking--and you had a convenient place to cook lunch. One thing that IBM did that really toasted me back then was messing up on the 8237 DMA controller hookup such that memory-to-memory DMA didn't work. It could have made the whole business of extended memory use a lot simpler. Cheers, Chuck From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jan 22 20:18:54 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:18:54 -0500 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <20070123002859.88085.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> References: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070122201724.04af09f8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Chris M may have mentioned these words: >--- Alexandre Souza >wrote: > > > > What's the life expectancy of a CF card used as a > > primary hard drive, > > > for say, a mailserver? > > > > Low, very low. I agree... see my previous lengthy post in this thread. [snippage] >This is what I was made to understand, but there was >a guy on some yahoo group (for Stylistics or some >"slate" computer I think) who claimed he knew someone >who used a flash card w/Win95 or 98 installed, and got >a year or two out of it. Ungh. Rule 1: Win9x != "mail server." These are two totally fscking different applications, so of course one could *easily* get a year or two out of a Win9x install! CF has unlimited (or almost nearly-ish) reads. Limited *writes*. Most of Win9x is reading, except for the occasional temp file, and if he'd disabled that pitiful excuse for "virtual memory" in Win9x, he'd prolly gotten another 6 months to a year (at least) outta the sucker. If he'd wanted to get even longer usage, said "guy on yahoo group[1]" he should have gone to www.litepc.com, where he could've had Win9x booting from a 64Meg Flash drive as an embedded system... Anyone with half-a-mind of how a computer actually works and can configure Win9x as such (read: most (all?) of this list) could prolly have gotten 6-10 years outta the rascal.... remember, CF suffers from bitrot just like the ol' FAMOS [E]EPROMS. Similar tech, just without the UV or high reprogramming voltages. I know mailservers. Jay knows mailservers. I started on sendmail back before they tried to make it easier to configure. They don't call the sendmail.cf file an "explosion at a punctuation factory" for nuthin'. ;-) Most (all?) mailserver daemons are hard on a drive. Sendmail is hard on a drive[2]. qmail, which (when I started using it nearly 10 years ago) was much easier to install & configure, is actually harder on drive, /particularly/ where you put the main mail queue. The writes a mailserver is going to put on a drive (especially where your main queue is) is going to be somewhere between 100x to 1000x what a Win9x box is going to require of the drive. To put a quick close to this longwinded pointlessness, mailservers is why they invented SCSI. ;-) Clear as mud now??? Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] Sweet Mother O' Pearl, if that doesn't send up some *serious* red flags for crimeny's sake... Ungh. [2] This is *not* a sendmail-bashing thread. Jay does very well with it, he are sendmail ekspurt. I are qmail exspurt. I got my first real "admin job" - 3 Solaris 2.5 (SunOS 5.5, IIRC) Netra pizza boxen - because I knew something "kinda Unix-like" -> MicroWare OS-9 on my Tandy CoCos. Other than that, I was a noob with a capital N, and taking care of sendmail was *way* beyond my simplistic comprehension of Unix. P.S.... > Don't ask me... Then why ask us? To me, that reads the same as someone saying: "Don't ask me, I only work here." If you work there, you *oughtta* know, right??? ;-) -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Jan 22 20:34:06 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:34:06 -0800 Subject: Sun Graphics Options Message-ID: > Richard said: > The stuff I'm remembering is from the 1990-1995 period, so it would be > "apopros" vis-a-vis the 10 year rule, which isn't a rule, really more > a rule of thumb or a guideline, well not really a guideline, more like > a hint, well not really a hint, but whatever Jay says it is... The "really off-topic" stuff I'm talking about are the current cards- those Suns are outside of my budget. Creator was mid to late '90s and was the first Sun 24-bit midrange option (I don't think there were any 8-bit UPA graphics options). GP2 was, I think (don't have one) a single 9-U VME board that attached to the CG9 via a private bus on the P2 or P3. CG13 looks to be unaccelerated based on anecdotal evidence. Does anyone know if the S24 (SS5 AFX framebuffer) was accelerated? This doesn't cover 3rd party products, either From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 22 20:38:59 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:38:59 -0800 Subject: ISO info on NCR PERTEC->SCSI bridge boards Message-ID: <45B57543.6080907@bitsavers.org> Several Qualstar 1054s that I have used an OEM bridge board from NCR. Later drives used a Qualstar design. Does anyone have the manual for the NCR board? No obvious part number on them.. From rescue at hawkmountain.net Mon Jan 22 20:40:12 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:40:12 -0500 Subject: Strange things found in a free SPARC 20 In-Reply-To: <45B4DDBC.5080303@gmail.com> References: <45B2E1DE.3070006@hawkmountain.net> <45B4DDBC.5080303@gmail.com> Message-ID: <45B5758C.90204@hawkmountain.net> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote: >> If you are looking to add better video... I have some Sun SS20 8MB >> VSIMMS >> brand new in the box. >> >> I used an SS20 (at different times with a single HS180, and dual >> SM71s) (under Solaris 8), and with decent drives and not >> shortchanging it on RAM, I found it to be a fairly nice system. The >> VSIMM (SX video), gives you 24 bit video, and drops it right on the >> memory bus... so it has the best speed your going to get in a SS20 >> too. > > Isn't it unaccelerated 24-bit video though? Did Sun ever make an > accelerated 24-bit card? > Not sure... it may lack hardware acceleration.... but the fact that the card is on the memory bus makes it fast for everyday X11 use.... I never felt wanting for more speed out of it.... although... from a document I found by googling: SX provides acceleration of the graphics and imaging segments of applications that run on a SPARCstation 10SX or SPARCstation 20 workstation. Acceleration can be used for a wide range of pixel operations, including 2D and 3D graphics rendering, multimedia, and image processing. The SX accelerator, built into the SMC, can directly accelerate operations on both the system main memory (DRAM) and the video memory (VRAM). The SMC is comprised of: 1. An error-correcting code memory controller which interfaces with both the system main memory (DRAM) and the video memory (VRAM; the frame buffer) to the system memory bus. 2. The SX imaging and graphics accelerator. > Peace... Sridhar So, I guess there is some acceleration .... but I haven't found much details on exactly what kind or how good it is in comparison to other frame buffers. For what I used SS20 for, I'd rather have SX video over any other. But I'm sure certain operations would be better on TGX series or ZX... but for 'day to day' use... I found the SX to be excellent. -- Curt From rescue at hawkmountain.net Mon Jan 22 21:03:43 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:03:43 -0500 Subject: Sun Graphics Options In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B57B0F.9040301@hawkmountain.net> Scott Quinn wrote: >> Richard said: > > >> The stuff I'm remembering is from the 1990-1995 period, so it would be >> "apopros" vis-a-vis the 10 year rule, which isn't a rule, really more >> a rule of thumb or a guideline, well not really a guideline, more like >> a hint, well not really a hint, but whatever Jay says it is... > > The "really off-topic" stuff I'm talking about are the current cards- > those Suns are outside of my budget. Creator was mid to late '90s and > was the first Sun 24-bit midrange option (I don't think there were any > 8-bit UPA graphics options). > GP2 was, I think (don't have one) a single 9-U VME board that attached > to the CG9 via a private bus on the P2 or P3. > CG13 looks to be unaccelerated based on anecdotal evidence. I believe the poster was saying GP2... but by description sounded like the GT (Graphics Tower). It consisted of a revamped VX/MVX VME board set with a 'host' connector that via cable ran to an sbus card. The system controlled the board set through that. As I understand it... as a 'primary' graphics adapter it was a dog. But for accelerated operations using supported applications/libraries it was much better (I can only repeat what I've heard, as while I've 'laid hands' on a GT (powered off while I worked for SunService)), I've never seen one in operation or outside of Sun. I do have a VX/MVX board set that I hope to play with someday.... but not a GT. > > Does anyone know if the S24 (SS5 AFX framebuffer) was accelerated? > I don't believe it was... but I could be wrong... I hardly used SS5s, and never with an S24... so maybe someone who has can shed some better light on that subject. > This doesn't cover 3rd party products, either > > -- Curt From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 22 21:09:57 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:09:57 -0700 Subject: Sun Graphics Options In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:34:06 -0800. Message-ID: In article , Scott Quinn writes: > GP2 was, I think (don't have one) a single 9-U VME board that attached > to the CG9 via a private bus on the P2 or P3. OK, maybe its not a GP2 that I have, but a GT (graphics tower)? Yes, the "Frame Buffer FAQ" answers this: "GT The Graphics Tower is a 24 bit accelerated 3D graphics system. The tower itself is a seperate box, which is connected to the Sun through a single-width SBus interface card. As a console frame buffer it is unbearably slow. It is not supported in Solaris 2.5 and beyond, or in newer Sun machines." They also say: "cgfourteen Also known as the SX and spam, this is a very different kind of frame buffer. Built in to the motherboard on the SS20, it is also available as an add-on card for SS10 and SS20 (only one add-on card is allowed). For each display a VSIMM is required; two types are available, 4Mb or 8Mb. The 8Mb VSIMM allows a resolution of 1280x1024 at a depth of 24 bits; the 4Mb VSIMM allows up to 1280x1024 at 8 bits or 1152x900 at 24 bits. (For the reason why see below.) System memory can be reserved for use by the SX to improve performance using the command sxconfig. leo Also known as the ZX or T(urbo)ZX, this is a 24 bit accelerated 3D graphics card. Both cards are double-width, but the TZX also requires extra cooling in the form of an additional double-width fan card, so effectively takes up 4 SBus slots." > CG13 looks to be unaccelerated based on anecdotal evidence. Do you mean the cgfourteen described above? > Does anyone know if the S24 (SS5 AFX framebuffer) was accelerated? I didn't find this mentioned on the above URL, but perhaps if you look at it you'll recognize it in the list. There is also a description of "ancient" frame buffers here: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jan 22 22:11:42 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 01:11:42 -0300 Subject: MSX TV? Message-ID: <13ed01c73ea4$f2f687b0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Well, since the MSX subject seems to be fine here, anyone up to a brazilian MSX showing using webcast on weekend? Maybe I can organize a "MSX SHOW", showing the brazilian computers and some brazilian hardware. Greetz Alexandre From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 22 21:23:17 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:23:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: MSX TV? Message-ID: <274370.29487.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> sure dude --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Well, since the MSX subject seems to be fine here, anyone up to a > brazilian MSX showing using webcast on weekend? Maybe I can organize a "MSX > SHOW", showing the brazilian computers and some brazilian hardware. > > Greetz > Alexandre > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Finding fabulous fares is fun. Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jan 22 21:36:48 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:36:48 -0500 Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: References: <45B410B8.6020000@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070122212154.0396bbf0@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Tony Duell may have mentioned these words: [snippage] >So if nobody objects (and FWIW I've receiced not one message that >supports Sellam's view), I'll carry on posting as I've always done. Then you might not like some of my response... because there's a big but to follow. (I didn't say *my* big butt... but you'll see... ;-) [[ Notice the winkies... ;-) ]] Tony: I do view you as a very valuable member of this list - always have - and as I've been here *dang near* as long as you were (we were _both_ in the top 10, as was Sellam, let's not forget) I've known you thru email for a goodly long time... a decade now? You're knowledge of electronics and older computer systems is IMHO unmatched, and you have a way of thinking through problems & troubleshooting that is possessed by maybe a handful of people in the field. It would be a shame if you left this list, the loss of your presence here to everyone (including me) would be immeasurable. Agree with me or not, but IMHO, the loss of Sellam as a regular member of this community was _equally_ devastating; and I certainly wouldn't want another of the few "charter members" (for wont of a better term) to leave. But: [[ Here's that big but I was talking about... ]] Your personal preference for only using computers you can rebuild for the next 100 years is so pervasive that quite often it colors your posts and advice to the point that it can seem quite condescending. To be perfectly honest, I've been offended (indirectly) on more than a few occasions by the... vitriol... that you may or may not even know is present in many of your posts WRT either 1) computers that can't be troubleshot at the gate level, or 2) people who cannot troubleshoot computers at the gate level. Believe it or not, Sellam was the first individual I'd ever killfiled. Thankfully, I later learned to see past his sometimes maddening ways ;-), and consider him a good friend now. Honestly, however, once or twice I'd debated with myself (It wasn't an intelligent conversation ;-) if I should make you #2. I'm certainly glad I didn't. Tony, you should know as well as anybody how much good Sellam has done for this community; even though he's not active now certainly doesn't negate his previous contributions, does it? That said, this post isn't supposed to be, or *meant* to be a "ball-buster." If it were, I'm sure there'd be a line a mile long to start busting mine; I'm certainly far from perfect. But neither are you... and neither is Sellam. His prolific utilization of profanity was unjustified, but many of his points were valid. The perceived degradation of my character by your posts in the past had stung, but the advice within was always dead-on. I've learned to live with both, as I should as most people here have learned to live with my idiosyncrasies. Long story short (Too late! ;-) it's called "getting along with each other." If that can't happen (and sometimes it can't), personally I'd be happy with [at least relatively] "peaceful co-existence." ;-) So Jay, did I win that 2-week boot? ;-) Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jan 22 21:53:02 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:53:02 -0600 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20070122201724.04af09f8@mail.30below.com> References: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha> <5.1.0.14.2.20070122201724.04af09f8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <45B5869E.6090300@oldskool.org> Roger Merchberger wrote: > CF has unlimited (or almost nearly-ish) reads. Limited *writes*. Most of ...with the exception of IBM Microdrives, which are indeed tiny hard drives. I have a 340MB one from 4 years ago still going strong. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 22 23:00:52 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:00:52 -0600 Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy References: <45B410B8.6020000@mdrconsult.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20070122212154.0396bbf0@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <00c701c73eab$75442b40$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> First, Tony's record on this list speaks for itself. No defense of it is even *remotely* necessary. Second, I don't care for the idea of comparing one listmember to another, that's a slippery slope to approach. But since you brought it up... Roger wrote... > Agree with me or not, but IMHO, the loss of Sellam as a regular member of > this community was _equally_ devastating; I don't recall ever seeing Tony make a post to the list that caused an uproar, nor followup posts (by him or others) of extreme angst. Nor lots of public and private complaints that he be banned. Both have made HUGE positive contributions to the list. From Tony I've never seen a negative contribution. I would LOVE to see Sellam become active on the list again, but without the tone of the previous post of course. > His prolific utilization of profanity was unjustified, but many of his > points were valid. And no doubt those points (whether individuals consider them valid or not) were almost completely lost due to the baggage they carried. Too bad really. I will repeat... I have a *HUGE* amount of respect for Sellams past & current contributions to the hobby in general (and I'll be damned if I am going to have to feel like I have to state that before saying anything negative). That respect of mine for him absolutely does not gain him the ability to come here and post a tyraid like that and get away with it. No one, regardless of standing in the community or past contributions here or elsewhere, will be allowed to do that to this list. Period. And to be downright honest, I'm frankly rather angry at being put in this position. > So Jay, did I win that 2-week boot? ;-) Close, but no. Sorry to disappoint you ;) Although sometimes I'd appreciate it if I could get a 2 week boot ;) It's time to kill the "in defense of Tony" thread too. Not because I don't agree with it or anything... but let's focus on classic computing before I have to create that new list (drama at classiccmp.org) and move a few users to it ;) Jay From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jan 22 23:10:31 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 00:10:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Sun Graphics Options In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701230526.AAA16948@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > "cgfourteen [...] > The 8Mb VSIMM allows a resolution of 1280x1024 at a depth of 24 > bits; In my experience it allows much better than that; my SS20 + 8MB cg14 supports 24bpp at 1600x1280 and at 1920x1080. (Now if I could just find a(n affordable) flatscreen that does either of those....) >> Does anyone know if the S24 (SS5 AFX framebuffer) was accelerated? > I didn't find this mentioned on the above URL, but perhaps if you > look at it you'll recognize it in the list. It is accelerated as compared to a dumb memory-mapped framebuffer, but not very much. It has hardware support that improves filling of rectangles with what X calls FillSolid and FillStippled (but not FillTiled or FillOpaqueStippled, except to the extent that they can be simulated using FillSolid and FillStippled). It also accelerates screen-to-screen copies. In neither case does it accelerate it very much. Rectangle fills are accelerated by a factor of approximately 16 (one 64-bit write fills 32 pixels instead of 2 pixels - I say "approximately" because the exact value depends on the width of the rectangle and how it is aligned). Screen-to-screen copies are accelerated such that copying 32 pixels needs just one (64-bit) write, rather than 16 reads and 16 writes. See ftp.rodents.montreal.qc.ca:/mouse/docs/Sun/S24/memory-map if you want details. Useful, perhaps, but not nearly as nice as the cg6, which can fill or move a whole rectangle up to the screen size in...umm...best case, I think, eight writes - more like 15-20 if you don't know the state of a few pieces of the card. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 00:18:39 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 01:18:39 -0500 Subject: Sun Graphics Options In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/22/07, Richard wrote: > > > They also say: > > "cgfourteen > > Also known as the SX and spam, this is a very different kind of > frame buffer.... For each display a VSIMM is required; two types > are available, 4Mb or 8Mb. The 8Mb VSIMM allows a resolution of > 1280x1024 at a depth of 24 bits; the 4Mb VSIMM allows up to > 1280x1024 at 8 bits or 1152x900 at 24 bits. Very handy... thanks for that. I just got handed a bag of SS20 memory (along with a few other Sun goodies) today at lunch - for the price of lunch for my buddy. I'm leaning towards a VSIMM for my new SS20 - might be just the thing to go with this 17E10 on my desk here (presently being used as a PeeCee monitor with a 13W3F<->HD15M adapter and a single internal jumper wire ;-) I didn't get the chance to play with much Sun hardware over the past year, just a couple of unhappy Ultra 30s... it's been fun breaking out some of the Sun hardware and setting it all up again... it's one of those times I lament the lag in the descent of SCA drive gigs-to-dollars ratio compared to ATA and SATA hard drives. -ethan From wayne.smith at charter.net Tue Jan 23 00:57:36 2007 From: wayne.smith at charter.net (Wayne Smith) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:57:36 -0800 Subject: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: <200701220403.l0M42Gve083802@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <002401c73ebb$c7183f50$6701a8c0@Wayne> > Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:20:01 -0500 (EST) > From: der Mouse > Subject: Re: eBay idiocy > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Message-ID: <200701211822.NAA13073 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > >> Well, as long as we're being petty, I tuned out your > incessant (and > >> often off-topic) jabbering long before I unsubscribed. > > Is this view wildly held? Let's just say that you've mellowed quite a bit since the 90s. From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Mon Jan 22 18:01:43 2007 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:01:43 -0700 (MST) Subject: Looking for a Sharp EL-546 calculator In-Reply-To: <45B46DF7.20009@shiresoft.com> References: <45B46DF7.20009@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: I've got one that I love (and have had 20 years), but would like a second one to replace my EL-506 which is flaking worse and worse. Anyone have one they'd like to sell? Or trade for a flakey EL-506? Just the thing to complete one's collection... Clint From overfie at attglobal.net Mon Jan 22 23:00:39 2007 From: overfie at attglobal.net (Ralph Overfield) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:00:39 -0800 Subject: IBM Displaywriter Message-ID: <000a01c73eab$748ce930$6401a8c0@Ralphslaptop> Arthur Gardner Gardner Business I just read your message of July 21 to Jim Kearney looking to purchase an IBM Displaywriter. I am the owner of two IBM Displaywriters w/a shared printer and desire to find a home for them. Are you still interested or know of anyone who has an interest? Ralph Overfield roverfield at pacbell.net From dave06a at dunfield.com Tue Jan 23 06:20:22 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:20:22 -0500 Subject: Looking for a Sharp EL-546 calculator In-Reply-To: References: <45B46DF7.20009@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <200701231219.l0NCJHmP028320@hosting.monisys.ca> > I've got one that I love (and have had 20 years), but would like a second > one to replace my EL-506 which is flaking worse and worse. Is it keypad problems? My trusty EL-525 gets into a mood every few years requiring me to take it apart and clean the key contacts ... I've always been able to bring it back to full health. Another odd problem with the Sharps is the LCD display goes faint ... and a sharp tap on the back of the machine bring it back - The two that I have both suffer from it, and I've seen it on several others. Probably a design issue with the mechanical mounting of the LCD. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jan 23 07:28:21 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:28:21 -0300 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter References: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha><5.1.0.14.2.20070122201724.04af09f8@mail.30below.com> <45B5869E.6090300@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <14d501c73ef2$b1e28a50$f0fea8c0@alpha> >> CF has unlimited (or almost nearly-ish) reads. Limited *writes*. Most of > ...with the exception of IBM Microdrives, which are indeed tiny hard > drives. I have a 340MB one from 4 years ago still going strong. A microdrive shouldn't be called a compactFLASH card, since it has no flash memory :o) From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jan 23 07:30:32 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:30:32 -0300 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org>, <200701220607.BAA21147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk><45B489F3.30002.35D8FD89@cclist.sydex.com><45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> <02e701c73e6d$d2a514e0$0701a8c0@liberator> Message-ID: <14d601c73ef2$b20fdbe0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > Hmm. DOS does have the advantage of not getting in the way of doing such > things (and I've already got a DOS PC for Imagedisk work). Plus it's nice > to > have short startup times (and even faster shutdown ;) > The only downsides: > 2) Lack of remote administration (control via serial port or network > would > be handy in some cases). Who told you? You can run "doorway" or do a pipe of ctty to comx: but I don't remember how. Maybe mode ctty>com1: ? From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Tue Jan 23 06:33:47 2007 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 13:33:47 +0100 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft Message-ID: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> I was lazily browsing the 'web when I came across this one - apparently a project to create a storage medium with extremely long life times. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/300636_msftimmortal22.html -Tore :) From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jan 23 07:34:16 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:34:16 -0300 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter References: <20070123002859.88085.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <14fd01c73ef3$68d31ef0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > This is what I was made to understand, but there was > a guy on some yahoo group (for Stylistics or some > "slate" computer I think) who claimed he knew someone > who used a flash card w/Win95 or 98 installed, and got > a year or two out of it. Don't ask me... But you CAN have if: - have enough RAM memory - Disable virtual memory (a lot less writes on disk!) - have well-behaved programs Why don't you give a try? Get the resource kit for the OS you're going to use and try to limit every write to the disk :o) And remember: If you have a 256MB disk and are using only 128, all the other 128 goes for smart remapping of the bad sectors. So if you fry a sector it will diminish one sector for the total count, but not show you a bad sector! From jthecman at netscape.net Tue Jan 23 07:04:26 2007 From: jthecman at netscape.net (jthecman at netscape.net) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 08:04:26 -0500 Subject: IBM Displaywriter In-Reply-To: <000a01c73eab$748ce930$6401a8c0@Ralphslaptop> References: <000a01c73eab$748ce930$6401a8c0@Ralphslaptop> Message-ID: <8C90D0624FFE024-1110-4C4@mblk-d51.sysops.aol.com> Our museum is looking for one or two of these, where are they located? -----Original Message----- From: overfie at attglobal.net To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Sent: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:00 PM Subject: IBM Displaywriter Arthur Gardner Gardner Business I just read your message of July 21 to Jim Kearney looking to purchase an IBM Displaywriter. I am the owner of two IBM Displaywriters w/a shared printer and desire to find a home for them. Are you still interested or know of anyone who has an interest? Ralph Overfield roverfield at pacbell.net ________________________________________________________________________ Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection. From jthecman at netscape.net Tue Jan 23 07:04:43 2007 From: jthecman at netscape.net (jthecman at netscape.net) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 08:04:43 -0500 Subject: IBM Displaywriter In-Reply-To: <000a01c73eab$748ce930$6401a8c0@Ralphslaptop> References: <000a01c73eab$748ce930$6401a8c0@Ralphslaptop> Message-ID: <8C90D062F2B5B40-1110-4C7@mblk-d51.sysops.aol.com> Our museum is looking for one or two of these, where are they located? -----Original Message----- From: overfie at attglobal.net To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Sent: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:00 PM Subject: IBM Displaywriter Arthur Gardner Gardner Business I just read your message of July 21 to Jim Kearney looking to purchase an IBM Displaywriter. I am the owner of two IBM Displaywriters w/a shared printer and desire to find a home for them. Are you still interested or know of anyone who has an interest? Ralph Overfield roverfield at pacbell.net ________________________________________________________________________ Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 23 08:13:14 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 08:13:14 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <14d601c73ef2$b20fdbe0$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org>, <200701220607.BAA21147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, <45B49E80.1040308@yahoo.co.uk><45B489F3.30002.35D8FD89@cclist.sydex.com><45B516E9.1000406@yahoo.co.uk> <02e701c73e6d$d2a514e0$0701a8c0@liberator> <14d601c73ef2$b20fdbe0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <45B617FA.4050009@yahoo.co.uk> Alexandre Souza wrote: >> Hmm. DOS does have the advantage of not getting in the way of doing such >> things (and I've already got a DOS PC for Imagedisk work). Plus it's >> nice to >> have short startup times (and even faster shutdown ;) >> The only downsides: >> 2) Lack of remote administration (control via serial port or network >> would >> be handy in some cases). > > Who told you? You can run "doorway" :) You know I figured there were probably a few things out there, at least for console apps. Presumably stuffing received input from the network into the keyboard buffer though and handling video updates direct from video memory (even in text mode) raises some interesting issues. It's a tricky thing to do I suppose if the DOS machine happens to support more than one app, and in this case I could see there being at least a couple (something to do SCSI/SASI archive and retrieval, something to do floppy disk archive/retrieval). At the end of the day if it has to have its own display and keyboard then that's the way it has to be :) I just like the idea of being able to just flick the switch on the box to power it off and on, boot from something like a CF card (remember archive reads/writes will be to a remote system, and DOS itself won't place high write demands on a CF card), and just telnet/serial link "into" the machine to control it. That sort of thing lends itself much better to a Unix environment, but unfortunately Linux (at least) just puts too much stuff inbetween the user and the bare metal to make data recovery type work easy. I keep going round in circles here :) From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 23 09:05:19 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:05:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: IBM Displaywriter Message-ID: <829043.23560.qm@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> I can see why you might need 2. Apparently you like to do everything twice LOL LOL! --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Our museum is looking for one or two of these, where are they located? > > > -----Original Message----- > From: overfie at attglobal.net > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Sent: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:00 PM > Subject: IBM Displaywriter > > > Arthur Gardner > Gardner Business > I just read your message of July 21 to Jim Kearney looking to purchase an > IBM Displaywriter. > I am the owner of two IBM Displaywriters w/a shared printer and desire to > find a home for them. > Are you still interested or know of anyone who has an interest? > Ralph Overfield > roverfield at pacbell.net > ________________________________________________________________________ > Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection. ____________________________________________________________________________________ We won't tell. Get more on shows you hate to love (and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list. http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/265 From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 23 09:08:50 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:08:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: IBM Displaywriter Message-ID: <841634.18792.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> interested in 1 as long as theyre not on the west coast. --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Arthur Gardner > Gardner Business > I just read your message of July 21 to Jim Kearney looking to purchase an > IBM Displaywriter. > I am the owner of two IBM Displaywriters w/a shared printer and desire to > find a home for them. > Are you still interested or know of anyone who has an interest? > Ralph Overfield > roverfield at pacbell.net ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for earth-friendly autos? Browse Top Cars by "Green Rating" at Yahoo! Autos' Green Center. http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/ From peakunder at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 23 06:38:13 2007 From: peakunder at yahoo.co.uk (Jeff Underwood) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 12:38:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: TI-52 MANUAL Message-ID: <464647.22955.qm@web23105.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Hi, My wife would be eternally grateful if you could email a copy of the above. She loves this calculator, but can't find the manual for it anywhere in the house! Regards, Jeff. --------------------------------- Now you can scan emails quickly with a reading pane. Get the new Yahoo! Mail. From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jan 23 09:58:57 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:58:57 -0500 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:28:59 PST." <20070123002859.88085.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200701231558.l0NFwvkw019443@mwave.heeltoe.com> Chris M wrote: > > This is what I was made to understand, but there was >a guy on some yahoo group (for Stylistics or some >"slate" computer I think) who claimed he knew someone >who used a flash card w/Win95 or 98 installed, and got >a year or two out of it. Don't ask me... I have customers who ship embedded systems with CF as the main disk (linux systems). Granted, they are not mail servers, but they do things like track gas pumps, so there is a fair amount of constant activity. They just "do the math" and replace the CF's before they fail. I don't know the details but I think they were getting at least 4-5 years out of them. I think there was some brand-specific factors also (i.e. some brands have more write cycles). I too would probably use spinning media for email, but I don't see any reason why cf would not work for a few years. Heck, most IDE disks these days only last a few years so a CF can't be worse. (which is why I raid-1 all my ide data disks) -brad From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 23 10:12:46 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:12:46 -0500 Subject: In defense of Tony Duell, was Re: eBay idiocy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <051A366B-E498-4D13-90A9-0CE16C747D14@neurotica.com> On Jan 22, 2007, at 5:54 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > So if nobody objects (and FWIW I've receiced not one message that > supports Sellam's view), I'll carry on posting as I've always done. No objections here. I always learn good stuff from your posts. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From kelly at catcorner.org Tue Jan 23 10:23:32 2007 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:23:32 -0500 Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B1494@MEOW.catcorner.org> The drive in my Tandy Model 6000 has +5, +12 and +24 connected to it (pins 5, 4, and 1). The schematic in the service manual I have shows 4 as NC and a 7812 providing the 12v from the 24v line. The specs for the drive in the service manual do not mention +12 on pin 4 at all. The scematic at bitsavers isn't a lot of help. I don't have the drive here in front of me. Does anyone have one where they can verify the connections from the AMP power connector to see if pin 4 actually goes anywhere on theirs? From mtapley at swri.edu Tue Jan 23 10:17:05 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:17:05 -0600 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: All, a while ago was posted here a recommendation for a set of security bits. I have at least two items that I can't (reversibly) get into without them - one is a power supply unit for a PowerBook 3400, which needs a tamperproof torx (I think). What's an affordable (in the Duell sense) set of tools that anyone can recommend to me? I'm hoping to get tamperproof Torx, triangle-head, etc. in several different sizes, so I can keep the whole set together and just grab it when someone assumes I'm about to kill myself. -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jan 23 10:30:41 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:30:41 -0600 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <14d501c73ef2$b1e28a50$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha><5.1.0.14.2.20070122201724.04af09f8@mail.30below.com> <45B5869E.6090300@oldskool.org> <14d501c73ef2$b1e28a50$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <45B63831.4020507@oldskool.org> Alexandre Souza wrote: >>> CF has unlimited (or almost nearly-ish) reads. Limited *writes*. Most of >> ...with the exception of IBM Microdrives, which are indeed tiny hard >> drives. I have a 340MB one from 4 years ago still going strong. > > A microdrive shouldn't be called a compactFLASH card, since it has no > flash memory :o) Not my problem :-) It's a CFII card and behaves like it (although reads are slower than true flash) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 10:43:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 08:43:21 -0800 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2007 at 13:33, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > I was lazily browsing the 'web when I came across this one - apparently > a project to create a storage medium with extremely long life times. > > http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/300636_msftimmortal22.html Microsoft is trying to patent the gold-plated disc attached to Voyager 30 years ago? I hope they cite it as "prior art"! Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 10:50:34 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 08:50:34 -0800 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <14d601c73ef2$b20fdbe0$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org>, <14d601c73ef2$b20fdbe0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <45B5CC5A.3474.3AC45B42@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2007 at 10:30, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Who told you? You can run "doorway" or do a pipe of ctty to comx: but I > don't remember how. Maybe mode ctty>com1: ? How about MODE CON:=COMx: ? (IIRC) And there were numerous facilities for BBS sysops to run commands remotely; and there were packagesthat periodically scanned the (text) display buffer and set VT-100 style updates out the com port. And there's always PC-anywhere; Remote and about a gazillion other utilities. You need only a display card installed--you can leave the monitor off. Cheers, Chuck From fryers at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 10:51:33 2007 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:51:33 +0000 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 23/01/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Jan 2007 at 13:33, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > > > I was lazily browsing the 'web when I came across this one - apparently > > a project to create a storage medium with extremely long life times. > > > > http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/300636_msftimmortal22.html > > Microsoft is trying to patent the gold-plated disc attached to > Voyager 30 years ago? I hope they cite it as "prior art"! I seem to remember the movie, "Ten things to do in Denver when your Dead," has shows the concept of saving images and sounds (in the form of video tape) for replay to other after the death of an individual. Although I have to show my ignorance as I don't know the exact content of the patent application. Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Jan 23 10:54:46 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:54:46 -0000 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <00f501c73f0f$31b2cfd0$1404010a@uatempname> Mark Tapley wrote: > All, > a while ago was posted here a recommendation for a set of > security bits. I have at least two items that I can't (reversibly) > get into without them - one is a power supply unit for a PowerBook > 3400, which needs a tamperproof torx (I think). > What's an affordable (in the Duell sense) set of tools that > anyone can recommend to me? I'm hoping to get tamperproof Torx, > triangle-head, etc. in several different sizes, so I can keep the > whole set together and just grab it when someone assumes I'm about to > kill myself. I've found the security bit sets that sell for ?10 or so in the UK (and have maybe 30 bits) to be quite adequate (i.e. I've not found that they break themselves nor do they damage the screws I'm trying to undo). They tend to contain a reasonable range of Torx, a few Tri-Wings and others whose name I forget :-) plus the usual flat blade, cross-point and pozidrive. However, for computers and especially game console use you'll probably want screwdrivers (and perhaps even extra long shaft screwdrivers) rather than short, stubby bits. I needed to get into a digital camera recently and the easiest way acquiring the required tri-wing driver was to buy one that was advertised as being suitable to open a Gameboy Advance. I've since found sets of security Torx screwdrivers (T6-T15) with 75mm shafts for reasonable prices; I've not found a set of screwdrivers with as wide a range of styles as the sets of security bits I have although I think all the ones I looked for were available individually. If you are going to be prising open mobile phones (a cause even more lost than my digital camera I suspect!) then you may need to go down to T5 (I can find as small as T3 online, although they are not security Torx and I'm not sure I could see well enough to find such a screw-head!!) Antonio From fernande at internet1.net Tue Jan 23 10:55:02 2007 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:55:02 -0500 Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036722@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D036722@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <45B63DE6.8000103@internet1.net> Billy Pettit wrote: > C Fernandez wrote: > > I've been wondering the same thing. My guess is that what I would > normally call "wire cutters", just wont work for some of the picky types > on the list ..... like Tony and Toth :-) > > Chad > > ---------------------------------------------- > > I have to disagree. So you think, they would like what I call wire cutters? Re-read my statement, I didn't say they were picky without reason, I was just poking fun at them. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From jim.isbell at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 11:23:29 2007 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:23:29 -0600 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) when they changed the law. On 1/23/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Jan 2007 at 13:33, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > > > I was lazily browsing the 'web when I came across this one - apparently > > a project to create a storage medium with extremely long life times. > > > > http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/300636_msftimmortal22.html > > Microsoft is trying to patent the gold-plated disc attached to > Voyager 30 years ago? I hope they cite it as "prior art"! > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 23 11:31:28 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:31:28 -0600 Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: <45B5CC5A.3474.3AC45B42@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45B1181C.50503@bitsavers.org> <14d601c73ef2$b20fdbe0$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B5CC5A.3474.3AC45B42@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070123112910.08878e18@mail> At 10:50 AM 1/23/2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: >How about MODE CON:=COMx: ? (IIRC) >And there were numerous facilities for BBS sysops to run commands >remotely; and there were packages that periodically scanned the (text) >display buffer and set VT-100 style updates out the com port. And >there's always PC-anywhere; Remote and about a gazillion other >utilities. I seem to remember that simple MODE commands don't cut it when it comes to redirection and cursor behavior. I remember using a function within my ol' fave Pro-YAM that did a good job of hosting the DOS prompt out the serial port to my Amiga. I think I could also dial in to one of the machines to get to the other. Good times. - John From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Jan 23 11:38:44 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:38:44 -0000 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <00f801c73f15$566ebef0$1404010a@uatempname> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first > with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) > when they changed the law. I don't believe that's correct even in the US. I think the USPO will only search the database of existing patents for prior art (along with one or two other places). You can still invalidate a patent by showing prior art (e.g. sales literature, technical manuals etc.) just as you can invalidate it by showing that the idea would have been "obvious to one skilled in the art". It's just that both of those options are expensive even if you win and often a company targetted by a lawsuit will pay licencing fees just because it is cheaper to do so. Antonio From lbickley at bickleywest.com Tue Jan 23 11:42:45 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 09:42:45 -0800 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200701230942.45883.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Tuesday 23 January 2007 09:23, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first > with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) > when they changed the law. Sorry, not true. A large portion of my business (and Sellam's) is based on the use of prior art in patent litigation suits. I love killing patents with prior art :-) Lyle KF6CGI > On 1/23/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 23 Jan 2007 at 13:33, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > > > I was lazily browsing the 'web when I came across this one - apparently > > > a project to create a storage medium with extremely long life times. > > > > > > http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/300636_msftimmortal22.html > > > > Microsoft is trying to patent the gold-plated disc attached to > > Voyager 30 years ago? I hope they cite it as "prior art"! > > > > Cheers, > > Chuck -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From wizard at voyager.net Tue Jan 23 11:41:52 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 12:41:52 -0500 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1169574112.12044.54.camel@linux.site> On Tue, 2007-01-23 at 11:23 -0600, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first > with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) > when they changed the law. That's about the proper summary statement. I think I'll file the serial numbers off that, and use it myself! (You didn't patent that, did you?) Ahem. Do keep in mind, however, what a patent is, and what it does. It is basically a contract with the government. You GIVE the idea into the public domain -- you have to supply all relevant diagrams, source code, or whatever, to be able to re-create the process being patented -- and in return, the government will prevent anyone else making money from your idea.... (wait for it) ... for 17 years. Unless this is a scam from the get-go, what is the point in trying to patent an "eternal" protocol, if protection only lasts 17 years? As I see it, about the time anyone wants to read these "eternal" systems, the technology to produce readers will be in the public domain. Around the time it would be successful, it becomes free. Can that be all there is? I have a lot more respect for the marketing arm of Microsoft than to think they just blew it. Could it be they are so focused on the next quarter's profits? THAT is the mystery: How will M$ make a profit from this after 17 years. Are they going to run a zombie version of MSN? (Some would say it *IS* a zombie network now...) Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jan 23 11:35:56 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:35:56 -0600 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> Mark Tapley wrote: > What's an affordable (in the Duell sense) set of tools that anyone > can recommend to me? I'm hoping to get tamperproof Torx, triangle-head, > etc. in several different sizes Watch out for equipment where the screws are down long narrow holes. Typically such equipment will expect you to have a screwdriver with the appropriate tip, whereas most tool "sets" will come with one handle and an array of bits. Often the adapter end of the handle is too wide to fit down those long narrow holes... I've got various torx bits onto which I've cut a slit across the top, so that I can use the bit with a regular flat-bladed screwdriver in order to get access to tight spots - but I've only done that because I happened to have all the bits already. If I were buying a set of tools from scratch I'd make sure I had a separate tool for each type of tip. > I can keep the whole set together > and just grab it when someone assumes I'm about to kill myself. They might still do that, but at least you can threaten to poke their eyes out :-) cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 11:45:54 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 09:45:54 -0800 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain>, <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <45B5D952.28819.3AF703B6@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2007 at 11:23, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first > with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) > when they changed the law. Another sign that the bean counters are winning I used a checksum in the last bit of code I wrote. To whom do I send royalty payments? ;( Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 12:22:47 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:22:47 -0800 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org>, , <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45B5E1F7.15002.3B18CC70@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2007 at 11:35, Jules Richardson wrote: > Watch out for equipment where the screws are down long narrow holes. Typically > such equipment will expect you to have a screwdriver with the appropriate tip, > whereas most tool "sets" will come with one handle and an array of bits. Often > the adapter end of the handle is too wide to fit down those long narrow holes... I've got a couple of pieces of equipment with security Torx-heads with the screw located down a long hole. Those little bits are useless. Better than a set of bits is a set of full drivers or at least a handle with interchangeable blades. Wiha's got a nice set of the latter that includes security Torx. Cheers, Chuck From jim.isbell at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 12:25:06 2007 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 12:25:06 -0600 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: <200701230942.45883.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> <200701230942.45883.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: Have it as you will, but the law was changed a few years ago, and I noticed it because I have several "prior art" claims I could make. When I saw it I realized that it was no longer a defense to say "I meant to apply, but just dint get around to it, and here is the documentation to prove I thought of it first." So I threw out all my notebooks. Well most of them anyway. But its your call if you want to waste the time. On 1/23/07, Lyle Bickley wrote: > On Tuesday 23 January 2007 09:23, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > > "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first > > with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) > > when they changed the law. > > Sorry, not true. A large portion of my business (and Sellam's) is based on the > use of prior art in patent litigation suits. I love killing patents with > prior art :-) > > Lyle > KF6CGI > > > On 1/23/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > On 23 Jan 2007 at 13:33, Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > > > > I was lazily browsing the 'web when I came across this one - apparently > > > > a project to create a storage medium with extremely long life times. > > > > > > > > http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/300636_msftimmortal22.html > > > > > > Microsoft is trying to patent the gold-plated disc attached to > > > Voyager 30 years ago? I hope they cite it as "prior art"! > > > > > > Cheers, > > > Chuck > > -- > Lyle Bickley > Bickley Consulting West Inc. > Mountain View, CA > http://bickleywest.com > > "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 12:35:38 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:35:38 -0800 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org>, , <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2007 at 11:35, Jules Richardson wrote: > Mark Tapley wrote: > > What's an affordable (in the Duell sense) set of tools that anyone > > can recommend to me? I'm hoping to get tamperproof Torx, triangle-head, > > etc. in several different sizes I probably should add one of my big gripes: Torx-plus (5-lobed star) tools. It's much easier (and cheaper) to buy illegal drugs than to get these things. You have to sign a statement attesting to your being authorized to use them; the cost is about $10 per bit (I'm not aware of any "sets" being offered) and a processing fee for your application is usually tacked on to the bill. One of the tools sales reps told me that this is mostly due to the hoops that the patent holder (Textron) makes its licensees jump through. As I understand the situation, Textron actually manufactures these things; tool sellers merely distribute them. Not that Textron tools are junk--I've got a long-shaft original Torx T15 driver from Textron that's very well made. (Pssst, Hey buddy, wanna buy some really hot Torx-plus bits?) Cheers, Chuck From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Jan 23 13:39:37 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:39:37 -0000 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <00fe01c73f26$396620d0$1404010a@uatempname> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > Have it as you will, but the law was changed a few years ago, and I > noticed it because I have several "prior art" claims I could make. > When I saw it I realized that it was no longer a defense to say "I > meant to apply, but just dint get around to it, and here is the > documentation to prove I thought of it first." So I threw out all my > notebooks. Well most of them anyway. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2100_2128.htm http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2100_2129.htm http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/2200_2202.htm#sect22 02 All these suggest you can say "here is some prior art" and have it entered into the published patent. This doesn't immediately invalidate it (you still presumably need a court case for that!) but it is free! Antonio From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jan 23 13:56:53 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:56:53 -0500 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:23:29 CST." Message-ID: <200701231956.l0NJur1F019136@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Jim Isbell, W5JAI" wrote: >"Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first >with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) >when they changed the law. Recent conversations with an engineer who works for lawyers finding "prior art" would indicate there is some flaw in this comment. They're certainly paying him regularly to find it, so it must have some value in fighting patents. (and I suspect that sort of thing causes some of the "does anyone have a copy of frozzbozz version 2.0 disk + manual" traffic on this list) -brad From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 15:02:17 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:02:17 -0500 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org> <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > I probably should add one of my big gripes: Torx-plus (5-lobed star) > tools. While I have seen a lot of security heads in use, I have never seen anything that actually uses these Torx mutants. Have manufacturers been shying away from them? What uses them? I would not be suprised if there are already Chinese knockoffs. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 15:41:07 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 13:41:07 -0800 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <45B61073.22284.3BCE60DB@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2007 at 16:02, William Donzelli wrote: > > I probably should add one of my big gripes: Torx-plus (5-lobed star) > > tools. > > While I have seen a lot of security heads in use, I have never seen > anything that actually uses these Torx mutants. Have manufacturers > been shying away from them? What uses them? I've seen them in only one place--holding together a Seagate SATA external hard drive box. Got so frustrated I went and ground down a 6-lobed Torx security bit so it would fit, after a fashion (one lobe only). Threw the damned screws away and replaced them with phillips- head. If that hadn't worked, I'dve used a drill on them, then a hacksaw on the case (I was REALLY peeved). The sales guy at the local fastener store had never seen anything like them. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 23 13:41:33 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:41:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20070122212154.0396bbf0@mail.30below.com> from "Roger Merchberger" at Jan 22, 7 10:36:48 pm Message-ID: I feel I should repsond to this part, since it does have quite a bit to do with classic computing. > Your personal preference for only using computers you can rebuild for the > next 100 years is so pervasive that quite often it colors your posts and > advice to the point that it can seem quite condescending. To be perfectly > honest, I've been offended (indirectly) on more than a few occasions by > the... vitriol... that you may or may not even know is present in many of I apologise. This is certainly _not_ my intention. > your posts WRT either 1) computers that can't be troubleshot at the gate > level, or 2) people who cannot troubleshoot computers at the gate level. OK, let me raise a few points. Proper troubleshooting -- meaning making measurements and thinking about them before making any changes is, IMHO, the only way to end up with a reliable working machine. We've had this debate times before, and I really don't want to start it up again. And in the case of classic computers, assemnbly-level spares may well be unavaialble other than by canivalising another example of the machine. Which is not a Good Thing. OK, some components may only be avaialble that way too, but by taking the smallest possible part each time it means you may be able to use the same donor machine to repair several others. I think _everyone_ here could do component-level troubleshooting if they wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical reasoning, and I think everone here can think logically. This last part may explain why I'm so fanatical about it. I find it fun. I like solving puzzles. I like logic puzzles particularly. And that's exactly what rtoubleshooting should be. A puzzle. It's like detective work. You gather the clues, think about them, and find the cluprit. Fortunately for me, the rsults of being wrong are somewhat less serious than sending an innocent man to the gallows ;-) I guess troubelshooting is one reason that I mess around with old hardware. I do enjoy it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 23 13:30:54 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:30:54 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <45B4FC41.10026.37977C91@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 22, 7 06:02:41 pm Message-ID: > One thing that IBM did that really toasted me back then was messing > up on the 8237 DMA controller hookup such that memory-to-memory DMA > didn't work. It could have made the whole business of extended > memory use a lot simpler. I still think they should have used the 8089 'I/O coprocessor' which was essentially a fancy DMA chip. That would have, for example, allowed DMA transders to cross page bounadaries. OK, there necver was an 80289 (or whatever), hut you can bet Intel would have made one if there'd been a demand (read : It would have gone into the IBM PC/AT). -tony From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Tue Jan 23 15:48:19 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:48:19 -0500 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: References: <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com> <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org> <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070123164117.04516008@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that William Donzelli may have mentioned these words: >>I probably should add one of my big gripes: Torx-plus (5-lobed star) >>tools. > >While I have seen a lot of security heads in use, I have never seen >anything that actually uses these Torx mutants. The original Leatherman Wave. Despite the fact IMHO it's the best multitool on the planet, it *really sucks* when you can't even tighten the joints yourself!!! Ungh. My Leatherman Wave of 3+ years just went on walkabout (that's how I've lost most of them - someone else wanted it worse than me!!!) so I had to purchase a new one - and now they use "standard" 6-lug Torx security bits. > Have manufacturers >been shying away from them? What uses them? I doubt anything in the computer world uses 'em, and other than my old Wave, I've never seen them used on anything else. The Leatherman Corp. quit using them, so maybe the NDA and associated crap was too tightly controlled? >I would not be suprised if there are already Chinese knockoffs. Back when I was actively looking for them, I couldn't find one. Haven't looked in a couple years, tho. Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers _??_ zmerch at 30below.com (?||?) If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead _)(_ disarmament should *not* be your first career choice. From ggs at shiresoft.com Tue Jan 23 16:04:58 2007 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:04:58 -0800 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B6868A.5030705@shiresoft.com> Tony Duell wrote: >> One thing that IBM did that really toasted me back then was messing >> up on the 8237 DMA controller hookup such that memory-to-memory DMA >> didn't work. It could have made the whole business of extended >> memory use a lot simpler. >> > > I still think they should have used the 8089 'I/O coprocessor' which was > essentially a fancy DMA chip. That would have, for example, allowed DMA > transders to cross page bounadaries. > I agree it would have been nice, except it wasn't available when the PC was being designed. Heck, the 8087 which appeared *before* the 8089 wasn't even available. I wrote the 8087 support for the IBM Fortran compiler (actually a set of library routines) to prove to IBM management that there was benefit to having the 8087 as an option (they actually wanted to remove the socket). And they needed something that would actually *use* the 8087. > OK, there necver was an 80289 (or whatever), hut you can bet Intel would > have made one if there'd been a demand (read : It would have gone into > the IBM PC/AT). > The '286 was messed up enough that no one wanted to add additional junk and risk the PC/AT schedule. Intel was doing well enough just trying to get a working '286 going (and caused enough delays that IBM was *not* happy) and it still shipped with "broken" '286 chips. Ahh, I remember the sigma-sigma marked '286 chips! :-P -- TTFN - Guy From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 16:08:06 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:08:06 -0800 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: References: <45B4FC41.10026.37977C91@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 22, 7 06:02:41 pm, Message-ID: <45B616C6.5488.3BE712D6@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2007 at 19:30, Tony Duell wrote: > I still think they should have used the 8089 'I/O coprocessor' which was > essentially a fancy DMA chip. That would have, for example, allowed DMA > transders to cross page bounadaries. The 8089 was an odd duck, but the closest thing that Intel had going to a smart channel processor. IIRC, the 8089 had but two DMA channels, which migt have created some problems seeing that the XT had 4 and the AT had 7. I would have been delighted with something like an "82237" which would have given 24- or 32-bit contiguous addressability. Since the 80186 was already in the works at that time, I imagine that Intel didn't feel any particular pressing need to continute the IOP line. It's my understanding that the 8089 went over like a lead dirigible. I don't know of a single consumer-level product that used it. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 23 16:03:36 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:03:36 -0700 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:41:33 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > And in the case of classic computers, assemnbly-level spares may well be > unavaialble other than by canivalising another example of the machine. > Which is not a Good Thing. Ironically Tony, you've attempted to defend your position while putting out another example of the bias being complained about. The bottom line is that you state the above as if it were some scientifically verifiable axiom, when in fact, its just your opinion. I'm not putting any normative value on the opinion itself, but you must recognize that just because you consider something to be a "Good Thing" (or the converse) doesn't mean that other people must share this same point of view. I think anyone after a while of reading your posts understands your position and there's no point in either attacking nor defending it. It simply is your position, and that's fine. But at the same time you must recognize that not everyone shares your view. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 23 12:31:02 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:31:02 +0000 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org> <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45B65466.10908@gjcp.net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Mark Tapley wrote: >> What's an affordable (in the Duell sense) set of tools that anyone >> can recommend to me? I'm hoping to get tamperproof Torx, >> triangle-head, etc. in several different sizes > > Watch out for equipment where the screws are down long narrow holes. > Typically such equipment will expect you to have a screwdriver with the > appropriate tip, whereas most tool "sets" will come with one handle and > an array of bits. Often the adapter end of the handle is too wide to > fit down those long narrow holes... Which is where you buy a bunch of el-cheapo 1/4" extensions and some rod, and spark up the welder. Gordon From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 23 12:43:39 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:43:39 +0000 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org>, , <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B6575B.9060508@gjcp.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Jan 2007 at 11:35, Jules Richardson wrote: > >> Mark Tapley wrote: >>> What's an affordable (in the Duell sense) set of tools that anyone >>> can recommend to me? I'm hoping to get tamperproof Torx, triangle-head, >>> etc. in several different sizes > > I probably should add one of my big gripes: Torx-plus (5-lobed star) > tools. It's much easier (and cheaper) to buy illegal drugs than to > get these things. You have to sign a statement attesting to your > being authorized to use them; the cost is about $10 per bit (I'm not > aware of any "sets" being offered) and a processing fee for your > application is usually tacked on to the bill. Really? I got hold of a couple for stripping down a gearbox for about a fiver from my local tool shop. They do tend to carry some pretty specialised stuff though. Gordon From jrkeys at jrkeys.cnc.net Tue Jan 23 15:15:47 2007 From: jrkeys at jrkeys.cnc.net (Keys) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:15:47 -0600 (CST) Subject: IBM Displaywriter In-Reply-To: <829043.23560.qm@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200701232115.QAA13841@courageux.cnc.net> ---- General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts wrote: > > I can see why you might need 2. Apparently you like to > do everything twice LOL LOL! > --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > wrote: > > Our museum is looking for one or two of these, where > are they located? > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: overfie at attglobal.net > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > Sent: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:00 PM > > Subject: IBM Displaywriter > > > > > > Arthur Gardner > > Gardner Business > > I just read your message of July 21 to Jim Kearney > looking to purchase an > > IBM Displaywriter. > > I am the owner of two IBM Displaywriters w/a shared > printer and desire to > > find a home for them. > > Are you still interested or know of anyone who has > an interest? > > Ralph Overfield > > roverfield at pacbell.net > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > > Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of > storage and industry-leading spam and email virus > protection. > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > We won't tell. Get more on shows you hate to love > (and love to hate): Yahoo! TV's Guilty Pleasures list. > http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/265 > Two is good for backup, as for the email one my ISP's is having problems From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jan 23 15:19:15 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:19:15 +0000 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org> <45B6477C.2050804@yahoo.co.uk> <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45B67BD3.8030108@gjcp.net> William Donzelli wrote: >> I probably should add one of my big gripes: Torx-plus (5-lobed star) >> tools. > > While I have seen a lot of security heads in use, I have never seen > anything that actually uses these Torx mutants. Have manufacturers > been shying away from them? What uses them? > > I would not be suprised if there are already Chinese knockoffs. I've seen them on VW brake calipers. Gordon From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 23 16:34:04 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:34:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070123143138.I29995@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first > with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) > when they changed the law. Has anybody filed for chiseling data into stone? How about flaking flint to get a sharp edge? How about creating combustion (FIRE (tm)) From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 16:47:51 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:47:51 -0800 Subject: Tools - security bit set? In-Reply-To: <45B6575B.9060508@gjcp.net> References: <200701230113.l0N1COJ7099773@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <45B5E4FA.21982.3B248FA4@cclist.sydex.com>, <45B6575B.9060508@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <45B62017.6425.3C0B775C@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2007 at 18:43, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Really? I got hold of a couple for stripping down a gearbox for about a > fiver from my local tool shop. They do tend to carry some pretty > specialised stuff though. Really? The 5-lobed (not 6) security Torx? They're near unobtainium in my neck of the woods. Cheers, Chck From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jan 23 16:51:54 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:51:54 -0500 Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power Message-ID: <01C73F17.49C08560@mse-d03> ------------------Original Message: Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:23:32 -0500 From: "Kelly Leavitt" Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power To: Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B1494 at MEOW.catcorner.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" The drive in my Tandy Model 6000 has +5, +12 and +24 connected to it (pins 5, 4, and 1). The schematic in the service manual I have shows 4 as NC and a 7812 providing the 12v from the 24v line. The specs for the drive in the service manual do not mention +12 on pin 4 at all. The scematic at bitsavers isn't a lot of help. I don't have the drive here in front of me. Does anyone have one where they can verify the connections from the AMP power connector to see if pin 4 actually goes anywhere on theirs? -----------------Reply: The drive in front of me corresponds to the service manual, i.e.: AMP PCB P7 1 1 - +24V 2 2 - GND 3 3 - GND 6 4 - GND 5 5 - +5V 4 NC However, the schematic & PCB have a jumper position (LV) which bypasses the 12 V regulator, so presumably there was an option to omit the LM340T-12, C6 & R1 and connect +12 directly from pin 4 of the AMP connector to where R1 would be. Looks like there was also an option (on the schematic, not the drive) to use pin 4 (and/or pin 3) of the AMP connector to sense when a disk was inserted and turn power to the drive on/off. BTW, on the drive the fuse F1 is in the main +24V line, whereas the schematic shows it only in the branch going to the 12V regulator. Hope that's clearer than mud & helps. mike From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 23 16:53:59 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:53:59 +0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 23/1/07 22:03, "Richard" wrote: > > In article , > ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > >> And in the case of classic computers, assemnbly-level spares may well be >> unavaialble other than by canivalising another example of the machine. >> Which is not a Good Thing. > > Ironically Tony, you've attempted to defend your position while > putting out another example of the bias being complained about. > > The bottom line is that you state the above as if it were some > scientifically verifiable axiom, when in fact, its just your opinion. It's not just Tony's opinion - it's one that's shared by me; I work for a Field Service company and the lack of possible component level repair is a constant pain for us in this 'just swap it out' day and age purely because some of the components are easily available but the knowledge, schematics and service books are gone to the hills and most of us are trained electronic engineers. Whether you think this is practical or not isn't important because there are people out there paying real money to have that sort of service because they need it. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 23 16:57:14 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:57:14 -0700 Subject: HP 730 in LA Message-ID: He also has an unspecified X terminal with it, which is what got my attention... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 23 17:30:56 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:30:56 -0700 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:53:59 +0000. Message-ID: In article , Adrian Graham writes: > It's not just Tony's opinion - it's one that's shared by me; [...] Fine. Its shared by two or more people, but its still an opinion and not an axiomatically derived fact. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jim.isbell at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 17:39:43 2007 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:39:43 -0600 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: <20070123143138.I29995@shell.lmi.net> References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> <20070123143138.I29995@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: I believe those items fall under the other heading mentioned, "obvious". Also, I doubt there would be much money to be made from the first two of those patents......another motivation for seeking for patents. As for the one that has commercial possibilities, creating fire, that would not be patentable except as it applied to a particular method. Fire itself is not an invention its a natural process of decay. The commercial methods have all been patented in one way or another...i.e. Internal combustion gasoline engine (patent has run out), diesel engine (patent has run out), etc. On 1/23/07, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > > "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first > > with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) > > when they changed the law. > > Has anybody filed for chiseling data into stone? > How about flaking flint to get a sharp edge? > How about creating combustion (FIRE (tm)) > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 23 17:48:57 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:48:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: from Tony Duell at "Jan 23, 7 07:41:33 pm" Message-ID: <200701232348.l0NNmvxp012162@floodgap.com> > I think _everyone_ here could do component-level troubleshooting if they > wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical reasoning, and I think everone > here can think logically. This implies that those of us who can't or don't do it are lazy, and I resent that implication. I am firmly aware of my limits when it comes to troubleshooting, I'm all thumbs with a soldering iron, and I don't have the sort of day job that gives me the time to become acquainted at this level. I can do many small tasks and do basic troubleshooting, but I think it is a bit much to expect everyone to perform at your level, especially those of us who do not have employ in an engineering field. Considering I do have a doctorate (MD), I don't think this has to do with sloth on my part. I'm sure this is not what you meant to say, but it can certainly come across in that fashion. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -- Milton Freedman ------------ From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 23 17:50:42 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:50:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> <20070123143138.I29995@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20070123154632.S29995@shell.lmi.net> They weren't considered "obvious" at the time. (note also, that I proposed patenting "creation of combustion", NOT patenting the existence of combustion (THAT I only trademarked)) EVERYTHING is "obvious" after some years. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > I believe those items fall under the other heading mentioned, > "obvious". Also, I doubt there would be much money to be made from > the first two of those patents......another motivation for seeking for > patents. As for the one that has commercial possibilities, creating > fire, that would not be patentable except as it applied to a > particular method. Fire itself is not an invention its a natural > process of decay. The commercial methods have all been patented in > one way or another...i.e. Internal combustion gasoline engine (patent > has run out), diesel engine (patent has run out), etc. > > On 1/23/07, Fred Cisin wrote: > > On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > > > "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first > > > with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) > > > when they changed the law. > > > > Has anybody filed for chiseling data into stone? > > How about flaking flint to get a sharp edge? > > How about creating combustion (FIRE (tm)) From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 23 17:55:56 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:55:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: from Adrian Graham at "Jan 23, 7 10:53:59 pm" Message-ID: <200701232355.l0NNtuDQ012282@floodgap.com> > > The bottom line is that you state the above as if it were some > > scientifically verifiable axiom, when in fact, its just your opinion. > > It's not just Tony's opinion - it's one that's shared by me; I work for a > Field Service company and the lack of possible component level repair is a > constant pain for us in this 'just swap it out' day and age purely because > some of the components are easily available but the knowledge, schematics > and service books are gone to the hills and most of us are trained > electronic engineers. > > Whether you think this is practical or not isn't important because there are > people out there paying real money to have that sort of service because they > need it. I am glad and relieved that there are persons such as Tony and yourself with that aptitude, and I might mention, *job description*. After all, as you mention, there are people paying you for that level of expertise. I don't think it is a coincidence that you and (IIRC) Tony work in that profession and thus have daily exposure to investigating and resolving those sorts of issues at that level of detail. In that sense, the repairmen/women who do not graduate to that skill set certainly have less of an excuse. However, those of us who do not deal on a daily basis, or even weekly, with this sort of thing do not have the time in grade that you or Tony would. That makes a difference. If I'm working 10 hours a day seeing patients, and deal with my Commodores on the weekend, and few other systems simply because I haven't the time, money or space, I think it's only to be expected that I will have inferior skills in this area. But I agree with you about those in your profession with this problem, and I do think that's a shame. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Just another Sojourner of the Dispersion (1 Peter 1:1) --------------------- From jim.isbell at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 17:58:01 2007 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:58:01 -0600 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: <20070123154632.S29995@shell.lmi.net> References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> <20070123143138.I29995@shell.lmi.net> <20070123154632.S29995@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: But I don't think the patent office was open yet when those "inventions" were made? Now they cannot be patented because they are obvious.... On 1/23/07, Fred Cisin wrote: > They weren't considered "obvious" at the time. > (note also, that I proposed patenting "creation of combustion", NOT > patenting the existence of combustion (THAT I only trademarked)) > > EVERYTHING is "obvious" after some years. > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > > On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > > I believe those items fall under the other heading mentioned, > > "obvious". Also, I doubt there would be much money to be made from > > the first two of those patents......another motivation for seeking for > > patents. As for the one that has commercial possibilities, creating > > fire, that would not be patentable except as it applied to a > > particular method. Fire itself is not an invention its a natural > > process of decay. The commercial methods have all been patented in > > one way or another...i.e. Internal combustion gasoline engine (patent > > has run out), diesel engine (patent has run out), etc. > > > > On 1/23/07, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > > > > "Prior Art" has no standing anymore. Its now, who gets there first > > > > with the patent. Been that way for about 5 years now (maybe longer) > > > > when they changed the law. > > > > > > Has anybody filed for chiseling data into stone? > > > How about flaking flint to get a sharp edge? > > > How about creating combustion (FIRE (tm)) > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jan 23 18:17:04 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 19:17:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <200701232348.l0NNmvxp012162@floodgap.com> References: <200701232348.l0NNmvxp012162@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200701240021.TAA22840@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> I think _everyone_ here could do component-level troubleshooting if >> they wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical reasoning, and I >> think everone here can think logically. > This implies that those of us who can't or don't do it are lazy, Well...perhaps, but that's not how it struct/strikes me; rather, to me all it says that those of us who don't don't want to. Now, *that* may be because we're lazy, true, but it could equally well be because we don't enjoy debugging as much as Tony does and would rather, say, go cook something new, or dig weeds in the garden, or play chess, or what-have-you. Or even because we consider ourselves incompetent to do anything with the result if we *did* believe we'd isolated the failure (which, for example, is mostly true for me for anything finer-pitch than than 0.1" through-hole DIP parts). /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 23 18:23:07 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:23:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> <20070123143138.I29995@shell.lmi.net> <20070123154632.S29995@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20070123162232.K29995@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > But I don't think the patent office was open yet when those > "inventions" were made? Now they cannot be patented because they are > obvious.... Good point. I guess that I'll have to file quicker next time. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jan 23 18:43:29 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:43:29 -0800 Subject: Component level repair Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D03673C@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Tony Duell wrote: OK, let me raise a few points. I think _everyone_ here could do component-level troubleshooting if they wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical reasoning, and I think everone here can think logically. This last part may explain why I'm so fanatical about it. I find it fun. I like solving puzzles. I like logic puzzles particularly. And that's exactly what rtoubleshooting should be. A puzzle. It's like detective work. You gather the clues, think about them, and find the cluprit. Fortunately for me, the rsults of being wrong are somewhat less serious than sending an innocent man to the gallows ;-) I guess troubelshooting is one reason that I mess around with old hardware. I do enjoy it. -tony ------------------------------------------------- Tony, There are different motivations for different people. I don't share your love of fixing things for the sake of fixing them. After 45 years of repairing electronic problems for a living, I'd like a break. Puzzles are fine for minor recreation, but a full time diet is very boring. Broken malfunctioning computers have gotten old. Time for some fun. I buy new computers so I can USE them. I want to have pwerful tools to create, research, edit, post. I buy new TVs so I DON'T have to fix them. I'd rather watch programs on them. I don't have to prove to myself or anyone else that I can troubleshoot an old circuit. Or a new one for that matter. Same for cars and cameras. My pleasure is in driving someplace I haven't been and experiencing it. Or visiting friends. Staying home and overhauling the engine is not a pleasure. Buying a camera to fix it is not a joyous thing. The creative part is in the picture taking. So I DON'T agree that everyone on the list should be able to troubleshoot. It is a minor facet of the hobby of retrocomputing, not the raison d'etre of the hobby. Billy From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 19:09:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:09:21 -0800 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: <20070123154632.S29995@shell.lmi.net> References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain>, , <20070123154632.S29995@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45B64141.6596.3C8D04B4@cclist.sydex.com> I make the claim of a device to detect radio-frequency signals. Said device employs a mineral (e.g. galena) and a method of making electrical contact to a sensitive portion of said mineral. Said method may include, but is not limited to a fine wire or other electrically conductive material. There. I've invented the crystal set. Cheers, Chuck From jhoger at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 19:29:21 2007 From: jhoger at gmail.com (John R.) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:29:21 -0800 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <14fd01c73ef3$68d31ef0$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <20070123002859.88085.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <14fd01c73ef3$68d31ef0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: There's a subproject of the One Laptop Per Child project that is creating a virtualized swap file with compressed swapped pages. Then you could swap to a RAM filesystem. It would work well for uncompressed data but obviously it wouldn't work well for jpgs, pngs, etc. The question would be how much precious RAM to dedicate as swap. Or maybe you could swap to a network file system (slow, but might allow some programs to run that otherwise would not run at all). -- John. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 23 19:52:32 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:52:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D03673C@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <322555.18581.qm@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> --- Billy Pettit wrote: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > OK, let me raise a few points. > > I think _everyone_ here could do component-level > troubleshooting if they > wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical > reasoning, and I think everone > here can think logically. > > This last part may explain why I'm so fanatical > about it. I find it fun. > I like solving puzzles. I like logic puzzles > particularly. And that's > exactly what rtoubleshooting should be. A puzzle. > It's like detective > work. You gather the clues, think about them, and > find the cluprit. > Fortunately for me, the rsults of being wrong are > somewhat less serious > than sending an innocent man to the gallows ;-) > > I guess troubelshooting is one reason that I mess > around with old > hardware. I do enjoy it. > > -tony > > ------------------------------------------------- > > Tony, > > There are different motivations for different > people. I don't share your > love of fixing things for the sake of fixing them. > After 45 years of > repairing electronic problems for a living, I'd like > a break. Puzzles are > fine for minor recreation, but a full time diet is > very boring. Broken > malfunctioning computers have gotten old. Time for > some fun. > > I buy new computers so I can USE them. I want to > have pwerful tools to > create, research, edit, post. I buy new TVs so I > DON'T have to fix them. > I'd rather watch programs on them. I don't have to > prove to myself or > anyone else that I can troubleshoot an old circuit. > Or a new one for that > matter. > > Same for cars and cameras. My pleasure is in > driving someplace I haven't > been and experiencing it. Or visiting friends. > Staying home and overhauling > the engine is not a pleasure. Buying a camera to > fix it is not a joyous > thing. The creative part is in the picture taking. > > So I DON'T agree that everyone on the list should be > able to troubleshoot. > It is a minor facet of the hobby of retrocomputing, > not the raison d'etre of > the hobby. > > Billy And your point being? He enjoys it, and I don't see him holding a logic probe to anyone's head (?). He's an asset to the list. You can enjoy the hobby as you see fit, but he certainly can also. Nothing wrong with civil discussion, but some people have to have a cow now and again. Roger seems like he'd feel right at home on the farm... But for virtually everyone, some level of electronic repair is essential. Maybe not investigating every last gate, but I think far too many don't delve into their hardwarez at all. Mainly cuz they're chicken. Bok bok bok. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Need a quick answer? Get one in minutes from people who know. Ask your question on www.Answers.yahoo.com From sellam at vintagetech.com Tue Jan 23 19:47:50 2007 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:47:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: IBM PS1 available Message-ID: I'm not sure if this interests anyone. It sure doesn't interest me, but maybe someone is looking for one to complete their collection. Have at it! Reply-to: Ian Gribble ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 15:04:58 -0800 (PST) From: Ian Gribble Subject: IBM PS1 I have an IBM PS1 (says model 2011 on the back of the case ) 10MHz 286 which I am about to throw out, do you guys want it or is disposal the best thing to do? *** -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From kelly at catcorner.org Tue Jan 23 20:58:05 2007 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:58:05 -0500 Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3036244@MEOW.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of M H Stein > Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 5:52 PM > To: 'cctalk at classiccmp.org' > Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power > ------------------Original Message: > Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:23:32 -0500 > From: "Kelly Leavitt" > Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power > To: > Message-ID: > <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B1494 at MEOW.catcorner.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > The drive in my Tandy Model 6000 has +5, +12 and +24 > connected to it (pins 5, 4, and 1). The schematic in the > service manual I have shows 4 as NC and a 7812 providing the > 12v from the 24v line. The specs for the drive in the service > manual do not mention +12 on pin 4 at all. The scematic at > bitsavers isn't a lot of help. > > I don't have the drive here in front of me. Does anyone have > one where they can verify the connections from the AMP power > connector to see if pin 4 actually goes anywhere on theirs? > > -----------------Reply: > > The drive in front of me corresponds to the service manual, i.e.: > > AMP PCB P7 > 1 1 - +24V > 2 2 - GND > 3 3 - GND > 6 4 - GND > 5 5 - +5V > 4 NC OK, I'm home looking at the drive. The wiring harness from the power supply does connect +5, +12, and +24 to the plug that goes into the drive. However the TM848-2 drives have pin 4 vacant on the connector on the drive. That is, there is no pin there. Sounds dangerous, but that is typical of Tandy's shortcuts. > Hope that's clearer than mud & helps. > It is, it does. > mike > Thanks, Kelly -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.410 / Virus Database: 268.17.8/649 - Release Date: 1/23/2007 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 23 21:32:44 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 03:32:44 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: <45B616C6.5488.3BE712D6@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 23, 7 02:08:06 pm Message-ID: > > It's my understanding that the 8089 went over like a lead dirigible. > I don't know of a single consumer-level product that used it. The Apricot computer has one... -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 23 22:21:36 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:21:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3036244@MEOW.catcorner.org> References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3036244@MEOW.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <20070123202102.B49576@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > OK, I'm home looking at the drive. The wiring harness from the power > supply does connect +5, +12, and +24 to the plug that goes into the > drive. However the TM848-2 drives have pin 4 vacant on the connector on > the drive. That is, there is no pin there. Sounds dangerous, but that is > typical of Tandy's shortcuts. Tandy and Tandon are not THAT close. From jim.isbell at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 22:27:28 2007 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:27:28 -0600 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: <45B64141.6596.3C8D04B4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070123154632.S29995@shell.lmi.net> <45B64141.6596.3C8D04B4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: Wow, and I suppose you will now become rich with the proceeds. Can I be your friend since I knew you when you were just poor? On 1/23/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I make the claim of a device to detect radio-frequency signals. Said > device employs a mineral (e.g. galena) and a method of making > electrical contact to a sensitive portion of said mineral. Said > method may include, but is not limited to a fine wire or other > electrically conductive material. > > There. I've invented the crystal set. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jan 23 22:54:46 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 20:54:46 -0800 Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ In-Reply-To: <00f201c73e41$c15380e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: >From: "Jay West" > >>That's not the only benefit. The Crimpmaster has interchangeable dies. >I've got the crimpmaster in my bag. Worked very well for years. > >Ok, I'll reveal my ignorance... what's this talk of a flush cutter for >trimming leads? I have a pair of electricians scissors that work >wonderfully. Can someone educate me on what I'd need something like the >flush cutter's mentioned previously for? > >Jay > > Hi Jay Most cutters tend to pinch the wire, leaving a sharp edge that can easily slice fingers. Also, at times when making piggy back boards it is desired to keep things close trimmed. I have both flush and regular cutters but find most times, I like the flush ones. Cutting larger size solid wire, the flush cut can leave an almost flat end ( sometimes needed for special cases ). Of course, I wish to get a new carbide flush cutters. If you've ever used the carbide ones, you'll understand. Especially if you have hundreds of cuts to do. The cutting effort is easily reduced to less then 30% than regular steel cutters. They are much more expensive as well and one should never loan them out as I had done :( Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Invite your Hotmail contacts to join your friends list with Windows Live Spaces http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwsp0070000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://spaces.live.com/spacesapi.aspx?wx_action=create&wx_url=/friends.aspx&mkt=en-us From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 23 23:13:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:13:21 -0800 Subject: IBM PS1 available In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B67A71.7252.3D6C6301@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2007 at 17:47, Sellam Ismail wrote: > I'm not sure if this interests anyone. It sure doesn't interest me, but > maybe someone is looking for one to complete their collection. Have at > it! What might make this worth someone's collection is, I seem to recall, that it is unusual in that it has PC-DOS in ROM. Cheers, Chuck From spc at conman.org Tue Jan 23 23:20:48 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:20:48 -0500 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: References: <20070123002859.88085.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <14fd01c73ef3$68d31ef0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <20070124052048.GB26663@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great John R. once stated: > There's a subproject of the One Laptop Per Child project that is > creating a virtualized swap file with compressed swapped pages. Then > you could swap to a RAM filesystem. It would work well for > uncompressed data but obviously it wouldn't work well for jpgs, pngs, > etc. > > The question would be how much precious RAM to dedicate as swap. Or > maybe you could swap to a network file system (slow, but might allow > some programs to run that otherwise would not run at all). Um ... Am I missing something here? Because I'm reminded of this quote (from my quote file): Oh boy, virtual memory! Now I'm gonna make myself a REALLY BIG ram disk! -- lennox at shire.hw.stratus.com Swap is to create the illusion of more memory by using a slower medium (like disks) to backup the physical RAM. What, exactly, is the point of swapping RAM to RAM? -spc (Not doubting the purpose of RAM disks mind you, just swapping to a RAM disk ... ) From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 23 23:31:58 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:31:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <20070124052048.GB26663@linus.groomlake.area51> from Sean Conner at "Jan 24, 7 00:20:48 am" Message-ID: <200701240531.l0O5Vwpa016448@floodgap.com> > > There's a subproject of the One Laptop Per Child project that is > > creating a virtualized swap file with compressed swapped pages. Then > > you could swap to a RAM filesystem. It would work well for > > uncompressed data but obviously it wouldn't work well for jpgs, pngs, > > etc. > Swap is to create the illusion of more memory by using a slower medium > (like disks) to backup the physical RAM. What, exactly, is the point of > swapping RAM to RAM? Because it would be compressed on the fly, so theoretically, you'd get "more RAM out of RAM." Theoretically. :) -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Everyone is different. No two people are not on fire. -- Strong Bad #84 ---- From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 23 23:36:42 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:36:42 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > It's not just Tony's opinion - it's one that's shared by me; I work for a > Field Service company and the lack of possible component level repair is a > constant pain for us in this 'just swap it out' day and age purely because > some of the components are easily available but the knowledge, schematics > and service books are gone to the hills and most of us are trained > electronic engineers. In this case the bean counters are right - the component swap field service model just does not make economic sense anymore. It has not for, what, twenty years? In most electronic firms, component level swapping, especially at the board level, is not worth doing for most cases. The net result is the same - the systems get back up and running quickly, stay up and running, customer anger is minimized, and the repair costs are minimized. > Whether you think this is practical or not isn't important because there are > people out there paying real money to have that sort of service because they > need it. Yes, in the industry (AKA real world), I think there are about six. The millions of other companies, on the other hand, switched over to the depot level repair model years ago. -- Will From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jan 24 00:11:44 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:11:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: P112 session at VCF Message-ID: I'd like to get a rough idea of how many people would be interested in buying and building a P112 kit at the next west coast VCF. I've been asked to do a breakout session similar to what was done with the ELF2k and Replica I of 2006. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From dm.hunt at ntlworld.com Tue Jan 23 19:29:57 2007 From: dm.hunt at ntlworld.com (David Hunt) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:29:57 -0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <200701232348.l0NNmvxp012162@floodgap.com> References: from Tony Duell at "Jan 23, 7 07:41:33 pm" <200701232348.l0NNmvxp012162@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <00cf01c73f57$298a90c0$3201a8c0@hal> > > I think _everyone_ here could do component-level troubleshooting if > > they wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical reasoning, > and I think > > everone here can think logically. > > This implies that those of us who can't or don't do it are > lazy, and I resent that implication. I am firmly aware of my > limits when it comes to troubleshooting, I'm all thumbs with > a soldering iron, and I don't have the sort of day job that > gives me the time to become acquainted at this level. I can > do many small tasks and do basic troubleshooting, but I think > it is a bit much to expect everyone to perform at your level, > especially those of us who do not have employ in an engineering field. > > Considering I do have a doctorate (MD), I don't think this > has to do with sloth on my part. > > I'm sure this is not what you meant to say, but it can > certainly come across in that fashion. "laziness" is an odd angle to take on Tony's comment. Many retro-computer people I know have full time careers, one is a surgeon (he can't solder to save his life), a majority just don't have the time to do more than play the odd game or type in a magazine listing. They'd rather switch it on and use it, if it dies they might start learning some electronics, but more likely, they'll bring it over for me to fix. Retro computing is usually just one hobby of many and therefore learning fault finding, soldering etc. just isn't in the time budget. I agree, anyone with some knowledge and practice can fault find at component level *if they had to/really had the urge to learn*, but many choose to spend their valuable time on pursuits that give them more pleasure. Dave ;) From dm.hunt at ntlworld.com Tue Jan 23 19:38:54 2007 From: dm.hunt at ntlworld.com (David Hunt) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:38:54 -0000 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <45B63831.4020507@oldskool.org> References: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha><5.1.0.14.2.20070122201724.04af09f8@mail.30below.com> <45B5869E.6090300@oldskool.org><14d501c73ef2$b1e28a50$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B63831.4020507@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <00d001c73f58$69b15610$3201a8c0@hal> > Alexandre Souza wrote: > >>> CF has unlimited (or almost nearly-ish) reads. Limited *writes*. > >>> Most of > >> ...with the exception of IBM Microdrives, which are indeed > tiny hard > >> drives. I have a 340MB one from 4 years ago still going strong. > > > > A microdrive shouldn't be called a compactFLASH card, > since it has > > no flash memory :o) > > Not my problem :-) It's a CFII card and behaves like it > (although reads are slower than true flash) I've got a 1GB IBM Microdrive in a digital camera that has been around the world, taken over 75,000 pictures and that's over five years old, still no bad sectors. A bit of slowcoach compared to SanDisk UltraIII CF cards, but the old snapper sits in the glovebox of the car (temps between -10C and 45C), sweet as a nut still. Dave ;) From wizard at voyager.net Wed Jan 24 01:42:48 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:42:48 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1169624568.12044.120.camel@linux.site> On Tue, 2007-01-23 at 19:41 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > I feel I should repsond to this part, since it does have quite a bit to > do with classic computing. > > > Your personal preference for only using computers you can rebuild for the > > next 100 years is so pervasive that quite often it colors your posts and > > advice to the point that it can seem quite condescending. To be perfectly > > honest, I've been offended (indirectly) on more than a few occasions by > > the... vitriol... that you may or may not even know is present in many of > > I apologise. This is certainly _not_ my intention. > > > your posts WRT either 1) computers that can't be troubleshot at the gate > > level, or 2) people who cannot troubleshoot computers at the gate level. I have to say *I* have seen none of this, Tony, but I've not been around long, and could easily have missed a classic rant or two... > I think _everyone_ here could do component-level troubleshooting if they > wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical reasoning, and I think everone > here can think logically. Erm, I think you're projecting. Troubleshooting is only partially a learned skill. The idea of building a mental model of how it is SUPPOSED to work, and seeing what is different, which is how I assume you work, is NOT a skill that is universal. I have the impression that fewer than half of the humans alive, even in this technological age, have the mental fundament upon which to build skill in troubleshooting. I read an article some time back about surveying populations for particular skills. If you have the basis for troubleshooting, which you obviously do, it *WILL* seem easy, even inevitable, that such skills, mixed with some information about the equipment, will generate troubleshooting ability. Troubleshooting is one of those skills, like ability to teach others, which exists in large measure as inherent ability, rather than as acquired skill. Or, perhaps, we are just unaware of the process which might impart that ability to others. If so, that situation is functionally indistinguishable from the first. > This last part may explain why I'm so fanatical about it. I find it fun. > I like solving puzzles. I like logic puzzles particularly. And that's > exactly what rtoubleshooting should be. A puzzle. It's like detective > work. You gather the clues, think about them, and find the cluprit. > Fortunately for me, the rsults of being wrong are somewhat less serious > than sending an innocent man to the gallows ;-) My mother used to say the same things about crossword puzzles. "Anyone can do them," she would say, "everybody knows the words." Uh, yeah, mum, but not everyone can sort through the words in their head to find the proper one. I am a troubleshooter by nature, and crossword puzzles come easily to me, but I know that is NOT the case for everyone. > I guess troubelshooting is one reason that I mess around with old > hardware. I do enjoy it. There are at least two kinds of troubleshooting, based on objective: first, troubleshooting for the joy of the hunt, and the idea of making the world a more coherent place through one's own efforts. And, the second kind is the kind of troubleshooting undertaken to remove an obstacle to progress. This is done, generally, under time pressure, and is not usually very much fun. Fixing a computer because NOT fixing it might get one sacked is not the way to foster a gourmet's taste for repair. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From wizard at voyager.net Wed Jan 24 01:48:41 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:48:41 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1169624921.12044.123.camel@linux.site> On Tue, 2007-01-23 at 16:30 -0700, Richard wrote: > In article , > Adrian Graham writes: > > > It's not just Tony's opinion - it's one that's shared by me; [...] > > Fine. Its shared by two or more people, but its still an opinion and > not an axiomatically derived fact. I disagree. When the supply of repair parts for a particular item is limited, it is axiomatically better to use fewer parts for each repair, so as to be able to affect more repairs with the available supply of parts. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 24 02:18:19 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:18:19 +0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 24/1/07 05:36, "William Donzelli" wrote: >> Whether you think this is practical or not isn't important because there are >> people out there paying real money to have that sort of service because they >> need it. > > Yes, in the industry (AKA real world), I think there are about six. > The millions of other companies, on the other hand, switched over to > the depot level repair model years ago. Perhaps you'd like to explain your industry experience to some of our customers then? They might listen to such reason coming from you. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 24 02:22:54 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:22:54 +0000 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 24/1/07 03:32, "Tony Duell" wrote: >> >> It's my understanding that the 8089 went over like a lead dirigible. >> I don't know of a single consumer-level product that used it. > > The Apricot computer has one... Do you know which ones? I've got several around here to look at, I didn't think I'd seen an 8089 before but perhaps I'm wrong. Hells, if I'm wrong about some of our customers wanting/needing component level repair I could be wrong about *anything* :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jan 24 03:48:00 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:48:00 -0800 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <1169624568.12044.120.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: >From: Warren Wolfe ---snip--- > > Erm, I think you're projecting. Troubleshooting is only partially a >learned skill. The idea of building a mental model of how it is >SUPPOSED to work, and seeing what is different, which is how I assume >you work, is NOT a skill that is universal. I have the impression that >fewer than half of the humans alive, even in this technological age, >have the mental fundament upon which to build skill in troubleshooting. >I read an article some time back about surveying populations for >particular skills. If you have the basis for troubleshooting, which you >obviously do, it *WILL* seem easy, even inevitable, that such skills, >mixed with some information about the equipment, will generate >troubleshooting ability. Troubleshooting is one of those skills, like >ability to teach others, which exists in large measure as inherent >ability, rather than as acquired skill. Or, perhaps, we are just >unaware of the process which might impart that ability to others. If >so, that situation is functionally indistinguishable from the first. > ---snip--- Hi >From my experience, I think Warren is correct on this point. I've tried to teach my older brother how to do simple trouble shooting and it just didn't work. As Warren states, he was not able to compare in his head, how it was suppose to work, compared to how it actually was working. He could follow the instructions but when he saw something out of place it was like a wall to him. It took me a long time to realize that most people just don't get it. My ex-brother-in-law used to say I had a magical relation with things. I would often fix something for him that had been to shops to be repaired and still broken. It wasn't magic, just logical conclusion from known conditions and often some simple experiments. To him it was magic, even when I carefully explained what it was I was doing. I'm like Tony, I enjoy the hunt even more than using the thing I fix. I realize that others may not see it the same as I do. Over the years, I've learned to except this as normal, rather than the exception. I would say that even in this group that should have a greater level of people that do get it, only about maybe 50% have what it takes. This is not to say they should but I do agree with Tony that people should still attempt it when they can. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Search for grocery stores. Find gratitude. Turn a simple search into something more. http://click4thecause.live.com/search/charity/default.aspx?source=hmemtagline_gratitude&FORM=WLMTAG From kelly at catcorner.org Wed Jan 24 03:56:58 2007 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 04:56:58 -0500 Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3036245@MEOW.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Fred Cisin > Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 11:22 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power > > > On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > OK, I'm home looking at the drive. The wiring harness from the power > > supply does connect +5, +12, and +24 to the plug that goes into the > > drive. However the TM848-2 drives have pin 4 vacant on the > connector on > > the drive. That is, there is no pin there. Sounds > dangerous, but that is > > typical of Tandy's shortcuts. > > Tandy and Tandon are not THAT close. > > > The wiring harness is made by Tandy, in the Tandy 6000. That this harness has power going to a drive power plug that isn't used it typical of Tandy's shortcuts. They banked on the fact that Tandon would NEVER put another pin in that socket. From SUPRDAVE at aol.com Wed Jan 24 04:19:47 2007 From: SUPRDAVE at aol.com (SUPRDAVE at aol.com) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 05:19:47 EST Subject: IBM PS1 available Message-ID: Sounds like it's a 2011-C34. First Generation IBM PS/1. Uses matching VGA monitor with CPU power supply inside and DOS in ROM. Kinda cute, and have heard of some individuals still using them because they're pretty simple. I'd take i t, but I already have one including the 2121 386 series. -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- In a message dated 1/24/2007 12:18:41 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, cclist at sydex.com writes: On 23 Jan 2007 at 17:47, Sellam Ismail wrote: > I'm not sure if this interests anyone. It sure doesn't interest me, but > maybe someone is looking for one to complete their collection. Have at > it! What might make this worth someone's collection is, I seem to recall, that it is unusual in that it has PC-DOS in ROM. Cheers, Chuc From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 24 06:45:03 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:45:03 -0600 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B754CF.4090907@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: > In this case the bean counters are right - the component swap field > service model just does not make economic sense anymore. It has not > for, what, twenty years? In most electronic firms, component level > swapping, especially at the board level, is not worth doing for most > cases. The net result is the same - the systems get back up and > running quickly, stay up and running, customer anger is minimized, and > the repair costs are minimized. I suspect that component-level repair will come back again, maybe ten to twenty years from now, as environmental issues of having to dispose of so much old equipment makes an impact. At some point we'll probably see manufacturers made to dispose of broken consumer equipment at their own cost (similar to what's going to happen for car manufacturers and end of life vehicles, at least in Europe). For a few years they'll probably carry on just absorbing the cost of disposal, but at some point it's likely going to be more cost-effective to design the products to be more field-repairable in the first place. Of course it could take another route and board/module/system swapping will be done in the field, with repairs then carried out at base before re-issue, but I certainly don't think manufacturers will be as inclined to build such wasteful systems in a couple of decades' time. Environmental issues aside, certain far-east countries will not want to take western junk forever, and I can't imagine the sources of all this junk being too keen to process it on their own soil. Sooner or later there will (thankfully) be pressure on manufacturers to make their products be more maintainable and last for longer. cheers J. From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Jan 24 06:58:56 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:58:56 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20070122212154.0396bbf0@mail.30below.com> from "Roger Merchberger" at Jan 22, 7 10:36:48 pm Message-ID: <200701241257.l0OCvqSE011872@hosting.monisys.ca> > I think _everyone_ here could do component-level troubleshooting if they > wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical reasoning, and I think everone > here can think logically. I don't know why some people appear to have been annoyed by this comment - I completely agree with Tony - I too think that most everyone here *COULD* to component level troubleshooting if they wanted to. I didn't hear anyone saying that you should - only that you could - in case you guys missed it, it was a compliment. > This last part may explain why I'm so fanatical about it. I find it fun. > I like solving puzzles. I like logic puzzles particularly. And that's > exactly what rtoubleshooting should be. A puzzle. It's like detective > work. You gather the clues, think about them, and find the cluprit. > Fortunately for me, the rsults of being wrong are somewhat less serious > than sending an innocent man to the gallows ;-) > > I guess troubelshooting is one reason that I mess around with old > hardware. I do enjoy it. Very well said - Some people look at me funny when I try and explain that one of the things I like best about my old computer habit is bringing long-dead machines back to life. I get the most enjoyment out of many machines when they first hit my bench - Not only do you have the fun of a "logic puzzle" as Tony describes, but sometimes you get to work on systems that you haven't investigated in detail before, and have the chance to see how that particular manufacturer took slightly different solutions to various problems, or implemented some unexpected variation of what I "knew" must be there - I see lots of really clever designs go by (and occationally a "less clever" one). On top of all that, I get immense satisfaction when all the secrets have been extracted, the puzzles solved, and you hit the power switch for the final test, hear the drives step back, the click of the track-0 switch, a step out out and a prompt appears on the screen that didn't before (the exact audible scenario varies with the machine, but there's a distinct "sound of life" when things work). You have taken an artifact often considered "worthless junk" by whomever gave it to you, and restored it to a living monument to our digital history - You just can't get that kind of feeling by clicking "OK". (No intense offended to anyone - just describing some of MY motivations) Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 24 07:45:41 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 05:45:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <200701241257.l0OCvqSE011872@hosting.monisys.ca> from Dave Dunfield at "Jan 24, 7 07:58:56 am" Message-ID: <200701241345.l0ODjf2u025838@floodgap.com> > > I think _everyone_ here could do component-level troubleshooting if they > > wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical reasoning, and I think everone > > here can think logically. > > I don't know why some people appear to have been annoyed by this > comment - I completely agree with Tony - I too think that most everyone > here *COULD* to component level troubleshooting if they wanted to. It's not just "want to." Sure, I 'want to' be able to figure out and apply these skills, but I don't because I just don't have the time in grade nor the time to build up that kind of experience. It makes it sound like aspiration is the only thing that is lacking, and that's what I object to. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Insomniac dyslexic agnostic: "I stay up late wondering if there's a dog" --- From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 09:00:06 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:00:06 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <45B754CF.4090907@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45B754CF.4090907@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: > I suspect that component-level repair will come back again, maybe ten to > twenty years from now, as environmental issues of having to dispose of so much > old equipment makes an impact. No, not a chance - at least for this reason, anyway. As stuff breaks, and can be moved into the recycling stream without any hitches, all the better. The recycling methods used today are incredibly efficient at turning this junk back into raw resources, and will only just get better. > At some point we'll probably see manufacturers made to dispose of broken > consumer equipment at their own cost (similar to what's going to happen for > car manufacturers and end of life vehicles, at least in Europe). For a few > years they'll probably carry on just absorbing the cost of disposal, but at > some point it's likely going to be more cost-effective to design the products > to be more field-repairable in the first place. I think that they will be wise to make the equipment more recyclable, not repairable. There is money to be made in scrap, and once the big manufacturers figure this out (some have already started), the disposal costs will be less than the disposal earnings. > Of course it could take another route and board/module/system swapping will be > done in the field, with repairs then carried out at base before re-issue, but > I certainly don't think manufacturers will be as inclined to build such > wasteful systems in a couple of decades' time. This depot-level model is essentially how things have been working in the business and industrial sector for a long, long, long time. > Environmental issues aside, certain far-east countries will not want to take > western junk forever, and I can't imagine the sources of all this junk being > too keen to process it on their own soil. Sooner or later there will > (thankfully) be pressure on manufacturers to make their products be more > maintainable and last for longer. Oh, the Far East countries will be taking scrap for as long as their economy holds up. It is a resource. A very rich, plentiful resource. No country turns a rich, plentiful resource away. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 09:50:50 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:50:50 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Perhaps you'd like to explain your industry experience to some of our > customers then? They might listen to such reason coming from you. I did not have to explain anything to my customers - they already knew how things worked. I started out at US Robotics, in their manufacturing division. For the years I was there, I became quite intimate with the process for building many of their modems and systems (Total Control). For a while USR was suffering from poor quality and yeilds. When they found I am a very good quality auditor, they gave me near free reign to walk the floor and nitpick. It was actually sort of fun. Because of this nitpicking job I came to know the techs, and how and why they work. The techs were responsible for doing reworks from the manufacturing floor, as well as repairing returned products. Manufacturing reworks were given priority over customer returns, simply because the returns had unknown histories - USR just did not know what the customers had been doing to the products. Each product had a test station or two, and a complex formula to see if a device was worth repairing. Sometimes the stations would instantly reject a board, especially if it was a low cost device. Most of the time it would diagnose the problem, then the tech would have a fixed amount of time to do the repair - and the times were not very long at all. If the tech did not think he could do the repair in the time, was backed up, or had more pressing repairs to do, he could scrap the device. This happened quite a bit. The techs at USR were expensive. Their test stations expensive. The tools expensive. The lost profits from scrapping boards starts to fade when compared to the infrastructure costs to repair them. This is why the bean counters did not complain. The model USR used made them happy - and it is a model shared in near every electronics manufacturing firm. Additionally, there is a lot to do with reliability in the field. Repaired or reworked devices are not as reliable as something that comes off the line perfectly. Everytime a board is handled, statistically a little bit of damage occurs. Everytime solder hits the board more damage occurs. Even when a board is dropped, bad things happen. Most often these are not catostrophic failures, but latent failures. Latent failures can be weakened chips, cracked chip dies, cracked crystal oscillators, damaged vias, and so forth. Latent failures still work - they will pass most of the tests at the stations - then fail in the field. And back into the repair stream, but now with an angry customer. With too many failure the customer shops elsewhere. The bean counters get very cross when customers leave. Then I moved over from being a USR employee to being a USR customer, while still using some of the same products. ANS hired me to work on the AOL network backbone (the remains of the old NSFnet). This was a bunch of T3s when most of the world was a bunch of T1s - VERY serious amounts of traffic. Downtimes were kept to a minimum, due to redundancies, but every so often something bad would happen, or some downtime was needed for an upgrade. AOL watched like a hawk, and counted the downtime in very small increments (I think seconds per month, as well as lost packets). When in the field doing a repair or swap (we engineers did it, as AOL did not trust anyone else), we had to be very quick about it, as downtime cost AOL enormous amounts of money per second. Obscene amounts with lots of zeros at the end. It was not just because people could not connect from their home computers, so they might go elsewhere. It was also big businesses that also used the AOL backbone that could not connect, and advertisers whose internet ads were going in the bit bucket. The effects of downtime spread out fast. Obviously the way to keep the downtime low, AOL off our backs, and the bean counters (again) happy - swaps were done as fast as possible, using factory fresh parts. There was no time to probe around with a scope or DMM to find a bad resistor or something. Field repairs like this would have saved AOL maybe $7000 for a new Cisco FDDI card, but incur $120000 worth of damages (these are realistic numbers). One does not need to be an accountant to see this. And now, after leaving AOL, I see the thrid part of the triad - the scrap market. But I have talked about that already. So you see why I wonder about people that think that component level troubleshooting works in industry these days. I know there are still a very few niche parts of the industry that can tolerate this, but they are very small and shrinking fast. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 09:53:14 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:53:14 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <00cf01c73f57$298a90c0$3201a8c0@hal> References: <200701232348.l0NNmvxp012162@floodgap.com> <00cf01c73f57$298a90c0$3201a8c0@hal> Message-ID: > I agree, anyone with some knowledge and practice can fault find at component > level *if they had to/really had the urge to learn*, but many choose to > spend their valuable time on pursuits that give them more pleasure. Like chasing women. Then for some of you, after catching the women, chasing after the rugrats. -- Will From marvin at rain.org Wed Jan 24 10:24:53 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:24:53 -0800 Subject: Component level repair Message-ID: <45B78855.87547777@rain.org> > From: Jules Richardson > too keen to process it on their own soil. Sooner or later there will > (thankfully) be pressure on manufacturers to make their products be more > maintainable and last for longer. The way things are going, being able to maintain a buggy whip won't be economically feasible or an asset to any mainstream company. Technology changes, evolves, and rarely results in something being simpler and easier to fix. I do like repairing at the component level, but just don't have time for it right now. But as Tony mentioned, it is a puzzle, and the MINDSET that allows troubleshooting is just not something everyone has. One of my favorite examples was back when I was doing field maintenance, I got a call from a customer who couldn't get their machine to work. So I flew down to take a look, was picked up by the plant manager, and taken to the machine. While he went to get the tech, I looked at it and had it working in a couple of minutes later when they returned. The problem was strictly mechanical (an air cylinder shaft had come unscrewed from the piston), and they had *assumed* it was an electrical problem. And most of us (at least those of us do/did troubleshooting as a job) have had the experience of troubleshooting equipment where the problem turned out to be the switch needed to be turned on, or the unit plugged in. Developing a mental picture (I think in terms of block diagrams) of how something works is crucial to being able to troubleshoot it. From mtapley at swri.edu Wed Jan 24 10:37:59 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:37:59 -0600 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 69 In-Reply-To: <200701240030.l0O0U9a0027431@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701240030.l0O0U9a0027431@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 18:30 -0600 1/23/07, Richard wrote: >Fine. Its shared by two or more people, but its still an opinion and >not an axiomatically derived fact. What's an "axiom"? -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jan 24 11:10:08 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:10:08 -0500 Subject: Re-Introducing the First, and Fully Functional, Lisa Emulator Message-ID: <45B792F0.2070309@arachelian.com> On January 24th, 1984, the Macintosh announced, but along with that announcement came another that not everyone recalls: The introduction of the Lisa 2. Reflecting the echoes of that date, I'm announcing the availability of The Apple Lisa Emulator. While there are still some flaws and missing features, to address, I've decided that it was more important to honor the Lisa's January introduction. You'll be able to download the emulator from here in a few minutes: http://lisaem.sunder.net/downloads.html Questions about the emulator should be directed here: lisaem at sunder.net Bug reports here: lisaem-bugs at sunder.net To use the emulator you will need a copy of the Lisa Boot ROM (preferably version H) as well as OS software. Please do not ask me to provide these. If you own a Lisa, you already have legal copies of these. The emulator currently runs on the following platforms: * Mac OS X - Intel and G4 PPC. * Linux - since there are too many distros, I'm releasing a statically linked X11 binary for 2.6 kernels, which should run on most distros, but you'll probably want to compile your own version instead. * win32 (w2k and possibly XP) The project will also compile and run wherever wxWidgets runs on a unix like platform (with some tweaks), I'll put up more binaries as time permits. Source code will be released in about a week or two, licensed under the terms of the GNU Public License 2.0. There are parts whose quality of the code isn't as good as I'd want it to be. :-) Known bugs: No documentation, at this time there are hooks in the help menu that point to the website, where I'll fill in documentation. Future releases will have built in docs. The raw keyboard routines aren't quite right. Use the ASCII kb mode for now. Won't run Xenix - it boots but stops before the shell, likely a VIA bug. Printing works, but isn't yet completed (spits out ugly postscript files only at this time, needs wxWidgets integration which I'm currently working on) Win32 LibDC42 routines might not be too stable, may cause trouble with Profiles Sound isn't perfect, although it does beep on most platforms, the "click" is treated incorrectly as a beep. Some of the animation has color issues in some of the BMP's/XPM's - i.e. floppy insertion Mouse movement under certain environments isn't quite right (I've optimized for Lisa Office System.) When the emulator quits, on OS X, it segfaults (crashes.) Won't work with Lisa 1 ROMs as there is little support for Lisa 1 HW emulation at this time. A few tools I intended to write still need to be written. Why a Lisa emulator? There are many reasons to this project, and even more for the decisions that shaped it. The most important goal was to preserve the technology behind the Lisa, and allow future generations to experience a piece of history. If you search the web, you will find lots of articles, pictures, and even videos of Lisa's. But these are second hand information, in that they do not allow you to actually interact with an actual Lisa. Unfortunately it isn't possible to fully emulate the physical aspects of a computer. You cannot experience the almost imperceptible 60Hz flicker of the display, the not-quite paper white, blueish tints of the phosphor, the yellow glow of the power switch, the heat a Lisa computer gives off, nor the feel of its keyboard, mouse, or see the curvature of the CRT on modern LCD and flat CRT displays. But, you can still get close. I hope that long after the last functional Lisa is gone from the face of the earth, that my emulator, as well as the documents that David has collected, would survive and allow future generations to go back in time and experience what it was like, to study it, and understand how and why it was built. In many ways, as I watched Lisa Office System and MacWorks boot up (via trace logs), I saw many glimpses into the software design ideals and practices of the early 80's. I've never been an archaeologist, and don't really know that experience, I can guess at the rush and thrill of discovery. Seeing the machine code of various Lisa OS's fly by has been that experience for me. I could almost understand what the coders that wrote them were thinking, how they designed things, and why. I could easily tell what code was hand written assembly by an expert, or novice, what assembly was generated by compilers. I don't much expect many to spend more than a few hours with the emulator, but perhaps there will be a few like minded folks who remember the Lisa and want more than a stroll down memory lane, or want to learn what it was about and how it worked who will. By releasing this as GPL, I'm guaranteeing its future long after I would loose interest in maintaining it. There are many emulators that are closed source, or shareware, or that are outright sold, and thus locked down. These are less likely to survive the ravages of time, and thus are less valuable in the long view. While I cannot presume that the libraries and API's upon which this emulator was built will still exist, I can at least hope that it will be relatively easy to rewrite or port to future platforms. I purposefully built the emulator on what some would consider exotic hardware. (i.e. DEC Alpha) to force me to write portable code. At various times, I also had it running on the SPARC, PowerPC and Intel chips. (i.e. a range of 32 and 64 bit CPU's with different designs.) Although I cannot vouch for it running on SPARC or Alpha at this moment in time, by building it on varied platforms, I avoided locking myself into a particular CPU with specific endian issues, and thus exposed more bugs. While I've only compiled the emulator under variations of GCC from 2.x to 4.x, I suspect that it will work with other compilers after some tweaking. There is some history to this emulator. A synopsis for those who aren't yet bored of reading this rant: This project started in February 1998, when one day I attempted to power on one of my two Lisa's, and it no longer turned on. I realized that as with all retro computers, that replacement parts would over time become scarce to obtain and that repairs would be more and more difficult. In the interest of preserving the historical significance of these machines, I thought that an emulator would be one way to preserve them. Having been inspired by projects of the time such as Executor and vMac, I naively assumed that this would be an easy project, taking only perhaps a year or two. The Lisa is a far more complex creature than I imagined. Luckily, I managed to find David Craig's contact information, and obtained a ton of Lisa documentation from him. Most of the Lisa documentation out there on the web exists because David had carefully collected and cataloged it over the years. Without his efforts, neither this emulator, nor any of the spin off emulators would been possible. I would also say that without his efforts a great deal of Apple history would have been lost to the ravages of time. Perhaps a large portion of the remaining Lisas would not be repairable without this type of information information. (This is why I've spent a lot of time distilling David's documentation and the knowledge of LisaList in building the LisaFAQ.) While I was, at best familiar with the C language, and knew some 68000 assembly, there were a lot of things that I had to teach myself. I've learned a lot more than I could possibly list here (C, Unix programming, Xwindows, wxWidgets, deep 68000 coding techniques, low level operating system stuff, postscript, PCL, anti-aliasing, reverse engineering, optimization techniques, and so on.) So there was great benefit to me beyond the emulator itself. There were many wrong turns taken throughout the lifetime of the project. Most notably, I originally wrote my own 68000 CPU core, but scrapped after the generator ( http://squish.net/generator ) core was recommended by Richard Bannister. I originally wrote the emulator directly for the XWindow System. Yes, that's right, raw xlib calls without a toolkit. Writing your own UI in XLib is quite the exercise in masochism. I didn't replace the xlib UI with wxWidgets until late 2006. (In 1998, Motif was the main toolkit out there, but as it was commercial, and since Tk was sort of obsolete, with not too much else was available, or portable to all platforms. Xlib seemed to be the right choice. Over time, I stuck with xlib because I didn't care as much about the UI as much as getting the emulator working.) I must have rewritten the MMU subsystem at least three times. In hind sight, I probably over-engineered the last iteration in an effort to cache the MMU tables, but it works very well. I probably have spent too much time on sysadmin duties (that is setting up environments for myself to develop in.) After all, system administration is my day job. This project was originally born on a DEC Alpha Multia running on OpenBSD 2.3 or such. I moved it to an old SPARC running Solaris 2.5.1, then a sparcbook running 2.6, then Cygwin under w2k, then coLinux under w2k. I now have it running under Ubuntu, coLinux, win32 and OS X. As I'm told, there was talk of a Lisa emulator before 1998, but no actual project had been started. I released my crufty 0.00 version of the source code back in 98, hence "The World's First" is accurate enough. As far as I know, this is the only Lisa emulator that is capable of running the Lisa Office System, hence "fully functional." (Some would argue this because it doesn't yet run Xenix, but that's less important to me.) Of course, all of the documentation I had scanned, and put online attracted others who wanted to build their own emulators. Unsurprisingly, they did have some success, but not with Lisa Office System. I was disappointed with the competing project, but kept quietly on working on my own throughout the years. I hid my actual progress since the emulator wasn't working yet, and besides, it would have only fed the competition valuable information. I thought he had the advantage, since he had the whole of the MESS team and library of code for various devices, while I was writing and rewriting nearly everything from scratch. It surprises me to this day that despite all of my perceived fumbling, that he hasn't overtaken me yet! (I suspect that in a few days, or perhaps weeks, - i.e. sometime after I release my sources, we'll see the other two competing projects gain the capability of running LOS as well.) I intentionally let the website look dead to give the impression of abandonment, while I redoubled my efforts. This became a fun cloak and dagger kind of game: I only decloaked once, when I though that I was very very close. One day in May of 2006, I found the secret magic to make the MMU work. I got the Lisa Office install disk to boot, and everything started falling into place. I then furiously debugged the VIA code, and then the ProFile code, and it started to all work. The SCC came next, along with other fun stuff. I rewrote the imagewriter code twice over. (Once again, this week, for wxWidgets printing/output, which isn't in today's release.) Towards the end of 2006, I purchased the wxWidgets book and reworked the UI. It'll probably be a few more months before the emulator would be perfect in my opinion but that would miss the January 19th announcement anniversary, so early, buggy, release it'll have to be. :-) I would like to thank the following folks for their numerous contributions: David T. Craig for the wealth of Lisa information which he allowed me to scan in, for the many contacts with Lisa developers and faithfully listening to status reports over the ages, James MacPhail for all of the hardware help with the Lisa and many suggestions as to what and how to test, for helping me with the logic analyzer, for the 68000 help, for the schematics help, for helping me repair my dead Lisa, for the help with the ProFile protocol, and many other things I could fill a book with. James Ponder for his wonderful Generator project, one of the better Sega Genesis emulators out there, whose CPU core is the heart of the LisaEm project. Adam Firester for providing the many years of bandwidth for the project website, Steve Hatle for providing Lisa Office documentation, Xenix help, encouragement, and beta testing, Brian Foley for beta testing, profiling, and debugging help with OS X, and fixing nasty display bugs in wxWidgets on OS X, Chris McFall for advice on the Lisa file system, Natalia Portillo whose file system work inspired me to build the Lisa FSH Tool, and later libdc42, Patrick Schaefer for providing the protocol transitions graphs of the Profile, which at a glance proved far clearer to interpret than the official documentation, Andy Hertzfeld for his amazing folklore.org website for the numerous fun stories about the birth of the Lisa and the Mac, The wxWidgets folks, whose project I wish I made use of a lot earlier, who have made my life a lot easier, especially Stefan Csomor who found an early bug in my display routines, Steven Stengel of http://oldcomputers.net for the Lisa image used as the icon in the Mac OS X version. Raphael Nabet, for disassembling and documenting the I/O ROM, which shaved about a month off of reverse engineering on my part, even if he did write a competing emulator. :-) Gilles Fetis for being the third person to use my dc42 routines. :-) (Gilles, If you thought those were cool, wait till you see libdc42!) To all of the folks who have wished for a Lisa emulator, whose requests and encouragement over the years pushed me to complete this project. Most importantly, to all of the people at Apple, who worked on the Lisa over the years, and remember it fondly. Lisa, Lisa Office System, and the Macintosh were trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc, now Apple, Inc. w2k/XP are Microsoft's trademarks, etc. Genesis is trademark of Sega, etc. From kth at srv.net Wed Jan 24 11:26:12 2007 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:26:12 -0700 Subject: "Immortal computing" initiative by Microsoft In-Reply-To: <20070123162232.K29995@shell.lmi.net> References: <1169555628.5397.25.camel@localhost.localdomain> <45B5CAA9.32676.3ABDC046@cclist.sydex.com> <20070123143138.I29995@shell.lmi.net> <20070123154632.S29995@shell.lmi.net> <20070123162232.K29995@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45B796B4.3040600@srv.net> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > >> But I don't think the patent office was open yet when those >> "inventions" were made? Now they cannot be patented because they are >> obvious.... >> > > Good point. > I guess that I'll have to file quicker next time. > When you consider many of the patents they have accepted, "swinging sidewise on a swing set" for example, I don't think you'd have much problem patenting anything you wanted to. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 24 11:34:30 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:34:30 -0800 Subject: Re-Introducing the First, and Fully Functional, Lisa Emulator Message-ID: <45B798A6.9020702@bitsavers.org> > In many ways, as I watched Lisa Office System and MacWorks boot up (via > trace logs), I saw many glimpses into the software design ideals and > practices of the early 80's. I've never been an archaeologist, and > don't really know that experience, I can guess at the rush and thrill of > discovery. Seeing the machine code of various Lisa OS's fly by has been > that experience for me. I could almost understand what the coders that > wrote them were thinking, how they designed things, and why. I could > easily tell what code was hand written assembly by an expert, or novice, > what assembly was generated by compilers. PLEASE write document the details while this is all fresh in your mind. From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jan 24 11:40:08 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:40:08 -0500 Subject: Re-Introducing the First, and Fully Functional, Lisa Emulator In-Reply-To: <45B798A6.9020702@bitsavers.org> References: <45B798A6.9020702@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45B799F8.7030807@arachelian.com> Al Kossow wrote: > > In many ways, as I watched Lisa Office System and MacWorks boot up (via > > trace logs), I saw many glimpses into the software design ideals and > > practices of the early 80's. I've never been an archaeologist, and > > don't really know that experience, I can guess at the rush and > thrill of > > discovery. Seeing the machine code of various Lisa OS's fly by has > been > > that experience for me. I could almost understand what the coders that > > wrote them were thinking, how they designed things, and why. I could > > easily tell what code was hand written assembly by an expert, or > novice, > > what assembly was generated by compilers. > > > PLEASE write document the details while this is all fresh in > your mind. > > > Too late. :-) that was about two years ago. :-) *BUT* I do want to build a debugger so it is recoverable. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 24 11:43:38 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:43:38 -0800 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: , , Message-ID: <45B72A4A.1729.401B4FAC@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jan 2007 at 10:50, William Donzelli wrote: > I started out at US Robotics, in their manufacturing division. For the > years I was there, I became quite intimate with the process for > building many of their modems and systems (Total Control). Will, maybe you could answer something I was very curious about. I (probably like many people on this list) was a BBS sysop who made use of USR modems. Probably some of the best stuff in the business and worth every nickel (particularly at sysop prices) I spent on them. Upgrades however, were puzzling. Sometimes, USR wanted me to ship the old modem back (sans wall wart), other times they didn't care. The most bizarre case when when a firmware upgrade was done and USR wanted the old SRAM chip returned. No one at USR could tell me what they expected to do with an old 8K (?) chip. Certainly not re-use it in a product(!). At any rate, my dealings with USR were always a pleasure and the product was top notch (until I tried the Sportster modem, that is). Cheers, Chuck From jdbryan at acm.org Wed Jan 24 11:45:15 2007 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:45:15 -0500 Subject: HP 2112A In-Reply-To: References: <011220071955.1002.45A7E7A3000A4E77000003EA21587667559B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <200701241745.l0OHjGl9017038@mail.bcpl.net> On 13 Jan 2007 at 10:00, Richard Lynch wrote: > In the front there is the DCPC, Memory Protection, M.E.M. (Memory > Extension Module), 3 memory cards and Memory Controller. Also, there should be a ribbon cable from the DCPC card to the memory-I/O crossover PCB, and another ribbon cable connecting all of the left-side connectors on the memory cards and controller (the right-side connectors are N/C). > I believe I can see 3 loader ROM chips installed on the CPU board > (assuming I'm looking in the right place - front right side of the board > as I'm facing it). That's the correct location. Optional ROM 1 is the socket nearest the front of the machine. 2 and 3 follow in order. > Of the 3 optional Control Store modules in the back, the middle one is > mounted under the CPU, but the other two are not there. Looking from the back of the machine, the left-hand control store PCB should always be present; it contains the base set ROMs and is connected with a ribbon cable to the left-hand CPU board connector. If you have a MEM card, then there should be a second control store PCB containing the DMS instructions. The second and third boards plug into the first and second boards respectively; no ribbon cables are used. If the middle one is present and the left one is not, then either the base set board is in the wrong location or it's been removed from the machine. Part numbers on the board and/or ROMs will tell. > The back label says "2112A" and lists the following options: > 12978A (Writeable Control Store Diagnostic) > 12992B (Disk boot ROM) > 12992C (Terminal boot ROM) > I figured out from the bitsavers document and another online document that > these are the 3 ROM options I saw. I've never heard of a 12978A ROM. Is that the part number stamped on the chip? What document describes this? > The paper tape loader ROM is soldered in with the M-series machines, > according to the online documents I read. That's correct. It's always loader number 0. > 12897A (DCPC) > 12892A (Mem Protect) > 13187Ax2 (16k Mem) > > So it looks to me like I need some I/O boards... First, you'll need a base set PCB, unless the one in position 2 is mislocated. > ...(13175 disk drive interface, ... That's a "MAC" disc interface, so you'd also need the 13037 MAC controller box and an associated drive (7905/06/20/25). An alternate would be the 13210A disc interface and a 7900/01 drive, or a 12821 HP-IB interface and a corresponding HP-IB drive. > ...12966 or 12968 terminal interface, ... Note that only the newer HP RTE systems supported the 12966/8 interfaces, and then only with HP terminals (264x, 262x, etc.). Alternates would be the 12531 (teleprinter) or 12880 (CRT) interfaces. The latter works with a broad range of terminals and HP OSes, although with less efficiency (more CPU load) than the 12966/8. > [...] and probably the other Control Store modules.... The M-Series had a small control store address space compared to the later E/F-Series, so there were few firmware options. Beyond the base set, you'll need the DMS instructions PCB to support your MEM card (although DMS isn't overly relevant with 32K of memory). The 12977 Fast FORTRAN Processor instructions help to accelerate some commonly-used routines, although HP operating systems came with software equivalents, so it's not a necessity. The "B" version of the FFP included the DMS instructions, so that only one control store board was needed for both. I think DS/1000 (Distributed Systems) was the only other M-Series firmware option available from HP. -- Dave From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jan 24 13:14:18 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:14:18 -0300 Subject: Re-Introducing the First, and Fully Functional, Lisa Emulator References: <45B792F0.2070309@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <00ae01c73fee$900c4cc0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > Reflecting the echoes of that date, I'm announcing the availability of > The Apple Lisa Emulator. While there are still some flaws and missing > features, to address, I've decided that it was more important to honor > the Lisa's January introduction. W O W ! Congratulations!!! This is the kind of "work of love" I dear to see :oD Now I just hope to see someone running that with the proper ROMs :o) Greetings from Brazil Alexandre From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 24 12:40:29 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:40:29 +0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <45B754CF.4090907@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 24/1/07 12:45, "Jules Richardson" wrote: > Of course it could take another route and board/module/system swapping will be > done in the field, with repairs then carried out at base before re-issue, but > I certainly don't think manufacturers will be as inclined to build such > wasteful systems in a couple of decades' time. > This is exactly what we do at work, the quick swap to get the customer back up and running again then repair if possible back in the workshop. We still carry stocks of components and have the skills so why not use them? -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 24 12:48:55 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:48:55 +0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 24/1/07 15:50, "William Donzelli" wrote: > So you see why I wonder about people that think that component level > troubleshooting works in industry these days. I know there are still a > very few niche parts of the industry that can tolerate this, but they > are very small and shrinking fast. Ta for that :) I didn't explain at the time that of course we module swap on site then repair back in the workshop if such a repair is possible, if not it's out to the breakers and resellers. Since we deal with a lot of older DEC stuff we *have* to repair boards and we enjoy doing it; some of the prices resellers want for replacement parts are sometimes laughable. I agree that component level repairing on site isn't viable and hasn't been for years. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From ray at arachelian.com Wed Jan 24 12:57:43 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:57:43 -0500 Subject: Re-Introducing the First, and Fully Functional, Lisa Emulator In-Reply-To: <00ae01c73fee$900c4cc0$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <45B792F0.2070309@arachelian.com> <00ae01c73fee$900c4cc0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <45B7AC27.1020208@arachelian.com> Alexandre Souza wrote: > > W O W ! > Congratulations!!! This is the kind of "work of love" I dear to > see :oD > Thank you, it was exactly that. :-) > Now I just hope to see someone running that with the proper ROMs :o) > Shouldn't be too hard. From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 13:00:51 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:00:51 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 41, Issue 69 In-Reply-To: References: <200701240030.l0O0U9a0027431@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45B7ACE3.3050800@gmail.com> Mark Tapley wrote: > At 18:30 -0600 1/23/07, Richard wrote: >> Fine. Its shared by two or more people, but its still an opinion and >> not an axiomatically derived fact. > > What's an "axiom"? ax?i?om /??ksi?m/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ak-see-uhm] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation ?noun 1. a self-evident truth that requires no proof. 2. a universally accepted principle or rule. 3. Logic, Mathematics. a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it. [Origin: 1475?85; < L axi?ma < Gk: something worthy, equiv. to axi?-, var. s. of axio?n to reckon worthy + -ma resultative n. suffix] Peace... Sridhar From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 13:27:40 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:27:40 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <45B72A4A.1729.401B4FAC@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45B72A4A.1729.401B4FAC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > Will, maybe you could answer something I was very curious about. I > (probably like many people on this list) was a BBS sysop who made use > of USR modems. Probably some of the best stuff in the business and > worth every nickel (particularly at sysop prices) I spent on them. When was this? Did you ever order modems online, using the USR BBS? I wrote the front end to that thing, although Jack Rubin does not remember it. I was a youngun at the time, so I take no responsibility if the front end sucked. > Upgrades however, were puzzling. Sometimes, USR wanted me to ship > the old modem back (sans wall wart), other times they didn't care. > The most bizarre case when when a firmware upgrade was done and USR > wanted the old SRAM chip returned. No one at USR could tell me what > they expected to do with an old 8K (?) chip. Certainly not re-use it > in a product(!). So you mean SRAM or EPROM? For a while some of the higher end stuff had an EPROM supply problem. The modems used 32020 DSPs, with a big WaferScale Integration EPROM. WSI ran into production problems and could not supply the parts very well, so USR had to make a piggyback dual chip kludge using smaller WSI EPROMs. Perhaps with the upgrade they wanted the proper, bigger EPROM back, to be reused. USR also ran into a problem with people trying to scam them, often returning fake modems (I saw some rather convincing PCMCIA fakes) to try to get credit. Perhaps they wanted a piece back to confirm you actually had a modem. Or just plain old stupidity. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 24 15:19:15 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:19:15 -0800 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: , <45B72A4A.1729.401B4FAC@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <45B75CD3.19988.40E0B618@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jan 2007 at 14:27, William Donzelli wrote: > When was this? Did you ever order modems online, using the USR BBS? I > wrote the front end to that thing, although Jack Rubin does not > remember it. I was a youngun at the time, so I take no responsibility > if the front end sucked. Late 80's, early 90's. No, I can't say that I ever used the BBS to order anything. When it comes to spending money, I still prefer using the telephone where possible--unless there's a multi-level menu on the answering end, particularly a voice-activated one. I've been known to scream at those. > So you mean SRAM or EPROM? For a while some of the higher end stuff > had an EPROM supply problem. The modems used 32020 DSPs, with a big > WaferScale Integration EPROM. WSI ran into production problems and > could not supply the parts very well, so USR had to make a piggyback > dual chip kludge using smaller WSI EPROMs. Perhaps with the upgrade > they wanted the proper, bigger EPROM back, to be reused. No, I mean SRAM (62xx type) for the external Couriers that used the 80188. I recall sending back the EPROM (I figured that was important because it contained USR software) but got a letter demanding the SRAM back also. My reaction was "Why? You're not really going to put a pull in a new product are you?" Very very strange. Later, I upgraded some of the older Couriers to the V.Everythings and called to ask what the heck USR was going to do with an old HST return as part of the upgrade deal. The response was "Oh, we don't really want them back. Fuggedaboudit." I stuck with external Couriers for the entire time I was a sysop. I didn't trust internal modems and my experience with the Sportster taught me that the extra money for the Courier was worth it. Sigh. Those were the days. Cheers, Chuck From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Wed Jan 24 12:43:45 2007 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:43:45 -0700 (MST) Subject: Looking for a Sharp EL-546 calculator In-Reply-To: <200701231219.l0NCJHmP028320@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <45B46DF7.20009@shiresoft.com> <200701231219.l0NCJHmP028320@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: Hi Dave, I'm not sure what the problem is. It acts like the battery is going dead (locks up, spurious resets, screen goes blank) but I've replaced them and it doesn't help. After I get a replacement I'll look into repairing it. Clint On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Dave Dunfield wrote: >> I've got one that I love (and have had 20 years), but would like a second >> one to replace my EL-506 which is flaking worse and worse. > > Is it keypad problems? > My trusty EL-525 gets into a mood every few years requiring me to take > it apart and clean the key contacts ... I've always been able to bring it > back to full health. > > Another odd problem with the Sharps is the LCD display goes faint ... and > a sharp tap on the back of the machine bring it back - The two that I have > both suffer from it, and I've seen it on several others. Probably a design > issue with the mechanical mounting of the LCD. > > Dave > > -- > dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield > dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com > com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 24 15:30:10 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 15:30:10 -0600 Subject: USR (was Re: Component level repair) References: , <45B72A4A.1729.401B4FAC@cclist.sydex.com>, <45B75CD3.19988.40E0B618@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <001301c73ffe$d5e42410$6600a8c0@BILLING> William wrote.... >> When was this? Did you ever order modems online, using the USR BBS? I >> wrote the front end to that thing I definitely used the USR BBS... as a WWIV sysop I was a huge believer in the USR Courier and was in the sysop program for the life of my bbs (once I could afford to get in to the Courier, before that, it was a SupraModem 2400). So I'm sure I would have seen and used the code William spoke of. Chuck wrote... > I stuck with external Couriers for the entire time I was a sysop. I > didn't trust internal modems and my experience with the Sportster > taught me that the extra money for the Courier was worth it. I was not a fan of the sportster, I worshipped the Courier and V.Everything modems. But you have to admit, the sportster was still better than all these "WinModems" of today. I still have two V.Everything modems, both are in flawless working condition. And one of them still has the gold plate on the top saying "Sysop BBS Program, not for resale". Jay From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 24 15:31:47 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:31:47 +0000 Subject: Re-Introducing the First, and Fully Functional, Lisa Emulator In-Reply-To: <45B792F0.2070309@arachelian.com> Message-ID: On 24/1/07 17:10, "Ray Arachelian" wrote: > Reflecting the echoes of that date, I'm announcing the availability of > The Apple Lisa Emulator. While there are still some flaws and missing > features, to address, I've decided that it was more important to honor > the Lisa's January introduction. Oh YES! You've just made my day :oD I've been banging on about the Lisa to people here (here = UK) for years whilst keeping an occasional eye on the project, now I can show them what all the fuss was about without having to cart my 52lb beauties around with me :) Extra applause from me for coding on Alpha! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Jan 24 15:43:35 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:43:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: USR (was Re: Component level repair) In-Reply-To: <001301c73ffe$d5e42410$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: , <45B72A4A.1729.401B4FAC@cclist.sydex.com>, <45B75CD3.19988.40E0B618@cclist.sydex.com> <001301c73ffe$d5e42410$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Jan 2007, Jay West wrote: > I still have two V.Everything modems, both are in flawless working condition. > And one of them still has the gold plate on the top saying "Sysop BBS > Program, not for resale". I still have my Courier HST Dual Standard, although I removed the gold plate. :-) I have a functioning V.Everything, as well. http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/Modems/CourierHST-DS1L.jpg Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 24 16:24:26 2007 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:24:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: HP 9836 on Dovebid In-Reply-To: <45B796B4.3040600@srv.net> Message-ID: <3130.55395.qm@web82702.mail.mud.yahoo.com> http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=tbd311914 No bids yet @ $25 Bob From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 16:36:01 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:36:01 -0800 Subject: HP 9836 on Dovebid In-Reply-To: <3130.55395.qm@web82702.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <45B796B4.3040600@srv.net> <3130.55395.qm@web82702.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90701241436k14fcca31vdd6a4cae9cf7f751@mail.gmail.com> On 1/24/07, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=tbd311914 > > No bids yet @ $25 > > Bob > Also a 9826. Ends 1/25/07. Reading, PA. Large lot. Shipping would be expensive. http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?itemid=tbd312252 From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 24 16:59:00 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 15:59:00 -0700 Subject: HP 9836 on Dovebid In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:36:01 -0800. <1e1fc3e90701241436k14fcca31vdd6a4cae9cf7f751@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <1e1fc3e90701241436k14fcca31vdd6a4cae9cf7f751 at mail.gmail.com>, "Glen Slick" writes: > Also a 9826. Ends 1/25/07. Reading, PA. Large lot. Shipping would > be expensive. > > http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?itemid=tbd312252 "Expensive" would depend on where you are. If Reading, PA is within driving distance, then shipping will be just time and gas. FWIW, my crappy CTS experience cost me $550 to have one pallet shipped from Reading,PA to SLC,UT. I won't use them again, of course, it was a night and day difference between Craters & Freighters and CTS. C&F was awesome and CTS sucked. BTW, the "Tektronix Monitor 920 IT" is actually a Tektronix 9201T terminal -- which is really just a 4205 color graphics terminal rebranded for test instrument bundles. My guess is that the terminal originally went with one of these: I didn't see any mention of the keyboard, so it might be thrown in with another lot of "PC keyboards" since they seem to think the terminal is a "monitor". -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 24 17:50:27 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:50:27 +0000 Subject: Wayback machine disappointment Message-ID: Hi folks, Whilst shrinking in embarrassment at my own website efforts going back to the mid 90s I thought I'd look at www.digital.com for a bit of nostalgia, only to be told that the site is blocked and isn't available. Anyone know why? Wayback machine: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jan 24 17:58:48 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:58:48 -0500 Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power Message-ID: <01C73FE9.CDA7BB00@mse-d03> Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 04:56:58 -0500 From: "Kelly Leavitt" Subject: RE: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > OK, I'm home looking at the drive. The wiring harness from the power > > supply does connect +5, +12, and +24 to the plug that goes into the > > drive. However the TM848-2 drives have pin 4 vacant on the > connector on > > the drive. That is, there is no pin there. Sounds > dangerous, but that is > > typical of Tandy's shortcuts. > > Tandy and Tandon are not THAT close. > > > The wiring harness is made by Tandy, in the Tandy 6000. That this harness has power going to a drive power plug that isn't used it typical of Tandy's shortcuts. They banked on the fact that Tandon would NEVER put another pin in that socket. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, in all fairness to Tandy... Since the schematic for the TM848 shows what seems to be an option to omit the 12V regulator and supply the 12V through the power plug, perhaps Tandy at one time used (or planned to use) drives requiring 12V and kept the 12V supply on the connector for compatibility. Wouldn't be a problem since that pin is physically missing on "normal" drives. Sorta makes sense; in the S-100 world there generally wasn't a 12V supply and every drive needed its own regulator(s), whereas if a system already had a 12V supply then using the 24V and another regulator on the drive would be redundant and just waste power. And there are certainly numerous custom versions of the TM848 around, so you can't count on any particular drive being plug-compatible anyway. Yes, if you happened to plug a drive with the power off option on pin 4 into your 6000, there probably would be some magic smoke... Things weren't quite as "standard" in those days as they are today, FWTW. m From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 24 18:04:00 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:04:00 -0800 Subject: Wayback machine disappointment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B78370.9620.41778B96@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jan 2007 at 23:50, Adrian Graham wrote: > Whilst shrinking in embarrassment at my own website efforts going back to > the mid 90s I thought I'd look at www.digital.com for a bit of nostalgia, > only to be told that the site is blocked and isn't available. > > Anyone know why? Ostensibly because HP doesn't want to you see old copies of DEC's site. From the FAQ: "Sometimes a web site owner will contact us directly and ask us to stop crawling or archiving a site, and we endevor to comply with these requests. When you come accross a "blocked site error" message, that means that a siteowner has made such a request and it has been honored." I'd ask HP public relations about the reason for it. (Spelling errors notwithstanding) Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 24 02:37:11 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:37:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3036245@MEOW.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 24, 7 04:56:58 am Message-ID: > > > OK, I'm home looking at the drive. The wiring harness from the power > > > supply does connect +5, +12, and +24 to the plug that goes into the > > > drive. However the TM848-2 drives have pin 4 vacant on the > > connector on > > > the drive. That is, there is no pin there. Sounds > > dangerous, but that is > > > typical of Tandy's shortcuts. > > > > Tandy and Tandon are not THAT close. > > > > > > > The wiring harness is made by Tandy, in the Tandy 6000. That this > harness has power going to a drive power plug that isn't used it typical > of Tandy's shortcuts. They banked on the fact that Tandon would NEVER > put another pin in that socket. I think that's a rather strange conclusion to some to. I'd think of it more like this ; Some 8" drives need the +12V supply, and when it's needed it's on pin 4 of the connecotr. So Tandy wired the harness to allow for such drives. This particular Tandon drive doesn't need 12V, so pin 4 is missing (or a no-connect). How can _adding_ a wire to a harness be a shortcut? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 24 02:34:11 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:34:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: from "Adrian Graham" at Jan 24, 7 08:22:54 am Message-ID: > > On 24/1/07 03:32, "Tony Duell" wrote: > > >> > >> It's my understanding that the 8089 went over like a lead dirigible. > >> I don't know of a single consumer-level product that used it. > > > > The Apricot computer has one... > > Do you know which ones? I've got several around here to look at, I didn't The oriignal Apricot, you knowm the one where the keyboard clips on the bottom and you carry it like a briefcase, has one. There are 3 40 pin chips in one corner of the mainboard. An 8086, and 8087 (optional) and an 8089. IIRC, the Apricont F1 doesn't. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 24 02:20:21 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:20:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <00cf01c73f57$298a90c0$3201a8c0@hal> from "David Hunt" at Jan 24, 7 01:29:57 am Message-ID: > Many retro-computer people I know have full time careers, one is a surgeon > (he can't solder to save his life), a majority just don't have the time to I am seriously puzzled how anyone who has the manual dexterity to become a surgeon is unable to learn to solder. Maybe they don't want to spend the time, but I would have thought they could learn said skill in 30 minutes or less if they wanted to. In any cane, I fail to see what the ability to solder has to do with anything. I was particularly careful with my choice of words, and 'troubleshooting' != 'repair' . You should not need to solder to do the former, unelss it's to solder wires to testpoints so as to be able to look at signals on a PCB in a cardcage or something. > do more than play the odd game or type in a magazine listing. > IMHO they're missing most of the fun, but anyway.... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 24 02:54:49 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:54:49 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <200701241345.l0ODjf2u025838@floodgap.com> from "Cameron Kaiser" at Jan 24, 7 05:45:41 am Message-ID: > > > > I think _everyone_ here could do component-level troubleshooting if they > > > wanted to. It's mostly a matter of logical reasoning, and I think everone > > > here can think logically. > > > > I don't know why some people appear to have been annoyed by this > > comment - I completely agree with Tony - I too think that most everyone > > here *COULD* to component level troubleshooting if they wanted to. > > It's not just "want to." Sure, I 'want to' be able to figure out and apply > these skills, but I don't because I just don't have the time in grade nor > the time to build up that kind of experience. It makes it sound like > aspiration is the only thing that is lacking, and that's what I object to. No, I stnad by what I said. You _COULD_ learn component level troubleshooting if you wanted to. You certainly have the ability. You are not stupid, and you'e proved by your posts to this list that you can reason logically. Now, the fact that you don't haev the time is another matter. Actually, I think the amount of electronics you'd need to learn is actually quite small. But I do agree that it will take a fair amount of time to get used to it, your first troubleshooting sessions will tkae a lot longer than your later ons (I speak from experience here). I ahve no idea what else you do with your time, and it's none of my business anyway. -tony From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Wed Jan 24 19:52:38 2007 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:52:38 +0100 Subject: Beehive Topper (was: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?) In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90701111750i2d95f8c1p667a7539044a2cbc@mail.gmail.com> References: <45A617DD.15753.7E3E1D3@cclist.sydex.com> <1e1fc3e90701111750i2d95f8c1p667a7539044a2cbc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1169689959.5397.54.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-01-11 at 17:50 -0800, Glen Slick wrote: > On 1/11/07, Richard wrote: > > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > > When I wrote the firmware for the Fortune Systems text terminal, I > > > added a special escape sequence that would allow one to load a > > > program into RAM via the host and execute it. > > Cool! Another nice little tidbit to look for! :-) > How common is that in vintage terminals? The mid-to-late-eighties Tandberg TDV-1200 terminal had that possibility, I believe, though it has never been documented. One interesting feature to this terminal is that with compatible machines, it could enter something like a "DMA" mode which would make it *very* fast, even for line-art grpahics. (It was very commonly used in newspapers, with the (fairly good) NOTIS/NORTEXT system.) It was also popular with a rather interesting Norwegian UNIX machine about which I know far too little, called the IN4200 but affectionally nicknamed the "Goat cheese". I kid you not. I guess it's far catchier in Norwegian... :) -Tore :) From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 24 20:02:53 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:02:53 -0700 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:20:21 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > Many retro-computer people I know have full time careers, one is a surgeon > > (he can't solder to save his life), a majority just don't have the time to > > I am seriously puzzled how anyone who has the manual dexterity to become > a surgeon is unable to learn to solder. So you're puzzled, big deal. But then you go on to a pejorative analysis of why they didn't do what you would do. The bottom line is that not everyone is you and they make different choices. What sticks in people's craw is that you portray your set of choices as demonstrably and obviously superior, when in fact, they are simply different choices. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 20:25:38 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:25:38 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Ta for that :) I didn't explain at the time that of course we module swap on > site then repair back in the workshop if such a repair is possible, if not > it's out to the breakers and resellers. Since we deal with a lot of older > DEC stuff we *have* to repair boards and we enjoy doing it; some of the > prices resellers want for replacement parts are sometimes laughable. Maintaining old DEC stuff would indeed be a niche, so I can understand that. However, someof the things I said still apply. For example, when a DZ11 goes bad, do you actually fix the board (I assume, of course, that you use DZ11s)?. It does not really make sense to, from a business perspective, since good ones are common as dirt and quite available. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 20:29:44 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:29:44 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <45B75CD3.19988.40E0B618@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45B72A4A.1729.401B4FAC@cclist.sydex.com> <45B75CD3.19988.40E0B618@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > No, I mean SRAM (62xx type) for the external Couriers that used the > 80188. I recall sending back the EPROM (I figured that was important > because it contained USR software) but got a letter demanding the > SRAM back also. My reaction was "Why? You're not really going to > put a pull in a new product are you?" Very very strange. I would bet it was for some sort of verification. USR was such a nice guy company in the early years that a large number of people came up with schemes to scam them. Many worked. USR started to get a little over cautious, sometimes doing things that made no sense on the surface, but some of the plans proved to be wise. Maybe this was one of them. -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 24 20:30:28 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:30:28 -0700 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:25:38 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > Maintaining old DEC stuff would indeed be a niche, so I can understand > that. However, someof the things I said still apply. For example, when > a DZ11 goes bad, do you actually fix the board (I assume, of course, > that you use DZ11s)?. It does not really make sense to, from a > business perspective, since good ones are common as dirt and quite > available. Just don't scrap the DZ11s, make them available to people who want to scrounge bus transceiver chips from them. Bus transceiver chips for Q-bus and Unibus are *not* common as dirt and more than a few of us have scratched our heads on how to create new compatible circuits. Meanwhile, the scroungers taught me that it might be easier to scrounge the bus transceiver chips off of dead or readily available boards. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 20:43:21 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:43:21 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Just don't scrap the DZ11s, make them available to people who want to > scrounge bus transceiver chips from them. > > Bus transceiver chips for Q-bus and Unibus are *not* common as dirt > and more than a few of us have scratched our heads on how to create > new compatible circuits. Meanwhile, the scroungers taught me that > it might be easier to scrounge the bus transceiver chips off of dead > or readily available boards. I am talking from a purely business perspective. The hobby side of things works on a different set of rules. I have a large bunch of boards with interesting or rare chips that I am saving for parts scrounging, even with gold edge fingers and things removed. Sometimes, I will even cut down a board so the interesting or rare chips are left for removal when needed, but most of the rest has gone to the shredder. -- Will From tothwolf at concentric.net Wed Jan 24 21:19:20 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:19:20 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, C Fernandez wrote: > Tothwolf wrote: > >> The ratchet version of the Ideal Telemaster isn't too bad, and I carry >> one in with my spare tools, but its not my first choice and I don't >> think I've used it in about 3 years now. The non-ratchet version is >> just junk IMO though. > > Ok, found it..... I don't have either of the Ideal tools your talking > about. Mine is a Ideal Crimpmaster. It does ratchet, which I assume is > benefit since it doesn't release until the full crimp has been placed on > the connector. > > It's 30-525 on Ideals web page, if your not familiar with it. > > I was a bit surprised to find it's made in Taiwan. Its got to be the > most expensive Taiwanese tool I've even purchased at $55. I am familiar with that one. Its uses the same frame design as the Paladin 1300 http://www.paladin-tools.com/view_category.php?id=76 and Greenlee 45504 http://www.mygreenlee.com/products/det.cfm?id=1432&upc=45504 The dies from Ideal, Paladin, and Greenlee for these tools are also interchangeable, though the manufacturers say they aren't ;) Overall, its not a bad frame style, but it does require quite a bit of breakover force compared to the higher end tooling. The Paladin 8000 series frame also works with these style of dies, and doesn't require any breakover force. The extra breakover force really becomes an issue if you are installing more than a handful or so of plugs. After a few dozen, it can really start to hurt. Oddly enough, the first quality crimp tool I bought was a Paladin 1300, which I still own. I've not used it in years now though as the 8000 series frames are so much easier on my hands. If you think the Ideal Crimpmaster was expensive though, these are what I'm currently using: AMP 1-231666-1 modular plug hand tool kit with dies http://www.mouser.com/search/refine.aspx?Ntt=231666 AMP 853400-6 6 position offset latch die set http://www.mouser.com/search/Refine.aspx?Ntt=853400 GMP 15305 modular plug presser kit http://www.craftworktools.com/ht113.html http://www.gmptools.com/nf/index_MPP.htm http://www.gmptools.com/pdf/15305.pdf The prices are fairly average, sometimes you can find them for $10-20 less for the tools, though I've yet to find the AMP dies for less than $35-40 retail. I still need to buy a long body plug die for my AMP tools as I have a couple boxes of AMP long body plugs that I found surplus last year that I can't yet put to use. -Toth From rick at rickmurphy.net Wed Jan 24 21:22:10 2007 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:22:10 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701250322.l0P3MCI8024471@mail.itm-inst.com> At 09:30 PM 1/24/2007, Richard wrote: >Just don't scrap the DZ11s, make them available to people who want to >scrounge bus transceiver chips from them. > >Bus transceiver chips for Q-bus and Unibus are *not* common as dirt >and more than a few of us have scratched our heads on how to create >new compatible circuits. Meanwhile, the scroungers taught me that >it might be easier to scrounge the bus transceiver chips off of dead >or readily available boards. I've got a bunch of DEC chips that were Omnibus transceivers and other stuff. (DEC380s, 384s, something like that. Collected to get/keep PDP-8 stuff running.) There's a bunch of old TTL in the same collection. Given the recent conversations perhaps I should put 'em all on eBay? :-) L@@K R at R3 D3< CH1P5 !!! What are the "interesting" part numbers? I'll have to look at the collection and see if there's anything really useful. -Rick From tothwolf at concentric.net Wed Jan 24 21:22:59 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:22:59 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > C Fernandez wrote: > >>> The ratchet version of the Ideal Telemaster isn't too bad, and I carry >>> one in with my spare tools, but its not my first choice and I don't >>> think I've used it in about 3 years now. The non-ratchet version is >>> just junk IMO though. >> >> Ok, found it..... I don't have either of the Ideal tools your talking >> about. Mine is a Ideal Crimpmaster. It does ratchet, which I assume >> is benefit since it doesn't release until the full crimp has been >> placed on the connector. > > That's not the only benefit. The Crimpmaster has interchangeable dies. And they are industry standard. I have all sorts of dies for my Paladin frames. Everything from modular plug dies, to coax dies, to old style fiber optic connector dies, to electrical terminal and ferrule dies. There are probably close to 100 different dies available that will fit these type of frames, though I only own a fraction of them. -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Wed Jan 24 21:26:55 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:26:55 -0600 (CST) Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ In-Reply-To: <45B4E9B9.7020900@internet1.net> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com> <00f201c73e41$c15380e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> <45B4E9B9.7020900@internet1.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, C Fernandez wrote: > Jay West wrote: > >>> That's not the only benefit. The Crimpmaster has interchangeable dies. >> I've got the crimpmaster in my bag. Worked very well for years. > > Good to know.... I would hate to have found I bought junk. I haven't > used it enough to find out for myself. Not only that, but your dies will fit the higher end frames should you find yourself needing to do lots of connectors. I still can't believe the difference that it made when I switched from the 1300 to the 8000 series Paladin frames. >> Ok, I'll reveal my ignorance... what's this talk of a flush cutter for >> trimming leads? I have a pair of electricians scissors that work >> wonderfully. Can someone educate me on what I'd need something like the >> flush cutter's mentioned previously for? > > I've been wondering the same thing. My guess is that what I would > normally call "wire cutters", just wont work for some of the picky types > on the list ..... like Tony and Toth :-) Not quite...think miniature precision cutters with parallel edges. The head on most flush cutters is smaller than a dime. -Toth From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 21:31:35 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:31:35 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> Message-ID: <45B82497.8060302@gmail.com> Tothwolf wrote: > If you think the Ideal Crimpmaster was expensive though, these are what > I'm currently using: > > AMP 1-231666-1 modular plug hand tool kit with dies > http://www.mouser.com/search/refine.aspx?Ntt=231666 > > AMP 853400-6 6 position offset latch die set > http://www.mouser.com/search/Refine.aspx?Ntt=853400 > > GMP 15305 modular plug presser kit > http://www.craftworktools.com/ht113.html > http://www.gmptools.com/nf/index_MPP.htm > http://www.gmptools.com/pdf/15305.pdf > > The prices are fairly average, sometimes you can find them for $10-20 > less for the tools, though I've yet to find the AMP dies for less than > $35-40 retail. I still need to buy a long body plug die for my AMP tools > as I have a couple boxes of AMP long body plugs that I found surplus > last year that I can't yet put to use. That's actually not that bad. My brother paid $350 for my Ideal Crimpmaster set. He got me *all* of the available dies. It was a *really* nice gift. I've saved a small fortune on BNC-terminated A/V cables alone. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 21:37:04 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:37:04 -0500 Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com> Message-ID: <45B825E0.4050103@gmail.com> Tothwolf wrote: >>>> The ratchet version of the Ideal Telemaster isn't too bad, and I >>>> carry one in with my spare tools, but its not my first choice and I >>>> don't think I've used it in about 3 years now. The non-ratchet >>>> version is just junk IMO though. >>> >>> Ok, found it..... I don't have either of the Ideal tools your talking >>> about. Mine is a Ideal Crimpmaster. It does ratchet, which I assume >>> is benefit since it doesn't release until the full crimp has been >>> placed on the connector. >> >> That's not the only benefit. The Crimpmaster has interchangeable dies. > > And they are industry standard. I have all sorts of dies for my Paladin > frames. Everything from modular plug dies, to coax dies, to old style > fiber optic connector dies, to electrical terminal and ferrule dies. > There are probably close to 100 different dies available that will fit > these type of frames, though I only own a fraction of them. I had no idea that this tool used a standard configuration. I just picked it out because Ideal had a good selection of dies for it. Is there a way of using this tool to attach SCs to Fiber without epoxy and polishing? That would kick much ass. I have a cleaver set and tester. I just don't have all the latest fiber termination gear. I just don't have the cash right now. How do the feel and function of the Paladin frames compare with the Crimpmaster ones? Peace... Sridhar From tothwolf at concentric.net Wed Jan 24 21:47:04 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:47:04 -0600 (CST) Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, dwight elvey wrote: >> From: "Jay West" >> >> Ok, I'll reveal my ignorance... what's this talk of a flush cutter for >> trimming leads? I have a pair of electricians scissors that work >> wonderfully. Can someone educate me on what I'd need something like the >> flush cutter's mentioned previously for? > > Hi Jay > Most cutters tend to pinch the wire, leaving a sharp edge that can > easily slice fingers. Also, at times when making piggy back boards it is > desired to keep things close trimmed. I have both flush and regular > cutters but find most times, I like the flush ones. > Cutting larger size solid wire, the flush cut can leave an almost flat > end ( sometimes needed for special cases ). > Of course, I wish to get a new carbide flush cutters. If you've ever > used the carbide ones, you'll understand. Especially if you have > hundreds of cuts to do. The cutting effort is easily reduced to less > then 30% than regular steel cutters. They are much more expensive as > well and one should never loan them out as I had done :( > Dwight Flush cutters are also very handy for trimming or removing wires on crowded or high density connection blocks (66, 110, BIX, Krone, System D, Cosmic, etc). That's why I carry at least one pair in each of my telecom bags and cases these days. For very large wire or multi-pair cable, I tend to use a pair of Klein or Greenlee cable cutters. They have a bypass shearing type blades and leave a nice clean edge. Ideal, Greenlee, and Paladin also make smaller versions that they market for data cabling, though They can be very useful for regular wire up to about 10-8 AWG too. For the *really* big jobs, I have a pair of GMP 66250 "Texas Cutters" http://www.gmptools.com/nf/66250.htm The handles are about 3ft long, and will easily cut up to a 3" data cable. I'd like to buy a pair of ratcheting cutters for large cables, but I don't really want to spend $300-400 on them right now. -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Wed Jan 24 21:57:42 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:57:42 -0600 (CST) Subject: OT Crimp tools & Cutter Re: DEC MMJ In-Reply-To: <45B49652.6272.36095285@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <001301c73e47$949ff6e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> <45B49652.6272.36095285@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 22 Jan 2007 at 11:05, Jay West wrote: > >> Ahhh this makes sense. Example... trimming the excess from an IDC type >> connector. This flush cutter would get right next to the wall of the >> connector as my scissors won't. Gotcha. > > I've never used them for that--I've always used a sharp Xacto knife held > so it rides against the connector, but tilted slightly, so it doesn't > dig into the connector body. Makes a clean cut and is very fast. Ideally, you'd want to cut the ribbon cable with a ribbon cable cutter prior to installing the connector, and then crimp it with a tool that has a wire stop so that it sits flush. Failing that, an Xacto is one of the easiest ways I've found to fix it, though it still doesn't put a perfect 90 degree cut on the ribbon cable and you still have to be careful that a strand from one wire doesn't short an adjacent wire. > There's a certain aesthetic purpose to using flush cutters on a PCB. > Many of the cheap Asian boards that I've run into leave a couple of > millimeters of component lead extending above the board surface. Heaven > help you if you have to reach between two boards and manage to snag the > back of your hand on the exposed leads. *cough* Philips Magnavox *cough* Don't even get me started on how badly these boards also tend to be soldered. > It's like sharp edges on stamped metal parts--there's no reason other > than economy to leave them that way. I don't know how many times I've > opened a finger on the edge of someone's PC case. And people used to wonder why I'd carry superglue in with my PC service tools ;) > When electronics equipment used to be hand-wired in a chassis, the sign > of a good builder was adequte use of tie strips and neatly placed (and > laced) wires. "Point to point" wiring with components flopping every > which way among a rat's nest of wiring was the sign of a hack, even > though both construction techniques produced a working device. That reminds me of the JC80 chassis I was looking at this last weekend. I had it out because I've been cleaning out the storage building. It is made up of dozens of wire wrap boards. Most of the boards had their wire wrap in nice neat layers with the wires taking 90 degree turns out from the sockets. One board I noticed though had its wires randomly layered and routed every which way and it looked pretty bad. It probably worked fine at one time, but I'd not want to have to trace it out. -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Wed Jan 24 22:29:04 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:29:04 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B825E0.4050103@gmail.com> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> <45B4E15F.908@gmail.com> <45B825E0.4050103@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Jan 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Tothwolf wrote: > >>> That's not the only benefit. The Crimpmaster has interchangeable dies. >> >> And they are industry standard. I have all sorts of dies for my Paladin >> frames. Everything from modular plug dies, to coax dies, to old style >> fiber optic connector dies, to electrical terminal and ferrule dies. >> There are probably close to 100 different dies available that will fit >> these type of frames, though I only own a fraction of them. > > I had no idea that this tool used a standard configuration. I just > picked it out because Ideal had a good selection of dies for it. > > Is there a way of using this tool to attach SCs to Fiber without epoxy > and polishing? That would kick much ass. I have a cleaver set and > tester. I just don't have all the latest fiber termination gear. I > just don't have the cash right now. Possibly...it depends on the connector though. These are the dies Paladin lists on their website: http://www.paladin-tools.com/list_tools.php?id=109&parent_id=236 Ideal lists a number of dies here: http://www.idealindustries.com/dc/FiberOptic.nsf Greenlee also has a few fiber optic dies available, but I don't see any SC type in my catalog, though its over a year old. There are also fiber optic dies available for the Ideal PremierMaster frame (# 28-500). Its dies are interchangeable with those for the Paladin 1600 series and the Greenlee Kwik Cycle 8" frame (can't find the part number right now). The Greenlee 45637 8" frame has a die set that might work with SCs. The die sets for the Ideal PremierMaster, Paladin 1600, and 8" Greenlee frame are *not* compatible with the Ideal Crimpmaster, Paladin 1300/8000, or the Greenlee 45504 though. > How do the feel and function of the Paladin frames compare with the > Crimpmaster ones? The breakover force and ratchet feel is identical on the Ideal Crimpmaster, Paladin 1300, and Greenlee 45504. The grip on the later Ideal Crimpaster frames is a little softer, whereas the 1300 has a hard plastic. The older Crimpmaster frames had the same hard plastic grip that the Paladin 1300 uses. The Greenlee 45504's grip has a nice non-slip rubber type grip, so if I had to settle for one of those 3, the Greenlee would probably be my pick. That said, all of those frames still require quite a bit of breakover force to complete the ratchet cycle (how hard they are to squeeze just before that last ratchet "click"). The Paladin 8000 frame has the pivot point and ratchet located differently so that it doesn't require any breakover force. Basically, you can squeeze the 8000 series handles all the way though at about the same amount of force. The Ideal PremierMaster and Paladin 1600 frames don't require nearly as much breakover force as the Crimpmaster and 1300 frames. Its probably partly to do due the smaller dies and reduced frame size. For electrical terminals, the ERG series tools from Thomas & Betts are still my favorites, though I do still use the Paladin 8000 frames with terminal dies from time to time as well. Of course, then there are the Weidmuller tools, who oddly enough, used to (or might still) make a lot of the tools Paladin sells. Weidmuller makes probably the best wire ferrule crimpers out there. I'm a bit of an odd duck in that I use ferrules, especially when I've wired industrial and facility equipment where captive terminal blocks were used. I've been told that outside of Europe, they aren't used all that much, and I've seen enough poorly wired machines to believe it. -Toth From tothwolf at concentric.net Wed Jan 24 22:54:50 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:54:50 -0600 (CST) Subject: DEC MMJ, eBay madness In-Reply-To: <45B82497.8060302@gmail.com> References: <45B3F4FF.3070007@internet1.net> <45B40951.6090605@internet1.net> <45B44E07.7080106@internet1.net> <45B82497.8060302@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Jan 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Tothwolf wrote: > >> If you think the Ideal Crimpmaster was expensive though, these are what >> I'm currently using: >> The prices are fairly average, sometimes you can find them for $10-20 >> less for the tools, though I've yet to find the AMP dies for less than >> $35-40 retail. I still need to buy a long body plug die for my AMP >> tools as I have a couple boxes of AMP long body plugs that I found >> surplus last year that I can't yet put to use. > > That's actually not that bad. My brother paid $350 for my Ideal > Crimpmaster set. He got me *all* of the available dies. It was a > *really* nice gift. I've saved a small fortune on BNC-terminated A/V > cables alone. Well, now he can look though the Paladin and Greenlee dies too *grin* One thing I really like about the GMP tool is the single die. Since it only has one part that needs to be changed, its very handy and take up little room in the leather holster. The plastic kit case is pretty massive though. The AMP tool does use two dies, but they drop into the top of the tool and there is only one small screw to hold the captive die. I actually prefer the older AMP tool frame though. The older AMP frame handles were made by Sargent Tools, but after Tyco bought AMP, they switched to a different handle design that is harder to squeeze. I've resorted to combing eBay from time to time for the older frames to keep spare parts on hand. When it comes to coax dies, I do still use my Paladin 8000 frames for those, though not as much as I used to for F connectors. These days I'm mostly using Thomas & Betts Snap-n-Seals and use the SNSIT for bulk RG6 connector installs as it has a ratchet. For one offs, I carry a SNSUTL tool for RG6 as well as a L3011B for RG11 drops. These tools are made by Sargent Tools for Thomas & Betts, so you can often find the Sargent branded tools for far less than those rebranded for T&B. My favorite coax strippers for these connectors are currently the CablePrep CPT-6590 (RG59/RG6) and CPT-1100 (RG11). I have some other CablePrep CPT tools, but those are the two I use the most. For linear compression type BNCs and RCAs, I use a Paladin Tools 1555 SealTite Pro. Its fully adjustable and will handle pretty much any brand or style of connector, but I find it especially useful for linear compression BNC and RCA connectors. I keep thinking about buying a set of Canare tools, but so far the price tag has kept me away. I haven't had any requests for Canare connectors yet, but I expect someone will want them eventually. -Toth From useddec at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 23:06:56 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:06:56 -0600 Subject: FW: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <001401c7403c$2ac04e90$4200a8c0@main> References: <001401c7403c$2ac04e90$4200a8c0@main> Message-ID: <624966d60701242106t22b6e589ne9daf2cb79f637aa@mail.gmail.com> > > > > I have thousands of DEC boards, including DZ11's, here if any one needs > them for replacements or parts. Thanks, Paul Anderson In article , > "William Donzelli" writes: > > > Maintaining old DEC stuff would indeed be a niche, so I can understand > > that. However, someof the things I said still apply. For example, when > > a DZ11 goes bad, do you actually fix the board (I assume, of course, > > that you use DZ11s)?. It does not really make sense to, from a > > business perspective, since good ones are common as dirt and quite > > available. > > Just don't scrap the DZ11s, make them available to people who want to > scrounge bus transceiver chips from them. > > Bus transceiver chips for Q-bus and Unibus are *not* common as dirt > and more than a few of us have scratched our heads on how to create > new compatible circuits. Meanwhile, the scroungers taught me that > it might be easier to scrounge the bus transceiver chips off of dead > or readily available boards. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > > From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jan 24 23:59:45 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:59:45 -0600 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <00d001c73f58$69b15610$3201a8c0@hal> References: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha><5.1.0.14.2.20070122201724.04af09f8@mail.30below.com> <45B5869E.6090300@oldskool.org><14d501c73ef2$b1e28a50$f0fea8c0@alpha> <45B63831.4020507@oldskool.org> <00d001c73f58$69b15610$3201a8c0@hal> Message-ID: <45B84751.6000205@oldskool.org> David Hunt wrote: > I've got a 1GB IBM Microdrive in a digital camera that has been around the > world, taken over 75,000 pictures and that's over five years old, still no > bad sectors. A bit of slowcoach compared to SanDisk UltraIII CF cards, but > the old snapper sits in the glovebox of the car (temps between -10C and > 45C), sweet as a nut still. Yep! There are only two drawbacks to microdrives: - Slower than real flash - Can't use 6000+ feet above sea level (lack of air pressure can make the drive go wonky or, rarely, break it) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 25 00:20:16 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:20:16 -0800 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <45B84751.6000205@oldskool.org> References: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha>, <00d001c73f58$69b15610$3201a8c0@hal>, <45B84751.6000205@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45B7DBA0.19236.42D0036C@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jan 2007 at 23:59, Jim Leonard wrote: > Yep! There are only two drawbacks to microdrives: > > - Slower than real flash > - Can't use 6000+ feet above sea level (lack of air pressure can make > the drive go wonky or, rarely, break it) So, I guess that not many were sold in Flagstaff, AZ? :) Cheers, Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 25 00:34:24 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:34:24 -0500 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: <45B7DBA0.19236.42D0036C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <0a7b01c73ca5$a6178c60$f0fea8c0@alpha> <00d001c73f58$69b15610$3201a8c0@hal> <45B84751.6000205@oldskool.org> <45B7DBA0.19236.42D0036C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 1/25/07, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 24 Jan 2007 at 23:59, Jim Leonard wrote: > > > Yep! There are only two drawbacks to microdrives: > > > > - Slower than real flash > > - Can't use 6000+ feet above sea level (lack of air pressure can make > > the drive go wonky or, rarely, break it) > > So, I guess that not many were sold in Flagstaff, AZ? :) Or at the South Pole ;-) (9300 elev, 10000-12000 pressure altitude due to temp/air density effects). It's a real problem there - I wouldn't want to take a Microdrive to that altitude. Personally, my mp3 player was FLASH-based, on purpose, even though it holds a fraction of the songs of any hard-drive-based player. In 2005, when I arrived in October, I heard that virtually every iPod over the winter had a hard drive failure. Those are, IIRC, 1.8" drives. 3.5" desktop and server drives last longer, but we replaced about one per month in our experiment. Naturally, I left my HP Kittyhawk at Sea Level. -ethan From dm.hunt at ntlworld.com Wed Jan 24 17:26:41 2007 From: dm.hunt at ntlworld.com (David Hunt) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:26:41 -0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: <45B754CF.4090907@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <00c001c7400f$1c1dca70$3201a8c0@hal> > On 24/1/07 12:45, "Jules Richardson" > wrote: > > > Of course it could take another route and > board/module/system swapping > > will be done in the field, with repairs then carried out at base > > before re-issue, but I certainly don't think manufacturers > will be as > > inclined to build such wasteful systems in a couple of > decades' time. > > > > This is exactly what we do at work, the quick swap to get the > customer back up and running again then repair if possible > back in the workshop. We still carry stocks of components and > have the skills so why not use them? Same here, the customer gets a replacement system usually within the day and the faulty system is brought back for repair at our leisure and re-issued, after thorough testing, as a replacement unit for a future breakdown. Dave ;) From a_j_giusti at yahoo.com Wed Jan 24 17:38:51 2007 From: a_j_giusti at yahoo.com (Andrew Giusti) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 15:38:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Selling Intel 8096/196 Emulators, Message-ID: <994838.29346.qm@web32102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I found your post while searching for an ICE-196PC. Have you sold this item yet? If not, can you answer a few questions? Specifically, does the emulator have a flex cable going from the PC board to the processor pod? Is it gold, with silkscreen 456583-001 (or -002) TEK INTEL? If so, I would be interested. Please let me know your asking price. Regards, Andrew. ____________________________________________________________________________________ The fish are biting. Get more visitors on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing. http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/sponsoredsearch_v2.php From swtpc6800 at comcast.net Thu Jan 25 05:34:36 2007 From: swtpc6800 at comcast.net (Michael Holley) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 03:34:36 -0800 Subject: MITS (Altair) Computer Notes are online Message-ID: <001301c74075$508b3480$6601a8c0@downstairs2> Most of the issues of MITS Computer Notes are online at STARTUP: Albuquerque and the Personal Computer Revolution. (The Paul Allen funded gallery at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science.) http://www.startupgallery.org/gallery/computernotes.php You can read articles by Ed Roberts, David Bunnell, Paul Allen and Bill Gates. Here is Bill Gates complaining about not being able to make any money on software. http://www.startupgallery.org/gallery/notesViewer.php?ii=76_2&p=3 Here is a bug list for BASIC http://www.startupgallery.org/gallery/notesViewer.php?ii=75_12&p=19 These are high quality scans and a valuable source of computer history. Michael Holley From mike at ambientdesign.com Thu Jan 25 02:29:26 2007 From: mike at ambientdesign.com (Mike van Bokhoven) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:29:26 +1300 Subject: Morrow software (MS-DOS, MBasic, NewWord etc) References: <994838.29346.qm@web32102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004801c7405a$ed096a40$3c00a8c0@fluke> Hi all, I have some 5 1/4 inch diskettes here marked "For Morrow MDCP-88 system". They look like the disks that would have been shipped with a Morrow as a standard software package. I don't know if they're readable, but they've been stored in reasonable conditions, and look physically OK. Are these of use to anyone? Free to anyone who will use or archive them! They're located in Auckland, New Zealand. I don't mind posting them if postage costs are covered. If no-one wants them I'll auction them off on trademe.co.nz. Software includes: MS-DOS 2.11 rev 2.1 MBasic rev 5.21 BaZic rev 3.03NewWord v1.32 Personal Pearl rev 1.09MD (2 disks) Supercalc rev 1.12 Supercalc 2 ver 1.0 Correct-It rev 1.0 Mike. From vax9000 at gmail.com Thu Jan 25 06:55:49 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 07:55:49 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1/24/07, Richard wrote: > > > In article , > "William Donzelli" writes: > > > Maintaining old DEC stuff would indeed be a niche, so I can understand > > that. However, someof the things I said still apply. For example, when > > a DZ11 goes bad, do you actually fix the board (I assume, of course, > > that you use DZ11s)?. It does not really make sense to, from a > > business perspective, since good ones are common as dirt and quite > > available. > > Just don't scrap the DZ11s, make them available to people who want to > scrounge bus transceiver chips from them. > > Bus transceiver chips for Q-bus and Unibus are *not* common as dirt > and more than a few of us have scratched our heads on how to create > new compatible circuits. Meanwhile, the scroungers taught me that The answer is 7406. Plain and simple and compatible and that is it. vax, 9000 it might be easier to scrounge the bus transceiver chips off of dead > or readily available boards. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jan 25 08:06:55 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:06:55 -0500 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:59:45 CST." <45B84751.6000205@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200701251406.l0PE6tUf018806@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > >Yep! There are only two drawbacks to microdrives: Heh. I remember someone asking me (at work) if a 3.5" ST-506 drive would work in zero G. I ask where it was installed and they said a KC-135 :-) Apparently someone wanted to use one in the "vomit comet"... and apparently it worked (at least they never complained that it didn't) I don't know how high those where pressurized, but I'd guess around 8000ft. No doubt the old drives didn't need as much air density; the flying height was not that low. I have no idea how air pressure affects the boundary layer over the surface - I assume less density translates to less drag and then to a lower flight. -brad From kelly at catcorner.org Thu Jan 25 08:24:36 2007 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:24:36 -0500 Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B1498@MEOW.catcorner.org> >> The wiring harness is made by Tandy, in the Tandy 6000. That this >> harness has power going to a drive power plug that isn't used it typical >> of Tandy's shortcuts. They banked on the fact that Tandon would NEVER >> put another pin in that socket. > > I think that's a rather strange conclusion to some to. > > I'd think of it more like this ; > > Some 8" drives need the +12V supply, and when it's needed it's on pin 4 > of the connecotr. So Tandy wired the harness to allow for such drives. > > This particular Tandon drive doesn't need 12V, so pin 4 is missing (or a > no-connect). > > How can _adding_ a wire to a harness be a shortcut? > > -tony I'm glad your not working on projects for me then. Having potentially damaging voltage on a connector that is not needed doesn't sound like good practices to me. I have the service manual here for this drive. No where does it say that pin 4 is not connected to anything. Nor do the schematics I have show that this drive's 7812 (which is how it is referenced in the print) is optional. The only source for +12 on this schematic is the 7812, derrived from the +24v line on Pin 1. Tandy also uses the same connector on the same power supply wiring harness, but with a completely different pinout (and using the same color scheme in some instances) to provide power to the card cage riser IN THE SAME MACHINE. If you use this connector on the drive instead of the riser, bad things happen. If you use the drive power connector on the riser, bad things happen. The only way to tell them apart reliably is that the drive power cable has two connectors (to power 2 drives) and the riser power connector has only one AMP connector. By the way, if anyone needs these connectors, they are stocked by Mouser and are about $3.50 each. Search for AMP 1-480270-0. I'm reworking a (different) power supply so I can put several TM848-2e drives in an enclosure for imaging disks from a PC. I also found 18ga hookup wire in 100' spools for less than $10 per spool at Jameco. It may save some wiring, but I still think it is a poor practice. From dzubint at vcn.bc.ca Thu Jan 25 09:39:23 2007 From: dzubint at vcn.bc.ca (dzubint at vcn.bc.ca) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 07:39:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube Message-ID: I don't know why, but instead of typing in "Paris Hilton" into the YouTube search engine, I typed "PDP-11" and found a set of four videos called "Programming the PDP11" from Douglas Harms at DePauw University in Indiana, USA made in 2001 and portrayed as a Star-Trek-holodeck simulation back to the 1970s They are really funny and quite entertaining to watch. Quotes like Q: "What's 'paper tape'?" A: "It's very similar to the punch cards which I'm sure you've used" You can watch them on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV-7J5y1TQc is part 1 of 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zaaD_xP6nU is part 2 of 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiE2QldpQRQ is part 3 of 4 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUSn59iY8U8 is part 4 of 4 Or you can get them (Apple Quicktime .MOV format) at the http://fs6.depauw.edu/~dharms/pdp11/ web page. see also: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2000-March/142575.html Nice to see video of the old fanfold paper tape reader in action. (part3) Thomas Dzubin, PDP-11 & VAX fan Vancouver, Calgary, or Saskatoon CANADA From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jan 25 09:41:19 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 07:41:19 -0800 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "William Donzelli" ---snip--- > >So you see why I wonder about people that think that component level >troubleshooting works in industry these days. I know there are still a >very few niche parts of the industry that can tolerate this, but they >are very small and shrinking fast. > >-- >Will Hi While component level repair doesn't make sense for 100% of production, it is still needed for yield loss analysis. Often a simple problem in production causes several different problems in the product. Even at places that build up scrap piles, it is wise to evaluate some percentage of the failures. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get in the mood for Valentine's Day. View photos, recipes and more on your Live.com page. http://www.live.com/?addTemplate=ValentinesDay&ocid=T001MSN30A0701 From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 25 10:58:44 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:58:44 -0600 Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube References: Message-ID: <00ea01c740a2$14992950$6600a8c0@BILLING> Thomas wrote.... > I typed "PDP-11" and found a set of four videos called > "Programming the PDP11" from Douglas Harms at DePauw University in > Indiana, USA made in 2001 and portrayed as a Star-Trek-holodeck > simulation back to the 1970s Hey, those were a blast. 1) When the video starts with that music and the camera panning up and down the front of the PDP rack... why did I get the feeling I was watching a porno? Oh... DECporn. I just wanted to rip the front panels off that machine and look at that backplane. 2) I found the discussion of octal rather interesting. They said "Everything is in octal, where a 5 is a 101". Hrmm.. methinks that's binary, not octal ;) A five in octal is, well, 5 :) 3) Did you notice the Borland C manuals on the bookshelf in the guys office? I suspect that based on the set of blue-over-yellow color scheme books. All in all, great stuff. Would be good to show kids to learn how things used to be. Jay From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 25 10:53:10 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 09:53:10 -0700 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 25 Jan 2007 07:55:49 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "9000 VAX" writes: > The answer is 7406. Plain and simple and compatible and that is it. If that is the answer, I'm not sure what the question is, because I didn't ask one... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Jan 25 11:38:02 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:38:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20070125173803.0B84458512@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Richard > > > In article , > "9000 VAX" writes: > > > The answer is 7406. Plain and simple and compatible and that is it. > > If that is the answer, I'm not sure what the question is, because I > didn't ask one... What is six times seven? Oh wait, that is the question for another answer... Cheers, Bryan From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 25 12:13:09 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:13:09 +0000 Subject: Is MSX on topic? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 24/1/07 08:34, "Tony Duell" wrote: >> >> On 24/1/07 03:32, "Tony Duell" wrote: >> >>>> >>>> It's my understanding that the 8089 went over like a lead dirigible. >>>> I don't know of a single consumer-level product that used it. >>> >>> The Apricot computer has one... >> >> Do you know which ones? I've got several around here to look at, I didn't > > The oriignal Apricot, you knowm the one where the keyboard clips on the > bottom and you carry it like a briefcase, has one. There are 3 40 pin > chips in one corner of the mainboard. An 8086, and 8087 (optional) and an > 8089. > > IIRC, the Apricont F1 doesn't. Typical, the ones I've got here are F1, F10 and FP :) Will I remember to get down to the garage at the weekend to have a look at the PC? Probably not, in this weather! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 25 12:13:51 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:13:51 -0600 Subject: OT: faking a VGA display Message-ID: <45B8F35F.3020607@yahoo.co.uk> Some of you here might know this :) I've got a system here where I need to make it think that there's a monitor plugged into its VGA port even when there isn't (long story). Plugging a real CRT into the port even when that CRT is switched off and unplugged from the AC supply works, so there's obviously some way of doing it. Measuring the CRT above (switched off, unplugged from AC, and unplugged from the device) with respect to the VGA connector's shield gives me the following readings: pin sig value 1 R 76ohm 2 G 76ohm 3 B 76ohm 4 NC GND 5 GND GND 6 GND GND 7 GND GND 8 GND GND 9 NC infinite resistance 10 GND GND 11 NC GND 12 DDC DAT 8.1Kohm (initially 7.6Kohm, rose at first then steadied) 13 HSYNC 4.6Kohm 14 VSYNC 4.7Kohm 15 DDC CLK 8.1Kohm (initially 7.6Kohm, rose at first then steadied) Any suggestions? Do I just need 76ohm resistors to ground on the RGB lines (and possibly 4.7Kohm resistors to ground on HSYNC and VSYNC)? Or is there likely something more subtle going on that I need to incorporate into my "fake" connector? (Given that VGA supplies no DC out, it can't be anything too complex!) cheers Jules From tothwolf at concentric.net Thu Jan 25 12:58:30 2007 From: tothwolf at concentric.net (Tothwolf) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:58:30 -0600 (CST) Subject: OT: faking a VGA display In-Reply-To: <45B8F35F.3020607@yahoo.co.uk> References: <45B8F35F.3020607@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Jan 2007, Jules Richardson wrote: > Some of you here might know this :) I've got a system here where I need > to make it think that there's a monitor plugged into its VGA port even > when there isn't (long story). > > Plugging a real CRT into the port even when that CRT is switched off and > unplugged from the AC supply works, so there's obviously some way of > doing it. > > Measuring the CRT above (switched off, unplugged from AC, and unplugged > from the device) with respect to the VGA connector's shield gives me the > following readings: > > pin sig value > 1 R 76ohm > 2 G 76ohm > 3 B 76ohm > 4 NC GND > 5 GND GND > 6 GND GND > 7 GND GND > 8 GND GND > 9 NC infinite resistance > 10 GND GND > 11 NC GND > 12 DDC DAT 8.1Kohm (initially 7.6Kohm, rose at first then steadied) > 13 HSYNC 4.6Kohm > 14 VSYNC 4.7Kohm > 15 DDC CLK 8.1Kohm (initially 7.6Kohm, rose at first then steadied) > Any suggestions? Do I just need 76ohm resistors to ground on the RGB lines > (and possibly 4.7Kohm resistors to ground on HSYNC and VSYNC)? Or is there > likely something more subtle going on that I need to incorporate into my > "fake" connector? (Given that VGA supplies no DC out, it can't be anything > too complex!) Pins 11, 12, 4, 15 are the monitor id pins 0-3. Pin 5 is the monitor's digital ground pin, 6, 7, 8 are the RGB grounds, respectively, and 10 is the sync ground. Its been years since I did this sort of thing, but I believe I jumpered one or more of the id pins to ground to get mine to work. I might have used a resistor, but I don't remember now. Newer monitors and VGA cards use one of the pins for digital communication with the monitor, but I don't remember the specifics. -Toth From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 25 13:01:18 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:01:18 -0800 Subject: Component level repair Message-ID: <45B8FE7E.3010803@bitsavers.org> >> Bus transceiver chips for Q-bus and Unibus > The answer is 7406. For a very small value of "Q-bus and Unibus" Read the Unibus Handbook for the reasons why. From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Thu Jan 25 13:02:04 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:02:04 +0100 Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube In-Reply-To: <00ea01c740a2$14992950$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: <00ea01c740a2$14992950$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45B8FEAC.2040402@bluewin.ch> Jay West wrote: > 1) When the video starts with that music and the camera panning up and > down the front of the PDP rack... why did I get the feeling I was > watching a porno? Oh... DECporn. Well Jay, since you mention "DECporn": http://www.schlabonski.de/zwiebeltuete.html ( No, that is not me, nor do I know him ) Jos Dreesen From vax9000 at gmail.com Thu Jan 25 13:13:51 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:13:51 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <45B8FE7E.3010803@bitsavers.org> References: <45B8FE7E.3010803@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 1/25/07, Al Kossow wrote: > > >> Bus transceiver chips for Q-bus and Unibus > > > The answer is 7406. > > For a very small value of "Q-bus and Unibus" > > Read the Unibus Handbook for the reasons why. > > You can always parallel two gates for a "big" value of Q-bus. I read only Q-bus though. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 25 13:12:14 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:12:14 -0800 Subject: OT: faking a VGA display In-Reply-To: References: <45B8F35F.3020607@yahoo.co.uk>, Message-ID: <45B8908E.21814.4592BEBD@cclist.sydex.com> Ground one or more of pins 4, 11 or 12 in accordance with the following: http://www.epanorama.net/documents/pc/vga_bd15.html NC on all 3 pins indicates no monitor present. Cheers, Chuck From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 25 13:17:56 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:17:56 +0000 Subject: Wayback machine disappointment In-Reply-To: <45B78370.9620.41778B96@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 25/1/07 00:04, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > "Sometimes a web site owner will contact us directly and ask us to > stop crawling or archiving a site, and we endevor to comply with > these requests. When you come accross a "blocked site error" > message, that means that a siteowner has made such a request and it > has been honored." > > I'd ask HP public relations about the reason for it. (Spelling > errors notwithstanding) I suppose it makes sense from a corporate point of view, something along the lines of people telling them 'but back in 1997 you told us and now you're saying ' or something. Oh well :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From arcarlini at iee.org Thu Jan 25 13:27:31 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:27:31 -0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <20070125173803.0B84458512@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <002c01c740b6$de9ff940$1404010a@uatempname> Bryan Pope wrote: > And thusly were the wise words spake by Richard >> If that is the answer, I'm not sure what the question is, because I >> didn't ask one... > > What is six times seven? > > Oh wait, that is the question for another answer... It's the wrong question too ... Antonio From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jan 25 16:14:46 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:14:46 -0300 Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube References: Message-ID: <051101c740ce$60ddae90$f0fea8c0@alpha> > I don't know why, but instead of typing in "Paris Hilton" into the YouTube Because paris hilton is no news anymore? I think anyone who spends more than an hour/day/month in the net has seen her nude and doing "assisted reproduction training" > "Programming the PDP11" from Douglas Harms at DePauw University in > Indiana, USA made in 2001 and portrayed as a Star-Trek-holodeck > simulation back to the 1970s :oO > You can watch them on YouTube > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV-7J5y1TQc is part 1 of 4 > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zaaD_xP6nU is part 2 of 4 > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiE2QldpQRQ is part 3 of 4 > and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUSn59iY8U8 is part 4 of 4 > Or you can get them (Apple Quicktime .MOV format) at the > http://fs6.depauw.edu/~dharms/pdp11/ > web page. > see also: > http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2000-March/142575.html It will be hours of fun :D Now I think: Why the hell didn't I saved that 11/750 I had 15 years ago...oh my...I want a VAX badly :( From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jan 25 16:16:21 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:16:21 -0300 Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube References: <00ea01c740a2$14992950$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <052d01c740ce$d028bd80$f0fea8c0@alpha> > 1) When the video starts with that music and the camera panning up and > down the front of the PDP rack... why did I get the feeling I was watching > a porno? Oh... DECporn. I just wanted to rip the front panels off that > machine and look at that backplane. Hope you don't try to connect your I/O cable on that. Surely will be a shocking experience :D From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 25 15:19:25 2007 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:19:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: DEC VAX 6000-510 minicomputer available, free In-Reply-To: <00c001c7400f$1c1dca70$3201a8c0@hal> Message-ID: <20070125211925.49002.qmail@web82715.mail.mud.yahoo.com> http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/zip/267750046.html It's in Santa Maria, CA Bob From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 25 15:29:16 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:29:16 -0800 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C356@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Jim Leonard wrote: Yep! There are only two drawbacks to microdrives: - Slower than real flash - Can't use 6000+ feet above sea level (lack of air pressure can make the drive go wonky or, rarely, break it) -- Jim Leonard --------------------------- I have to strongly dispute this; The IBM (later Hitachi) MicroDrive was rated at 10K feet. I did competitive testing on it and the Seagate 1" drive and both had no problems at 10K feet. In fact both + the WD 1" drive work fine well past 10K feet. Come to that, Maxtor, Miniscribe, IBM and DEC built drives in Colorado well above 6000 feet. Apple used to have a factory at Fountain (6400 feet). So this simply isn't true. The biggest customer of the MicroDrive - Apple iPods - work great on the ski slopes. They also work great in Reno at 7000+ feet. I can personally vouch for this and I'm certain others on the list can too. They also work fine on airplanes, which are pressurized at 8000 feet. I have never heard of a drive breaking because of altitude. Rarely, you get a head gimbals or suspension problem that doesn't like 9000+ feet. But that is a defective drive, not the rule. All drive vendors and many OEM buyers do extensive testing to ensure this. And all heads are testing for flying height before being installed in a drive. Finally, today's drives utilize Dynamic Flying Height technology which uses a heating element in the head to maintain constant controlled flying height. Altitude is not a problem with any drive on the market today. Billy From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Jan 25 15:36:00 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:36:00 -0500 Subject: Any IMP's still around? In-Reply-To: <20070125211925.49002.qmail@web82715.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20070125211925.49002.qmail@web82715.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45B922C0.9070007@atarimuseum.com> Anyone ever recovered one of the original IMP's and restored it back to a functional state? Curt From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 25 15:56:58 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:56:58 -0800 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C357@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Brad Parker wrote: Heh. I remember someone asking me (at work) if a 3.5" ST-506 drive would work in zero G. I ask where it was installed and they said a KC-135 :-) Apparently someone wanted to use one in the "vomit comet"... and apparently it worked (at least they never complained that it didn't) I don't know how high those where pressurized, but I'd guess around 8000ft. No doubt the old drives didn't need as much air density; the flying height was not that low. I have no idea how air pressure affects the boundary layer over the surface - I assume less density translates to less drag and then to a lower flight. -brad ---------------------------------------- Cold is not nice to disk drives. More than flying height, the mechanical parts become stiffer and don't flex correctly. Bearings becomse stiff and generate vibration. Seals shrink. A lot of work is being done on self heating. This will be needed when drives go into cell phones in the near future. The drive uses the electronics to get to a certain temperature before loading the heads off the ramp. Air pressure does affect the boundary layer, especially at high RPM. There comes a point where it goes negative and sucks the heads down. The testing I saw showed this somewhere around 18-20K RPM. For drives on the market today, flying height is controlled and compensates for altitude. As for cell phones and hard drives, yes, I know that Flash is getting cheaper and is in a surplus situation right now. And with 4 level cells coming along, the cost per bit is going down. But hard drives will still be used in cell phones, because those devices have exploding storage requirements, thanks to new features. Look at Apple's iPhone, with all the bells and whistles. And only 8GB of storage. They've sold millions of iPods with 20, 30, 40, and 60GB of storage. Those users will demand more storage as they use the iPhone. Cell phones do now and will in the future use hard drives. Cold is one of the biggest unsolved problems. Shock is looking so-so with free fall sensors. Power cosumption is the biggest detractor. But a hybrid with a big cache could solve that. Billy From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 25 15:59:47 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:59:47 +0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 25/1/07 02:25, "William Donzelli" wrote: > Maintaining old DEC stuff would indeed be a niche, so I can understand > that. However, someof the things I said still apply. For example, when > a DZ11 goes bad, do you actually fix the board (I assume, of course, > that you use DZ11s)?. It does not really make sense to, from a > business perspective, since good ones are common as dirt and quite > available. Mostly it's RQDX3s, terminal servers (5 out of 29 delivered yesterday needed repair), Kennedy tape drives, LA and LG printers, even surface tech on older Alphaservers. The only things we won't attempt a fix on are SMPSUs, purely because the one bloke we had who could do that emigrated to NZ last year :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 25 16:01:43 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:01:43 -0700 Subject: Any IMP's still around? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:36:00 -0500. <45B922C0.9070007@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: In article <45B922C0.9070007 at atarimuseum.com>, "Curt @ Atari Museum" writes: > Anyone ever recovered one of the original IMP's and restored it back to > a functional state? IIRC, the Computer History Museum has one of the original DARPAnet IMPs. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 25 16:04:46 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:04:46 -0800 Subject: Any IMP's still around? Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C358@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> * Curt at Atari Museum asked: Anyone ever recovered one of the original IMP's and restored it back to a functional state? Curt ----------------------------------- Please define which product you mean by IMP. There was an early microprocessor from National. There was marvelous early bit slice 16 bit machine by that name ( I know where a couple in beautiful shape are, still running.) And finally, there were the early DARPA name servers on the early internet ancestor. Several people on the list are looking for those, but I haven't heard of any surviving. Billy From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 25 16:26:15 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:26:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: faking a VGA display In-Reply-To: <45B8908E.21814.4592BEBD@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45B8F35F.3020607@yahoo.co.uk>, <45B8908E.21814.4592BEBD@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20070125142501.W44254@shell.lmi.net> The CHEAPEST way is plug in an old monitor. Kinda big and bulky, so you might want to remove the portions of it that aren't needed, leaving you with a plug with some pins shorted to ground. From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 25 16:28:20 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:28:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <002c01c740b6$de9ff940$1404010a@uatempname> References: <002c01c740b6$de9ff940$1404010a@uatempname> Message-ID: <20070125142653.F44254@shell.lmi.net> > >> If that is the answer, I'm not sure what the question is, because I > >> didn't ask one... > > What is six times seven? > > Oh wait, that is the question for another answer... On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 arcarlini at iee.org wrote: > It's the wrong question too ... WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 25 16:33:46 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:33:46 -0800 Subject: Component level repair Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35B@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> * Fred Cisin wrote: > >> If that is the answer, I'm not sure what the question is, because I > >> didn't ask one... > > What is six times seven? > > Oh wait, that is the question for another answer... On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 arcarlini at iee.org wrote: > It's the wrong question too ... WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? ----------------------------------- Philistines. Are there no Douglas Adams fans here? Life, The Universe and Everything? Billy From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 25 16:58:08 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:58:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: 42 (was: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35B@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35B@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <20070125145507.T46387@shell.lmi.net> > WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? On Thu, 25 Jan 2007, Billy Pettit wrote: > Philistines. Are there no Douglas Adams fans here? Life, The Universe and > Everything? In the BBC screen play (written BEFORE the book, the letters from the Scrabble bag spelled out: WHATDOYOUGETWHENYOUMULTIPLYSIXBYNINE From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jan 25 17:08:07 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:08:07 -0800 Subject: 42 (was: Component level repair Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35C@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> * Fred Cisin explained: > WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? On Thu, 25 Jan 2007, Billy Pettit wrote: > Philistines. Are there no Douglas Adams fans here? Life, The Universe and > Everything? In the BBC screen play (written BEFORE the book, the letters from the Scrabble bag spelled out: WHATDOYOUGETWHENYOUMULTIPLYSIXBYNINE ----------------- I stand corrected. All we saw here was the BBC television series and rather abominable big screen movie a few years ago. And of course we claim Douglas Adams as one of our own left coast celebrities, since he settled in Santa Barbara when he made the big time. California, heaven to those with the big bucks. Something else to those of us who work here and have to drive to work everyday. Billy From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 25 17:13:43 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:13:43 +0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35B@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: On 25/1/07 22:33, "Billy Pettit" wrote: > On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 arcarlini at iee.org > wrote: >> It's the wrong question too ... > > WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? > > ----------------------------------- > > Philistines. Are there no Douglas Adams fans here? Life, The Universe and > Everything? How many roads must a man walk down? (don't get me started :o)) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 25 17:21:51 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:21:51 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B1498@MEOW.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 25, 7 09:24:36 am Message-ID: > I'm glad your not working on projects for me then. Having potentially > damaging voltage on a connector that is not needed doesn't sound like > good practices to me. I don't see it like that at all... I think Tandy were wiring the harness so any normal 8" drive sould be used. Some drives needed the 12V, some produced it internally from the 24V line, so Tandy provided it on the cable for those drives that need it. It's like PC floppy drives. Every PC I've ever worked on has 4 pin floppy drive power connecotrs : +_5V, +12V, and a couple of grounds. Most modern-ish 3.5" drives use 5V only. Are you saying that PC power supplies shouldn't connect up the 12V pin > > I have the service manual here for this drive. No where does it say > that pin 4 is not connected to anything. Nor do the schematics I have > show that this drive's 7812 (which is how it is referenced in the print) > is optional. The only source for +12 on this schematic is the 7812, > derrived from the +24v line on Pin 1. Sure. That drive produces its 12V rail internally. Since you have the schematics, can you tell me what pin 4 _is_ shown as being connected to, please. > > Tandy also uses the same connector on the same power supply wiring > harness, but with a completely different pinout (and using the same > color scheme in some instances) to provide power to the card cage riser > IN THE SAME MACHINE. If you use this connector on the drive instead of > the riser, bad things happen. If you use the drive power connector on > the riser, bad things happen. The only way to tell them apart reliably > is that the drive power cable has two connectors (to power 2 drives) and > the riser power connector has only one AMP connector. I rememebr one of the old Sun machines (Sun 2?) that used an Archive Sidewinder QIC drive. It has a 4 pin power connector, jsut like the one on a 5.25" drive. There's only one problem. The Sidewinder uses +5V and +24V. And IIRC the only differnce in the tape drive pwoer connector was the colour of thew wire to one pin. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 25 17:10:19 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:10:19 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jan 24, 7 09:25:38 pm Message-ID: > that. However, someof the things I said still apply. For example, when > a DZ11 goes bad, do you actually fix the board (I assume, of course, > that you use DZ11s)?. It does not really make sense to, from a > business perspective, since good ones are common as dirt and quite > available. Well, think of this : 1) 90-odd% of DZ11 failures are defective RS232 driver/receiver chips, probably damaged by spickes induced on the RS232 cabling 2) You can troubleshoot that fault in a few minutes _at most_ using a logic probe or mulitmeter 3) The chips are cheap and easily availble. They're pin-through-hole DIPs. Dike out the old one and solder in a new one. 4) I keep said chips in stock. If I happen to run out, I know a shop in London where I can buy some more. I don't know any DEC parts brokers where I could buy a DZ11 board as quickly. Now what do you think I'm going to do? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 25 17:28:28 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:28:28 +0000 (GMT) Subject: OT: faking a VGA display In-Reply-To: <45B8F35F.3020607@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 25, 7 12:13:51 pm Message-ID: > > > Some of you here might know this :) I've got a system here where I need to > make it think that there's a monitor plugged into its VGA port even when there > isn't (long story). > > Plugging a real CRT into the port even when that CRT is switched off and > unplugged from the AC supply works, so there's obviously some way of doing it. > > Measuring the CRT above (switched off, unplugged from AC, and unplugged from > the device) with respect to the VGA connector's shield gives me the following > readings: > > pin sig value > 1 R 76ohm > 2 G 76ohm > 3 B 76ohm > 4 NC GND Isn't pin 4 strictly a self-test pin, designed to make an unplugged monitor give some illumination on the screen? > 5 GND GND > 6 GND GND > 7 GND GND > 8 GND GND > 9 NC infinite resistance > 10 GND GND > 11 NC GND > 12 DDC DAT 8.1Kohm (initially 7.6Kohm, rose at first then steadied) > 13 HSYNC 4.6Kohm > 14 VSYNC 4.7Kohm > 15 DDC CLK 8.1Kohm (initially 7.6Kohm, rose at first then steadied) > > Any suggestions? Do I just need 76ohm resistors to ground on the RGB lines It might well be just that (well, 75 Ohm resistors would be the 'stnadard'). I konw some VGA cards sensed the load resistance on the RGB lines to determine if they were driving a monochrome (only loaded the 'G' line iIRC) or a colour monitor. My suggesition is 'try it'. I can't do any damage, and it might well work. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 25 17:24:05 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:24:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 25, 7 09:53:10 am Message-ID: > > > In article , > "9000 VAX" writes: > > > The answer is 7406. Plain and simple and compatible and that is it. > > If that is the answer, I'm not sure what the question is, because I > didn't ask one... The 7406 is a TTL chip, specificially it's a hex open-collector inverter (meaning it contains 6 indentical gates, each is a NOT gate, but the output is either '0' or 'flotating', not '0' or '1'). It can be used as a Unibus driver chip (as can most TTL open-collector gates). I've certainly used the 7438 (quad 2 input open-collector NAND gate) to drive Unibus lines. -tony From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 25 17:46:09 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:46:09 -0700 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:10:19 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > Now what do you think I'm going to do? That's a trick question, right? I mean, its a foregone conclusion that you'd rather replace atoms representing skew crystal occlusions in a semiconductor if you could. And that's fine. Other people would rather do other things with their time. And that's fine too. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jan 25 18:45:06 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:45:06 -0300 Subject: Component level repair References: Message-ID: <057b01c740e3$d6921440$f0fea8c0@alpha> > 1) 90-odd% of DZ11 failures are defective RS232 driver/receiver chips, > probably damaged by spickes induced on the RS232 cabling If they fry so easily, why not change the RS232 driver for something like max 232? From arcarlini at iee.org Thu Jan 25 18:00:39 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:00:39 -0000 Subject: 42 (was: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35C@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <003d01c740dd$06f5ca70$1404010a@uatempname> Billy Pettit wrote: > I stand corrected. All we saw here was the BBC television series and > rather abominable big screen movie a few years ago. No books over there? Oh well, keep banging the rocks together guys :-) From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 25 18:02:20 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:02:20 -0800 Subject: 42 (was: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35C@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35C@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <45B8D48C.26705.469C57DC@cclist.sydex.com> On 25 Jan 2007 at 15:08, Billy Pettit wrote: > I stand corrected. All we saw here was the BBC television series and rather > abominable big screen movie a few years ago. I first heard it as the original radio drama, broadcast on KCSM San Mateo. Since I don't live down there any more, do they still have "A Reader's Theater?" on the air Sunday nights? The radio play was much superior to the TV version, IMOHO. Cheers, Chuck From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Jan 25 18:03:30 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:03:30 -0500 Subject: Any IMP's still around? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B94552.1030805@atarimuseum.com> Nice! Hopefully I'll get a chance this summer to come out and have a look. Curt Richard wrote: > In article <45B922C0.9070007 at atarimuseum.com>, > "Curt @ Atari Museum" writes: > > >> Anyone ever recovered one of the original IMP's and restored it back to >> a functional state? >> > > IIRC, the Computer History Museum has one of the original DARPAnet > IMPs. > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 25 17:58:45 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 17:58:45 -0600 Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B94435.1030401@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > I rememebr one of the old Sun machines (Sun 2?) that used an Archive > Sidewinder QIC drive. It has a 4 pin power connector, jsut like the one > on a 5.25" drive. There's only one problem. The Sidewinder uses +5V and > +24V. And IIRC the only differnce in the tape drive pwoer connector was > the colour of thew wire to one pin. Whoo - I think you might have got it :) I was casually reading this thread and had a hazy memory of seeing inside some system where there was what looked to be a "standard" power connector when in fact it wasn't. I think you're probably right, and the Sun2 was it... trying to remember's been nagging at me all day :-) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jan 25 18:09:12 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:09:12 -0600 Subject: OT: faking a VGA display In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45B946A8.2010308@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >> 4 NC GND > Isn't pin 4 strictly a self-test pin, designed to make an unplugged > monitor give some illumination on the screen? Not sure to be honest; I just grabbed a copy of the first pinout I found, mainly because I assume there are a few different flavours out there anyway (older equipment not supporting DDC etc.) >> Any suggestions? Do I just need 76ohm resistors to ground on the RGB lines > > It might well be just that (well, 75 Ohm resistors would be the > 'stnadard'). Yep, I thought they were probably supposed to be 75... > I konw some VGA cards sensed the load resistance on the RGB > lines to determine if they were driving a monochrome (only loaded the 'G' > line iIRC) or a colour monitor. That's what I was wondering, if it was something like that. I like Chuck's suggestion about the ID lines though, I'll give that a go first. (It's actually my modern heap-of-junk Dell laptop that I'm fighting with; it's got some curious fault where the LCD display doesn't always un-blank after the lid's been closed and opened again. Does it in both Windows and Linux, so I think it's a firmware/hardware fault somewhere. Switching to external CRT and back again cures it though, but it'd be nice to be able to do that without actually needing a CRT plugged in :-) From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Jan 25 18:19:52 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:19:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <20070125142653.F44254@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20070126001952.AECCD5814C@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Fred Cisin > > > >> If that is the answer, I'm not sure what the question is, because I > > >> didn't ask one... > > > What is six times seven? > > > Oh wait, that is the question for another answer... > > On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 arcarlini at iee.org wrote: > > It's the wrong question too ... > > WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? > Sorry.. my mistake... I forgot that the universe was a little off. Cheers, Bryan From ken at seefried.com Thu Jan 25 18:24:43 2007 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:24:43 -0500 Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube In-Reply-To: <200701260011.l0Q0A863059981@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701260011.l0Q0A863059981@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20070126002443.20150.qmail@seefried.com> From: Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel > > Well Jay, since you mention "DECporn": > > http://www.schlabonski.de/zwiebeltuete.html > Wow...that's wrong on so many levels. From pechter at gmail.com Thu Jan 25 18:25:22 2007 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:25:22 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <00c001c7400f$1c1dca70$3201a8c0@hal> References: <45B754CF.4090907@yahoo.co.uk> <00c001c7400f$1c1dca70$3201a8c0@hal> Message-ID: Reminds me of an old story about a service call in my DEC Field Service days. Naval Air Propulsion Labs in Trenton, NJ had a problem where there TE16 wouldn't come on line. The engineer that ran the place pulled out a TEK 453 (IIRC) and scoped it out and called the DEC dispatch and logged a service call. Since I was the second shift guy working 4 to midnight I just got into the office. I called him to work the problem. He told me "U83 (IIRC) on the Logic and Write board doesn't go high when it should so it doesn't propagate the on line signal to the TM03... I need to get the chiip replaced." "I'll be there in about three weeks. I'll have to special order the chip from logistics," I said. "Or I can be there in 15 minutes and replace the LAW board for you." Guess what he finally agreed to. Bill On 1/24/07, David Hunt wrote: > > > On 24/1/07 12:45, "Jules Richardson" > > wrote: > > > > > Of course it could take another route and > > board/module/system swapping > > > will be done in the field, with repairs then carried out at base > > > before re-issue, but I certainly don't think manufacturers > > will be as > > > inclined to build such wasteful systems in a couple of > > decades' time. > > > > > > > This is exactly what we do at work, the quick swap to get the > > customer back up and running again then repair if possible > > back in the workshop. We still carry stocks of components and > > have the skills so why not use them? > > Same here, the customer gets a replacement system usually within the day > and > the faulty system is brought back for repair at our leisure and re-issued, > after thorough testing, as a replacement unit for a future breakdown. > > Dave ;) > > From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Jan 25 18:27:37 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:27:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: 42 (was: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <003d01c740dd$06f5ca70$1404010a@uatempname> Message-ID: <20070126002737.6F47158844@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by arcarlini at iee.org > > Billy Pettit wrote: > > > I stand corrected. All we saw here was the BBC television series and > > rather abominable big screen movie a few years ago. > > No books over there? Oh well, keep banging the rocks together guys :-) > I still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea... :) Cheers, Bryan From wizard at voyager.net Thu Jan 25 18:39:59 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:39:59 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1169771999.19970.13.camel@linux.site> On Thu, 2007-01-25 at 23:10 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > 1) 90-odd% of DZ11 failures are defective RS232 driver/receiver chips, > probably damaged by spickes induced on the RS232 cabling Back in the ancient days, I worked repairing computer boards for a company that made warehousing robots. The robots communicated with the central computer via the ac mains, buffered by optical isolators. Boards were not technically repaired, but replaced. A customer would send in a failed board (and they had GREAT diagnostics to show when they failed) and would be sent a functional board in return. They kept a couple spares of each kind on site, usually, as well. I took the failed boards, and repaired them, and put them in the shippable stock to be sent out in exchanges. (New sales were all freshly manufactured.) I worked out a system for repair... I simply removed the optical isolators, put in new ones, and tested the boards. That simple ploy had about a 90% success rate. I then asked to make 25% of repair fees in lieu of salary. I should have done it in the OTHER order... Board swaps cost about $400, and I did about four a day using their system, and about ten a day using my system. Of course, once I was bringing in $4,000 a day, there was no way I was going on commission... A bit of digression, but the point is that, in some cases, it is only certain particular components which are subject to frequent failure, and in these cases, if no others, board repair is cost effective. (More cost effective if they were to socket those parts...) > 3) The chips are cheap and easily availble. They're pin-through-hole > DIPs. Dike out the old one and solder in a new one. Likewise in my example -- the boards each had two Optical Isolators, which were significantly less than a dollar the set. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 25 20:25:02 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:25:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube In-Reply-To: <20070126002443.20150.qmail@seefried.com> from Ken Seefried at "Jan 25, 7 07:24:43 pm" Message-ID: <200701260225.l0Q2P2ux012654@floodgap.com> (NSFW) > > Well Jay, since you mention "DECporn": > > > > http://www.schlabonski.de/zwiebeltuete.html > Wow...that's wrong on so many levels. s/so many/all/, FTFY. :) -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- You're only as good as the last problem someone had. -- Ballmer on security From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 25 20:32:04 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:32:04 -0800 Subject: IBM 6580 Displaywriter Message-ID: <45B8F7A4.30393.472568C0@cclist.sydex.com> The recent talk about two old Displaywriters being up for grabs got me to thinking about something that I've left hanging out in my "things to do" list. Does anyone know the internals of the Displaywriter file format? The disks themselves are SSSD with the first track being 26x128 byte sectors and the remainder 15x256. The encoding is EBCDIC for the text, obviously, but the structure has eluded me (or I've been just too lazy to figure it out). My notes from years ago say that it appears to be a two-level sort of affair, with the top level referring to documents and the second referring to pages within the documents--and then I became distracted and that's where my notes leave off. Does anyone know anything more about these things? I'd like to close this item out in my "things to do list'. Cheers, Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 25 20:33:52 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:33:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube In-Reply-To: <052d01c740ce$d028bd80$f0fea8c0@alpha> from Alexandre Souza at "Jan 25, 7 07:16:21 pm" Message-ID: <200701260233.l0Q2XqVv014380@floodgap.com> > > 1) When the video starts with that music and the camera panning up and > > down the front of the PDP rack... why did I get the feeling I was watching > > a porno? Oh... DECporn. I just wanted to rip the front panels off that > > machine and look at that backplane. > > Hope you don't try to connect your I/O cable on that. As a physician, I would like to inform you that that particular cable usually has a single output channel. If yours has an input, please see an MD right away. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- If you had any brains at all, you'd be dangerous. -------------------------- From kelly at catcorner.org Thu Jan 25 20:49:44 2007 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:49:44 -0500 Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3036247@MEOW.catcorner.org> > > I'm glad your not working on projects for me then. Having > potentially > > damaging voltage on a connector that is not needed doesn't > sound like > > good practices to me. > > I don't see it like that at all... > > I think Tandy were wiring the harness so any normal 8" drive sould be > used. Some drives needed the 12V, some produced it internally > from the > 24V line, so Tandy provided it on the cable for those drives > that need it. > > It's like PC floppy drives. Every PC I've ever worked on has > 4 pin floppy > drive power connecotrs : +_5V, +12V, and a couple of grounds. Most > modern-ish 3.5" drives use 5V only. Are you saying that PC > power supplies > shouldn't connect up the 12V pin I agree that your point is valid, but that's not the way I'd do it. If I were king it wouldn't be so, but I'm not. > > > > > I have the service manual here for this drive. No where does it say > > that pin 4 is not connected to anything. Nor do the > > schematics I have show that this drive's 7812 (which is how it > > is referenced in the print) > > is optional. The only source for +12 on this schematic is the 7812, > > derrived from the +24v line on Pin 1. > > Sure. That drive produces its 12V rail internally. > > Since you have the schematics, can you tell me what pin 4 > _is_ shown as being connected to, please. Now you've got me. I didn't look at it from this point of view. There is no trace for it. Period, doesn't exist at all. Of course we all know that published schematics are all 100% correct (this is a dig at schematics in general, not you Tony). There isn't even a land for it on the circuit board on the drive I'm looking at. Physically, there are 5 black wires coming from the AMP plug to the circuit board. Pin 4 isn't poulated and there's no open land on the board. > > > > > Tandy also uses the same connector on the same power supply wiring > > harness, but with a completely different pinout (and using the same > > color scheme in some instances) to provide power to the > > card cage riser > > IN THE SAME MACHINE. If you use this connector on the drive > > instead of > > the riser, bad things happen. If you use the drive power > connector on > > the riser, bad things happen. The only way to tell them > apart reliably > > is that the drive power cable has two connectors (to power > 2 drives) and > > the riser power connector has only one AMP connector. > > I rememebr one of the old Sun machines (Sun 2?) that used an Archive > Sidewinder QIC drive. It has a 4 pin power connector, jsut > like the one > on a 5.25" drive. There's only one problem. The Sidewinder > uses +5V and > +24V. And IIRC the only differnce in the tape drive pwoer > connector was > the colour of thew wire to one pin. > Yuck. Then you know the pain. Kelly From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 25 20:51:06 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:51:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: 42 (was: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35C@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35C@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <20070125184625.A56199@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 25 Jan 2007, Billy Pettit wrote: > I stand corrected. All we saw here was the BBC television series If you have a copy with six half-hour episodes, it is near the end of the last episode. > and rather > abominable big screen movie a few years ago. I didn't like that either. But, I have my own ideas about how it should be cast: Ed O'Neil as Arthur Dent Howard Stern as Zaphod Roseanne as the Vogon captain Jaqueline Pearce (Servilan on Blake's 7) as Trillian Christopher Lloyd as Slartibartfast, . . . And I see Marvin as much more like Bender than like the Disney cute one. From rick at rickmurphy.net Thu Jan 25 21:45:47 2007 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:45:47 -0500 Subject: RX01/02 compatibility, OS/8 conversion Message-ID: <200701260345.l0Q3jgAh028288@mail.itm-inst.com> I happened to luck into someone this week on eBay who recently put up my OS/8 Adventure sources for sale.. he's offered to put the source onto floppies from his system. However, all he has is a RX01 drive. I've got some floppies around, but they may have been "formatted" by a RX02. I don't remember if they're still compatible with the '01. Is there any hope there, or anyone with a few (3) RX01 disks? More importantly, is there anyone on the list that can dump a set of files from an RX01 in OS/8 format so I can recover them? It'd be very cool to have the RALF source back. -Rick From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 25 22:03:45 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:03:45 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <1169771999.19970.13.camel@linux.site> References: <1169771999.19970.13.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: > A bit of digression, but the point is that, in some cases, it is > only certain particular components which are subject to frequent > failure, and in these cases, if no others, board repair is cost > effective. In most cases with failures on boards (or most anything), there are "the usual suspects". > (More cost effective if they were to socket those parts...) This is very incorrect. There is a reason industry almost never uses sockets anymore. More things to break! Most sockets are actually less reliable than the parts they hold - it has been that way since the 1960s. Sockets are components that do not add anything to circuits except costs and headaches. There are a few places where sockets justify themselves - very few. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 25 22:14:29 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:14:29 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <1169771999.19970.13.camel@linux.site> References: <1169771999.19970.13.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: > > 3) The chips are cheap and easily availble. They're pin-through-hole > > DIPs. Dike out the old one and solder in a new one. > > > Likewise in my example -- the boards each had two Optical Isolators, > which were significantly less than a dollar the set. Keep in mind that there are costs beyond that dollar. Yes, the costs of the parts is obvious, and the techs time is also pretty obvious, but there is more. WAY more. Doing more component level repair means more techs on staff. More salaries. With more salaries comes more health care costs, more little benefits, more equipment, more floorspace, which mean a bigger building - and then there are the extra personnel people needed to handle the techs - and their salaries, health care costs, little benefits, equipment, floorspace - which means you need an even bigger building, with more maintenance staff, and their salaries, health care costs, little benefits, equipment, floorspace - which now with a bigger building comes more property taxes, maintenance costs, material handling equipment and the servicing they always need, and then the new shelves to put the part, and the costs to erect them, which may mean some temps or even more maintenance personnel... OK, I could go on ALL NIGHT. Yes, the costs incurred for repairing that little dollar part may have only tiny fractional effects on all of the above mentioned stuff, but as things start to multiply, you find that there is a lot of money being dumped into a department that does not actually make any money. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 25 22:19:15 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:19:15 -0500 Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube In-Reply-To: <20070126002443.20150.qmail@seefried.com> References: <200701260011.l0Q0A863059981@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20070126002443.20150.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: > > Well Jay, since you mention "DECporn": > > > > http://www.schlabonski.de/zwiebeltuete.html > > > > Wow...that's wrong on so many levels. I should mention again that there is a layout in an old Hustler that features Data General equipment. -- Will From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jan 25 22:34:32 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:34:32 -0800 Subject: RX01/02 compatibility, OS/8 conversion In-Reply-To: <200701260345.l0Q3jgAh028288@mail.itm-inst.com> References: <200701260345.l0Q3jgAh028288@mail.itm-inst.com> Message-ID: <200701252034.32807.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Thursday 25 January 2007 19:45, Rick Murphy wrote: > I happened to luck into someone this week on eBay who recently put up > my OS/8 Adventure sources for sale.. he's offered to put the source > onto floppies from his system. However, all he has is a RX01 drive. > > I've got some floppies around, but they may have been "formatted" by a > RX02. I don't remember if they're still compatible with the '01. Is > there any hope there, or anyone with a few (3) RX01 disks? > > More importantly, is there anyone on the list that can dump a set of > files from an RX01 in OS/8 format so I can recover them? It'd be very > cool to have the RALF source back. I have RX01/RX02 capability via my PDP-8/e as well as DOS/PUTR w/attached 8" FDD (RX01 capable). Contact me offlist. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 25 22:39:26 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:39:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube In-Reply-To: from William Donzelli at "Jan 25, 7 11:19:15 pm" Message-ID: <200701260439.l0Q4dQO9018518@floodgap.com> > > > Well Jay, since you mention "DECporn": > > > http://www.schlabonski.de/zwiebeltuete.html > > Wow...that's wrong on so many levels. > I should mention again that there is a layout in an old Hustler that > features Data General equipment. Is the article good? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. -- Gen. O. N. Bradley From techboy at all2ez.net Thu Jan 25 16:58:10 2007 From: techboy at all2ez.net (Ryan May) Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:58:10 -0800 Subject: Does anyone know what this from Coax Bank Server Message-ID: <380-220071425225810934@all2ez.net> http://cgi.ebay.com/Multiprocessor-Motorolla-68000-Coax-Bank-Server-Fa stbus_W0QQitemZ280072362339QQihZ018QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQr dZ1QQcmdZViewItem All the info is in the listing, what I need to know is what was this before it became a set of boards? Thanx Ryan $4.95/mo. National Dialup, Anti-Spam, Anti-Virus, 5mb personal web space. 5x faster dialup for only $9.95/mo. No contracts, No fees, No Kidding! See http://www.All2Easy.net for more details! From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Fri Jan 26 01:02:52 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:02:52 -0000 Subject: 42 (was: Component level repair Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D393D89@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Regretably it never successfully made the transition from radio to TV or film. Its not unique, many other radio shows had the same problem. R -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: 26 January 2007 02:51 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: 42 (was: Component level repair On Thu, 25 Jan 2007, Billy Pettit wrote: > I stand corrected. All we saw here was the BBC television series If you have a copy with six half-hour episodes, it is near the end of the last episode. > and rather > abominable big screen movie a few years ago. I didn't like that either. But, I have my own ideas about how it should be cast: Ed O'Neil as Arthur Dent Howard Stern as Zaphod Roseanne as the Vogon captain Jaqueline Pearce (Servilan on Blake's 7) as Trillian Christopher Lloyd as Slartibartfast, . . . And I see Marvin as much more like Bender than like the Disney cute one. From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jan 26 01:56:20 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 01:56:20 -0600 Subject: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter In-Reply-To: References: <45AF117B.20300@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45B9B424.2000305@oldskool.org> 9000 VAX wrote: >> > Just want to share the experience with you so you do not need to waste >> > the 1 >> > hour as I did. ...and thanks to that advice, my 5160 has an additional 320MB of space thanks to one of these little adapter wonders and an IBM microdrive :) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From gordon at gjcp.net Fri Jan 26 02:41:52 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 08:41:52 +0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: <45B754CF.4090907@yahoo.co.uk> <00c001c7400f$1c1dca70$3201a8c0@hal> Message-ID: <45B9BED0.1070609@gjcp.net> >> Same here, the customer gets a replacement system usually within the day >> and >> the faulty system is brought back for repair at our leisure and >> re-issued, >> after thorough testing, as a replacement unit for a future breakdown. When I worked at IBM, doing tech support for their EPOS kit, we would go through phases of swapping out entire units (say, receipt printers). Then, when the parts budget was getting ridiculous, there would be a big push on to send engineers out with repair parts for it (usually either a print head or the little one-way clutch for the cutter, which would jam). Then, when that was looking shaky, there would be a drive to do as much PD with the customer as possible to work out what was wrong, before sending the CE with *exactly* the right single part to fix it. This, of course, dreamed up by someone who has never attempted to talk a harrassed supermarket customer service person through unjamming a receipt cutter at lunchtime on the Saturday before Christmas. No grasp of reality at all. Yes, I know you read this list and you know where to get in touch with me if you dare disagree ;-) Gordon From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 26 07:17:30 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:17:30 -0600 Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube References: <200701260011.l0Q0A863059981@dewey.classiccmp.org><20070126002443.20150.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <007701c7414c$57f9b110$6600a8c0@BILLING> Will wrote... > I should mention again that there is a layout in an old Hustler that > features Data General equipment. That, I would like to see :) Jay From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Jan 26 08:47:06 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 08:47:06 -0600 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20070126084013.0878b7e8@mail> At 05:46 PM 1/25/2007, Richard wrote: >I mean, its a foregone conclusion that you'd rather replace atoms >representing skew crystal occlusions in a semiconductor if you could. And I suppose you're one of those sorts who uses the cheap Xlete occlusion spanners, and not the HERFA-sanctioned Tremelo spanner with the proper extension arms to make a sufficient crimp and seal. It looks just like a Telefunken U-47. You'll love it! Unfortunately, I haven't seen them available anywhere except a shop in a neightborhood in Bumbleford that was destroyed during the War. Even then, they were expensive. But if you want to do a proper job on an occlusion, you must use them. I've seen too many undereducated numbskulls with the Xlete on their belts, leaving behind repaired occlusions that only last a fortnight. - John From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jan 26 09:52:09 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:52:09 -0800 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <45B9BED0.1070609@gjcp.net> Message-ID: >From: Gordon JC Pearce > > >>>Same here, the customer gets a replacement system usually within the day >>>and >>>the faulty system is brought back for repair at our leisure and >>>re-issued, >>>after thorough testing, as a replacement unit for a future breakdown. > >When I worked at IBM, doing tech support for their EPOS kit, we would go >through phases of swapping out entire units (say, receipt printers). Then, >when the parts budget was getting ridiculous, there would be a big push on >to send engineers out with repair parts for it (usually either a print head >or the little one-way clutch for the cutter, which would jam). Then, when >that was looking shaky, there would be a drive to do as much PD with the >customer as possible to work out what was wrong, before sending the CE with >*exactly* the right single part to fix it. > >This, of course, dreamed up by someone who has never attempted to talk a >harrassed supermarket customer service person through unjamming a receipt >cutter at lunchtime on the Saturday before Christmas. No grasp of reality >at all. Yes, I know you read this list and you know where to get in touch >with me if you dare disagree ;-) > >Gordon Hi My point exactly. Blind swapping leads to failure to recognize real problems. Failure analysis required finding exactly what is wrong and tracing to the cause. This is was made Toyota's reputation. The dealers would swap out a part but every part was looked at and analysied. They'd then find where in the system that fault occured and fix it. One can't do this by just listening to bean counters. The people at Toyota realized that there were other costs. How the customer thought about their produce was figured in as well. Only foolish companies send out products without keeping a close eye on what is failing in production and in field returns, today. These foolish companies are easy targets for upstarts to take over their markets. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ FREE online classifieds from Windows Live Expo ? buy and sell with people you know http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwex0010000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://expo.live.com?s_cid=Hotmail_tagline_12/06 From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 26 11:25:39 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:25:39 -0500 Subject: Any IMP's still around? In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C358@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C358@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: On Jan 25, 2007, at 5:04 PM, Billy Pettit wrote: > And finally, there were the early DARPA name servers on the early > internet > ancestor. Several people on the list are looking for those, but I > haven't > heard of any surviving. I believe Doug Humphrey has two in his warehouse in Laurel, MD. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jan 26 11:56:21 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:56:21 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: <45B9BED0.1070609@gjcp.net> Message-ID: > Only foolish companies send out products without keeping > a close eye on what is failing in production and in field returns, today. > These foolish companies are easy targets for upstarts to take over their > markets. Of the companies that I have worked for, or been exposed to, all had some sort of feedback loop. Failures were examined and/or logged, the flaws found, and steps taken to correct the flaws. The feedback loops always included the bean counters to some extent, often built in the the budget. The places were I have not seen adequate feedback loops for failure analysis are with inexperienced small startups. When failures are examined, flaws in design or production are often found, but there are plenty of examples of oddball failures that do not give anyone a clue. Often there just is nothing close to a decent sample size to work with, in order to get some sort of conclusion. In these cases - and there are a lot of these cases - blind swapping is the best you can do. For the most part, it works. And as the failures are logged, the sample size grows to something meaningful. -- Will From arcarlini at iee.org Fri Jan 26 12:26:44 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:26:44 -0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <20070126001952.AECCD5814C@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <001801c74177$8a1564c0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Bryan Pope wrote: >> WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? >> > > Sorry.. my mistake... I forgot that the universe was a little off. No, the universe is just fine, thanks. You need to remember to use all your fingers, your ears and your nose when counting. (I heard Douglas Adams once claim on the radio that that was just a coincidence ...) Antonio From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jan 26 12:44:50 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:44:50 -0800 Subject: Component level repair Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35D@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> William Donzelli wrote: Keep in mind that there are costs beyond that dollar. Yes, the costs of the parts is obvious, and the techs time is also pretty obvious, but there is more. WAY more. Doing more component level repair means more techs on staff. More salaries. With more salaries comes more health care costs, more little benefits, more equipment, more floorspace, which mean a bigger building - and then there are the extra personnel people needed to handle the techs - and their salaries, health care costs, little benefits, equipment, floorspace - which means you need an even bigger building, with more maintenance staff, and their salaries, health care costs, little benefits, equipment, floorspace - which now with a bigger building comes more property taxes, maintenance costs, material handling equipment and the servicing they always need, and then the new shelves to put the part, and the costs to erect them, which may mean some temps or even more maintenance personnel... OK, I could go on ALL NIGHT. Yes, the costs incurred for repairing that little dollar part may have only tiny fractional effects on all of the above mentioned stuff, but as things start to multiply, you find that there is a lot of money being dumped into a department that does not actually make any money. -- Will ------------------------------------ Finally, a little reality comes into this discussion. Everything William describes is normal for this industry. You will find it labeled different ways, but it is real actual costs to support a maintenance organization. (The last management textbook I saw called it MLB - materials, labour, burden.) In Silicon Valley, MLB runs from 100% to 250% of the technician's salary. In Asia, we can usually get it down to 80%, and the salary is lower. I think everyone who looks at this issue forgets that technicians are human. They have needs. They like to be paid; they need tools and space; they only work so long. To date, nobody has found a way to automate their skills. So this overhead is a real cost to an organization. And to William's final and most critical point - repair sections are not a profit and loss center. They represent only loss - they do not generate income. So if you set up a business making widgets and they can break and need repair, you have to make a choice. Do you just replace them or do you fix them? A repair department is a constant drain of money and resources. Replacement-only can take advantage of the volume/cost curve. It is the cheapest alternative. It may look like you are wasting money, spending hundreds to replace 1-2 dollar components. But looking at the overall costs to a business, it is extremely unlikely to economically viable to repair parts. You have to look at the real cost to your business, and not the cost of failing element. And for all of you who think this is a deplorable recent trend, you are wrong. These same factors existed from the very beginning of the computer industry. The cost of the maintenance on the very first systems was already one of the biggest expenses faced by the companies. It was a major factor in the demise of many of the early companies. They found their MLB exceeding their profit; and they couldn't do much to change it, since it doesn't create income. Even our favorite company here, DEC found that the maintenance and support was by far the biggest department in the company. Some third party companies like Bell Atlantic saw it as an opportunity. But in the end, they all faced the same factors - huge MLB, low income. So coming back full circle we have the hobbyists on this list who repair for the love of it. They bitch about the lack of documentation or parts. But they don't accept that the generation of documents, parts, reparability has a very high cost associated with it. And there is no income associated with creating those items. With all our high level skills, none of us got rich. It is not a marketable skill in a world focused on profit. Billy From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jan 26 14:14:33 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:14:33 -0500 Subject: 5-6 random vax 4000 cables for postage Message-ID: <200701262014.l0QKEXER021207@mwave.heeltoe.com> I have about 10 pounds (weight) of random cables which I believe where used to connect two vax 4000 boxes. One end looks like scsi-2 but the other is something similar but not (I think these connected the two qbuses) Also there is a round cable with 2x3 .1" blocks (no idea, but related?) a cable which looks like it goes from a 50 pin .1" scsi header to a centronics scsi (hint: there is sharpie saying "8mm") two cables which looks like giant multirow; I think these connected an outboard RX50 box to something else. I was going to chuck these or put them on ebay. If anyone wants to pay postage (10-12 pounds, from zip 02476 in the USA), let me know. ps: I also have a vax 4000 box I no longer need with some disks and a cpu if anyone *local* wants to come by and pick it up; it ran vms once. send email off line if interested -brad From wizard at voyager.net Fri Jan 26 14:34:04 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:34:04 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35D@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35D@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <1169843644.19970.98.camel@linux.site> On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 10:44 -0800, Billy Pettit wrote: > I think everyone who looks at this issue forgets that technicians are human. > They have needs. They like to be paid; they need tools and space; they only > work so long. To date, nobody has found a way to automate their skills. I look at this issue from the perspective of BEING a technician; I've always had this conviction that I actually AM human. And, until the mother ship comes to pick me up, I'm going to work on that assumption. > And to William's final and most critical point - repair sections are not > a profit and loss center. They represent only loss - they do not > generate income. Actually, I chose the specific example out of my past BECAUSE that repair section WAS a profit and loss center. Working boards HAD to be sent to the customer for a fixed price by contract. The company then looked, most cold-heartedly, at the relative costs of simply sending the customer a new board out of production, or repairing the boards, and sending out repaired boards as maintenance spares. They came to the conclusion that repairing boards was cheaper. I actually contributed to that by starting a procedure that made the repairs take, on average, much less time. In this particular case, about $400 was coming in per board. Before my procedure, I did about four a day. My salary and benefits, I can assure you, were part of the calculation as to whether repair or replacement was least expensive. Using my system, my average output more than doubled, to almost ten per day, on average. If my daily expense divided by four was covered by the repair income from board swap fees, clearly my daily expense divided by ten would make the repair section into a much better profit center. > So if you set up a business making widgets and they can break and need > repair, you have to make a choice. Do you just replace them or do you fix > them? A repair department is a constant drain of money and resources. > Replacement-only can take advantage of the volume/cost curve. It is the > cheapest alternative. It depends upon the equipment involved. In the case I mention, we built single-board computers that accepted plug-in daughter boards. It's not like the production boards did NOT need to be checked by a technician... Often, the manufacturing process was followed by a repair process to ensure a working product; new manufacture had technicians troubleshooting. At that point (very late 70s) one simply could not discard a manufactured board with a wealth of components because it didn't work after manufacture. The boards were, in use, subject to a significant amount of physical shock, being mounted on a moving robot of one kind or another. Therefore, all components were wave-soldered in place. Only top-quality components were used, both in terms of durability and ease of use. The boards were VERY expensive, and they WERE repaired if they came off of the production line in a non-working condition. > It may look like you are wasting money, spending hundreds to replace 1-2 > dollar components. But looking at the overall costs to a business, it is > extremely unlikely to economically viable to repair parts. You have to look > at the real cost to your business, and not the cost of failing element. None of the decisions were mine. On the other hand, I'm aware that the boards had over five hundred dollars worth of parts on them. They were, apparently, worth more than one fourth of my daily cost. Bear in mind that I am NOT making the claim that this situation is mirrored around the industry. Particularly today, when components are cheap and skills are even rarer, it's unlikely that such a thing is true any more. Actually, it would be instructive to contact my old company, and see if they are still repairing boards... my guess would be that they are not. > So coming back full circle we have the hobbyists on this list who repair for > the love of it. They bitch about the lack of documentation or parts. But > they don't accept that the generation of documents, parts, reparability has > a very high cost associated with it. And there is no income associated with > creating those items. With all our high level skills, none of us got rich. > It is not a marketable skill in a world focused on profit. Most true. Again, I'm not arguing against your point, other than that I was in a situation in which it WAS profitable to repair boards. And, in an odd way, the throw-away culture has made our skills more valuable. There are very few people who learn to troubleshoot to component level today, and those of us who can are rare. I have a job that pays very well, which is based upon my troubleshooting skills. YMMV. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From evan at snarc.net Fri Jan 26 15:02:55 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 16:02:55 -0500 Subject: VCF East 4.0 update -- Commodore Pet 30th bday party w/ Chuck Peddle In-Reply-To: <005101c72f71$c8231220$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <000e01c7418d$59c9a590$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Another update for VCF East 4.0 .... In addition to Chuck Peddle, our panel (in the morning of June 9) will feature Bil Herd, Bob Russell, and Dave Haynie .... Along with several of the early models (and even some ultra-rare prototypes) on display .... In case the panelists have a sudden urge to demo anything. ALSO: there WILL be a second day! The official dates are now June 9-10. Location: InfoAge Science Center (www.infoage.org), Wall, N.J. .... Sponsored once again by MARCH (www.midatlanticretro.org). From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 26 15:18:45 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:18:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <001801c74177$8a1564c0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <001801c74177$8a1564c0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <20070126131702.O94364@shell.lmi.net> > >> WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? > > Sorry.. my mistake... I forgot that the universe was a little off. On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 arcarlini at iee.org wrote: > No, the universe is just fine, thanks. You need to remember to use > all your fingers, your ears and your nose when counting. > > (I heard Douglas Adams once claim on the radio that that > was just a coincidence ...) But, . . . being one of the parallel processors of The Earth (tm?), he would be programmed to think it was a coincidence. From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Fri Jan 26 17:08:44 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:08:44 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <20070126131702.O94364@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:18:45 -0800 (PST), Fred Cisin wrote: >> >> WhatdoYOUgetwhenyoumultiplysixbynine? >> > Sorry.. my mistake... I forgot that the universe was a little off. >On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 arcarlini at iee.org wrote: >> No, the universe is just fine, thanks. You need to remember to use >> all your fingers, your ears and your nose when counting. >> >> (I heard Douglas Adams once claim on the radio that that >> was just a coincidence ...) >But, . . . >being one of the parallel processors of The Earth (tm?), >he would be programmed to think it was a coincidence. Oh, one you mean one of them from over there ..... it figures :) Douglas Adams day job was working on the DR Who production staff. ... In real life, Trillian on the BBC series was married to Dr Who - Peter Davidson. Back under my rock ... Bob From curt at atarimuseum.com Fri Jan 26 17:15:16 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:15:16 -0500 Subject: Any IMP's still around? In-Reply-To: References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C358@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <45BA8B84.2010405@atarimuseum.com> Does he by chance have a website with photo's? I would like to ask him some questions. Curt Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jan 25, 2007, at 5:04 PM, Billy Pettit wrote: >> And finally, there were the early DARPA name servers on the early >> internet >> ancestor. Several people on the list are looking for those, but I >> haven't >> heard of any surviving. > > I believe Doug Humphrey has two in his warehouse in Laurel, MD. > > -Dave > > --Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > > From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Jan 26 17:29:35 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 23:29:35 -0000 (GMT) Subject: 5-6 random vax 4000 cables for postage In-Reply-To: <200701262014.l0QKEXER021207@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200701262014.l0QKEXER021207@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <1155.192.168.0.4.1169854175.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> On Fri, January 26, 2007 20:14, Brad Parker wrote: > > I have about 10 pounds (weight) of random cables which I believe where > used to connect two vax 4000 boxes. One end looks like scsi-2 but the > other is something similar but not (I think these connected the two > qbuses) They sound like DSSI cables from a VAX 4000 to an R400X expansion. If the other end is 'similar to scsi-2 but not' am I right in assuming it's the same physical size but the connectors look like a small version of a centronics female socket? > Also there is a round cable with 2x3 .1" blocks (no idea, but related?) Power jumpers IIRC, they provided a signal to turn on the expansion box when the main box was turned on. > a cable which looks like it goes from a 50 pin .1" scsi header to a > centronics > scsi (hint: there is sharpie saying "8mm") EXABYTE! :) *runs to the hills* > two cables which looks like giant multirow; I think these connected an > outboard RX50 > box to something else. D-shell with 3 rows of many pins? Sounds like it connected an RQDXE expander to an RX50 and/or TX50, since you've got 2 it's entirely possible they did both, particularly if one of them has a 90 degree plug at one end while the others are straight-in. I'm 250 miles away from my DEC stuff so I can't give part numbers till monday, maybe someone else can in the meanwhile. -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 26 17:09:33 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 23:09:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <057b01c740e3$d6921440$f0fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jan 25, 7 09:45:06 pm Message-ID: > > > 1) 90-odd% of DZ11 failures are defective RS232 driver/receiver chips, > > probably damaged by spickes induced on the RS232 cabling > > If they fry so easily, why not change the RS232 driver for something > like max 232? They don't fry that easily, my comment is that the rest of the logic on a DZ11 card is even more reliable, so that most of the (few) failures you get are of the line driver/reciever chips. Anyway, why do you think the MAX232 would be any more reliable? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 26 17:15:21 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 23:15:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3036247@MEOW.catcorner.org> from "Kelly Leavitt" at Jan 25, 7 09:49:44 pm Message-ID: > > > I have the service manual here for this drive. No where does it say > > > that pin 4 is not connected to anything. Nor do the > > > schematics I have show that this drive's 7812 (which is how it > > > is referenced in the print) > > > is optional. The only source for +12 on this schematic is the 7812, > > > derrived from the +24v line on Pin 1. > > > > Sure. That drive produces its 12V rail internally. > > > > Since you have the schematics, can you tell me what pin 4 > > _is_ shown as being connected to, please. > Now you've got me. I didn't look at it from this point of view. There > is no trace for it. Period, doesn't exist at all. Of course we all know > that published schematics are all 100% correct (this is a dig at > schematics in general, not you Tony). There isn't even a land for it on I am well aware of that. The scehmatic for the Tandy Model 3 PSU in the technical manual not only has little in common with the actual supply PCB, it's not even a possible schematic of a working SMPSU! > the circuit board on the drive I'm looking at. Physically, there are 5 > black wires coming from the AMP plug to the circuit board. Pin 4 isn't > poulated and there's no open land on the board. > Right... You see, how _I_ see it is as follows : There is a de-facto standard for power cables to 8" floppy drives, which includes a +12V supply on pin 4. Tandy used this wiring in their Model 6000 (or whatever the machine is), so that just about any 8" drives could be used. The Tandon drive they actually fitted doesn't use an external +12V supply. Pin 4 is not fitted at all, so you can plug in a power harness with a +12V supply on pin 4 if you want to, and there'd be no problems. Now what would have been _very_ foolish would be if Tandy had put something other than N/C or +12V on pin 4 of that connector. Or if Tandon had fitted pin 4 and connected it to something other than a 12V power input. But from what you've told me neither of these are the case. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 26 17:06:58 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 23:06:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Tandon TM848-2 Floppy drive power In-Reply-To: <45B94435.1030401@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 25, 7 05:58:45 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > I rememebr one of the old Sun machines (Sun 2?) that used an Archive > > Sidewinder QIC drive. It has a 4 pin power connector, jsut like the one > > on a 5.25" drive. There's only one problem. The Sidewinder uses +5V and > > +24V. And IIRC the only differnce in the tape drive pwoer connector was > > the colour of thew wire to one pin. > > Whoo - I think you might have got it :) I was casually reading this thread and > had a hazy memory of seeing inside some system where there was what looked to > be a "standard" power connector when in fact it wasn't. I think you're > probably right, and the Sun2 was it... trying to remember's been nagging at me > all day :-) I know for a fact that the Archive Sidewinder uses +5V and +24V, and uses the same type of power connector as a normal 5.25" drive. The Sidewinder is the tape drive that was used with the PERQ, which is how I came across it. I don't own a Sun 2, but I've heard about the 'odd' power connector, and can certainly believe it. -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jan 26 19:18:05 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:18:05 -0300 Subject: Component level repair References: Message-ID: <089f01c741b1$8bfdc770$f0fea8c0@alpha> > Anyway, why do you think the MAX232 would be any more reliable? Newer design, better specs and some crazy brazilian (ME!) trying to fry one puting 25000 volts on the rx/tx lines "just to see what happens". Yes, it survived. From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 26 22:49:17 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:49:17 -0600 Subject: test - please ignore Message-ID: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> test, please ignore From tpeters at mixcom.com Fri Jan 26 23:19:23 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 23:19:23 -0600 Subject: test - please ignore In-Reply-To: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20070126231906.0bb6ae90@localhost> At 10:49 PM 1/26/2007 -0600, you wrote: >test, please ignore Nope, sorry, can't. Help you I can! --Yoda --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Fri Jan 26 21:01:55 2007 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:01:55 -0700 (MST) Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: One of the RS232 chips DEC used would blow if it was powered up after what ever was connected to it. So, you had to turn the computer on before the monitor or vice-versa. Clint On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Tony Duell wrote: >> >>> 1) 90-odd% of DZ11 failures are defective RS232 driver/receiver chips, >>> probably damaged by spickes induced on the RS232 cabling >> >> If they fry so easily, why not change the RS232 driver for something >> like max 232? > > They don't fry that easily, my comment is that the rest of the logic on a > DZ11 card is even more reliable, so that most of the (few) failures you > get are of the line driver/reciever chips. > > Anyway, why do you think the MAX232 would be any more reliable? > > -tony > From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jan 27 02:46:52 2007 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 08:46:52 +0000 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45BB117C.3020706@gjcp.net> Tony Duell wrote: >>> 1) 90-odd% of DZ11 failures are defective RS232 driver/receiver chips, >>> probably damaged by spickes induced on the RS232 cabling >> If they fry so easily, why not change the RS232 driver for something >> like max 232? > > They don't fry that easily, my comment is that the rest of the logic on a > DZ11 card is even more reliable, so that most of the (few) failures you > get are of the line driver/reciever chips. So what *is* the correct replacement for line driver chips? Are there any QBus prototyping boards available? Gordon From ak6dn at mindspring.com Sat Jan 27 03:40:53 2007 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 01:40:53 -0800 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45BB1E25.8080404@mindspring.com> I've repaired three separate DZ11s in the last couple of years. All the failures were in the 40pin UART chips. cctech at porky.vax-11.org wrote: > > One of the RS232 chips DEC used would blow if it was powered up after > what ever was connected to it. So, you had to turn the computer on > before the monitor or vice-versa. > > Clint > > On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Tony Duell wrote: > >>> >>>> 1) 90-odd% of DZ11 failures are defective RS232 driver/receiver chips, >>>> probably damaged by spickes induced on the RS232 cabling >>> >>> If they fry so easily, why not change the RS232 driver for >>> something >>> like max 232? >> >> They don't fry that easily, my comment is that the rest of the logic >> on a >> DZ11 card is even more reliable, so that most of the (few) failures you >> get are of the line driver/reciever chips. >> >> Anyway, why do you think the MAX232 would be any more reliable? >> >> -tony >> > From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 27 07:02:54 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 08:02:54 -0500 Subject: Any IMP's still around? In-Reply-To: <45BA8B84.2010405@atarimuseum.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C358@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> <45BA8B84.2010405@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <54806A37-B824-4F80-9685-13A8CD3EB471@neurotica.com> Not a chance. He's not a collector per se, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't know anything specific about them other than their theory and basic history. His main area of expertise is PDP-10 stuff. -Dave On Jan 26, 2007, at 6:15 PM, Curt - Atari Museum wrote: > Does he by chance have a website with photo's? I would like to > ask him some questions. > > > Curt > > > > Dave McGuire wrote: >> On Jan 25, 2007, at 5:04 PM, Billy Pettit wrote: >>> And finally, there were the early DARPA name servers on the early >>> internet >>> ancestor. Several people on the list are looking for those, but >>> I haven't >>> heard of any surviving. >> >> I believe Doug Humphrey has two in his warehouse in Laurel, MD. >> >> -Dave >> >> --Dave McGuire >> Port Charlotte, FL >> >> >> > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From frustum at pacbell.net Sat Jan 27 08:23:40 2007 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 08:23:40 -0600 Subject: Any IMP's still around? In-Reply-To: <54806A37-B824-4F80-9685-13A8CD3EB471@neurotica.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C358@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> <45BA8B84.2010405@atarimuseum.com> <54806A37-B824-4F80-9685-13A8CD3EB471@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <45BB606C.10001@pacbell.net> A friend sent me this link to a nice web page by a German collector with an H316, which is worth perusing. http://h316.hachti.de/ From this page, select "Stuff", then the "Leonard Kleinrock materials" link for some interesting photos of an IMP -- and they are recent. That page has this link: http://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/ Select from the title bar: "Internet history" From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Jan 27 10:49:14 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 08:49:14 -0800 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <45BB1E25.8080404@mindspring.com> Message-ID: >From: Don North > >I've repaired three separate DZ11s in the last couple of years. All the >failures were in the 40pin UART chips. > >cctech at porky.vax-11.org wrote: >> >>One of the RS232 chips DEC used would blow if it was powered up after what >>ever was connected to it. So, you had to turn the computer on before the >>monitor or vice-versa. >> >>Clint >> >>On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Tony Duell wrote: >> >>>> >>>>>1) 90-odd% of DZ11 failures are defective RS232 driver/receiver chips, >>>>>probably damaged by spickes induced on the RS232 cabling >>>> >>>> If they fry so easily, why not change the RS232 driver for >>>>something >>>>like max 232? >>> >>>They don't fry that easily, my comment is that the rest of the logic on a >>>DZ11 card is even more reliable, so that most of the (few) failures you >>>get are of the line driver/reciever chips. >>> >>>Anyway, why do you think the MAX232 would be any more reliable? >>> >>>-tony >>> >> Hi Once bought a pile of modems from a surplus shop. I think I bought about 10 of them. I suspect they were field returns. About 8 of them had what looked like lightning damage. One was even missing some smoked traces. These were bus mount boards and as I recall most all of the UARTs were functioning. As bus mount they had no 232 level converters As I recall, I got 3 boards working out of the pile, just using parts from others. I think I payed about 1USD each for them. They were all 2400 baud but these were at the time when the newer high speed modems were still out of my price range. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Search for grocery stores. Find gratitude. Turn a simple search into something more. http://click4thecause.live.com/search/charity/default.aspx?source=hmemtagline_gratitude&FORM=WLMTAG From ericj2190 at gmail.com Sat Jan 27 15:17:36 2007 From: ericj2190 at gmail.com (Eric Jordan Hosmer) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:17:36 -0500 Subject: Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19 Message-ID: <200701271617.36233.EricJ2190@gmail.com> I have an old Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19 terminal, and I am trying to use it to connect to a Linux system. I have it set up successfully to connect to the Linux machine, but I have a small problem. The bottom half of the H/Z-19 screen is filled with "p"s in reverse video. When I reach that part of the screen, everything I receive is gibberish. Most of the characters show up as some other character. Once I reach the very bottom of the screen, the "p"s scroll up with the rest of the text, but come back again from the bottom. I believe this is a memory problem, but I do not know if I am correct. Do you know what could be causing this? If so, how could I fix it? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 27 15:46:02 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:46:02 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19 In-Reply-To: <200701271617.36233.EricJ2190@gmail.com> from "Eric Jordan Hosmer" at Jan 27, 7 04:17:36 pm Message-ID: > > I have an old Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19 terminal, and I am trying to > use it to connect to a Linux system. I have it set up successfully to > connect to the Linux machine, but I have a small problem. The bottom > half of the H/Z-19 screen is filled with "p"s in reverse video. When I > reach that part of the screen, everything I receive is gibberish. Most > of the characters show up as some other character. Once I reach the > very bottom of the screen, the "p"s scroll up with the rest of the > text, but come back again from the bottom. I believe this is a memory > problem, but I do not know if I am correct. Do you know what could be > causing this? If so, how could I fix it? Sounds like a video RAM failure. specifically the low nybble of the second half of the RAM.. What follows is how _I_ would starttrying to fix it. Others may just want to swap the terminal logic PCB (assuming you can find one). I have the scheamtics of the terminal logic PCB in front of me. The video RAMs are U408...U411 and look to be 2114s. That type of RAM chip is well-known for failing. The low nymblrs are U408 and U410, at a quick glance you wany to change U410. Those are a column of 4 18 pin ICs to the left of the crutal (U401), in order U408, U410, U411, U409, with the edge of the board with the 2 voltage regulators at the top (I am assuming you don't have the 'illustration booklet' that shows the PCB). -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 27 16:05:40 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 14:05:40 -0800 Subject: Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19 In-Reply-To: References: <200701271617.36233.EricJ2190@gmail.com> from "Eric Jordan Hosmer" at Jan 27, 7 04:17:36 pm, Message-ID: <45BB5C34.20438.507E39B9@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2007 at 21:46, Tony Duell wrote: > Sounds like a video RAM failure. specifically the low nybble of the > second half of the RAM.. Tony, I'm sure you've got a good reason for saying what you did, but why wouldn't one look at the *high* nibble? i.e. space=hex 20, inverse "p"=hex f0. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 27 16:48:02 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:48:02 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Heathkit-Zenith H/Z-19 In-Reply-To: <45BB5C34.20438.507E39B9@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 27, 7 02:05:40 pm Message-ID: > > On 27 Jan 2007 at 21:46, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Sounds like a video RAM failure. specifically the low nybble of the > > second half of the RAM.. > > Tony, I'm sure you've got a good reason for saying what you did, but > why wouldn't one look at the *high* nibble? i.e. space=hex 20, > inverse "p"=hex f0. Yes, you're right. It's getting late, and for some reason I thought 'P' was 4F So change the high nybble RAM, which IIRC is U409 -tony From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 27 19:00:08 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 19:00:08 -0600 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot Message-ID: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org> I know this is a longshot, but I'm looking for the settings of all five DIP switches on a Paradise VGA card from 1990. It has two strings on the board, either of which could be the make/model: PWBA 4316 0134-000 or PW800 VGA I'm assuming it's a paradise card, because the actual chip on it is from Western Digital Corp. (a WD90C11-LR) and Paradise used them nearly exclusively. The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking for an 8-bit ISA VGA card, and while this card is 16-bit, some of them could be DIP-switched to run in an 8-bit slot. There are five DIP switches on the backplate. No, I am not going to plug it into my 5160 and power cycle it 32 times to go hunting for something that works :) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 27 19:40:18 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 17:40:18 -0800 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot In-Reply-To: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org> References: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45BB8E82.25389.5142B8D6@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2007 at 19:00, Jim Leonard wrote: > I know this is a longshot, but I'm looking for the settings of all five > DIP switches on a Paradise VGA card from 1990. It has two strings on > the board, either of which could be the make/model: Jim, I've got the docs (and probably the card somewhere) to the Paradise VGA Plus, which was an 8-bit VGA card from 1988. There are 4 switches on the back defined thus: SW1 - ON = Special multi-frequency display timing OFF = Standard PS/2 compatible fixed frequency timing SW2 - ON = PS/2 only; all VGA modes available on any monitor OFF = PC/AT style; color modes on color monitors; mono modes on mono monitors. SW3, SW4 = not used, should be set OFF. Hope this helps. Cheers, Chuck From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jan 27 19:50:00 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:50:00 -0500 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot References: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <004a01c7427e$9f618770$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Leonard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2007 8:00 PM Subject: Paradise VGA longshot > I know this is a longshot, but I'm looking for the settings of all five > DIP switches on a Paradise VGA card from 1990. It has two strings on > the board, either of which could be the make/model: > > PWBA 4316 0134-000 > or > PW800 VGA > > I'm assuming it's a paradise card, because the actual chip on it is from > Western Digital Corp. (a WD90C11-LR) and Paradise used them nearly > exclusively. > > The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking for an 8-bit ISA VGA card, > and while this card is 16-bit, some of them could be DIP-switched to run > in an 8-bit slot. > > There are five DIP switches on the backplate. No, I am not going to > plug it into my 5160 and power cycle it 32 times to go hunting for > something that works :) > -- http://docs.nojabrsk.ru/th99/v/txt/52485.txt Does this help? Its the only 16 bit Paradise card listed in TH99. From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 27 20:09:07 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:09:07 -0600 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot In-Reply-To: <004a01c7427e$9f618770$0b01a8c0@game> References: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org> <004a01c7427e$9f618770$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <45BC05C3.1010403@oldskool.org> Teo Zenios wrote: > Does this help? Its the only 16 bit Paradise card listed in TH99. My thanks to the both of you, except that my card has five switches, not four :-( Still, it's encouraging that the 16-bit info Teo posted mentioned an "autosense 8/16-bit" switch, which leads me to believe that, if I ever come across an 8-bit ISA machine I don't care about :-) I could use it to test the card in all 32 iterations of it's switch bank. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 27 20:14:08 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 18:14:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Paradise VGA longshot Message-ID: <461580.59787.qm@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> have you plugged it into an 8-bit slot yet? I was under the impression neither settings nor s/w was required to be used as such. I guess I could be mistaken tho --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > I know this is a longshot, but I'm looking for the settings of all five > DIP switches on a Paradise VGA card from 1990. It has two strings on > the board, either of which could be the make/model: > > PWBA 4316 0134-000 > or > PW800 VGA > > I'm assuming it's a paradise card, because the actual chip on it is from > Western Digital Corp. (a WD90C11-LR) and Paradise used them nearly > exclusively. > > The reason I'm asking is because I'm looking for an 8-bit ISA VGA card, > and while this card is 16-bit, some of them could be DIP-switched to run > in an 8-bit slot. > > There are five DIP switches on the backplate. No, I am not going to > plug it into my 5160 and power cycle it 32 times to go hunting for > something that works :) > -- > Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ > Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ > Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ > A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com From ericj at speakeasy.org Sat Jan 27 20:23:30 2007 From: ericj at speakeasy.org (Eric Josephson) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 18:23:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Paradise VGA longshot In-Reply-To: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Jan 2007, Jim Leonard wrote: > I know this is a longshot, but I'm looking for the settings of all five > DIP switches on a Paradise VGA card from 1990. It has two strings on > the board, either of which could be the make/model: > > PWBA 4316 0134-000 > or > PW800 VGA You've probably already checked TH99, but if not here's a url: All the WD or Paradise cards I saw there with five-position switches had the WD90C31 and used the switch bank to configure refresh rates, wheras the ones with four-position switches all had the WD PVGA1A and included a setting to force 8-bit autosense. I didn't see any WD or Paradise cards with the WD90C11. From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jan 27 20:29:21 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 21:29:21 -0500 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot References: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org> <004a01c7427e$9f618770$0b01a8c0@game> <45BC05C3.1010403@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <007101c74284$1ecc72e0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Leonard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, January 27, 2007 9:09 PM Subject: Re: Paradise VGA longshot > Teo Zenios wrote: > > Does this help? Its the only 16 bit Paradise card listed in TH99. > > My thanks to the both of you, except that my card has five switches, not > four :-( > > Still, it's encouraging that the 16-bit info Teo posted mentioned an > "autosense 8/16-bit" switch, which leads me to believe that, if I ever > come across an 8-bit ISA machine I don't care about :-) I could use it > to test the card in all 32 iterations of it's switch bank. http://artofhacking.com/th99/v/U-Z/53912.htm This has 5 switches. next time try taking a picture, makes things so much easier. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 27 20:47:50 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 18:47:50 -0800 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot In-Reply-To: <45BC05C3.1010403@oldskool.org> References: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org>, <004a01c7427e$9f618770$0b01a8c0@game>, <45BC05C3.1010403@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <45BB9E56.13035.51808A40@cclist.sydex.com> Jim, how about this one: http://artofhacking.com/th99/v/U-Z/50102.htm Does it look familiar? The WD90C11 was used on other cards, including some no-name Taiwanese ones... Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 27 21:02:41 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 19:02:41 -0800 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot In-Reply-To: <45BB9E56.13035.51808A40@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org>, <45BC05C3.1010403@oldskool.org>, <45BB9E56.13035.51808A40@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45BBA1D1.10991.518E24AE@cclist.sydex.com> Here's another 5-DIPswitcher no-name: http://i7.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/86/6b/6043_1.JPG Cheers, Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 27 21:29:02 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 19:29:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Paradise VGA longshot Message-ID: <919435.9062.qm@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> the card that I have (in storage) has a card edge/fingers on top of the card. Mine is a Paradise, bought new. There were at least 2 versions/revisions. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 27 21:56:27 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 19:56:27 -0800 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot In-Reply-To: <919435.9062.qm@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> References: <919435.9062.qm@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45BBAE6B.10208.51BF5E28@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2007 at 19:29, Chris M wrote: > the card that I have (in storage) has a card > edge/fingers on top of the card. Mine is a Paradise, > bought new. There were at least 2 versions/revisions. That was pretty much standard on early VGA cards--supplanted by a 26 pin male header later on. Same pinout. Cheers, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jan 27 22:01:13 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:01:13 -0600 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot In-Reply-To: <45BB9E56.13035.51808A40@cclist.sydex.com> References: <45BBF598.8040705@oldskool.org>, <004a01c7427e$9f618770$0b01a8c0@game>, <45BC05C3.1010403@oldskool.org> <45BB9E56.13035.51808A40@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45BC2009.6070800@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Jim, how about this one: > > http://artofhacking.com/th99/v/U-Z/50102.htm > > Does it look familiar? The WD90C11 was used on other cards, > including some no-name Taiwanese ones... Although the memory configuration is different, that's pretty much it! I didn't realize I could search Total Hardware for things other than model numbers... next time I'll be a little smarter. Thanks! Sadly, it means I can't use this one. And on further inspection, many of the 16-bit-part-of-the-card's contacts lead to a Motorola LS245, and from there, to RAM, so I guess this one goes in the 286 pile. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jan 27 22:40:28 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:40:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: DECmate pics for wikipedia Message-ID: Does anyone here have any photographs of DECmate series machines (and VT78) that can be uploaded to Wikipedia? That is, if you own any of these machines, would you please take some pictures? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From cheri-post at web.de Sun Jan 28 05:21:07 2007 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 12:21:07 +0100 Subject: Strange drive from MegaTape Corp. Message-ID: <1779940166@web.de> Hello all, two daysw ago, I aquired a microVAX II with a RA81 and a tape drive. At the beginning, I thought that it was a half inch tape drive (toploader stype), but it turned out to be a special thing. Model type is : MT500C, the "C" standing for a cache option (128KB). The drive dates back from 1986, uses 24 tracks and can save 500 MB, which is way more than the 9-track reel tapes can store. It can be connected to a pertec controller. It seems to special because I couldn't find any information for it except for a german site from which obtained the information I provided earlier. Does anybody on the list knows anything about it ? Any experiences ? Documentation would certainly help. I don't even know where to get media for this thing. I got it whitout any media. Regards, Pierre _______________________________________________________________________ Viren-Scan f?r Ihren PC! Jetzt f?r jeden. Sofort, online und kostenlos. Gleich testen! http://www.pc-sicherheit.web.de/freescan/?mc=022222 From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sun Jan 28 06:58:13 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 06:58:13 -0600 Subject: Strange drive from MegaTape Corp. In-Reply-To: <1779940166@web.de> References: <1779940166@web.de> Message-ID: <45BC9DE5.7000601@msm.umr.edu> Pierre Gebhardt wrote: >Hello all, > > >Does anybody on the list knows anything about it ? Any experiences ? Documentation would certainly help. >I don't even know where to get media for this thing. I got it whitout any media. > >Regards, >Pierre > > I have a drive, and maybe 1 or 2 bits of media for megatape. They were reliable as far as working, but the media was very expensive. At the time they were built in a form factor to fit into a farm of EMD or CSD (I think) 1/2 19" rack x about 8 1/2" high winchester disk farms. The winchesters were from 300 to 1.2gb in capacity (Hitachi made an SMD of that capacity) and were quite fast for the time, and were 7" platter seald packs or so. YOu could put in one of these drives so the thought went, and have a back up on a megatape cartridge for one of the drives. 1/2" tape high end capacity was around that at the time, but took up more rack space. I think they were around here in LA somewhere, and I acquired my drives from the company estate on the scrap market. They worked well on our pertec formatted controller, and on an overland I had at the time. Since I got them after market, I don't think I have any manuals, but I'll look in my files. Jim From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 28 08:19:02 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 06:19:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: need insights on finding big cartons Message-ID: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... ____________________________________________________________________________________ Any questions? Get answers on any topic at www.Answers.yahoo.com. Try it now. From uban at ubanproductions.com Sun Jan 28 08:40:42 2007 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:40:42 -0600 Subject: Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS In-Reply-To: <000e01c7418d$59c9a590$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000e01c7418d$59c9a590$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <45BCB5EA.9070705@ubanproductions.com> I'm looking for a bit of help from someone knowledgeable on MacOS 7 and/or 8. I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago and my brother has been using it for years in the studio to run the MIDI sequencer FreeStyle. The PB 150 recently died and I bought a couple of Powerbook 540c on eBay to replace it. My current problem list: 1. My AppleCD 600e (which works fine on the PB 150) does not show up on either of the PB 540c, so I have no way to read CDs on the 540c machines. 2. FreeStyle uses FreeMidi to talk to a MIDI interface over the modem/printer port. This was a complete pain to setup on the PB 150 as there were bugs (possibly MacOS 7 related) which made the natural automated MIDI configuration fail to work and hang the computer. Setting up FreeMidi on the 540c running MacOS 7.5 has similar problems. Setting up FreeMidi on the 540c running MacOS 8 does not have these problems (which is why I think it is probably MacOS7 related). I am unable to make either 540c talk properly to the MIDI interface such that it sees the various MIDI keyboards, etc. 3. I thought that updating the version of FreeMidi from 1.3 to the latest 1.48 would be a good idea. The image size is 4Mb, which does not fit onto a floppy. On my PC: I downloaded HS Split for my PC and Chunk Joiner for the Mac, split the FreeMidi 1.48 image into 4 chunks and wrote it to PC floppies along with the Chunk Joiner binary. After reading all of the files onto the MacOS7 540c, I tried to run the Chunk Joiner program, but the 540c doesn't think that the file is an executable. I have no idea how to change this on a Mac. 4. I know very few people who use Macs and of them, most have no clue about using older MacOS classic versions or how to do the stuff I'm trying to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated! --tnx --tom From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 28 09:28:20 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:28:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS In-Reply-To: <45BCB5EA.9070705@ubanproductions.com> from Tom Uban at "Jan 28, 7 08:40:42 am" Message-ID: <200701281528.l0SFSKL3025776@floodgap.com> > I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago and my brother has been using > it for years in the studio to run the MIDI sequencer FreeStyle. > The PB 150 recently died and I bought a couple of Powerbook 540c > on eBay to replace it. > > My current problem list: > > 1. My AppleCD 600e (which works fine on the PB 150) does > not show up on either of the PB 540c, so I have no way > to read CDs on the 540c machines. This sounds like an Extension problem. Do you have all the CD extensions installed on the 540c? I don't remember them off the top of my head, but they're things like Apple CD, Hi-Sierra, etc. I assume you are using the same cable (HDI-30 to "Centronics" SCSI). > 2. FreeStyle uses FreeMidi to talk to a MIDI interface over > the modem/printer port. This was a complete pain to setup > on the PB 150 as there were bugs (possibly MacOS 7 related) > which made the natural automated MIDI configuration fail > to work and hang the computer. > Setting up FreeMidi on the 540c running MacOS 7.5 has > similar problems. Setting up FreeMidi on the 540c running > MacOS 8 does not have these problems (which is why I > think it is probably MacOS7 related). I am unable to make > either 540c talk properly to the MIDI interface such that > it sees the various MIDI keyboards, etc. I haven't had much experience with FreeMIDI; I've always used Open Music System. The current version is 2.3.8 but I don't remember if OMS is PPC only. It is freely downloadable -- at worst it just won't install. I looked at my backup installer in HexEdit and didn't see anything that implied it was PPC only, but I really don't know for sure. How did you get Mac OS 8 installed on the 540c without a CD?? > 3. I thought that updating the version of FreeMidi from 1.3 > to the latest 1.48 would be a good idea. The image size > is 4Mb, which does not fit onto a floppy. I suspect this problem will be solved when you get the CD working :) -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- This message will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim. -- M:I ---- From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Jan 28 09:54:49 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:54:49 -0800 Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: appliance store Dwight >From: Chris M >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: need insights on finding big cartons >Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 06:19:02 -0800 (PST) > >of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to >ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... > > > >____________________________________________________________________________________ >Any questions? Get answers on any topic at www.Answers.yahoo.com. Try it >now. _________________________________________________________________ Search for grocery stores. Find gratitude. Turn a simple search into something more. http://click4thecause.live.com/search/charity/default.aspx?source=hmemtagline_gratitude&FORM=WLMTAG From uban at ubanproductions.com Sun Jan 28 10:14:48 2007 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:14:48 -0600 Subject: Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS In-Reply-To: <200701281528.l0SFSKL3025776@floodgap.com> References: <200701281528.l0SFSKL3025776@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <45BCCBF8.6050202@ubanproductions.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago and my brother has been using >> it for years in the studio to run the MIDI sequencer FreeStyle. >> The PB 150 recently died and I bought a couple of Powerbook 540c >> on eBay to replace it. >> >> My current problem list: >> >> 1. My AppleCD 600e (which works fine on the PB 150) does >> not show up on either of the PB 540c, so I have no way >> to read CDs on the 540c machines. > > This sounds like an Extension problem. Do you have all the CD extensions > installed on the 540c? I don't remember them off the top of my head, but > they're things like Apple CD, Hi-Sierra, etc. I don't recall there being any extensions that were CD related. Would they have come with the default OS install? And how does an extension affect the ability to boot from the CD? I would have thought that the boot ROM code would have to know about the CD without the aid of an extension... > I assume you are using the same cable (HDI-30 to "Centronics" SCSI). Yes, I'm using the funny Apple SCSI cable. It is the same cable/setup that works fine with the PB 150. Perhaps the 600e is just too new for the 540c, but the PB 150 came out in 1994 and the PB 540c was certainly in about that same time frame. The AppleCD 600e came out in 1995, so maybe that is the problem. I guess I should pick up an AppleCD 300 to see if that works better. >> 2. FreeStyle uses FreeMidi to talk to a MIDI interface over >> the modem/printer port. This was a complete pain to setup >> on the PB 150 as there were bugs (possibly MacOS 7 related) >> which made the natural automated MIDI configuration fail >> to work and hang the computer. >> Setting up FreeMidi on the 540c running MacOS 7.5 has >> similar problems. Setting up FreeMidi on the 540c running >> MacOS 8 does not have these problems (which is why I >> think it is probably MacOS7 related). I am unable to make >> either 540c talk properly to the MIDI interface such that >> it sees the various MIDI keyboards, etc. > > I haven't had much experience with FreeMIDI; I've always used Open Music > System. The current version is 2.3.8 but I don't remember if OMS is PPC only. > It is freely downloadable -- at worst it just won't install. I looked at my > backup installer in HexEdit and didn't see anything that implied it was PPC > only, but I really don't know for sure. > > How did you get Mac OS 8 installed on the 540c without a CD?? One 540c came with 7.5 installed and the other with 8.0. I have not upgraded either OS, primarily because of the lack of 600e support. >> 3. I thought that updating the version of FreeMidi from 1.3 >> to the latest 1.48 would be a good idea. The image size >> is 4Mb, which does not fit onto a floppy. > > I suspect this problem will be solved when you get the CD working :) > How does the working CD solve my problem? I realize that I will be able to write a large file on my PCs CD-RW, but will the MacOS be able to read the file structure? And if it does, will it handle the file type problem correctly? The new FreeMidi version is a .hqx file. Will the OS know what to do with that or will I have to get some Stuffit type thing to take it apart? This is exceedingly frustrating, especially as Macs are touted as being straight forward. I have to admit that in my experience over the years, they have never lived up to that name, but then I guess I try to do things which are less than mainstream. Thanks for your help! --tom From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jan 28 10:15:47 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 11:15:47 -0500 Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: References: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > >of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to > >ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... NEVER use boxes from the grocery store. La cucaracha! -- Will From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 28 10:44:41 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:44:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS In-Reply-To: <45BCCBF8.6050202@ubanproductions.com> from Tom Uban at "Jan 28, 7 10:14:48 am" Message-ID: <200701281644.l0SGif3o017304@floodgap.com> > > > 1. My AppleCD 600e (which works fine on the PB 150) does > > > not show up on either of the PB 540c, so I have no way > > > to read CDs on the 540c machines. > > This sounds like an Extension problem. Do you have all the CD extensions > > installed on the 540c? I don't remember them off the top of my head, but > > they're things like Apple CD, Hi-Sierra, etc. > > I don't recall there being any extensions that were CD related. Would > they have come with the default OS install? Not necessarily. I'll have to look on my IIci to tell you the exact extensions, although keep in mind my IIci is 7.1. For 7.5, although not necessarily for OS 8 (which I *think* was CD only), it's certainly possible to install from floppy and therefore there would be no CD Extensions if no CD drive were detected. I don't remember if there were floppy installs for OS 8. However, there *is* a floppy Disk Tools for OS 8, so the OS will definitely boot off one. Point being, no, you can't assume that they came with the default install and may have been pulled if the 540c wasn't using a CD. However, look in the Extensions Manager just to see if they are enabled or even exist (or you can browse through the System Folder). Regrettably, I do not have an OS 8 Mac running anymore -- all of these systems are either 7.x or 9.x -- and 8.5 and 8.6 won't help because those are PPC only. I might have an OS 8.0 CD around but I would need to dig for it. > And how does an extension affect the ability to boot from the CD? I > would have thought that the boot ROM code would have to know about > the CD without the aid of an extension... It will boot from any generic SCSI device assuming it is an HFS file system, including a CD, and exports a blocksize it can understand (you use the "snag keys" to tell the Boot ROM to boot over external SCSI). However, it will not be able to do "CD things" (like eject) in MacOS, or at least not without a lot of work, and it will not understand other filesystems (i/o/w, it will treat it like a slow read-only hard disk). You *may* be able to get around this by having the CD plugged in, turned on and the disc in, and then booting the Mac. If the CD in the drive does not automatically appear as a mounted device, a tool like SCSIProbe or Mt Everything will find it and may allow you to mount it without a driver. However, the filesystem must still be HFS -- it will not read ISO 9660 without an extension. Also, you will have to mount and dismount it manually. > > I assume you are using the same cable (HDI-30 to "Centronics" SCSI). > > Yes, I'm using the funny Apple SCSI cable. It is the same cable/setup > that works fine with the PB 150. Perhaps the 600e is just too new for > the 540c, but the PB 150 came out in 1994 and the PB 540c was certainly > in about that same time frame. The AppleCD 600e came out in 1995, so > maybe that is the problem. I guess I should pick up an AppleCD 300 > to see if that works better. No, I don't think it's the problem, necessarily. If the 600 worked fine with the 150, it will definitely work fine with the 540c. > > > 2. FreeStyle uses FreeMidi to talk to a MIDI interface over [...] > > I haven't had much experience with FreeMIDI; I've always used Open Music > > System. [...] > > How did you get Mac OS 8 installed on the 540c without a CD?? > > One 540c came with 7.5 installed and the other with 8.0. I have not > upgraded either OS, primarily because of the lack of 600e support. Ah, okay, that makes sense. The 540c maxes out at 8.1, btw. > > > 3. I thought that updating the version of FreeMidi from 1.3 > > > to the latest 1.48 would be a good idea. The image size > > > is 4Mb, which does not fit onto a floppy. > > I suspect this problem will be solved when you get the CD working :) > How does the working CD solve my problem? I realize that I will be > able to write a large file on my PCs CD-RW, but will the MacOS be > able to read the file structure? And if it does, will it handle > the file type problem correctly? The new FreeMidi version is a .hqx > file. Will the OS know what to do with that or will I have to get > some Stuffit type thing to take it apart? As long as you put the .hqx on the CD, and the CD is ISO 9660, it will work fine on the Mac. (Don't use Joliet long-filename extensions.) This assumes you have, again, all the right extensions installed. Once you copy the .hqx to the Mac, then StuffIt Expander will turn it back into a proper binary with both resource forks intact, so yes, you will need that on the other side. StuffIt Expander 5.5 should work on any 68K Mac running System 7 or later and will unStuff all but the latest .sitx files. (For this reason, I don't use .sitx.) > This is exceedingly frustrating, especially as Macs are touted as > being straight forward. I have to admit that in my experience over > the years, they have never lived up to that name, but then I guess > I try to do things which are less than mainstream. I liken what you're doing to jumping onto another freeway from an overpass ... it takes a little while to get your legs back under you. :) Plus, in an entirely Mac ecosystem like I have here (almost every system here is a Mac from System 6 to Tiger 10.4.8, except the Commodores, of course, and a couple DOS PCs), these tasks are easy. All of them support HFS, so file interchange is a snap, and hardware of the same generation are often interchangeable. It's jumping back and forth from a PC ecosystem to a "couple token Macs" that causes problems because the interchange path is much less smooth for both hardware and software, and people usually blame the Mac because it's the different one (IMHO unjustifiably). It's much easier to have a Mac ecosystem and a couple token PCs, because Macs will read FAT, FAT32 and NTFS (and can write FAT and FAT32), and Macs can speak most Windows protocols (natively in OS X, and with software in OS 9). Granted, I'm at an advantage because I have a full LocalTalk network in parallel to my Ethernet network, and a system entirely dedicated to serving Classic clients. Your 150 would be happy as a clam in this world and would, indeed, "just work." On the other hand, I do concede that it needed some investment in time and hardware to set up, and it's worth it to me because I have so many Classic Macs, but it might be worth it for others. Doesn't make it any less frustrating for you, of course ... > Thanks for your help! No sweat! -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Po-Ching Lives! ------------------------------------------------------------ From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 28 10:57:02 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:57:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Tektronix 422 Message-ID: <200701281657.l0SGv2Wn026452@floodgap.com> I've been offered a Tektronix 422 oscilloscope (price is under negotiation). Is this a decent scope or a piece of junk? I'm not very experienced with oscilloscopes, but I want to get familiar with them and this one was not disastrously large. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- This message will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim. -- M:I ---- From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sun Jan 28 11:10:01 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 11:10:01 -0600 Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45BCD8E9.1000106@msm.umr.edu> dwight elvey wrote: > > appliance store > Dwight > look for a box selling store where you are. If there are none, then go to Public Storage, or a chain storage unit operation and see if they sell storage boxes. They are heavier than the ones at sams. I'd not put the three cpu's in a single box. At least fedx will accept multiple packages, and treat them as a single shipment from a billing standpoint, and it makes no difference, since it is non fedx packing and therefore costs more. Then your stuff may still be in the box when it gets to where you are shipping it. Jim From shirsch at adelphia.net Sun Jan 28 11:21:04 2007 From: shirsch at adelphia.net (Steven N. Hirsch) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 12:21:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Archiving workstation hard drives In-Reply-To: References: <200701200039.l0K0d0gw015806@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: > SunOS, unlike Linux, isn't as particular about certain details (like > the whole IDENT requirement). It's not that Linux _couldn't_ support, > say, an ACB4000 w/MFM drives, but AFAIK, it never has., even back in > the old days (I started with 0.97 with an embedded SCSI drive). Actually, someone did write a Linux device driver module for the ACB series SCSI-MFM bridges. It dates from kernel 2.0.x days, but might be useful if anyone is enterprising enough to pen an update. Steve -- From lbickley at bickleywest.com Sun Jan 28 11:25:16 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 09:25:16 -0800 Subject: Tektronix 422 In-Reply-To: <200701281657.l0SGv2Wn026452@floodgap.com> References: <200701281657.l0SGv2Wn026452@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200701280925.16270.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Sunday 28 January 2007 08:57, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > I've been offered a Tektronix 422 oscilloscope (price is under > negotiation). Is this a decent scope or a piece of junk? I'm not very > experienced with oscilloscopes, but I want to get familiar with them > and this one was not disastrously large. This is a dual trace 15MHz scope. It would be O.K. for low speed requirement applications. In measuring/observing signals, one has to take into consideration rise and fall times, glitches, phase, etc. of the signal - so it's usually best to have a scope that's about 10X the speed of the frequency you're interested in observing. For most vintage work you'd be better off with the readily available and inexpensive TEK 4x5 (x=6,7,8) series. All are portable, dual-trace, have delayed sweep, and reasonable differential capability (handy for core memory scoping). Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 28 11:44:30 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 09:44:30 -0800 Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: References: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com>, , Message-ID: <45BC707E.11858.54B57752@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Jan 2007 at 11:15, William Donzelli wrote: > > >of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to > > >ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... I ship tubas from time to time, so I need really big (i.e. oversized) boxes. Appliance stores (small refrigerator boxes) as well as the local U-Haul rental place (moving boxes) have been quite valuable resources. Check your local Freecycle group also--there's always someone trying to get rid of boxes from a house move. Cheers, Chuck From james at attfield.co.uk Sun Jan 28 12:13:48 2007 From: james at attfield.co.uk (Jim Attfield) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 18:13:48 -0000 Subject: Paradise VGA longshot In-Reply-To: <200701281802.l0SI1xh8021807@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: > Message: 18 > Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:01:13 -0600 > From: Jim Leonard > Subject: Re: Paradise VGA longshot > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Message-ID: <45BC2009.6070800 at oldskool.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Jim, how about this one: > > > > http://artofhacking.com/th99/v/U-Z/50102.htm > > > > Does it look familiar? The WD90C11 was used on other cards, > > including some no-name Taiwanese ones... > > Although the memory configuration is different, that's pretty much it! > I didn't realize I could search Total Hardware for things other than > model numbers... next time I'll be a little smarter. Thanks! > > Sadly, it means I can't use this one. And on further inspection, many > of the 16-bit-part-of-the-card's contacts lead to a Motorola LS245, and > from there, to RAM, so I guess this one goes in the 286 pile. > -- > Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ > Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ > Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ > A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ Well, I would just plug it in and try it. It will either initialise or not. I have used several of the earlier (i.e. just post AT introduction) 16-bit cards in an 8-bit slot and they worked just fine, especially the WD & Paradise ones. Just because it has some traces from the 16-bit extension part to a buffer chip doesn't mean it won't work. There is no electrical danger as the 8-bit section has to be compliant with an 8-bit slot, more a question of if it will fit physically as it will be longer than an equivalent 8-bit card. In any event there is one 8-bitter on ebaY UK atm if you are really worried. Jim From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 28 12:34:38 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:34:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: Paradise VGA longshot Message-ID: <20070128183438.75393.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> at least some of the 16 bit Paradise cards could operate in an 8 bit slot. I know this for a fact. I have no fear of endangering a board by just plugging a card --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 18 > > Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:01:13 -0600 > > From: Jim Leonard > > Subject: Re: Paradise VGA longshot > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > > > Message-ID: <45BC2009.6070800 at oldskool.org> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > Jim, how about this one: > > > > > > http://artofhacking.com/th99/v/U-Z/50102.htm > > > > > > Does it look familiar? The WD90C11 was used on other cards, > > > including some no-name Taiwanese ones... > > > > Although the memory configuration is different, that's pretty much it! > > I didn't realize I could search Total Hardware for things other than > > model numbers... next time I'll be a little smarter. Thanks! > > > > Sadly, it means I can't use this one. And on further inspection, many > > of the 16-bit-part-of-the-card's contacts lead to a Motorola LS245, and > > from there, to RAM, so I guess this one goes in the 286 pile. > > -- > > Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ > > Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ > > Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ > > A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ > > Well, I would just plug it in and try it. It will either initialise or not. > I have used several of the earlier (i.e. just post AT introduction) 16-bit > cards in an 8-bit slot and they worked just fine, especially the WD & > Paradise ones. Just because it has some traces from the 16-bit extension > part to a buffer chip doesn't mean it won't work. There is no electrical > danger as the 8-bit section has to be compliant with an 8-bit slot, more a > question of if it will fit physically as it will be longer than an > equivalent 8-bit card. In any event there is one 8-bitter on ebaY UK atm if > you are really worried. > > Jim > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ TV dinner still cooling? Check out "Tonight's Picks" on Yahoo! TV. http://tv.yahoo.com/ From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jan 28 12:41:44 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 11:41:44 -0700 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35B@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C35B@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <45BCEE68.9070108@jetnet.ab.ca> Billy Pettit wrote: > ----------------------------------- > Philistines. Are there no Douglas Adams fans here? Life, The Universe and > Everything? ---------------------------------- 42 :) Component repair to me means replacing hard to find components with a plug in small PC with a replacement part. ROM's and other chips with different pinouts. IF one really needed and had the $$$$ you could get them fabricated for real. From wizard at voyager.net Sun Jan 28 12:57:00 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 13:57:00 -0500 Subject: Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS In-Reply-To: <45BCB5EA.9070705@ubanproductions.com> References: <000e01c7418d$59c9a590$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <45BCB5EA.9070705@ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <1170010620.19970.273.camel@linux.site> On Sun, 2007-01-28 at 08:40 -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago . . . Holy Lord.... That's an OLD computer! Unable to Resist, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jan 28 13:11:48 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 11:11:48 -0800 Subject: Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS In-Reply-To: <45BCCBF8.6050202@ubanproductions.com> References: <200701281528.l0SFSKL3025776@floodgap.com> <45BCCBF8.6050202@ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: At 10:14 AM -0600 1/28/07, Tom Uban wrote: >Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago and my brother has been using >>> it for years in the studio to run the MIDI sequencer FreeStyle. >>> The PB 150 recently died and I bought a couple of Powerbook 540c >>> on eBay to replace it. >>> >>> My current problem list: >>> >>> 1. My AppleCD 600e (which works fine on the PB 150) does >>> not show up on either of the PB 540c, so I have no way >>> to read CDs on the 540c machines. >> >> This sounds like an Extension problem. Do you have all the CD extensions >> installed on the 540c? I don't remember them off the top of my head, but >> they're things like Apple CD, Hi-Sierra, etc. > >I don't recall there being any extensions that were CD related. Would >they have come with the default OS install? Maybe, maybe not, it's been about 12 years so the memory is pretty foggy about the CD-ROM extensions. However, the 540c would have shipped with System 7.1, and had disk images for System 7.5 (I believe 7.5.3) on the Hard Drive. The system shipped with only 4MB RAM, which wasn't really enough to run System 7.5. To save RAM things such as the CD-ROM extensions would have been left out if not needed. >And how does an extension affect the ability to boot from the CD? I >would have thought that the boot ROM code would have to know about >the CD without the aid of an extension... The extensions are for the different formats, I think there are a total of 4 extensions. > >Yes, I'm using the funny Apple SCSI cable. It is the same cable/setup >that works fine with the PB 150. Perhaps the 600e is just too new for >the 540c, but the PB 150 came out in 1994 and the PB 540c was certainly >in about that same time frame. The AppleCD 600e came out in 1995, so >maybe that is the problem. I guess I should pick up an AppleCD 300 >to see if that works better. That isn't the problem, the 600e should work, it was out when I bought my 520c new (I now have a 540c as it was cheaper than replacing the dead screen on the 520c years ago). >One 540c came with 7.5 installed and the other with 8.0. I have not >upgraded either OS, primarily because of the lack of 600e support. System 7.5.3 is a floppy install, while I believe System 8 is CD-ROM. Do you have TCP/IP working on either system? If so download the needed disk images from Apple, and copy them over the network. >How does the working CD solve my problem? I realize that I will be >able to write a large file on my PCs CD-RW, but will the MacOS be >able to read the file structure? And if it does, will it handle >the file type problem correctly? The new FreeMidi version is a .hqx >file. Will the OS know what to do with that or will I have to get >some Stuffit type thing to take it apart? Will the 600e drive read CD-RW disk? It might not even read CD-R's (I honestly don't know, but that vintage of drive can have such issues). There is another way you can attempt this. Get a copy of ARDI Executor http://www.ardi.com/ardi.php and use it to copy the data from a PC to Mac formatted floppies. Back when I was in the Navy, I had a P90 laptop that I could get online under Windows 3.11 with via a 14.4k PCMCIA modem, and I'd then boot into Linux and run Executor to write Mac software I'd downloaded to Mac formatted floppies that my PowerBook 520c would read. I had both a current PC laptop and a current Mac laptop onboard ship for my last year in. The PC laptop was actually the most powerful PC onboard during that time. >This is exceedingly frustrating, especially as Macs are touted as >being straight forward. I have to admit that in my experience over >the years, they have never lived up to that name, but then I guess >I try to do things which are less than mainstream. Audio software on Mac's of that Vintage are a serious PITA. The other problem I think you're running into is a serious lack of the install media that someone that bought the system new would have had. Might not hurt to pick up a book on Mac's of that Vintage as well. Today I'm debating trying to resurrect my PowerMac 8500/180, or just going out and buying a new Firewire Audio interface for a project I have. As the new interface is plug-and-play I'm leaning towards it, besides I wouldn't have to find room to setup my old 8500. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From alhartman at yahoo.com Sun Jan 28 13:47:15 2007 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:47:15 -0500 Subject: Limited supply of RCA 1802CE Chips In-Reply-To: <200701281729.l0SHShEf021412@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701281729.l0SHShEf021412@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45BCFDC3.309@yahoo.com> Before I list these on eBay, I wanted to offer them to the list. My partner and I have a limited supply of RCA 1802CE 40 Pin DIP Plastic Package chips. These appear to be New, Old stock chips. Never used. Not pulls. We are looking for $18.95 each + $3.00 shipping (add $1.00 for ea add'l chip for shipping). If you're intested, you can contact me off list at: ALHARTMAN_AT_YAHOO.COM I can take pictures of the chips if wanted. The chip has the following legend on it: CDP1802CE RCA 227 R Thanks! Al Hartman From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 28 14:45:32 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:45:32 +0000 (GMT) Subject: RS366 Message-ID: A bit of background : Spread over my bench at the moment are the insides of an HP11284 Data Communication Interface for the HP9830. This is a somewhat nice-for-the-time unit that does async and sync protocols, etc.. Anyway, as well as the RS232 interface to a modem, it also has an 'RS366' interface to an ACU (Automatic Calling Unit?). From what I've managed to discover so far, this is an interface for autodialers, it uses a DB25 connector, 'RS232' voltage levels (in fact the HP11284 uses 1488s and 1489s to talk to the RS366 connector). A goolge search for RS366 provided me with a pinout (which I had anyway) and brief descriptions of the signals. But I'd like more :-). In particular, does anyone know a free (or relatively cheap) more complete spec. I;d like to know the timeing of the various handshake signals, and the encoding of the 4-bit digit-to-dial lines (it's not even obvious that '0' is sent as 0000...). What would be _really_ nice would be the schematic of an old (pre-microcontorller [1]) ACU with an RS366 interface. I don't suppose anyone knows of one. ]1] Since the HP11284 dates from 1974-ish, I would guess the RS366 interface is even older, and that discrete-logic implementations of the ACU must have existed. -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 28 15:36:56 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 13:36:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: References: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20070128133433.W88940@shell.lmi.net> > > >of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to > > >ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, William Donzelli wrote: > NEVER use boxes from the grocery store. > La cucaracha! stick with liquor boxes; the more expensive the booze, the heavier the box Computer and electronics stores often have difficulty disposing of all of the boxes they get. People get stuff delivered and installed, and expect the installer to remove the empty boxes. From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jan 28 15:37:42 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:37:42 -0500 Subject: RS366 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:45:32 GMT." Message-ID: <200701282137.l0SLbgjw008082@mwave.heeltoe.com> Tony Duell wrote: > >What would be _really_ nice would be the schematic of an old >(pre-microcontorller [1]) ACU with an RS366 interface. I don't suppose >anyone knows of one. I might be hallucinating (or making it up), but I am having a flashback to a Z-80 cpu board which had parallel port which just happened to map to RS366. It was a name-brand cpm all-in-one board at the time (which would have been around... mmm... 1988-89 I think) As I recall the board was originally made for John Deere and later sold as mainstream z-80 cpm board. It probably doesn't help, but for some reason that came to mind while reading your note. At one point I did connect it to a dialer. I think it was a modem which had an additional "dialer port"... but I don't remember who made the modem. (If I am remembering correctly it was used it to poll POS terminals in little jewelery kiosks all over the east coast :-) -brad From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Sun Jan 28 10:23:53 2007 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 09:23:53 -0700 (MST) Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> References: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Park in front of your local Best Buy/Circuit City today and tommorrow and grab a big screen TV box from somebody that can't fit TV + box into their car. You'll have the best luck if you live in the same state as one of the two superbowl bound teams, but anywhere should work. Clint On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: > of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to > ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Any questions? Get answers on any topic at www.Answers.yahoo.com. Try it now. > From ericj at speakeasy.org Sun Jan 28 16:35:37 2007 From: ericj at speakeasy.org (Eric Josephson) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:35:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: RS366 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, Tony Duell wrote: > In particular, does anyone know a free (or relatively cheap) more > complete spec. I;d like to know the timeing of the various handshake > signals, and the encoding of the 4-bit digit-to-dial lines (it's not even > obvious that '0' is sent as 0000...). > > What would be _really_ nice would be the schematic of an old > (pre-microcontorller [1]) ACU with an RS366 interface. I don't suppose > anyone knows of one. > > ]1] Since the HP11284 dates from 1974-ish, I would guess the RS366 > interface is even older, and that discrete-logic implementations of the > ACU must have existed. > Sorry, I have no specs, but maybe a useful lead. I found the following in google's Usenet archive: >Newsgroups: net.dcom >Subject: Re: Bell 801 automatic calling unit >Date: Mon, 28-Apr-86 14:16:58 EDT >Article-I.D.: ariel.1137 >> >> Does anybody in net.dcom have a interface specification for a Bell 801 >> acu ? I am interested in characters other than digits given to the 801 >> to have it "wait for secondary dial tone" etc. >> >> Ludo J. M. Vennekens >> (408) 737-5074 >> ...{hplabs,ihnp4,amd}!amdahl!ludo > >The 801acu uses the RS366 interface which if memory serves me right >was a four bit wide bcd+ i/f on a DB25 connector. It was separate >from the RS-232C i/f for the modem and went on the line side of the >modem. The DEC DN11 i/f was used for ACU duty. If you can find >an old DEC communications handbook from the mid-70s or write to >the EIA you should be able to get a copy. > > > > Joseph L. Wood, III > AT&T Information Systems > Laboratories, Middletown Is RS366 covered in any of the CCITT/ITU specifications? From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 28 16:54:09 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:54:09 -0500 Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: References: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jan 28, 2007, at 11:15 AM, William Donzelli wrote: >> >of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to >> >ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... > > NEVER use boxes from the grocery store. > > La cucaracha! I've had a few eBay scores (chips, mostly) come packaged in food cartons. A few CDP1802s arrived stuck into a piece of anti-static foam shoved into a McDonald's apple pie carton. I was -pissed-. The last thing I want on chip pins is food garbage. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From technobug at comcast.net Sun Jan 28 17:00:14 2007 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:00:14 -0700 Subject: Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS In-Reply-To: <200701281729.l0SHShEa021412@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701281729.l0SHShEa021412@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:40:42 -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > I'm looking for a bit of help from someone knowledgeable on > MacOS 7 and/or 8. > > I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago and my brother has been using > it for years in the studio to run the MIDI sequencer FreeStyle. > > The PB 150 recently died and I bought a couple of Powerbook 540c > on eBay to replace it. > > My current problem list: > > 1. My AppleCD 600e (which works fine on the PB 150) does > not show up on either of the PB 540c, so I have no way > to read CDs on the 540c machines. Cameron Kaiser noted: > This sounds like an Extension problem. Do you have all the CD > extensions > installed on the 540c? I don't remember them off the top of my > head, but > they're things like Apple CD, Hi-Sierra, etc. 7.5.2 running on my Powerbook 520 has the following CD related extensions: Apple CD-ROM (5.1.2 - 7.5 update 2.0), High Sierra File Access (5.1 - 7.5 update 2.0), IS) 9660 File Access (5.1 - 7.5 update 2.0), and Foreign File Access (5.1 - 7.5 update 2.0). Without these you will not see the CD. > I assume you are using the same cable (HDI-30 to "Centronics" SCSI). Note that there are two kinds of adaptor cables. From one of Apple's FAQs: "5) Question: I am trying to connect a SCSI device to my PowerBook. However, when I start up the PowerBook, a diamond icon with a number appears on my screen. Answer: You are most likely using the wrong SCSI cable. You should be using the HDI-30 SCSI System Cable (M2538LL/A), which is a light gray color and only has 29 pins (there is a pin missing). You are most likely using the HDI-30 SCSI Disk Adapter cable (M2539LL/A) which is dark gray and has all 30 pins." Tom Uban asked: > And how does an extension affect the ability to boot from the CD? I > would have thought that the boot ROM code would have to know about > the CD without the aid of an extension... First of all is the CD bootable? You might want to load the CD and then look in the startup disk control panel and see if you see the CD as a boot disk - this is independent . If so, choose it and restart - the older systems only boot from the disk designated in the control panel. The 540c existed from May 1994 to August 1995 - almost exactly the same era as the 150 so the CD 600e should work. >>> 3. I thought that updating the version of FreeMidi from 1.3 >>> to the latest 1.48 would be a good idea. The image size >>> is 4Mb, which does not fit onto a floppy. >>> >> (Cameron Kaiser) >> I suspect this problem will be solved when you get the CD working :) >> >> > > How does the working CD solve my problem? I realize that I will be > able to write a large file on my PCs CD-RW, but will the MacOS be > able to read the file structure? And if it does, will it handle > the file type problem correctly? The new FreeMidi version is a .hqx > file. Will the OS know what to do with that or will I have to get > some Stuffit type thing to take it apart? The Mac should handle the PC written CD. IIRC Stuffit expander was include on both the 7.5 and 8 installs. Do a "find" to see if you have it on Alternates: if you have the dark gray SCSI adaptor cable, you can hook the laptop up as a disk to another Mac's SCSI system. The "PowerBook Setup" control panel allows you to choose the ID. Also, if you have an AAUI you can drop the laptop on your LAN and transfer files that way. CRC From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 28 17:19:22 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 18:19:22 -0500 Subject: Tektronix 422 In-Reply-To: <200701280925.16270.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200701281657.l0SGv2Wn026452@floodgap.com> <200701280925.16270.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: On Jan 28, 2007, at 12:25 PM, Lyle Bickley wrote: >> I've been offered a Tektronix 422 oscilloscope (price is under >> negotiation). Is this a decent scope or a piece of junk? I'm not very >> experienced with oscilloscopes, but I want to get familiar with them >> and this one was not disastrously large. > > This is a dual trace 15MHz scope. It would be O.K. for low speed > requirement > applications. > > In measuring/observing signals, one has to take into consideration > rise and > fall times, glitches, phase, etc. of the signal - so it's usually > best to > have a scope that's about 10X the speed of the frequency you're > interested in > observing. > > For most vintage work you'd be better off with the readily > available and > inexpensive TEK 4x5 (x=6,7,8) series. All are portable, dual-trace, > have > delayed sweep, and reasonable differential capability (handy for > core memory > scoping). I agree 100% here, these are the very finest of analog scopes. I'd like to make one other recommendation, for the Tek 453. It's a fantastic scope, and they're readily available at very reasonable prices. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From innfoclassics at gmail.com Sun Jan 28 19:10:40 2007 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:10:40 -0800 Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> References: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In Portland OR there is a place called Carton Services which sells all kinds of boxes, both used and new. This included gaylords which are pallet sized boxes 4 or 5 feet tall. Good for shipping lots of terminals or printers (with appropriate packing). Look for someone selling used cartons in your area. They often sell bubble wrap and other packing materials. You will want to use doubleweight boxes if you are going to try to ship three tin CPUs in one box. I also recommend at least two inches of hard foam on the outside of the CPUs. I also echo looking at appliance and furniture stores. They have large sheets of cardboard along with leftover foam packing. I use the foam packing discarded by them to protect large items like CPUs. Often it is block and sheet hard foam. I cut it up with a kitchen serrated knife to fit the inside of the box. I have learned how to cut up all kinds of hard foam, including things like custom molded monitor inserts although I prefer sheet and block. I have also had to make my own double weight boxes for odd sized heavy items. I make a solid foam package (item & foam held together with tape) then roll it in large sheets of old appliance cardboard. You have to make each fold independently because each is a different size. Also as a result you need to cut the end flaps individually but it makes an exceptionally sturdy box end. You can make a very tight fitting box that way which survives shipping very well. Paxton -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 28 19:35:48 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:35:48 -0800 Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: References: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com>, Message-ID: <45BCDEF4.22339.5664F570@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Jan 2007 at 17:10, Paxton Hoag wrote: > I use the foam packing discarded by them to protect large items like > CPUs. Often it is block and sheet hard foam. I cut it up with a > kitchen serrated knife to fit the inside of the box. I have learned > how to cut up all kinds of hard foam, including things like custom > molded monitor inserts although I prefer sheet and block. That sheet styrofoam comes in the form of insulation in large sheets from your local home-improvement store. Use a utility knife to score both sides, then just snap it as you would a piece of gypsum board (sheetrock). Much neater than trying to cut with a saw (less in the way of those foam "crumbs"). Unless you're shipping small light items, forget styrofoam "peanuts". They can shift, leaving a large heavy item free to move inside the box. Cheers, Chuck From dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Jan 28 20:29:06 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:29:06 -0500 Subject: NEC APC H03 available in Rhode Island, USA Message-ID: <200701290228.l0T2S9xB023964@hosting.monisys.ca> As the subject says - contact me for details. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Jan 28 20:29:06 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:29:06 -0500 Subject: Televideo CPM machine available in Canberra Australia Message-ID: <200701290228.l0T2S9x9023964@hosting.monisys.ca> As the subject says - contact me for details. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Jan 28 20:29:06 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:29:06 -0500 Subject: Compaq Portable III available in Brewerton NY, USA Message-ID: <200701290228.l0T2S9xF023964@hosting.monisys.ca> As the subject says - contact me for details. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From bob at jfcl.com Sun Jan 28 22:11:00 2007 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:11:00 -0800 Subject: Null job light patterns? Message-ID: <000001c7435b$7c5d9060$0401010a@GIZMO> I believe some of the -11 operating systems would do "interesting" things with the console lights while they were idle. Could somebody describe the patterns used? Thanks, Bob Armstrong From ray at arachelian.com Sun Jan 28 22:15:39 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:15:39 -0500 Subject: Re-Introducing the First, and Fully Functional, Lisa Emulator In-Reply-To: <45B792F0.2070309@arachelian.com> References: <45B792F0.2070309@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <45BD74EB.5080904@arachelian.com> I've put up another release with some bug fixes. Not perfect, but better than the last. http://lisa.sunder.net/downloads.html Ray Arachelian wrote: > On January 24th, 1984, the Macintosh announced, but along with that > announcement came another that not everyone recalls: The introduction > of the Lisa 2. > From ggs at shiresoft.com Sun Jan 28 22:21:17 2007 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:21:17 -0800 Subject: Null job light patterns? In-Reply-To: <000001c7435b$7c5d9060$0401010a@GIZMO> References: <000001c7435b$7c5d9060$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: <45BD763D.4030201@shiresoft.com> Robert Armstrong wrote: > I believe some of the -11 operating systems would do "interesting" things > with the console lights while they were idle. Could somebody describe the > patterns used? > BSD 2.11 uses a set of rotating lights. I can't remember the number of "on" lights but there's more than 1 (6 or 8?). -- TTFN - Guy From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Jan 28 22:42:09 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:42:09 -0500 Subject: SGI Challenge XLs up for grabs Message-ID: <200701282342.09740.pat@computer-refuge.org> I have two SGI Challenge XL racks going up for grabs; I really need the space back for other new equipment. Make an offer, mostly just want the space back, and I don't really have a use for another big old Irix box.. One is an R10k system and one is an R4400 system. I don't remember exactly how much memory and procs are in each, but could go look. They both have 10BT ethernet and FDDI connections. Pick-up is preferred, from Lafayette, IN. Zip 47901. If you want me to ship the machine, expect to pay for my time and effort to do so, in addition to freight charges. If I don't get a response by Feb 3rd, I'll be parting the machines out to sell on ebay. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From davidfrkane at gmail.com Sun Jan 28 22:51:16 2007 From: davidfrkane at gmail.com (David Kane) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:51:16 +1100 Subject: Televideo CPM machine available in Canberra Australia In-Reply-To: <200701290228.l0T2S9x9023964@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <200701290228.l0T2S9x9023964@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: Hi Dave, Canberra is where I call home. I would be interested in some details. Thanks, David Kane On 1/29/07, Dave Dunfield wrote: > > As the subject says - contact me for details. > Dave > > -- > dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield > dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com > com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jan 28 22:51:53 2007 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:51:53 -0500 Subject: E2K keyboard and Panda lights box found Message-ID: Bob, Wanted to let you know that once I knew which address the package went to, I was able to track it down. Thanks for looking that up for me. I just need to order some 10 LED bars and I can get the Panda lights put together. I'll probably have enough stuff for a parts order within the next few weeks (thinking of a DigiKey order for some Atmel processors anyway). Cheers, -ethan From SUPRDAVE at aol.com Sun Jan 28 23:22:54 2007 From: SUPRDAVE at aol.com (SUPRDAVE at aol.com) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:22:54 EST Subject: need insights on finding big cartons Message-ID: If you happen to work in or near any manufacturing facility, get friendly with the person who runs shipping/recieving. All kinds of good packing material gets thrown out daily. At my previous job, I I had access to all the used boxes and packing material I could ever want. The plastic air pillows work good for filling up empty space, and the crimped brown paper that's used is great for padding and seperating items. Most boxes containing computer equipment is double thickness and worth searching out. Amazingly, shipping material is very expensive! Another place to look is near construction areas of strip malls and such. I scored some very large flat cardboard and some large hard foam blocks from behind a fitness center that was opening up. An old nonserrated steak knife cuts hard foam with a minimum of crumbs. In a message dated 1/28/2007 5:38:23 PM Eastern Standard Time, cctech at porky.vax-11.org writes: >Park in front of your local Best Buy/Circuit City today and tommorrow and >grab a big screen TV box from somebody that can't fit TV + box into their >car. You'll have the best luck if you live in the same state as one of the >two superbowl bound teams, but anywhere should work. >Clint >On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, Chris M wrote: >> of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to >> ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... >> From ggs at shiresoft.com Mon Jan 29 00:40:28 2007 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:40:28 -0800 Subject: Web site updates Message-ID: <45BD96DC.5080404@shiresoft.com> I just wanted to let folks know that I've made a few updates to my website. These include a link to a "downloads" area where among other things are the disk images that I've read in so far. I've also included pages that describe the systems in the collection that I consider "operational". Go see! http://www.shiresoft.com. -- TTFN - Guy From jrr at flippers.com Sun Jan 28 20:25:41 2007 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 18:25:41 -0800 Subject: need insights on finding big cartons In-Reply-To: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> References: <606010.68185.qm@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 6:19 AM -0800 1/28/07, Chris M wrote: >of course its always preferable to scrounge. I need to >ship 3 cpus in 1 box. Help. Supermarket aint working... > New motorcycle dealers always have crates and boxes they are getting rid of. Video stores... John :-#)# From stanb at dial.pipex.com Mon Jan 29 02:58:28 2007 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:58:28 +0000 Subject: Null job light patterns? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:21:17 PST." <45BD763D.4030201@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <200701290858.IAA22460@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Guy Sotomayor said: > > > Robert Armstrong wrote: > > I believe some of the -11 operating systems would do "interesting" things > > with the console lights while they were idle. Could somebody describe the > > patterns used? > > > > BSD 2.11 uses a set of rotating lights. I can't remember the number of > "on" lights but there's more than 1 (6 or 8?). As does RSTS/E, 6 lights, I think. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From pechter at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 05:16:05 2007 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 06:16:05 -0500 Subject: Null job light patterns? In-Reply-To: <200701290858.IAA22460@citadel.metropolis.local> References: <45BD763D.4030201@shiresoft.com> <200701290858.IAA22460@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: RT11 would run one led in from the left side and one from the right side until they collided in the middle and kind of bounced off each other. RSX, IIRC did something like the old Battlestar Galactica Cylon or Knight Rider Kitt light pattern going left to right. Bill On 1/29/07, Stan Barr wrote: > > Hi, > > Guy Sotomayor said: > > > > > > > Robert Armstrong wrote: > > > I believe some of the -11 operating systems would do "interesting" > things > > > with the console lights while they were idle. Could somebody describe > the > > > patterns used? > > > > > > > BSD 2.11 uses a set of rotating lights. I can't remember the number of > > "on" lights but there's more than 1 (6 or 8?). > > As does RSTS/E, 6 lights, I think. > > -- > Cheers, > Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com > > The future was never like this! > > > From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Jan 29 06:20:40 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 07:20:40 -0500 Subject: Machines I posted as avail last night. Message-ID: <200701291219.l0TCJiGq005254@hosting.monisys.ca> I guess I should have been more clear - by "details", I ment details on the machines availability - ie: I will put you in contact with the owner. These are machines that have been offered to me recently, but are too far away and not worth shipping for me to acquire them - I don't know anything more about them than the model information I put in the subject line of the original message - I don't know how big they are, or if they work, or what material comes with them (so please stop asking). So far the machines I posted were: Compaq Portable III available in Brewerton NY, USA Televideo CPM machine available in Canberra Australia NEC APC H03 available in Rhode Island, USA I believe all of them were described as "working when put away years ago" - I know nothing more. I will collect the responses for the next couple of days, and then forward them to the current owners of these machines. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From andy.piercy at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 07:42:37 2007 From: andy.piercy at gmail.com (Andy Piercy) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:42:37 +0000 Subject: Looking for UK ESDI drive >= 300Mb Message-ID: Folks, Does anyone have a spare 5.25" full height ESDI drive >= 300Mb in the UK that they are willing to part with. All the drives on Ebay are in the USA and the cost of shipping and the chance of the drive making it in one piece would be prohibitive. An old Sun drive like "327M Micropolis ESDI drive 370-1133" would be great. Please contact me off list if you have anything available. Thanks, Andy. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 29 09:00:52 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:00:52 -0600 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> Bob Bradlee wrote: > > Douglas Adams day job was working on the DR Who production staff. That's the real Dr. Who, of course... not the God-awful remake :-) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 29 09:10:13 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:10:13 -0600 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: References: <1169771999.19970.13.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <45BE0E55.2020507@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: > OK, I could go on ALL NIGHT. Yes, the costs incurred for repairing > that little dollar part may have only tiny fractional effects on all > of the above mentioned stuff, but as things start to multiply, you > find that there is a lot of money being dumped into a department that > does not actually make any money. Surely it does generate money, though? If you get a faulty board / widget / system in and just toss it then you're going to *potentially* make a loss versus "recycling" that system by fixing it and returning it to the field? In other words yes there are costs beyond simple employee time and parts cost, but then the same can be true whether you're board swapping or system swapping just as much as for doing component-level repair. Which one makes sense to the business *overall* depends on the nature of the customer(s), nature of the product(s), and the availability of suitably-skilled staff. From curt at atarimuseum.com Mon Jan 29 09:21:48 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:21:48 -0500 Subject: OT - Some Humor... In-Reply-To: <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> This is off topic, but I got this in my inbox this AM and I thought everyone would truly appreciate the humor in this: #7 is the best, it'll have you LOL ! Gates vs. GM For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon." In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics: 1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........ Twice a day. 2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car. 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this. 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine. 5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads. 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light. I love the next one!!! 7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying. 8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna. 9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car. 10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off. Please share this with your friends who love - but sometimes hate - their computer From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jan 29 09:29:41 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:29:41 -0700 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <45BE12E5.6010601@jetnet.ab.ca> Jules Richardson wrote: > Bob Bradlee wrote: > >> >> Douglas Adams day job was working on the DR Who production staff. > > > That's the real Dr. Who, of course... not the God-awful remake :-) > I feel Dr. Who lost the 'Dr Who' image around the end of Tom Baker's life as Dr Who. I guess I liked both because of the strange view of Dr. Who as somebody who allways gets caught in the middle of very strange events yet they turn out right in the end. PS. This is on topic, even Dr. Who. was seen reparing a COMPUTER, a block of Core Memory was needed. From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jan 29 09:39:53 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:39:53 -0600 Subject: Component level repair References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net><45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> <45BE12E5.6010601@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <00fe01c743bb$bacab2a0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Dr. Who is not on topic :) From g at kurico.com Mon Jan 29 09:40:30 2007 From: g at kurico.com (George Currie) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:40:30 -0600 Subject: OT - Some Humor... In-Reply-To: <45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> <45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <45BE156E.7080709@kurico.com> Actually isn't this on topic since it's been around forever now ;) George Curt - Atari Museum wrote: > This is off topic, but I got this in my inbox this AM and I thought > everyone would truly appreciate the humor in this: > > #7 is the best, it'll have you LOL ! > > Gates vs. GM > > For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way > computers have enhanced our lives, read on. > > At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the > computer industry with the auto industry and stated, > > "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we > would > all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon." > > In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release > stating: > > If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving > cars > with the following characteristics: > > 1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........ > Twice a day. > > 2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to > buy a > new car. > > 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You > would > have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off > the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. > For > some reason you would simply accept this. > > 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause > your > car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to > reinstall the engine. > > 5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, > five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only > five > percent of the roads. > > 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be > replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" > warning > light. > > I love the next one!!! > > 7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying. > > 8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out > and > refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, > turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna. > > 9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how > to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the > same manner as the old car. > > 10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off. > > Please share this with your friends who love - but sometimes hate - their > computer From dundas at caltech.edu Mon Jan 29 10:10:29 2007 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:10:29 -0800 Subject: Null job light patterns? In-Reply-To: <000001c7435b$7c5d9060$0401010a@GIZMO> References: <000001c7435b$7c5d9060$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: Bob, At 8:11 PM -0800 1/28/07, Robert Armstrong wrote: > I believe some of the -11 operating systems would do "interesting" things >with the console lights while they were idle. Could somebody describe the >patterns used? There is some explanation, code, and pointers here: John From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 10:35:53 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:35:53 -0500 Subject: OT - Some Humor... In-Reply-To: <45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> <45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <45BE2269.3020008@gmail.com> Curt - Atari Museum wrote: > This is off topic, but I got this in my inbox this AM and I thought > everyone would truly appreciate the humor in this: *snip* This is a really, really, really, really OLD joke. Peace... Sridhar From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 29 10:53:20 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:53:20 -0600 Subject: OT - Some Humor... In-Reply-To: <45BE156E.7080709@kurico.com> References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> <45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> <45BE156E.7080709@kurico.com> Message-ID: <45BE2680.5030908@yahoo.co.uk> George Currie wrote: > Actually isn't this on topic since it's been around forever now ;) :-) I thought the same... anyone know how old it is? Must be getting on for 15 years now since I first saw it I think. From uban at ubanproductions.com Mon Jan 29 11:14:00 2007 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:14:00 -0600 Subject: Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS In-Reply-To: <1170010620.19970.273.camel@linux.site> References: <000e01c7418d$59c9a590$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <45BCB5EA.9070705@ubanproductions.com> <1170010620.19970.273.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <45BE2B58.2030901@ubanproductions.com> LOL! It took me a few reads of that sentence before it hit me over the head and now I cannot stop laughing... --tom Warren Wolfe wrote: > On Sun, 2007-01-28 at 08:40 -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > > >> I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago . . . > > > Holy Lord.... That's an OLD computer! > > > > Unable to Resist, > > Warren E. Wolfe > wizard at voyager.net > > > > From blstuart at bellsouth.net Mon Jan 29 11:22:08 2007 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:22:08 -0600 Subject: Help with classic Apple powerbook/OS Message-ID: <20070129172208.NNP1728.ibm58aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> > From: Tom Uban > LOL! It took me a few reads of that sentence before it > hit me over the head and now I cannot stop laughing... > > Warren Wolfe wrote: > > On Sun, 2007-01-28 at 08:40 -0600, Tom Uban wrote: > > > >> I bought a Powerbook 150 years ago . . . > > > > Holy Lord.... That's an OLD computer! So we're saying that Babbage's last hoorah was the Powerbook??? Is the Woz really Babbage??? Inquiring minds want to know. BLS From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Mon Jan 29 11:55:31 2007 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:55:31 +0000 Subject: Limited supply of RCA 1802CE Chips In-Reply-To: <45BCFDC3.309@yahoo.com> References: <200701281729.l0SHShEf021412@dewey.classiccmp.org> <45BCFDC3.309@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45BE3513.4090404@philpem.me.uk> Al Hartman wrote: > My partner and I have a limited supply of RCA 1802CE 40 Pin DIP Plastic > Package chips. > These appear to be New, Old stock chips. Never used. Not pulls. > We are looking for $18.95 each + $3.00 shipping (add $1.00 for ea add'l > chip for shipping). Whatever you're smoking, I want some. They're worth $5 a piece tops, IMHO. CDP1841 'PIXIE' video controllers might be worth $20 each, but not 1802 CPUs... -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From kelly at catcorner.org Mon Jan 29 12:30:30 2007 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:30:30 -0500 Subject: Pertec interface Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E@MEOW.catcorner.org> What options are there for using a pertec 9-track drive in the PC dos/linux environment? I have a couple available, but no interface cards to speak of. Thanks, Kelly From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 29 12:30:33 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:30:33 -0700 Subject: Pertec interface In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:30:30 -0500. <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E@MEOW.catcorner.org> Message-ID: In article <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E at MEOW.catcorner.org>, "Kelly Leavitt" writes: > What options are there for using a pertec 9-track drive in the PC dos/linux e nvironment? I have a couple available, but no interface cards to speak of. Either get a pertec interface card (rare, not manufactured anymore, only works on DOS), or get a pertec-SCSI bridge and make the drive look like a SCSI drive. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Jan 29 13:03:59 2007 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:03:59 -0600 Subject: Pertec interface In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E@MEOW.catcorner.org> Message-ID: Want to trade? I have a parallel port 9 track drive with DOS software. It also has a Pertec interface but I have yet to make it work with it on my PDP11 (which is what I bought the drive for) The parallel portion works fine on my 5155 portable :/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Leavitt Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 12:31 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Pertec interface What options are there for using a pertec 9-track drive in the PC dos/linux environment? I have a couple available, but no interface cards to speak of. Thanks, Kelly From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 13:24:43 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:24:43 -0500 Subject: Component level repair In-Reply-To: <45BE0E55.2020507@yahoo.co.uk> References: <1169771999.19970.13.camel@linux.site> <45BE0E55.2020507@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: > Surely it does generate money, though? No. The best it will ever do is cut losses elsewhere. And ideally, not by much. -- Will From nico at farumdata.dk Mon Jan 29 13:36:00 2007 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:36:00 +0100 Subject: Pertec interface References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E@MEOW.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <001601c743dc$ba394510$2101a8c0@finans> From: "Kelly Leavitt" To: Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 7:30 PM Subject: Pertec interface > What options are there for using a pertec 9-track drive in the PC dos/linux environment? I have a couple available, but no interface cards to speak of. > I have had good experience with Overland adapters : TX8 and TXi16. Nico From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 29 14:30:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:30:21 -0800 Subject: Pertec interface In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E@MEOW.catcorner.org> References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E@MEOW.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <45BDE8DD.31548.5A73AC28@cclist.sydex.com> On 29 Jan 2007 at 13:30, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > What options are there for using a pertec 9-track drive in the PC dos/linux environment? I have a couple available, but no interface cards to speak of. If you have a mind to, it's not hard to design your own interface as a project. The Pertec interface is primitive in the extreme--no handshaking; just "here's the data, ready or not". Each status has its own line and the commands are initiated by pulling the appropriate line low, then pulsing the "IGO" line for at least one microsecond. Line drivers are basically OC and termination is 220/330. On writes you'll need to provide the vertical parity bit, but that's just an LS280. Of course, you'll have to write your own driver. But that shouldn't be difficult given the simplicity of the interface. I've observed that Pertec-to-SCSI adapters are even harder to find than PC interface cards. The PC cards come up about every 2-3 months on eBay, but mostly without drivers. I think I've seen exactly one SCSI-Pertec protocol converter in the last year--and the minimum bid was about $200. I'm working on a Pertec-to-USB adapter as one of my own projects. Cheers, Chuck From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jan 29 14:48:17 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:48:17 -0800 Subject: Heathkit 4801 Programmer Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C364@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Has anyone on the list scanned in manuals the Heathkit 4801 EROM Programmer? I just picked one up and need help on the personality plug (it didn't have any.) Would also like to get some documentation on it. Billy From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 14:52:41 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:52:41 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS Message-ID: OK, go to Ebay and look at item #29007747962. A nice machine, centainly. I can not help but think this machine was once Jim Willing's - or he has started selling things off. Does anyone know anything about the seller guardianrob453? If he is in touch with Jim Willing, I centainly need to talk to him. -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 29 14:52:34 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:52:34 -0700 Subject: Pertec interface In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 29 Jan 2007 12:30:21 -0800. <45BDE8DD.31548.5A73AC28@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <45BDE8DD.31548.5A73AC28 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > I'm working on a Pertec-to-USB adapter as one of my own projects. I would *so* love that... my Fujitsu M2444 wants to be used :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From drb at msu.edu Mon Jan 29 15:03:08 2007 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:03:08 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:52:41 EST.) References: Message-ID: <200701292103.l0TL38NX025827@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > OK, go to Ebay and look at item #29007747962. A nice machine, centainly. The correct auction id number is 290077479626. The final 6 was dropped in the original post. De From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 15:07:04 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:07:04 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701292103.l0TL38NX025827@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <200701292103.l0TL38NX025827@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: > The correct auction id number is 290077479626. The final 6 was > dropped in the original post. Oops. Bad cut and paste skills. Thanks! -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 29 15:08:50 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:08:50 -0700 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:52:41 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > OK, go to Ebay and look at item #29007747962. A nice machine, centainly. Correct item # is 290077479626 -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 29 16:17:02 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:17:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT - Some Humor... In-Reply-To: <45BE156E.7080709@kurico.com> References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> <45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> <45BE156E.7080709@kurico.com> Message-ID: <20070129141527.W41498@shell.lmi.net> > 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be > replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" > warning light. " Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong." " From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jan 29 16:24:39 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:24:39 -0600 (CST) Subject: Component level repair Message-ID: <200701292224.l0TMOd0l019393@keith.ezwind.net> --- Jules Richardson wrote: > Bob Bradlee wrote: > > > > Douglas Adams day job was working on the DR Who > production staff. > > That's the real Dr. Who, of course... not the > God-awful remake :-) > Hey! I like the remake - I'm a big fan of Rose (Billie Piper) - and there are several things that make it (slightly) on-topic: 1) The computers in the school episode 2) which also happened to have K-9 in it! I was also a fan of Ace from the early 90's when she was Sylvester Mccoys sidekick. Just to make sure this is on-topic though, I just lost my 2nd Amiga 600. I turned it on on Saturday and heard that dreaded click sound I got when i burnt out my 1st A600 :( I can only assume (at present) that the floppy drives are becoming really sensitive. I don't recall hearing it do it's familiar "tick" sound when checking for a disk, but I didn't leave it switched on for more than 2 seconds. I guess I'll get a spare internal A600 floppy drive online somewhere and replace it. I still haven't gotten around to seeing exactly what failed on my 1st A600 yet either.... Been delayed by the arrival of 30 more Amiga CD's - specifically German demo discs and several Aminet discs :) I'll get my CD32 out tomorrow and start going through those discs. Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From arcarlini at iee.org Mon Jan 29 16:24:11 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 22:24:11 -0000 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002701c743f4$3ac3f330$1504010a@uatempname> William Donzelli wrote: > I can not help but think this machine was once Jim Willing's - or he > has started selling things off. What exactly is it about that machine that makes you say that? How does it differ from any other (similarly well-preserved) PDP-11/70? (FWIW: I don't know either the seller or Jim Willing; I'm just curious). Antonio From nico at farumdata.dk Mon Jan 29 16:28:41 2007 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 23:28:41 +0100 Subject: OT - Some Humor... References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net><45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk><45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> <45BE156E.7080709@kurico.com> <20070129141527.W41498@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <000a01c743f4$d6c25650$2201a8c0@prod> ---- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Cisin" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 11:17 PM Subject: Re: OT - Some Humor... > > 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be > > replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" > > warning light. > > " Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most > automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the > numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the > driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the > dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know > what's wrong." " > The really experienced driver, doesn't even need the question mark ! Nico From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 16:46:34 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:46:34 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <002701c743f4$3ac3f330$1504010a@uatempname> References: <002701c743f4$3ac3f330$1504010a@uatempname> Message-ID: > What exactly is it about that machine that makes you say that? > How does it differ from any other (similarly well-preserved) > PDP-11/70? > > (FWIW: I don't know either the seller or Jim Willing; I'm just curious). Jim Willing was one of the pioneers in this computer collecting hobby (I apply pioneers to those of us that were doing this seriously over ten years ago - before this list, and before there even was a hobby). He was an engineer in Portland (I think - the US Northwest anyway), but gave it up to restore and run an old time bowling alley - in Yates Center, KS. Yates Center is quite small. >From the pictures, there is quite a collection of DEC things, other than the two for sale. I think it would be extremely unlikely that two PDP-11/70s (and TU-56s in a another auction) were in Yates Center. I have been trying to contact him for years, concerning some old microcomputers we were going to deal on - Spheres, SWTPCo, and Exorcisor. -- Will From grant at stockly.com Mon Jan 29 16:48:55 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:48:55 -0900 Subject: OT - Some Humor... In-Reply-To: <000a01c743f4$d6c25650$2201a8c0@prod> References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net> <45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk> <45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> <45BE156E.7080709@kurico.com> <20070129141527.W41498@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070129134620.0475aeb8@pop.1and1.com> > > > 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all >be > > > replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" > > > warning light. > > > > " Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most > > automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the > > numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the > > driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the > > dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know > > what's wrong." " > > > >The really experienced driver, doesn't even need the question mark ! I know what a microsoft car is like. My plow truck doesn't have brakes (literally) or a functioning radiator. Thing leaks and smokes all over the place. You stop when you hit a snow bank or when you jam it in reverse and let out the clutch. ; ) The automatic clutch spring is worn out too. So before starting it you have to open the throttle and reset the choke plate... The gas tank is a 12 gallon boat tank on the passenger seat... The drivers side door doesn't shut... Reminds me of Windows! Grant From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 29 16:52:43 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:52:43 -0800 Subject: Pertec interface Message-ID: <45BE7ABB.8010808@bitsavers.org> > I've observed that Pertec-to-SCSI adapters are even harder to find > than PC interface cards. The PC cards come up about every 2-3 months > on eBay, but mostly without drivers. I think I've seen exactly one > SCSI-Pertec protocol converter in the last year--and the minimum bid > was about $200. Here's a little secret, since I probably have enough of them now. Every Qualstar 1054 has a pertec-scsi bridge board in it. Early ones used NCR, later ones have their own design. The last couple of 1054's I've picked up on eBay were MUCH less than $200. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 29 16:56:57 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 22:56:57 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Null job light patterns? In-Reply-To: from "Bill Pechter" at Jan 29, 7 06:16:05 am Message-ID: > > RT11 would run one led in from the left side and one from the right side > until they collided in the middle and kind of bounced off each other. RSX, The RT11 pattern I rememebr was something like (I may have got the direction wrong) 1111111111111111 0111111111111111 0011111111111111 0111111111111110 1111111111111100 1111111111111000 0111111111111100 0011111111111110 0001111111111111 0000111111111111 And so on, with the colum of lit bulbs getting shorter by one every time it hit an end, until there was just one lamp on, When that got to the appropriate end, the pattern restarted with all 16 lamps on. This only worked on processors with a lamp register (like the 11/45 and 11/70). It was farily easiy to find the appropriate address in the source code, change it to point to a 'spare' parallel' port (DR11K or something), and then connect that to flashing lights. Made a _really_ expensive Newtonsday decoration... -tony From shirsch at adelphia.net Mon Jan 29 17:19:34 2007 From: shirsch at adelphia.net (Steven N. Hirsch) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:19:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re-Introducing the First, and Fully Functional, Lisa Emulator In-Reply-To: <45BD74EB.5080904@arachelian.com> References: <45B792F0.2070309@arachelian.com> <45BD74EB.5080904@arachelian.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Jan 2007, Ray Arachelian wrote: > I've put up another release with some bug fixes. Not perfect, but > better than the last. > http://lisa.sunder.net/downloads.html > > Ray Arachelian wrote: >> On January 24th, 1984, the Macintosh announced, but along with that >> announcement came another that not everyone recalls: The introduction >> of the Lisa 2. Would someone able to supply images of the Lisa OS and Office media please contact me off-list? Steve -- From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 29 17:22:39 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:22:39 -0800 Subject: Pertec interface In-Reply-To: <45BE7ABB.8010808@bitsavers.org> References: <45BE7ABB.8010808@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45BE113F.29910.5B1169BD@cclist.sydex.com> On 29 Jan 2007 at 14:52, Al Kossow wrote: > The last couple of 1054's I've picked up on eBay were MUCH less than $200. I have no doubt that the auction price is less than $200--but shipping the things well definitely hit you in your pocketbook! Cheers, Chuck From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jan 29 17:42:55 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:42:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jan 29, 2007 05:46:34 PM Message-ID: <200701292342.l0TNgtVQ001135@onyx.spiritone.com> > Jim Willing was one of the pioneers in this computer collecting hobby > (I apply pioneers to those of us that were doing this seriously over > ten years ago - before this list, and before there even was a hobby). > He was an engineer in Portland (I think - the US Northwest anyway), He was just outside Portland. > but gave it up to restore and run an old time bowling alley - in Yates > Center, KS. Yates Center is quite small. > > >From the pictures, there is quite a collection of DEC things, other > than the two for sale. I think it would be extremely unlikely that two > PDP-11/70s (and TU-56s in a another auction) were in Yates Center. It must be Jim, the picture is identical to this one. http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw/jcgm-min.shtml#Minis Hmmm, this means it should be possible to get email to him via eBay at least. Zane From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 29 18:33:17 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:33:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT - Some Humor... In-Reply-To: <000a01c743f4$d6c25650$2201a8c0@prod> References: <200701262308.l0QN8oeZ044729@keith.ezwind.net><45BE0C24.6010003@yahoo.co.uk><45BE110C.50407@atarimuseum.com> <45BE156E.7080709@kurico.com> <20070129141527.W41498@shell.lmi.net> <000a01c743f4$d6c25650$2201a8c0@prod> Message-ID: <20070129153831.M45925@shell.lmi.net> > > > 6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights > > . would all be replaced by a single > > > "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light. > > > > " Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most > > automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the > > numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the > > driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the > > dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know > > what's wrong." " > > > On Mon, 29 Jan 2007, Nico de Jong wrote: > The really experienced driver, doesn't even need the question mark ! Ah, but a good language writer assumes lots of user errors. From spc at conman.org Mon Jan 29 18:52:58 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 19:52:58 -0500 Subject: Symbolics XL1200 for sale Message-ID: <20070130005258.GG2046@linus.groomlake.area51> Found the following page: http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2007/1/27/2687720.html Wherein Joey deVilla is selling a Symbolics XL1200. All the details are in the link, but some overview: The machine has a hardware fault that prevents it from fully booting, but it does display said diagnostic message. The machine itself is in Toronto. I'm not sure if it's sold yet or not, as the message was put up on Saturday (and I'm just noticing it now). I'm not involved with this in any way, other than just passing on the information. I've bought some books from him before (and he's got a ton of books for sale as well) with no complaints. -spc (He also goes into the story of why he's selling the unit, which is amusing ... ) From marvin at rain.org Mon Jan 29 20:53:22 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:53:22 -0800 Subject: VCM - Dec Cards Message-ID: <45BEB322.198D9FDC@rain.org> In case anyone is interested, quite a few DEC modules/cards have been listed on VCM (no, they aren't mine.) http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/ From useddec at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 00:15:23 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:15:23 -0600 Subject: VCM - Dec Cards In-Reply-To: <45BEB322.198D9FDC@rain.org> References: <45BEB322.198D9FDC@rain.org> Message-ID: <624966d60701292215xae3dcb4w5cd36c9ddffef58a@mail.gmail.com> Just a few of my bits and pieces. I'm going to try to keep a few hundred items on there. It will take a while (years) to list everything. If you have any specific needs, feel free to contact me. Paul Anderson On 1/29/07, Marvin Johnston wrote: > > > In case anyone is interested, quite a few DEC modules/cards have been > listed on > VCM (no, they aren't mine.) > > http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/ > From nico at farumdata.dk Tue Jan 30 00:49:03 2007 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:49:03 +0100 Subject: Pertec interface References: <45BE7ABB.8010808@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <001401c7443a$bd335b80$2101a8c0@finans> From: "Al Kossow" > > I've observed that Pertec-to-SCSI adapters are even harder to find > > than PC interface cards. The PC cards come up about every 2-3 months > > on eBay, but mostly without drivers. I think I've seen exactly one > > SCSI-Pertec protocol converter in the last year--and the minimum bid > > was about $200. > > Here's a little secret, since I probably have enough of them now. > > Every Qualstar 1054 has a pertec-scsi bridge board in it. Early ones > used NCR, later ones have their own design. > The same is true for the 34xx series. This is a Qualstar-developped board, so there might be some mounting problems etc. Would it be relevant to put the data/documentation on bitsavers? Nico From Eddy.Tuytschaever at just.fgov.be Mon Jan 29 15:08:58 2007 From: Eddy.Tuytschaever at just.fgov.be (Tuytschaever, Eddy) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 22:08:58 +0100 Subject: about the Teac FD-55GFR 5 1/4" Drive Message-ID: can i get te manual from the teac FD55GFR 7220 W since it seem to be vannisched from the site? thanks, ed From derschjo at msu.edu Mon Jan 29 19:36:54 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:36:54 -0800 Subject: Long shot: Looking for Truvision NuVista-HR nubus card Message-ID: <45BEA136.9020307@msu.edu> I'd like to play around with the Color systems on my MacIvory, which requires either a NuVista or NuVista-HR video card. The Nuvista card is limited to very low resolutions (it's geared to PAL/NTSC output), so I'm looking for a NuVista-HR, which does much higher resolutions. The NuVista card shows up on eBay all the time, but I haven't yet run across the -HR variant. Anyone out there have one to part with? Thanks once again... Josh From iamvirtual at gmail.com Mon Jan 29 21:31:29 2007 From: iamvirtual at gmail.com (B M) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:31:29 -0700 Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems Message-ID: <2645f9870701291931s46298c8aj3cd4bc4c43cd0fc9@mail.gmail.com> Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing brochures for antique/classic machines? For example, I have brochures for Apple 2e, Mac and many other personal computers from the early 1980's. I am working my way through scanning the brochures and I would like to make them available to others. Any suggestions? Thanks. --barry From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 30 02:02:16 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:02:16 +0000 Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems In-Reply-To: <2645f9870701291931s46298c8aj3cd4bc4c43cd0fc9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 30/1/07 03:31, "B M" wrote: > Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing brochures > for antique/classic machines? > > For example, I have brochures for Apple 2e, Mac and many other > personal computers from the early 1980's. I am working my way through > scanning the brochures and I would like to make them available to > others. I've got an Adverts and Reviews page at: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Adverts/ There's some brochures there too so I could always expand it into an ads/reviews/brochures page..... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 30 02:31:38 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:31:38 -0800 Subject: about the Teac FD-55GFR 5 1/4" Drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45BE91EA.32211.5D080035@cclist.sydex.com> On 29 Jan 2007 at 22:08, Tuytschaever, Eddy wrote: > can i get te manual from the teac FD55GFR 7220 W since it seem to be > vannisched from the site? Ira Goldklang has a copy of the manual on his site: http://www.trs-80.com/cgi-bin/down-manual- hw.pl?Teac_FD55GFR_Floppy_Drive_(1996)(Teac).zip Cheers, Chuck From wizard at voyager.net Tue Jan 30 03:32:31 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:32:31 -0500 Subject: test - please ignore In-Reply-To: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1170149551.14261.176.camel@linux.site> On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 22:49 -0600, Jay West wrote: > test, please ignore I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. Your Buddy, Hal From wizard at voyager.net Tue Jan 30 03:37:21 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:37:21 -0500 Subject: Programming the PDP-11/10 Videos on YouTube In-Reply-To: <200701260439.l0Q4dQO9018518@floodgap.com> References: <200701260439.l0Q4dQO9018518@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <1170149841.14261.182.camel@linux.site> On Thu, 2007-01-25 at 20:39 -0800, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > > Well Jay, since you mention "DECporn": > > > > > http://www.schlabonski.de/zwiebeltuete.html > > > > Wow...that's wrong on so many levels. Another level upon which it is newly wrong is the lack of required permission to view... It was probably getting too many hits... I don't know if an image of a gross misunderstanding of the term "cyber-sex" that is less that a week old qualifies as on-topic, but did anyone download the picture itself before it went into seclusion? I thought it was hilarious, and sent it to a bunch of people -- as a link, which quit working before everyone tried to look at it. *SIGH* If you have it, please send me a copy off-list. Thanks in advance for any efficient pack-rat who saved it. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From Mark.Brennan at ie.fujitsu.com Tue Jan 30 03:38:13 2007 From: Mark.Brennan at ie.fujitsu.com (Brennan Mark) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:38:13 -0000 Subject: Brochure web site. Message-ID: Hi Barry, I to have been scanning and collecting old brochures on various computers and systems I have posted them on the following web site www.1000bit.com If you would like to help add to the number of brochures etc I will give you Tiziano email details. Regard markb Mark Brennan System Services Engineer. FUJITSU Unit 100,Airside Business Park,Swords,Co. Dublin Tel:`+ 353 (0) 1 8136000 Mob: + 353 (0) 87 2222326 Fax: + 353 (0) 1 8136100 Email: mark.brennan at ie.fujitsu.com Web:http://ie.fujitsu.com Fujitsu Services Limited, Registered in England no 96056, Registered Office 22 Baker Street, London, W1U 3BW This e-mail is only for the use of its intended recipient. Its contents are subject to a duty of confidence and may be privileged. Fujitsu Services does not guarantee that this e-mail has not been intercepted and amended or that it is virus-free -----Original Message----- From: B M [mailto:iamvirtual at gmail.com] Sent: 30 January 2007 03:31 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing brochures for antique/classic machines? For example, I have brochures for Apple 2e, Mac and many other personal computers from the early 1980's. I am working my way through scanning the brochures and I would like to make them available to others. Any suggestions? Thanks. --barry From cc at corti-net.de Tue Jan 30 03:55:51 2007 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:55:51 +0100 (CET) Subject: test - please ignore In-Reply-To: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Jan 2007, Jay West wrote: > test, please ignore And this is a test too, since I couldn't post yesterday (29 Jan): cctalk at classiccmp.org SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO:: host authmailonline.kundenserver.de [212.227.15.180]: 550 cctalk at classiccmp.org: no such domain Christian From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 30 04:49:22 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:49:22 +0000 Subject: Wanted : Pinouts of PT1482B and PR1472B ICs Message-ID: Does anyone have pinouts of the following 2 ICs, both of which, I think, were made by Western Digital, and are in 40 pin DIL packages : PT1482B (Async/Sync serial transmitter) PR1472B (Async/Sync serial receiver) Thanks in advance for any help. -tony From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jan 30 08:23:28 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:23:28 -0500 Subject: test - please ignore In-Reply-To: References: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200701300923.28150.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 30 January 2007 04:55, Christian Corti wrote: > And this is a test too, since I couldn't post yesterday (29 Jan): > cctalk at classiccmp.org > SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT > TO:: host authmailonline.kundenserver.de > [212.227.15.180]: > 550 cctalk at classiccmp.org: no such domain There was a Cisco-related "oopsie" on Jay's network last night. Everything actually got fixed pretty quickly, I was impressed. :) If you need more details, you might ask Jay directly. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 30 08:32:53 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:32:53 -0600 Subject: test - please ignore References: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <009201c7447b$88854510$6600a8c0@BILLING> Christian wrote.... > And this is a test too, since I couldn't post yesterday (29 Jan): > cctalk at classiccmp.org > SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO:: > host authmailonline.kundenserver.de [212.227.15.180]: > 550 cctalk at classiccmp.org: no such domain Christian, that is a problem with your mail server, and had nothing to do with the network issue last night. Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 30 08:35:19 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:35:19 -0600 Subject: test - please ignore References: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200701300923.28150.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <009901c7447b$e06b40e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Pat wrote... > There was a Cisco-related "oopsie" on Jay's network last night. > Everything actually got fixed pretty quickly, I was impressed. :) Every once in a while I forget about that known Cisco IOS bug that if you turn on too much debugging messages to the console, the router will open up a subspace channel to v'ger till it's powercycled. I know better... was just too busy focusing on troubleshooting an ACL. This happened around 10:30pm cst last night and lasted about 45 minutes. Jay From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 30 08:21:14 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:21:14 -0700 Subject: Pertec interface In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:49:03 +0100. <001401c7443a$bd335b80$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: In article <001401c7443a$bd335b80$2101a8c0 at finans>, "Nico de Jong" writes: > From: "Al Kossow" > > Every Qualstar 1054 has a pertec-scsi bridge board in it. Early ones > > used NCR, later ones have their own design. > > > > The same is true for the 34xx series. This is a Qualstar-developped board, > so there might be some mounting problems etc. Would it be relevant to put > the data/documentation on bitsavers? If you have documentation on them, then yes, please contribute it to bitsavers! Al was just recently asking for this... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From nico at farumdata.dk Tue Jan 30 09:05:36 2007 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:05:36 +0100 Subject: Pertec interface References: Message-ID: <002401c74480$213f55d0$2101a8c0@finans> > > In article <001401c7443a$bd335b80$2101a8c0 at finans>, > "Nico de Jong" writes: > > > From: "Al Kossow" > > > > Every Qualstar 1054 has a pertec-scsi bridge board in it. Early ones > > > used NCR, later ones have their own design. > > > > > > > The same is true for the 34xx series. This is a Qualstar-developped board, > > so there might be some mounting problems etc. Would it be relevant to put > > the data/documentation on bitsavers? > > If you have documentation on them, then yes, please contribute it to > bitsavers! > I just found the diagram and the board layout. However, I dont think my scanner is good enough. How can we solve that problem? Nico From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 09:10:43 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:10:43 -0500 Subject: test - please ignore In-Reply-To: <009901c7447b$e06b40e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> References: <005001c741ce$80870830$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200701300923.28150.pat@computer-refuge.org> <009901c7447b$e06b40e0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <45BF5FF3.1040606@gmail.com> Jay West wrote: > Pat wrote... >> There was a Cisco-related "oopsie" on Jay's network last night. >> Everything actually got fixed pretty quickly, I was impressed. :) > > Every once in a while I forget about that known Cisco IOS bug that if > you turn on too much debugging messages to the console, the router will > open up a subspace channel to v'ger till it's powercycled. I know > better... was just too busy focusing on troubleshooting an ACL. This > happened around 10:30pm cst last night and lasted about 45 minutes. That description was... colorful. 8-) Peace... Sridhar From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jan 30 09:14:10 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:14:10 -0600 Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems In-Reply-To: <2645f9870701291931s46298c8aj3cd4bc4c43cd0fc9@mail.gmail.com> References: <2645f9870701291931s46298c8aj3cd4bc4c43cd0fc9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <45BF60C2.9050100@oldskool.org> B M wrote: > Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing brochures > for antique/classic machines? Jason Scott is attempting to do so; I believe his site is http://digitize.textfiles.com/ -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From bpope at wordstock.com Tue Jan 30 09:27:54 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:27:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: test - please ignore In-Reply-To: <45BF5FF3.1040606@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20070130152754.924BE5840F@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Sridhar Ayengar > > Jay West wrote: > > Pat wrote... > >> There was a Cisco-related "oopsie" on Jay's network last night. > >> Everything actually got fixed pretty quickly, I was impressed. :) > > > > Every once in a while I forget about that known Cisco IOS bug that if > > you turn on too much debugging messages to the console, the router will > > open up a subspace channel to v'ger till it's powercycled. I know > > better... was just too busy focusing on troubleshooting an ACL. This > > happened around 10:30pm cst last night and lasted about 45 minutes. > > That description was... colorful. 8-) > And speaking of colorful, I wonder if any colorful metaphors were used? Cheers, Bryan From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 09:41:59 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:41:59 -0500 Subject: test - please ignore In-Reply-To: <20070130152754.924BE5840F@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20070130152754.924BE5840F@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <45BF6747.1020405@gmail.com> Bryan Pope wrote: > And thusly were the wise words spake by Sridhar Ayengar >> Jay West wrote: >>> Pat wrote... >>>> There was a Cisco-related "oopsie" on Jay's network last night. >>>> Everything actually got fixed pretty quickly, I was impressed. :) >> > >>> Every once in a while I forget about that known Cisco IOS bug that if >>> you turn on too much debugging messages to the console, the router will >>> open up a subspace channel to v'ger till it's powercycled. I know >>> better... was just too busy focusing on troubleshooting an ACL. This >>> happened around 10:30pm cst last night and lasted about 45 minutes. >> That description was... colorful. 8-) >> > > And speaking of colorful, I wonder if any colorful metaphors were used? "Spock, where the hell's the power you promised?" "One damn minute, Admiral." 8-) Peace... Sridhar From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 30 09:46:00 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:46:00 -0800 Subject: Pertec interface Message-ID: <45BF6838.3050608@bitsavers.org> > This is a Qualstar-developped board, > so there might be some mounting problems etc. Would it be relevant to put > the data/documentation on bitsavers? If I had any data on the bridge boards, I would. I had posted a request for data on the NCR bridge, but didn't hear anything back. There is a setup description for the Qualstar designed one in the back of the 1054 manual. Descriptions of the SCSI command set supported on the 1054 would be handy as well. From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jan 30 09:51:57 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:51:57 -0600 Subject: Pertec interface References: <45BF6838.3050608@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <010401c74486$951fbca0$6600a8c0@BILLING> Good Timing Al. Just about 3 weeks ago I was looking at a Qualstar auction on ebay that you were bidding on and I said to myself... wtf does he need *ANOTHER* one of those for? Doesn't he have like 10 already??? Now I know the secret :) Jay From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 30 10:33:14 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:33:14 -0800 Subject: Pertec interface Message-ID: <45BF734A.4090703@bitsavers.org> > wtf does he need *ANOTHER* one of > those for? 1052's are also used as the tape transport for the tape wizl. Just got the first 1052 back fitted with a 7/9 track inductive head last week. From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 30 10:35:06 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:35:06 -0800 Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems Message-ID: <45BF73BA.9050506@bitsavers.org> > Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing brochures > for antique/classic machines? http://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/index.php From bqt at softjar.se Tue Jan 30 04:09:46 2007 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:09:46 +0100 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701300942.l0U9fAiW046170@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701300942.l0U9fAiW046170@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45BF196A.1050102@softjar.se> "William Donzelli" wrote: >> What exactly is it about that machine that makes you say that? >> How does it differ from any other (similarly well-preserved) >> PDP-11/70? >> >> (FWIW: I don't know either the seller or Jim Willing; I'm just curious). > > > Jim Willing was one of the pioneers in this computer collecting hobby > (I apply pioneers to those of us that were doing this seriously over > ten years ago - before this list, and before there even was a hobby). Cool! I'm a pioneer, having collected these things for close to 25 years. Well, I'm not sure I would call it collecting in the normal sense of the word. I want to keep these machines running, useable, and in use. Guess that's why Magica exists (even though she's not powered on right now), along with the other machines at the same site. Johnny From Lee.Courtney at windriver.com Tue Jan 30 07:34:34 2007 From: Lee.Courtney at windriver.com (Courtney, Lee) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 05:34:34 -0800 Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems Message-ID: > Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing > brochures for antique/classic machines? http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/readingRoom/ Lee Courtney > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of B M > Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 7:31 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems > > Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing > brochures for antique/classic machines? > > For example, I have brochures for Apple 2e, Mac and many > other personal computers from the early 1980's. I am working > my way through scanning the brochures and I would like to > make them available to others. > > Any suggestions? > > Thanks. > > --barry > From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 30 11:59:33 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:59:33 -0800 Subject: Tandy collectors? 52MB 3.5 "Smart Drive" Message-ID: <45BF1705.22811.5F0FF132@cclist.sydex.com> Just discovered a circa-1990 Tandy 52MB (Quantum) 3.5" IDE hard drive and installation manual in my junkpile. The manual refers only to "type A" and "type B" chassis types, not to specific models. Does anyone want this thing? For shipping and a couple of bucks for packaging, it's yours. Cheers, Chuck From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Tue Jan 30 12:00:11 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:00:11 -0600 Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems In-Reply-To: <45BF73BA.9050506@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: There is some stuff at bitsavers.org http://www.cray-cyber.org/documentation/reading.php http://www.freeinfosociety.com/index.php >From: Al Kossow >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: Brochures for classic/antique systems >Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 08:35:06 -0800 > > > Is there a location on the 'net that is archiving marketing brochures > > for antique/classic machines? > >http://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/index.php > _________________________________________________________________ Valentine?s Day -- Shop for gifts that spell L-O-V-E at MSN Shopping http://shopping.msn.com/content/shp/?ctId=8323,ptnrid=37,ptnrdata=24095&tcode=wlmtagline From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 30 12:13:03 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:13:03 -0700 Subject: Brochures for classic/antique systems In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:00:11 -0600. Message-ID: has brochures, pictures and documents associated with the individual models as you browse through their collection. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From kelly at catcorner.org Tue Jan 30 12:45:39 2007 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:45:39 -0500 Subject: Tandy collectors? 52MB 3.5 "Smart Drive" Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B14AC@MEOW.catcorner.org> Tried a private reply. Getting a wierd fail message. Can't troubleshoot the server right now. -----Original Message----- From: Kelly Leavitt Sent: Tue 1/30/2007 1:40 PM To: Kelly Leavitt; Chuck Guzis Cc: Subject: RE: Tandy collectors? 52MB 3.5 "Smart Drive" I got a failed message initially... -----Original Message----- From: Kelly Leavitt Sent: Tue 1/30/2007 1:38 PM To: Chuck Guzis Cc: Subject: Tandy collectors? 52MB 3.5 "Smart Drive" > Does anyone want this thing? For shipping and a couple of bucks for > packaging, it's yours. I would be interested if no one else has jumped at it. At your convenience. Shipping would be to NJ... Kelly From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 30 09:47:57 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:47:57 -0500 Subject: Heathkit 4801 Programmer In-Reply-To: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C364@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> References: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C364@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Message-ID: <825E1616-D834-4A1A-9A68-71D6990C9800@neurotica.com> On Jan 29, 2007, at 3:48 PM, Billy Pettit wrote: > Has anyone on the list scanned in manuals the Heathkit 4801 EROM > Programmer? > I just picked one up and need help on the personality plug (it > didn't have > any.) Would also like to get some documentation on it. I second this request, for similar reasons. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 30 12:53:11 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:53:11 -0700 Subject: craigslist roundup Message-ID: Seattle: Free Wyse terminal: Falco 500e Amber terminal ($75) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 30 13:32:56 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:32:56 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Wanted : Pinouts of PT1482B and PR1472B ICs In-Reply-To: from "ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk" at Jan 30, 7 10:49:22 am Message-ID: > > Does anyone have pinouts of the following 2 ICs, both of which, I think, were > made by Western Digital, and are in 40 pin DIL packages : > > PT1482B (Async/Sync serial transmitter) > > PR1472B (Async/Sync serial receiver) I've now determined, I think, that I need the Western Digital Communications Data Book from 1983-ish (and all I have is the 'Storage Management Products' book, covering disk controllers). Does anyone have it? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 30 13:31:33 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:31:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <45BF196A.1050102@softjar.se> from "Johnny Billquist" at Jan 30, 7 11:09:46 am Message-ID: > > "William Donzelli" wrote: > > >> What exactly is it about that machine that makes you say that? > >> How does it differ from any other (similarly well-preserved) > >> PDP-11/70? > >> > >> (FWIW: I don't know either the seller or Jim Willing; I'm just curious). > > > > > > Jim Willing was one of the pioneers in this computer collecting hobby > > (I apply pioneers to those of us that were doing this seriously over > > ten years ago - before this list, and before there even was a hobby). > > Cool! I'm a pioneer, having collected these things for close to 25 years. Even longer than me. I started in May 1986 (yes, it'll soon be 21 years of computer collecting here ;-)) > Well, I'm not sure I would call it collecting in the normal sense of the > word. I want to keep these machines running, useable, and in use. Just like me again. I keep on saying at HPCC that I am not an HP calculator collector. Yes, I have old HP calculators (handhelds and desktops), but I use them. I keep them operational, I do program them, I do use them for calculators. And I don't try to obtain every cosmetic version (that is, with differnt position of the serial number label, etc), but I am interested in at least seeing versions with substantially different internals (like the 2 very different logic boards that were used in the HP80 financial calculator). No, I am not intersted in having machines on the shelf in original condition. I want to be able to sue them, investigate them, and so on. -tony From pdp11 at saccade.com Tue Jan 30 15:01:44 2007 From: pdp11 at saccade.com (J. Peterson) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:01:44 -0800 Subject: Null job light patterns? In-Reply-To: <000001c7435b$7c5d9060$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: <5.1.1.5.2.20070130124312.02ad3a60@mail.saccade.com> > I believe some of the -11 operating systems would do "interesting" things >with the console lights while they were idle. Could somebody describe the >patterns used? I seem to recall RSX had a pattern something like 1000000000000001 1100000000000011 1110000000000111 1111000000001111 0111100000011110 0011110000111100 0001111001111000 0000111111110000 ... with the groups of four "on" lights moving through each other. RSTS (c. 1980) simply rotated half a dozen or so "on" lights. Others have described RT11's pattern. I never saw a light pattern on an '11 running Unix - perhaps they were never idle? Was the concept of the idle-loop lightshow unique to the PDP-11, or did other systems with data lights implement them? In high school I had a Sol-20, and I missed the "blinkenlights" so much that I cut away a strip of metal in the top of the case (near where the "Processor Technology" logo was) and mounted a set of LEDs on perfboard behind it. I sawed off the edge connector to a S-100 prototyping card and put it in the card extender slot at the top of the SOL's card cage, and ran wires from there to the perfboard. By changing the keyboard input loop to repeatedly access various addresses, I was able to get a reasonable emulation of the PDP-11 lightshow in the address lights. Decades later, I finally have a real '11 console to run the lightshows! http://www.saccade.com/writing/projects/PDP11/PDP-11.html Cheers, jp From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 30 15:18:52 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:18:52 -0700 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:31:33 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > Just like me again. I keep on saying at HPCC that I am not an HP > calculator collector. Yes, I have old HP calculators (handhelds and > desktops), but I use them. I keep them operational, I do program them, I > do use them for calculators. And I don't try to obtain every cosmetic > version (that is, with differnt position of the serial number label, > etc), but I am interested in at least seeing versions with substantially > different internals (like the 2 very different logic boards that were > used in the HP80 financial calculator). Sure sounds like a collector to me, just a collector with different goals. > No, I am not intersted in having machines on the shelf in original > condition. I want to be able to sue them, investigate them, and so on. ^^^ ||| I didn't know you'd become litigious, I'll have to watch my step! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 30 15:36:00 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:36:00 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 30, 7 02:18:52 pm Message-ID: > Sure sounds like a collector to me, just a collector with different > goals. In the UK, the somewhat perjorative term 'stamp collector' is used to describe somebody who just wants to amass a certain type of object (such as HP calculators) without ever using them, or understanding them, or... A story might illustrate the point. A few years ago I meat an enthuiast from Germany who was visiting England. He had a stamp collector' friend who owned an HP9100, but never turned it on, and would not let anyone touch it in case it lowered the value. The chap who visitied England mentiond this to me. My reaction was simple. I got one one of my 9100s, powered it up and let him play. I then took it apart and showed him how it worked. Maybe I lowered the value, but I don't buy these machines as an investment. So yes, I certainly have different goals to 'stamp collectors'. Whether I should be called a 'collector' is simply a matter of how you want to define the word and such arguments get boring fast! > > > No, I am not intersted in having machines on the shelf in original > > condition. I want to be able to sue them, investigate them, and so on. > ^^^ > ||| > I didn't know you'd become litigious, I'll have to watch my step! Notice I said 'sur them' -- the machines. You have nothing to fear :-) Alternatively, just assume I made a typo... -tony From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 30 15:45:53 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:45:53 -0700 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:36:00 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > Sure sounds like a collector to me, just a collector with different > > goals. > > In the UK, the somewhat perjorative term 'stamp collector' is used to > describe somebody who just wants to amass a certain type of object (such > as HP calculators) without ever using them, or understanding them, or... Hey, I'm a stamp collector! :-/ I know what you mean; I'm not anal about preserving the "investment". I mean, I like my machines to stay in good condition (hence me being upset that CTS scuffed up my Octane), but I'd rather have a scuffed machine in the collection than wait for the "pristine NIB" version that costs 10x as much. When I make billions of dollars, I'll go for the NIB version, although I don't see that happening at this point. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 30 15:51:49 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:51:49 -0800 Subject: Wanted : Pinouts of PT1482B and PR1472B ICs In-Reply-To: References: from "ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk" at Jan 30, 7 10:49:22 am, Message-ID: <45BF4D75.5580.5FE497E7@cclist.sydex.com> Got 'em--do you want scans of the applicable pages or just a pinout list? Cheers, Chuck From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jan 30 15:59:52 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:59:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 30, 2007 02:45:53 PM Message-ID: <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> > I mean, I like my machines to stay in good condition (hence me being > upset that CTS scuffed up my Octane), but I'd rather have a scuffed > machine in the collection than wait for the "pristine NIB" version Remember, a nice SGI system, isn't simply a computer, it's a work of art. For the most part the only computers I'd consider to be a work of art are some Apple and SGI systems. Zane From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 30 16:09:51 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:09:51 +0000 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 30/1/07 19:31, "Tony Duell" wrote: > No, I am not intersted in having machines on the shelf in original > condition. I want to be able to sue them, investigate them, and so on. You should move to the US mate :o) (yes I know it's a spollinf mistool but I couldn't resist) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 30 16:13:03 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:13:03 -0800 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> References: from "Richard" at Jan 30, 2007 02:45:53 PM, <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <45BF526F.14150.5FF8086F@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jan 2007 at 13:59, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Remember, a nice SGI system, isn't simply a computer, it's a work of art. > For the most part the only computers I'd consider to be a work of art are > some Apple and SGI systems. A few Cray systems come to mind as being very artsy. While not in the same league as Apple, I'd call a machine with the innards immersed in fluorinert pretty unusual in apperance. Cheers, Chuck From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 30 16:15:33 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:15:33 +0000 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: On 30/1/07 21:59, "Zane H. Healy" wrote: >> I mean, I like my machines to stay in good condition (hence me being >> upset that CTS scuffed up my Octane), but I'd rather have a scuffed >> machine in the collection than wait for the "pristine NIB" version > > Remember, a nice SGI system, isn't simply a computer, it's a work of art. > For the most part the only computers I'd consider to be a work of art are > some Apple and SGI systems. BeBox :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 30 16:32:26 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 15:32:26 -0700 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:13:03 -0800. <45BF526F.14150.5FF8086F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: Machine I would consider "arty": - early E&S stuff before they went to boring beige boxes for everything - Televideo TS-802 - HP 262x - Pixar Image Computer - ADM-3/5/31 -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jan 30 17:07:00 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:07:00 +0000 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 30/1/07 22:32, "Richard" wrote: > > Machine I would consider "arty": > > - early E&S stuff before they went to boring beige boxes for everything > > - Televideo TS-802 > > - HP 262x > > - Pixar Image Computer > > - ADM-3/5/31 Foonly F1, as used for the film TRON? -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 17:43:45 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:43:45 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <45BFD831.9080108@gmail.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> I mean, I like my machines to stay in good condition (hence me being >> upset that CTS scuffed up my Octane), but I'd rather have a scuffed >> machine in the collection than wait for the "pristine NIB" version > > Remember, a nice SGI system, isn't simply a computer, it's a work of art. > For the most part the only computers I'd consider to be a work of art are > some Apple and SGI systems. My ES/9021 is a work of art. Definitely. Peace... Sridhar From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 17:53:00 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:53:00 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well, this degraded to the "list your favorite computer" thread. I can think of very few machines that could be called Great Examples of Industrial Design, worthy of a spot at showing at the Cooper-Hewitt. The only one that leaps to mind are the various Connection Machines, probably because they were designed by an artist. Most companies (SGI) try too hard, cramming the design down your throat while screaming in your ear (eye) LOOK AT ME! -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 17:55:16 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:55:16 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <45BFD831.9080108@gmail.com> References: <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> <45BFD831.9080108@gmail.com> Message-ID: > My ES/9021 is a work of art. > > Definitely. ??? Its a freaking big blue box. Or if it is not blue one - its a freaking big beige box. IBM was in the design doldrums for a good part of of 70s, most of the 80s, and some of the 90s. They improved greatly in the past ten years. -- Will From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jan 30 18:25:08 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:25:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jan 30, 2007 06:53:00 PM Message-ID: <200701310025.l0V0P8Ki016903@onyx.spiritone.com> > Well, this degraded to the "list your favorite computer" thread. > > I can think of very few machines that could be called Great Examples > of Industrial Design, worthy of a spot at showing at the > Cooper-Hewitt. The only one that leaps to mind are the various > Connection Machines, probably because they were designed by an artist. > > Most companies (SGI) try too hard, cramming the design down your > throat while screaming in your ear (eye) LOOK AT ME! No, the company whose systems scream LOOK AT ME would be Sun. Have you ever seen the SunBlade 1500 with about half the front panel in bright red, and "Sun" in huge letters? Sun almost puts more style in to a lot of thier rack mounted systems than thier desktops! I would be inclined to put the SGI Fuel in this catagory though. I'd personally consider the SGI o2, Octane, Tezro and *maybe* the Fuel, as well as the original Apple G4 towers (the G3's of that design scream LOOK AT ME, but the G4 is more subdued), G4 cube, and the original iMac and iBook designs to all be very stylish and "art". The NeXT systems would be a close contender. While stylish, and very well designed, I doubt I'd put the G5 and Xeon Mac towers in this classification. I've *NEVER* seen one single IBM system I'd consider to be "art", I have seen a few that are interesting. DEC/Compaq/HP same thing. I think the only x86 PC's I've seen that fall into this catagory are custom built systems. Lets face it, most computers, no matter how beautiful the design, are really quite ugly on the exterior. Zane From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 18:25:03 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:25:03 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: References: <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> <45BFD831.9080108@gmail.com> Message-ID: <45BFE1DF.9020109@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: >> My ES/9021 is a work of art. >> >> Definitely. > > ??? > > Its a freaking big blue box. Or if it is not blue one - its a freaking > big beige box. > > IBM was in the design doldrums for a good part of of 70s, most of the > 80s, and some of the 90s. They improved greatly in the past ten years. It's a work of art, and the outer casing doesn't have anything to do with it. And it's several big boxes. Not just one. Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 30 18:59:28 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:59:28 -0700 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:53:00 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > Most companies (SGI) try too hard, cramming the design down your > throat while screaming in your ear (eye) LOOK AT ME! I think you could characterize the whole company that way and not just their machine designs. At SIGGRAPH one year, all the SGI personnel were wearing T-shirts with the Intel "swoosh" and the phrase "Attitude Inside". That says it all. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From rcini at optonline.net Tue Jan 30 19:00:22 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:00:22 -0500 Subject: Book publishers Message-ID: <002b01c744d3$30734f40$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: Does anyone know what happened to Hayden Books? I have a robot book that described a robot built with a KIM-1 and I want to scan it and post it to 6502.org. I did some Googling and I can't find any current references for them. Any idea if the imprint was acquired or did they just pass quietly. Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jan 30 19:22:48 2007 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:22:48 -0800 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS Message-ID: <5BC121186B788C48A0EE35A16FD0D34D29C374@wdscexbe01.sc.wdc.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: On 30 Jan 2007 at 13:59, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Remember, a nice SGI system, isn't simply a computer, it's a work of art. > For the most part the only computers I'd consider to be a work of art are > some Apple and SGI systems. A few Cray systems come to mind as being very artsy. While not in the same league as Apple, I'd call a machine with the innards immersed in fluorinert pretty unusual in apperance. Cheers, Chuck -------------------------------- Agreed - the Crays were definately art. I really like the Cray 1 with the seats above the power busses, and the beautiful logic column. And I also agree on the Apples, especially the models with the clear plastic - lovely machines. Billy From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Jan 30 19:12:30 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 01:12:30 +0000 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45BFECFE.30004@dunnington.plus.com> Tony Duell wrote: >> "William Donzelli" wrote: >> > Jim Willing was one of the pioneers in this computer collecting hobby >> > (I apply pioneers to those of us that were doing this seriously over >> > ten years ago - before this list, and before there even was a hobby). >> >> Cool! I'm a pioneer, having collected these things for close to 25 years. > > Even longer than me. I started in May 1986 (yes, it'll soon be 21 years > of computer collecting here ;-)) About the same time as me. Before that I had home micros since about 1980 but usually only one at a time, and they were for day-to-day use, not as part of a collection, until about 1985, when I had three or four machines. 1986 (or maybe late '85) was when I acquired a PDP-11/23 that had been taken out of service (as a comms concentrator), and over the next four years my quest to provide it with bootable storage and other things led to a larger collection. Whenever I tracked down something I needed, I found either it in turn led to something else, or more often, came with something that was just crying out to be used -- if only I had one other item I'd have to hunt for. By 1992 I had several small PDP-11s and perhaps a couple of dozen micros of various sorts. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Tue Jan 30 19:28:48 2007 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:28:48 -0600 Subject: Null job light patterns? In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.5.2.20070130124312.02ad3a60@mail.saccade.com> Message-ID: In 1967, I attended a high school engineering summer program at Northwestern University. On a tour of the observatory, we saw a small DEC computer, with a cassette tape recorder attached to it as the tape drive, that was used to control the telescope. The person giving the tour ran a program that intentionally caused a divide-by-zero state. The lights on the from panel started flashing so fast that they all stayed at a low glow until he reset the computer. >From: "J. Peterson" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" >Subject: Re: Null job light patterns? >Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:01:44 -0800 > > >> I believe some of the -11 operating systems would do "interesting" >>things >>with the console lights while they were idle. Could somebody describe the >>patterns used? > >I seem to recall RSX had a pattern something like > >1000000000000001 >1100000000000011 >1110000000000111 >1111000000001111 >0111100000011110 >0011110000111100 >0001111001111000 >0000111111110000 >... >with the groups of four "on" lights moving through each other. RSTS (c. >1980) simply rotated half a dozen or so "on" lights. Others have described >RT11's pattern. I never saw a light pattern on an '11 running Unix - >perhaps they were never idle? Was the concept of the idle-loop lightshow >unique to the PDP-11, or did other systems with data lights implement them? > >In high school I had a Sol-20, and I missed the "blinkenlights" so much >that I cut away a strip of metal in the top of the case (near where the >"Processor Technology" logo was) and mounted a set of LEDs on perfboard >behind it. I sawed off the edge connector to a S-100 prototyping card and >put it in the card extender slot at the top of the SOL's card cage, and ran >wires from there to the perfboard. By changing the keyboard input loop to >repeatedly access various addresses, I was able to get a reasonable >emulation of the PDP-11 lightshow in the address lights. > >Decades later, I finally have a real '11 console to run the lightshows! >http://www.saccade.com/writing/projects/PDP11/PDP-11.html > >Cheers, >jp > _________________________________________________________________ >From predictions to trailers, check out the MSN Entertainment Guide to the Academy Awards? http://movies.msn.com/movies/oscars2007/?icid=ncoscartagline1 From grant at stockly.com Tue Jan 30 19:29:43 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:29:43 -0900 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <002b01c744d3$30734f40$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070130162634.04530ec8@pop.1and1.com> > Does anyone know what happened to Hayden Books? I have a robot >book that described a robot built with a KIM-1 and I want to scan it and >post it to 6502.org. I did some Googling and I can't find any current >references for them. Any idea if the imprint was acquired or did they just >pass quietly. I wanted to do the same thing. I contacted the author of a book and he had no idea. Here is what he said. "Most of that company was sold in the mid 1980s and I don't know which company, if any, ended up with the copyrights to the books. It might reside with Penton Media (headquartered in Cleveland) since they acquired in 1989 most of properties that were first sold to VNU, a Dutch publishing company in 1986. I don't know if the Book division was part of those sales or if it was just disbanded or sold to yet another publishing company in 1986." If you ask any of those companies, they will assume they do own the rights and just say "NO". Here is what the US copyright office says: "How can I find out who owns a copyright? We can provide you with the information available in our records. A search of registrations, renewals, and recorded transfers of ownership made before 1978 requires a manual search of our files. Upon request, our staff will search our records at the statutory rate of $150 for each hour. There is no fee if you conduct a search in person at the Copyright Office. Copyright registrations made and documents recorded from 1978 to date are available for searching online. For further information, see Circular 22, How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work, and Circular 23, Copyright Card Catalog and the Online File." My question would be...if the company that produced the book no longer exists and no one bothered to get the copyright renewed...then is the book public domain or at least owned by the author? Grant From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 30 19:37:27 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 01:37:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> from "Zane H. Healy" at Jan 30, 7 01:59:52 pm Message-ID: > > > I mean, I like my machines to stay in good condition (hence me being > > upset that CTS scuffed up my Octane), but I'd rather have a scuffed Obviously nobody _wants_ to damage their classic computers. > > machine in the collection than wait for the "pristine NIB" version > > Remember, a nice SGI system, isn't simply a computer, it's a work of art. > For the most part the only computers I'd consider to be a work of art are > some Apple and SGI systems. I've often thought that you can see the beauty of machinery (including computers) on many levels. Most classic computers are not particularly beautiful to look at, but there can be beauty in how they're assembled (I personally think the HP9816 is an interesting construction), there can be beauty in the elkectronic design, or the firmware, or... You just have to look for it. -tony From grant at stockly.com Tue Jan 30 19:41:25 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:41:25 -0900 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070130162634.04530ec8@pop.1and1.com> References: <002b01c744d3$30734f40$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070130164038.04542ff8@pop.1and1.com> At 04:29 PM 1/30/2007, you wrote: >> Does anyone know what happened to Hayden Books? I have a robot >>book that described a robot built with a KIM-1 and I want to scan it and >>post it to 6502.org. I did some Googling and I can't find any current >>references for them. Any idea if the imprint was acquired or did they just >>pass quietly. > >I wanted to do the same thing. I contacted the author of a book and he >had no idea. Here is what he said. > >"Most of that company was sold in the mid 1980s and I don't know which >company, if any, ended up with the copyrights to the books. It might >reside with Penton Media (headquartered in Cleveland) since they acquired >in 1989 most of properties that were first sold to VNU, a Dutch publishing >company in 1986. I don't know if the Book division was part of those sales >or if it was just disbanded or sold to yet another publishing company in 1986." > >If you ask any of those companies, they will assume they do own the rights >and just say "NO". > >Here is what the US copyright office says: > >"How can I find out who owns a copyright? >We can provide you with the information available in our records. A search >of registrations, renewals, and recorded transfers of ownership made >before 1978 requires a manual search of our files. Upon request, our staff >will search our records at the statutory rate of $150 for each hour. There >is no fee if you conduct a search in person at the Copyright Office. >Copyright registrations made and documents recorded from 1978 to date are >available for searching online. For further information, see Circular 22, >How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work, and Circular 23, >Copyright Card Catalog and the Online File." > >My question would be...if the company that produced the book no longer >exists and no one bothered to get the copyright renewed...then is the book >public domain or at least owned by the author? This is the book and the search records that came up at the copyright office: The search turns up: 1. Registration Number: TX-450-663 Title: The S-100 bus handbook / Dave Bursky. Imprint: Rochelle Park, N. J. : Hayden Book Co., c1980. Description: 257 p.ISBN: ISBN 0-8104-0897-X. Claimant: Hayden Book Company, Inc. Created: 1979 Published: 21Mar80 Registered: 11Apr80 Special Codes: 1/B///A Grant From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 30 19:50:09 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 01:50:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <45BFECFE.30004@dunnington.plus.com> from "Pete Turnbull" at Jan 31, 7 01:12:30 am Message-ID: > > Even longer than me. I started in May 1986 (yes, it'll soon be 21 years > > of computer collecting here ;-)) > > About the same time as me. Before that I had home micros since about > 1980 but usually only one at a time, and they were for day-to-day use, At the time, I had one home computer, a TRS-80 Model 1, which I'd owned from new. Oh, and the MK14 that I'd had before that, and which I'd interfaced to homebrew porjects. Oh, and a Casio AL1000 calculator, Teletype ASR33, and a few other bits. But not really a collection. What started me off was an advert in Wireless World magazine. A company in Cambridge (where I was studying at the time) was selling ASCII-encoded keyboard for \pounds 4.00 (IIRC). I was making a homebrew machine at the time and decided to get one (that was long before the days of cheap PC keyboards in every computer shop). Wanyway, when I got to said company, they also had a Philips P850 minicomputer for \pounds 25.00 (I was told it was essentially the scrap metal value). I knew nothing about it, I didn't have any minicomputers, etc, bnt it looked beautiful with its lights-and-switches panel. So I bought it (complete with the user and service manuals!), and got it back to my student room (This involved me going into the local taxi company and saking for 'a car with a boot big enough to put a mini in'. I got some very odd looks as they assemed I meant a Mini car...) Anyway, after looking at it a bit, I realised that while museums (at the time) were preserving some of the 'firsts' in computing, nobody was bothering with the once-common minis and micros, and that unless something was done, 20 years (then) of computer histroy would simply vanish. So I did something. A couple of hundred machines later, I am still doing something. -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 30 20:01:50 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:01:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070130162634.04530ec8@pop.1and1.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20070130162634.04530ec8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <20070130175906.B91576@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Grant Stockly wrote: > My question would be...if the company that produced the book no longer > exists and no one bothered to get the copyright renewed...then is the book > public domain or at least owned by the author? Nope. The copyright is still valid, even if you can't find the owner. The copyright is owned by the heirs to the assets, who might not even agree which one owns it. Assuming that something is public domain because YOU can't find the owner is not valid. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 30 20:02:09 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:02:09 -0800 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070130162634.04530ec8@pop.1and1.com> References: <002b01c744d3$30734f40$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz>, <5.2.1.1.0.20070130162634.04530ec8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <45BF8821.30608.60C9C508@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jan 2007 at 16:29, Grant Stockly wrote: > My question would be...if the company that produced the book no longer > exists and no one bothered to get the copyright renewed...then is the book > public domain or at least owned by the author? You'd have to go back a long way before the issue of "Copyright Renewal" had a bearing on this. Basically, anything having an in- force copyright in 1978 had the term extended to 75, then to 90 years automatically. That means that the only PD material we currently have (unless said material passed into the PD prior to 1978) was copyrighted prior to 1923. It's rare for property belonging to a defunct company to go unclaimed. Usually, someone purchases the intangibles as part of bankruptcy. Said intangibles often wind up in a box in a closet, but they exist nonetheless. But no, copyright as a rule does not revert to the author, unless this is so stated in the original contract wherein the author assigns ownership of the copyright to the publisher. Yes, it can be maddening to find out who owns what; the law is no help. If you publish something and the daughter of the guy with the box in the closet recognizes that you've published her material without permission, you're in trouble. Contrary to legend, there is no such concept in law as "abandonware". The Copyright Office has issued an opinion about archival preservation of old programs on obsolete hardware. Unfortunately, this doesn't cover much of what I see plastered around as abandonware, said material often would run just fine on a Windows XP command prompt, or, at worst, on DR-DOS or ConcurrentDOS or a number of other systems. The last I heard, the platform (x86) isn't obsolete yet. Cheers, Chuck From rcini at optonline.net Tue Jan 30 20:09:01 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:09:01 -0500 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20070130164038.04542ff8@pop.1and1.com> Message-ID: <003301c744dc$c65fa7c0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> I think what happens is that if the publisher ceases to exist the copyright reverts to the author. My limited Googling didn't provide a clue one way or the other if Hayden survived, but Bill Maddox came up with a link that shows Hayden was acquired (at some point) by Macmillian Publishing: http://www.creativepro.com/company/contact/40.html What would be the right approach to Macmillian? Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Grant Stockly Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 8:41 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Book publishers At 04:29 PM 1/30/2007, you wrote: >> Does anyone know what happened to Hayden Books? I have a robot >>book that described a robot built with a KIM-1 and I want to scan it and >>post it to 6502.org. I did some Googling and I can't find any current >>references for them. Any idea if the imprint was acquired or did they just >>pass quietly. > >I wanted to do the same thing. I contacted the author of a book and he >had no idea. Here is what he said. > >"Most of that company was sold in the mid 1980s and I don't know which >company, if any, ended up with the copyrights to the books. It might >reside with Penton Media (headquartered in Cleveland) since they acquired >in 1989 most of properties that were first sold to VNU, a Dutch publishing >company in 1986. I don't know if the Book division was part of those sales >or if it was just disbanded or sold to yet another publishing company in 1986." > >If you ask any of those companies, they will assume they do own the rights >and just say "NO". > >Here is what the US copyright office says: > >"How can I find out who owns a copyright? >We can provide you with the information available in our records. A search >of registrations, renewals, and recorded transfers of ownership made >before 1978 requires a manual search of our files. Upon request, our staff >will search our records at the statutory rate of $150 for each hour. There >is no fee if you conduct a search in person at the Copyright Office. >Copyright registrations made and documents recorded from 1978 to date are >available for searching online. For further information, see Circular 22, >How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work, and Circular 23, >Copyright Card Catalog and the Online File." > >My question would be...if the company that produced the book no longer >exists and no one bothered to get the copyright renewed...then is the book >public domain or at least owned by the author? This is the book and the search records that came up at the copyright office: The search turns up: 1. Registration Number: TX-450-663 Title: The S-100 bus handbook / Dave Bursky. Imprint: Rochelle Park, N. J. : Hayden Book Co., c1980. Description: 257 p.ISBN: ISBN 0-8104-0897-X. Claimant: Hayden Book Company, Inc. Created: 1979 Published: 21Mar80 Registered: 11Apr80 Special Codes: 1/B///A Grant From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 30 20:20:00 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:20:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <003301c744dc$c65fa7c0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <003301c744dc$c65fa7c0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <20070130181625.R91576@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 30 Jan 2007, Richard A. Cini wrote: > I think what happens is that if the publisher ceases to exist the copyright > reverts to the author. Only if that was specified in the original contract. Sometimes an author who is owed royalties will sue the bankrupt publisher to gain ownership of the copyright. The copyright office does NOT know who currently OWNS the copyright. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 30 20:43:27 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:43:27 -0700 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <20070130181625.R91576@shell.lmi.net> References: <003301c744dc$c65fa7c0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> <20070130181625.R91576@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45C0024F.5010100@jetnet.ab.ca> Fred Cisin wrote: > The copyright office does NOT know who currently OWNS the copyright. Post it on line ... If a lawyer shows up, ask what company he works for. :) Still a copy book may show up for sale. From evan at snarc.net Tue Jan 30 20:53:47 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:53:47 -0500 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <003301c744dc$c65fa7c0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <000601c744e3$07b07be0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> It's all right here: http://www.macmillan.com/Permissions.asp but you have to figure out (or leave it up to them to figure out) which Macmillan division applies to the publication you're looking to republish. From my experience, you should strongly emphasize that you're a hobbyist and/or researcher, and that your intended use is strictly educational and non-commercial. -----Original Message----- From: Richard A. Cini [mailto:rcini at optonline.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 9:09 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Book publishers I think what happens is that if the publisher ceases to exist the copyright reverts to the author. My limited Googling didn't provide a clue one way or the other if Hayden survived, but Bill Maddox came up with a link that shows Hayden was acquired (at some point) by Macmillian Publishing: http://www.creativepro.com/company/contact/40.html What would be the right approach to Macmillian? Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Grant Stockly Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 8:41 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Book publishers At 04:29 PM 1/30/2007, you wrote: >> Does anyone know what happened to Hayden Books? I have a >>robot book that described a robot built with a KIM-1 and I want to >>scan it and post it to 6502.org. I did some Googling and I can't find >>any current references for them. Any idea if the imprint was acquired >>or did they just pass quietly. > >I wanted to do the same thing. I contacted the author of a book and he >had no idea. Here is what he said. > >"Most of that company was sold in the mid 1980s and I don't know which >company, if any, ended up with the copyrights to the books. It might >reside with Penton Media (headquartered in Cleveland) since they >acquired in 1989 most of properties that were first sold to VNU, a >Dutch publishing company in 1986. I don't know if the Book division was >part of those sales or if it was just disbanded or sold to yet another >publishing company in 1986." > >If you ask any of those companies, they will assume they do own the >rights and just say "NO". > >Here is what the US copyright office says: > >"How can I find out who owns a copyright? >We can provide you with the information available in our records. A >search of registrations, renewals, and recorded transfers of ownership >made before 1978 requires a manual search of our files. Upon request, >our staff will search our records at the statutory rate of $150 for >each hour. There is no fee if you conduct a search in person at the Copyright Office. >Copyright registrations made and documents recorded from 1978 to date >are available for searching online. For further information, see >Circular 22, How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work, and >Circular 23, Copyright Card Catalog and the Online File." > >My question would be...if the company that produced the book no longer >exists and no one bothered to get the copyright renewed...then is the >book public domain or at least owned by the author? This is the book and the search records that came up at the copyright office: The search turns up: 1. Registration Number: TX-450-663 Title: The S-100 bus handbook / Dave Bursky. Imprint: Rochelle Park, N. J. : Hayden Book Co., c1980. Description: 257 p.ISBN: ISBN 0-8104-0897-X. Claimant: Hayden Book Company, Inc. Created: 1979 Published: 21Mar80 Registered: 11Apr80 Special Codes: 1/B///A Grant From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 21:01:52 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:01:52 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <45BFE1DF.9020109@gmail.com> References: <200701302159.l0ULxqZC009197@onyx.spiritone.com> <45BFD831.9080108@gmail.com> <45BFE1DF.9020109@gmail.com> Message-ID: > It's a work of art, and the outer casing doesn't have anything to do > with it. > > And it's several big boxes. Not just one. I think we were headed down the Industrial Design road with this thread, not the Computer Engineering road. In the former, the casing has everything to do with it. The innards are meaningless. If you come across another 9021, or even 9121, let me know. I still want one for my collection. I will just keep a big paper bag over it. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 21:18:21 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:18:21 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701310025.l0V0P8Ki016903@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200701310025.l0V0P8Ki016903@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: > No, the company whose systems scream LOOK AT ME would be Sun. Have you ever > seen the SunBlade 1500 with about half the front panel in bright red, and > "Sun" in huge letters? Sun almost puts more style in to a lot of thier rack > mounted systems than thier desktops! I would be inclined to put the SGI > Fuel in this catagory though. > > I've *NEVER* seen one single IBM system I'd consider to be "art", I have > seen a few that are interesting. DEC/Compaq/HP same thing. Sun and IBM during the 1990s should get some credit for going against the flow with their cases. Sun, with SPARCstations, and well into the Ultra era, refused to cave into the trendy curves-and-blobs look that nearly everyone else did. Look at the cases - lots of straight lines, and that sort of girder looking theme the early Ultras had (most pronounced on some of the rack systems). Going the curves-and blobs route that nearly everyone else took was mostly for economics - cheaper cases. The die makers finally could make weird shaped molds consistently and cheaply, and when the plastic parts have lots of curves, they come out of the molds much easier and faster. In the plastics industry, the cost of a part is driven more by the time spent in the mold than the amount of material used. Cheaper cases - but call it industrial design. IBM should get an award for bringing black back into the computer center. It is never out of fashion... > Lets face it, most computers, no matter how beautiful the design, are really > quite ugly on the exterior. Yes, my original point. -- Will From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 21:37:05 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:37:05 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: References: <200701310025.l0V0P8Ki016903@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <45C00EE1.3030305@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: >> Lets face it, most computers, no matter how beautiful the design, are >> really >> quite ugly on the exterior. > > Yes, my original point. The next computer I'm going to build is going to be an unbroken glossy black cube four feet on a side. Peace... Sridhar From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jan 30 22:01:36 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:01:36 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:07:00 GMT." Message-ID: <200701310401.l0V41aP2009230@mwave.heeltoe.com> Adrian Graham wrote: > >Foonly F1, as used for the film TRON? Not all of it. The MAGI work was done on a (hmmm) Perkin Elmer machine? -brad From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jan 30 22:04:24 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:04:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: speed of vintagecomputermarketplace Message-ID: As some of you may know, I have Rlee Peters' collection of stuff, which seems to be largely composed of documentation. So far, I've been unloading it on Ebay. The recent discussions about Ebay versus the vintage computer marketplace got me thinking. I'm attracted to the idea of listing as much of this as I can at the vintage computer marketplace because 1) the people who buy stuff there presumably know what they're buying and 2) I can easily list stuff and let it be for sale until it's sold. Does anyone here have a ballpark idea of how long stuff would sit there until it gets sold? As I picture in my mind's eye the two storage units of stuff, I think I might have been a little too eager to get it. Oh well. At least I have some vintage items that I wouldn't otherwise have. I'm keeping about four cubic feet of stuff. The rest I need to find a home for. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 30 22:24:08 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:24:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701310401.l0V41aP2009230@mwave.heeltoe.com> from Brad Parker at "Jan 30, 7 11:01:36 pm" Message-ID: <200701310424.l0V4O8g5015414@floodgap.com> > > Foonly F1, as used for the film TRON? > > Not all of it. The MAGI work was done on a (hmmm) Perkin Elmer machine? This reminds me. Where did the name "Foonly" come from? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Reality is when it finally happens to you, too. ---------------------------- From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jan 30 22:50:57 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:50:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200701310452.XAA24114@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Obviously nobody _wants_ to damage their classic computers. No...but it can sure look like it, because it's entirely possible for person A to want to do something that person B considers `damage'. Consider an "I just want it to work" person for A and a "must preserve the original machine" person for B.... /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From doc at mdrconsult.com Tue Jan 30 23:33:52 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:33:52 -0600 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701310025.l0V0P8Ki016903@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200701310025.l0V0P8Ki016903@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <45C02A40.6030701@mdrconsult.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > I'd personally consider the SGI o2, Octane, Tezro and *maybe* the Fuel, as > well as the original Apple G4 towers (the G3's of that design scream LOOK AT > ME, but the G4 is more subdued), G4 cube, and the original iMac and iBook > designs to all be very stylish and "art". The NeXT systems would be a close > contender. While stylish, and very well designed, I doubt I'd put the G5 > and Xeon Mac towers in this classification. Ahem. When I got my G5 I pulled the side panel to make sure nothing shook loose in shipping. It took me the better part of an hour to stop ooohing and aaahhing. Under the hood of a 1963 Mercedes Benz was the only thing I've ever seen that came remotely close. Totally gratuitous engineering. The Altos 5xx are sexy little beasties too. Doc From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 30 23:35:04 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:35:04 -0800 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <000601c744e3$07b07be0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <003301c744dc$c65fa7c0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz>, <000601c744e3$07b07be0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <45BFBA08.25554.618CB305@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jan 2007 at 21:53, Evan Koblentz wrote: > It's all right here: http://www.macmillan.com/Permissions.asp but you have > to figure out (or leave it up to them to figure out) which Macmillan > division applies to the publication you're looking to republish. From my > experience, you should strongly emphasize that you're a hobbyist and/or > researcher, and that your intended use is strictly educational and > non-commercial. Well, good luck with that. I've had my fill of experience with the music publishers--you find an old piece, say, from 1932 and you want to get a legal copy. So you write the publisher and get the response that "sorry, it's out of print--and you may not copy an existing copy". Okay, you ask them if they can sell you a reprint--the response can vary from "no, we don't do reprints" to "yes, we do reprints, and our fee is $150 per page for a barely-readable photocopy" Don't be surprised of Macmillian gives you flat-out "no". Such is the state of affairs as regards copyright. I keep telling myself that surely, this can't be what was intended by the founding fathers. Consider that our national anthem was a bald-faced ripoff of an English drinking society song. But then, that was then and this is now. Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 30 23:55:50 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:55:50 -0800 Subject: Foonly Message-ID: <45C02F66.3010705@bitsavers.org> > Where did the name "Foonly" come from? google "FOO NLI" From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 30 23:57:30 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:57:30 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701310424.l0V4O8g5015414@floodgap.com> References: <200701310401.l0V41aP2009230@mwave.heeltoe.com> <200701310424.l0V4O8g5015414@floodgap.com> Message-ID: > This reminds me. Where did the name "Foonly" come from? FOO NLI -- Will From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 31 00:00:52 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:00:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: <45C02F66.3010705@bitsavers.org> from Al Kossow at "Jan 30, 7 09:55:50 pm" Message-ID: <200701310600.l0V60qvY023454@floodgap.com> > > Where did the name "Foonly" come from? > > google "FOO NLI" Ah, wakatta na. So you pronounce it "FOON-lee"? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- E pluribus Unix ------------------------------------------------------------ From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 31 00:03:21 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:03:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <45C02A40.6030701@mdrconsult.com> from Doc Shipley at "Jan 30, 7 11:33:52 pm" Message-ID: <200701310603.l0V63L0m023548@floodgap.com> > > While stylish, and very well designed, I doubt I'd put the G5 > > and Xeon Mac towers in this classification. > > Ahem. When I got my G5 I pulled the side panel to make sure nothing > shook loose in shipping. It took me the better part of an hour to stop > ooohing and aaahhing. Much as I am pained to say something nice about the Intel Macs, I think the Mac Pro interior is even better than the G5. To pull this remotely on topic, we might discuss computers where style was thoroughly ignored in their design. A Commodore PET, for example, is probably the antithesis of sexy computing except for the possible Penthouse jokes. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Angels we have heard on High/Tell us to go out and Buy. -- Tom Lehrer ------ From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 31 00:04:37 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:04:37 -0800 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <45C02A40.6030701@mdrconsult.com> References: <200701310025.l0V0P8Ki016903@onyx.spiritone.com> <45C02A40.6030701@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: At 11:33 PM -0600 1/30/07, Doc Shipley wrote: >Zane H. Healy wrote: > >>I'd personally consider the SGI o2, Octane, Tezro and *maybe* the Fuel, as >>well as the original Apple G4 towers (the G3's of that design scream LOOK AT >>ME, but the G4 is more subdued), G4 cube, and the original iMac and iBook >>designs to all be very stylish and "art". The NeXT systems would be a close >>contender. While stylish, and very well designed, I doubt I'd put the G5 >>and Xeon Mac towers in this classification. > > Ahem. When I got my G5 I pulled the side panel to make sure >nothing shook loose in shipping. It took me the better part of an >hour to stop ooohing and aaahhing. > > Under the hood of a 1963 Mercedes Benz was the only thing I've >ever seen that came remotely close. Totally gratuitous engineering. The only computer I have whose insides are anywhere close to being as nice as that of a G5 tower just might be my PDP-11/73 in a BA123 Chassis. I love the BA123, but when it comes to cables, the current Mac towers beat it hands down. What computer other than a modern Mac tower fits together so perfectly (I've not been in the water cooled G5 or the Xeon towers, and they might not be quite so perfect). Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 31 00:12:39 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 01:12:39 -0500 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <45BFBA08.25554.618CB305@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <000901c744fe$cf6ae6a0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> It's all in how and who you ask. You have to find the right person, not just deal with a shill, and you have to ask professionally, not just as a hobbyist. That's been my experience with this sort of thing. For example, HP gave me permission to reprint Gordon Dickson's story called "Thank you, Beep" from the 1978 issue of the HP Calculator Digest -- even though it's going to be part of a book that I'm writing, which is clearly a commercial endeavor -- because I found the right person and I asked nicely. They simply required is that I include some boilerplate copyright text as shown here: http://www.snarc.net/pda/tybeep.htm. -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:cclist at sydex.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 12:35 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: Book publishers On 30 Jan 2007 at 21:53, Evan Koblentz wrote: > It's all right here: http://www.macmillan.com/Permissions.asp but you > have to figure out (or leave it up to them to figure out) which > Macmillan division applies to the publication you're looking to > republish. From my experience, you should strongly emphasize that > you're a hobbyist and/or researcher, and that your intended use is > strictly educational and non-commercial. Well, good luck with that. I've had my fill of experience with the music publishers--you find an old piece, say, from 1932 and you want to get a legal copy. So you write the publisher and get the response that "sorry, it's out of print--and you may not copy an existing copy". Okay, you ask them if they can sell you a reprint--the response can vary from "no, we don't do reprints" to "yes, we do reprints, and our fee is $150 per page for a barely-readable photocopy" Don't be surprised of Macmillian gives you flat-out "no". Such is the state of affairs as regards copyright. I keep telling myself that surely, this can't be what was intended by the founding fathers. Consider that our national anthem was a bald-faced ripoff of an English drinking society song. But then, that was then and this is now. Cheers, Chuck From ak6dn at mindspring.com Wed Jan 31 00:16:44 2007 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:16:44 -0800 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: <45C02F66.3010705@bitsavers.org> References: <45C02F66.3010705@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <45C0344C.7080700@mindspring.com> Al Kossow wrote: > > Where did the name "Foonly" come from? > > google "FOO NLI" > > Foonly made its way into the DEC schematic system (SUDS, Stanford University Design System) too, which ran on PDP-10s using VS60s as remote graphics terminals. The default name of the 'Drawn by' engineer was 'S. Foonly'. Look on the 11/44 computer-drawn schematic pages. From grant at stockly.com Wed Jan 31 00:42:43 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:42:43 -0900 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <000901c744fe$cf6ae6a0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <45BFBA08.25554.618CB305@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20070130213916.04a15eb0@pop.1and1.com> At 09:12 PM 1/30/2007, you wrote: >It's all in how and who you ask. You have to find the right person, not >just deal with a shill, and you have to ask professionally, not just as a >hobbyist. That's been my experience with this sort of thing. For example, >HP gave me permission to reprint Gordon Dickson's story called "Thank you, >Beep" from the 1978 issue of the HP Calculator Digest -- even though it's >going to be part of a book that I'm writing, which is clearly a commercial >endeavor -- because I found the right person and I asked nicely. They >simply required is that I include some boilerplate copyright text as shown >here: http://www.snarc.net/pda/tybeep.htm. Sometimes asking as a hobbiest can help. I did this once with a company that produces a commedy TV show. I e-mailed the president of the company and told him I wanted to put some segments on a DVD. He FedExed me a Digital Betacam dub of the masters of the show. Of course, I've also tried to deal with music labels. I keep the Digital betacam tape next to me to remind me that there are still humans in the world (unlike ALL of labeled music). I only use independent music in my DVDs. : ) Grant From wizard at voyager.net Wed Jan 31 00:43:49 2007 From: wizard at voyager.net (Warren Wolfe) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 01:43:49 -0500 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <45BFBA08.25554.618CB305@cclist.sydex.com> References: <003301c744dc$c65fa7c0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> , <000601c744e3$07b07be0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <45BFBA08.25554.618CB305@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1170225830.7644.27.camel@linux.site> Hey, "Collectors," I had no idea that calling someone a "collector" was insulting. Live and learn. At any rate, although the topic may be done and dusted, I actually know something about copyright law, having been forced to deal with it in several respects for many years. Before I start, let me state I am not a lawyer, barrister, solicitor, or any creature of that ilk, so, take my words as advice from one person to another. Check with a legal professional before taking any action which might place you afoul of the legal system, or copyright owners. That is a disclaimer. Now, some random comments, in post-reverse order... On Tue, 2007-01-30 at 21:35 -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Such is the state of affairs as regards copyright. I keep telling > myself that surely, this can't be what was intended by the > founding fathers. Consider that our national anthem was a > bald-faced ripoff of an English drinking society song. First, there is no doubt whatsoever that "The Star-Spangled Banner" was new words over a drinking song written in, ironically enough, 1776. Read about it here: http://www.colonialmusic.org/Resource/Anacreon.htm . On the other hand, that was the normal practice of the time, and "ripoff" doesn't really apply. The Statute of Anne, 1710, is generally given as the first real copyright law, although several similar laws and royal edicts had been put in place previously. In essence, copyright law gives authors exclusive rights to their works for a fixed period of time, and makes it easy for them to enforce those rights, and obtain damages from those who take their intellectual property. In exchange, after a period of time (originally 14 years) with a possible renewal (originally also 14 years) the work would pass into the public domain, meaning that it was owned equally by everyone, and anyone could use it in any way they wished, as if it were their own creation. The idea was that EVERYTHING would be in the public domain, eventually, and authors would have a period of time in which to reap the benefits of their efforts. On Tue, 2007-01-30 at 21:09 -0500, Richard A. Cini wrote: > I think what happens is that if the publisher ceases to exist > the copyright reverts to the author. Ack! This is not true, and can land someone in court. Copyright survives the death of the author, or the dissolution of any entity which acquired copyright. Of course, it is possible to sell the copyright with a proviso that the rights revert to the author upon the demise of the person or entity purchasing them. When I wrote software for clients who did not wish to purchase source code, I always included a clause which allowed the client to arrange, and pay for, escrow storage, into which I would place the source code. Upon my demise, or a year of my refusal to maintain the software, the client could collect it, and get someone else to work on it. So, one CAN put all sorts of odd clauses in sales contracts, but they are not necessary. Failing such sleight-of-hand, a sale of copyright is fee simple -- money goes one way, all rights go the other, and the buyer no longer has the use of his money, and the seller no longer has the use of his work. On Tue, 2007-01-30 at 18:01 -0800, Fred Cisin wrote: > Assuming that something is public domain because YOU > can't find the owner is not valid. Yes, that is quite accurate and succinct. However, I did get the same information across, and was more verbose, to boot. A little thought shows why that would be... Infringing authors would search for the copyright owners with all the diligence of O.J. Simpson searching for the "real killers." Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Jan 31 00:49:34 2007 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:49:34 -0700 Subject: Are there M4 9914 9-track tape driver users on the list? In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90701091403x2f7a7424l9c649145e5b8ecb6@mail.gmail.com> References: <1e1fc3e90701091142u4581b231y24d2b032b7d15edd@mail.gmail.com> <008901c7342f$4f1a7630$6500a8c0@BILLING> <1e1fc3e90701091403x2f7a7424l9c649145e5b8ecb6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <45C03BFE.7070504@Rikers.org> Glen Slick wrote: > Has anyone used a 9914 drive through the Pertec interface instead of > the SCSI interface? It appears you could do that by removing the SCSI > interface board and the access covers over the Pertec connectors in > the back of the drive. I have a DQ142 (anyone have manuals for that? > DU142 is on bitsavers, DQ142 is not) and wonder if that might be > workable alternative to using the SQ703 with the 9914 if I can come up > with some cables to hook the two together. I've got a Cipher M990 Pertec drive I'll trade for one of your 9914 drives. :) I'll include the 16 bit ISA ATC-16 Pertec controller card too. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Jan 31 00:59:39 2007 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:59:39 -0700 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed In-Reply-To: <000d01c7375c$acc24440$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <000d01c7375c$acc24440$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <45C03E5B.8010509@Rikers.org> Bob Shannon wrote: > Your looking for the edge card connector for the 2648? > > That's easy, I have spares. ooh ooh! I need a cable from my 2648A to one of my HP machines. Are you offering? I'm also looking for the MUX cable set and external RS-232 set, but Jay's hording those. :-) -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Jan 31 01:32:30 2007 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:32:30 -0700 Subject: Pertec interface In-Reply-To: <45BDE8DD.31548.5A73AC28@cclist.sydex.com> References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E@MEOW.catcorner.org> <45BDE8DD.31548.5A73AC28@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45C0460E.2030900@Rikers.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I've observed that Pertec-to-SCSI adapters are even harder to find > than PC interface cards. The PC cards come up about every 2-3 months > on eBay, but mostly without drivers. I think I've seen exactly one > SCSI-Pertec protocol converter in the last year--and the minimum bid > was about $200. I'm in that boat. I have an ATC-16 ISA controller, but I can't find the software I have for it. It's someplace on a 5 1/4" floppy. There is a patch for and old Linux kernel that should work. I've not tried that yet. > I'm working on a Pertec-to-USB adapter as one of my own projects. ooh! Going to sell them? Idea of the price? -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 31 02:00:56 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:00:56 -0800 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <1170225830.7644.27.camel@linux.site> References: <003301c744dc$c65fa7c0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz>, <45BFBA08.25554.618CB305@cclist.sydex.com>, <1170225830.7644.27.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <45BFDC38.14929.3F92F6@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2007 at 1:43, Warren Wolfe wrote: > First, there is no doubt whatsoever that "The Star-Spangled Banner" > was new words over a drinking song written in, ironically enough, 1776. > Read about it here: http://www.colonialmusic.org/Resource/Anacreon.htm . > On the other hand, that was the normal practice of the time, and > "ripoff" doesn't really apply. "Ripoff" was the rule of the land in those days, especially for music- -read the correspondence of an angry and frustrated G.F. Handel. Would that we had the 14+14 copyright duration today instead of Mary Bono's 90 years--it is said that the good congresswoman was disappointed to learn that a perpetual copyright would probably be unconstitutional. Apparently no one thought to comment that her legislation was a very clear conflict of interest. There are some who propose bumping the expiration out 10 years every 10 years or so, giving, in effect, a perpetual copyright. Can you imagine the furor if patents were given a similar duration? At any rate, perhaps music publishers are a special case of knucklehead. I do wish the OP luck with the suits at Macmillan. If they're anything like the weasels at Bugs Bunny Corp., he'll need it. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 31 02:06:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:06:21 -0800 Subject: Pertec interface In-Reply-To: <45C0460E.2030900@Rikers.org> References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E@MEOW.catcorner.org>, <45BDE8DD.31548.5A73AC28@cclist.sydex.com>, <45C0460E.2030900@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <45BFDD7D.2033.448868@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2007 at 0:32, Tim Riker wrote: > > I'm working on a Pertec-to-USB adapter as one of my own projects. > > ooh! Going to sell them? Idea of the price? Golly, I was just going to build a prototype and use it myself. Getting stuff fit for production is a whole 'nother smoke, like using up-to-date components--I'm using an 80C188 because it's got the features that I need and I'm *really* familiar with the machine language. :) The USB interface is a simple prepackaged unit. Communication is by SCSI command packets. Cheers, Chuck From nico at farumdata.dk Wed Jan 31 02:20:46 2007 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:20:46 +0100 Subject: Pertec interface References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E30B149E@MEOW.catcorner.org><45BDE8DD.31548.5A73AC28@cclist.sydex.com> <45C0460E.2030900@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <001601c74510$bb85cd50$2101a8c0@finans> From: "Tim Riker" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > I'm in that boat. I have an ATC-16 ISA controller, but I can't find the > software I have for it. It's someplace on a 5 1/4" floppy. > Is that an Overland controller ? In that case, the software for the TX8 or TXi16 might work. I have the DOS version. Nico From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 31 03:19:41 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:19:41 +0000 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <45BFECFE.30004@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On 31/1/07 01:12, "Pete Turnbull" wrote: > About the same time as me. Before that I had home micros since about > 1980 but usually only one at a time, and they were for day-to-day use, > not as part of a collection, until about 1985, when I had three or four > machines. 1986 (or maybe late '85) was when I acquired a PDP-11/23 that Heh, it's always the PDP :) Thinking about it I started amassing things in the late 80s when work was trying to ditch machines and I held onto them - a VAX here, a micro PDP there, VT180, Rainbow, DECmate etc; there's only a spell in the 90s when I was forced to get rid of everything before my partner re-awakened the interest in the late 90s..... It's all her fault :oD -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From wmaddox at pacbell.net Wed Jan 31 05:42:43 2007 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:42:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <45BFDC38.14929.3F92F6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <878208.87198.qm@web82602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> If you can locate the author, you might want to approach him first. It may be the case that the copyright has in fact reverted to him. If not, he might be sufficiently interested keeping the book "alive" to attempt to reclaim the rights from the publisher. I seem to remember hearing of several cases in which copyrights for out-of-print books were returned to the author at his request. I would imagine that a publisher would be more inclined to do a favor for an author than a random hobbyist. --Bill From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jan 31 07:21:06 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:21:06 -0300 Subject: Book publishers References: <000901c744fe$cf6ae6a0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <012101c7453a$ba351850$f0fea8c0@alpha> > here: http://www.snarc.net/pda/tybeep.htm. What a great article! :oD Interesting to note that 99% of all technologies to make it happen already exists between us, and things doesn't happen this way just because we don't want. Very interesting article...HP has a good view into the future! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 31 09:38:30 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 08:38:30 -0700 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:19:41 +0000. Message-ID: In article , Adrian Graham writes: > Heh, it's always the PDP :) Thinking about it I started amassing things in > the late 80s when work was trying to ditch machines and I held onto them > [...] For me it was E&S equipment, but a very similar situation: work no longer supported the ESV and put them out by the loading dock free for the hauling. Actually quite a bit of stuff as well as ESVs were out there. They must have offloaded quite a bit of SGI gear when they closed that office, but that particular employer was a pretty bitter experience for the most part, so I didn't keep in touch. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 31 09:53:30 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:53:30 -0500 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:55:50 PST." <45C02F66.3010705@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <200701311553.l0VFrU69017462@mwave.heeltoe.com> Al Kossow wrote: > > Where did the name "Foonly" come from? > >google "FOO NLI" for that matter, look up "Mathematical Applications Group, Inc" (a.k.a. MAGI) in Wikipedia... I wonder what happened to all that fortran code. Ken Perlin was one smart guy (but I always like Larry Elin's flying tanks :-) -brad From marvin at rain.org Wed Jan 31 09:57:33 2007 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 07:57:33 -0800 Subject: speed of vintagecomputermarketplace Message-ID: <45C0BC6D.4050170F@rain.org> First, the obvious - the speed that something sells is a function of both price and demand AND visibility ... just *had* to get that out of the way :). But what you are asking is not an easy question to answer since there are so many different variables. Visibility I fully agree that VCM makes a really good venue, and Sellam's rant seems to be having the (unintended) effect of more people listing and viewing the site. One of the reasons I *really* would like to see a link to VCM from ClassicCmp.org is that I can easily publicize the ClassicCmp listserver on ebay emails, the "About Me" page (although it hasn't been added yet) without worrying about the two faced retaliation by Ebay. Some of you may recall the Ebay notices to put out the information to all the newsgroups, etc. about Ebay and that helped a LOT to publicize the site; word of mouth about a good thing was *very* prevalent. This is also what needs to be done to help publicize the VCM site. How Long I've had things on VCM for maybe a year or more that 1) haven't sold, 2) finally sold, and 3) sold quickly on Ebay. Things like books are relatively easy to research pricing. There are other research tools to help determine pricing on relatively common stuff, but things that are less common are basically an educated guess and are set by how fast you want something to move. It is also helped/hindered by how well/poorly the listing copy is written. > From: David Griffith > > I'm attracted to the idea of listing as much of this as I can at the > vintage computer marketplace because 1) the people who buy stuff there > presumably know what they're buying and 2) I can easily list stuff and let > it be for sale until it's sold. Does anyone here have a ballpark idea of > how long stuff would sit there until it gets sold? From mtapley at swri.edu Wed Jan 31 10:00:06 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:00:06 -0600 Subject: Arty computers (was: Re: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS) In-Reply-To: <200701310145.l0V1jIbO057126@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701310145.l0V1jIbO057126@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 19:45 -0600 1/30/07, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >I've often thought that you can see the beauty of machinery (including >computers) on many levels. Most classic computers are not particularly >beautiful to look at, but there can be beauty in how they're assembled (I >personally think the HP9816 is an interesting construction), there can be >beauty in the elkectronic design, or the firmware, or... You just have to >look for it. Agreed, which leads me to NeXT cube as my nomination. Though the mainboard design is not a particular standout, chassis design, appearance, and software all appeal strongly to my aesthetics. I quail at the thought of suggesting a thread on "performance arty" computers... (...or "artless" computers. TRS-80 model 1?) -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone From kth at srv.net Wed Jan 31 11:11:53 2007 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:11:53 -0700 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <002b01c744d3$30734f40$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <002b01c744d3$30734f40$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <45C0CDD9.9020302@srv.net> Richard A. Cini wrote: > Does anyone know what happened to Hayden Books? I have a robot > book that described a robot built with a KIM-1 and I want to scan it and > post it to 6502.org. I did some Googling and I can't find any current > references for them. Any idea if the imprint was acquired or did they just > pass quietly. > > Here's a link for US copyright laws as used by Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Copyright_How-To Short version: If the book was published 1978 or later, it has at least a 70 year copyright on it, possibly longer, so check it again in 2049. And, it is likely that Congress would, again, retroactively extend that if Micky Mouse, once again, nears the public domain. Things published before 1923 in the US are now public domain. After that, the rules get more and more complex. Foreign works can be even more complex, depending on the country it was published in, and the country you are in. I don't think that the existence of the publishing house would affect the copyright status of a book in any way. I doubt that books would become public domain just because the publisher went bust. From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jan 31 11:49:38 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 12:49:38 -0500 Subject: HP tape drive PCBs Message-ID: <01C74536.46601140@mse-d03> Cleaning out more junk; found some HP boards, probably from a tape drive; anybody want 'em for parts? Condition unknown, one marked defective: 07970-62140 series 1144 07970-60020 series 1047 07970-60040 C-1024-42 07970-61021 B-1037-42 mike From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 31 10:46:42 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:46:42 -0500 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: <45C0344C.7080700@mindspring.com> References: <45C02F66.3010705@bitsavers.org> <45C0344C.7080700@mindspring.com> Message-ID: On Jan 31, 2007, at 1:16 AM, Don North wrote: > Foonly made its way into the DEC schematic system (SUDS, Stanford > University Design System) too, which ran on PDP-10s using VS60s as > remote graphics terminals. The default name of the 'Drawn by' > engineer was 'S. Foonly'. Look on the 11/44 computer-drawn > schematic pages. Mmmm, SUDS. I'd love to give that a try. Is there a copy of it floating around? Umm, and how rare are VS60s these days? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 31 12:17:58 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:17:58 -0700 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:46:42 -0500. Message-ID: In article , Dave McGuire writes: > Umm, and how rare are VS60s these days? Two years of looking and coming up empty. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From alhartman at yahoo.com Wed Jan 31 12:21:48 2007 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:21:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: RCA 1802CE Chips Message-ID: <493535.41908.qm@web55303.mail.re4.yahoo.com> All.. My partner and I came across a quantity of New, Old Stock RCA 1802CE Chips. I know some people on the list have spoken about them as they were used in a few classic computers like the ELF. If anyone is interested in them, please contact me off list. I'd prefer to get them into the hands of Classic Computer Enthusiasts before putting them on eBay. Thanks! Al Hartman Phila, PA From mtapley at swri.edu Wed Jan 31 12:24:52 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 12:24:52 -0600 Subject: OT: to Marvin only (was RE: speed of vintagecomputermarketplace) In-Reply-To: <200701311801.l0VI0xvR068716@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701311801.l0VI0xvR068716@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 12:01 -0600 1/31/07, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >First, the obvious - the speed that something sells is a function of >both price >and demand AND visibility ... :-) and other factors... Marvin, I may have dropped into your SPAM-filtering apparatus at some point, or vice versa. Have you gotten more than one email from me in January? I'm hoping there were four. If so, have you sent me more than one? Others, my apologies for the intrusion. -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 31 12:42:36 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:42:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 31, 2007 11:46:42 AM Message-ID: <200701311842.l0VIgc7M026645@onyx.spiritone.com> > On Jan 31, 2007, at 1:16 AM, Don North wrote: > > Foonly made its way into the DEC schematic system (SUDS, Stanford > > University Design System) too, which ran on PDP-10s using VS60s as > > remote graphics terminals. The default name of the 'Drawn by' > > engineer was 'S. Foonly'. Look on the 11/44 computer-drawn > > schematic pages. > > Mmmm, SUDS. I'd love to give that a try. Is there a copy of it > floating around? To the best of my knowledge it is lost. If copies exist, the people that have them aren't talking. ISTR, there might also be a problem with getting an OS to run on, I believe it expects to run on WAITS (Westcoast Alternative to ITS). Zane From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 31 12:43:03 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:43:03 +0000 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: <45C02F66.3010705@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 31/1/07 05:55, "Al Kossow" wrote: >> Where did the name "Foonly" come from? > > google "FOO NLI" Heh, excellent! That's the sort of story I love passing on to people who are otherwise ignorant of it and ask 'why', like 'why are DEC manuals full of filenames like foo.bar?' and 'why do you have 2 vaxen called FOO and BAR?' :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 31 12:44:05 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:44:05 +0000 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 31/1/07 15:38, "Richard" wrote: > > In article , > Adrian Graham writes: > >> Heh, it's always the PDP :) Thinking about it I started amassing things in >> the late 80s when work was trying to ditch machines and I held onto them >> [...] > > For me it was E&S equipment, but a very similar situation: work no > longer supported the ESV and put them out by the loading dock free for > the hauling. Actually quite a bit of stuff as well as ESVs were out > there. They must have offloaded quite a bit of SGI gear when they > closed that office, but that particular employer was a pretty bitter > experience for the most part, so I didn't keep in touch. But you got to keep a load of SGI gear? -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 31 12:53:35 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:53:35 -0500 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:46:42 EST." Message-ID: <200701311853.l0VIrZBF026966@mwave.heeltoe.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > >Mmmm, SUDS. I'd love to give that a try. Is there a copy of it >floating around? me too! I have lots of SUDS cad files but no SUDS executable. > Umm, and how rare are VS60s these days? And, if I did have one, has anyone written an emulator for a VS60? would it be hard? I thought, however, SUDS used some other terminal in some sort of emulation mode... -brad From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 31 12:55:36 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:55:36 -0500 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:42:36 PST." <200701311842.l0VIgc7M026645@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <200701311855.l0VIta03027247@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Zane H. Healy" wrote: >> >> Mmmm, SUDS. I'd love to give that a try. Is there a copy of it >> floating around? > >To the best of my knowledge it is lost. If copies exist, the people that >have them aren't talking. ISTR, there might also be a problem with getting >an OS to run on, I believe it expects to run on WAITS (Westcoast Alternative >to ITS). I know the XKL folks were using it. I could swear someone I know made some mods to it in the past 10 years (hmm.. note to self :-) I believe the "update" was to make it work with X11. Anyone know any of the XKL folks? -brad From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 31 13:03:39 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:03:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: xa-2.3.2, dxa-0.1.2 released Message-ID: <200701311903.l0VJ3dbT026166@floodgap.com> xa-2.3.2, the current version of the xa65 assembler package has been released along with dxa-0.1.2, the current version of its companion disassembler. xa is a 6502/R65C02/65816 crossassembler in portable C featuring a built-in preprocessor, rich instruction and pseudo-op expression syntax, and built-in o65 relocatable object support. 2.3.2 adds: - character set translation for quoted strings (such as ASCII->PETSCII) - proper recursive macro evaluation - groks cpp(1) line tags automatically - multiple bug fixes - updated documentation See the changelog for a complete listing. dxa-0.1.2 is a portable crossassembler based on Marko Makela's d65 package featuring intelligent disassembly and multiple output options, including support for undocumented instructions. 65816 instruction support is pending. 0.1.2 corrects an occasional bug with relative addressing and an output bug with back-to-back label formatting. dxa should still be considered alpha. Suggestions and bug reports always welcome. Both programs are released under the GNU Public License. http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/xa/ -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Why do we scoff at fortune tellers, yet listen to economists? -------------- From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 31 13:03:14 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 12:03:14 -0700 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:53:35 -0500. <200701311853.l0VIrZBF026966@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: In article <200701311853.l0VIrZBF026966 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, Brad Parker writes: > And, if I did have one, has anyone written an emulator for a VS60? > would it be hard? >From what I can tell it was driven by a serial port and in looking around I thought I saw docs describing the protocol, so if you can get something that generates the chatter you could stick something on the other end of that serial line and emulate the output. Most stuff from that era also talks Tektronix 4010 and everything emulates that, whether its physical terminals or terminal emulators. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 31 12:55:58 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:55:58 -0700 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:44:05 +0000. Message-ID: In article , Adrian Graham writes: > On 31/1/07 15:38, "Richard" wrote: > > > > > In article , > > Adrian Graham writes: > > > >> Heh, it's always the PDP :) Thinking about it I started amassing things in > >> the late 80s when work was trying to ditch machines and I held onto them > >> [...] > > > > For me it was E&S equipment, but a very similar situation: work no > > longer supported the ESV and put them out by the loading dock free for > > the hauling. Actually quite a bit of stuff as well as ESVs were out > > there. They must have offloaded quite a bit of SGI gear when they > > closed that office, but that particular employer was a pretty bitter > > experience for the most part, so I didn't keep in touch. > > But you got to keep a load of SGI gear? No, they closed the office a few years after I left and all the people who were worth staying in touch with had already left that office by the time they closed it. Moral of the story? Don't put salesman and marketing types in charge of a technology company -- they'll just run it into the ground while they get rich off their stock options. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 31 13:11:08 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:11:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: <200701311855.l0VIta03027247@mwave.heeltoe.com> from "Brad Parker" at Jan 31, 2007 01:55:36 PM Message-ID: <200701311911.l0VJBAl4030603@onyx.spiritone.com> > I know the XKL folks were using it. I could swear someone I know made some > mods to it in the past 10 years (hmm.. note to self :-) I believe the > "update" was to make it work with X11. > > Anyone know any of the XKL folks? > > -brad > That might make a lot of sense, I believe that the main reason for doing the XKL-1 was so that they could continue to use their existing CAD tools. If this is the case they likely have it working with the X11 software running on the XKL-1. Which brings up another problem, I don't believe that X11 will run on any of the emulators, and I'm not aware of any copies of it in the wild. Here is a question, is any of this on the Panda distribution from Mark Crispin? I don't believe so, but then I've also not had time to boot it. BTW, questions of this level would be better answered on alt.sys.pdp10 Zane From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 31 13:11:48 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:11:48 -0800 Subject: VS60's Message-ID: <45C0E9F4.8030704@bitsavers.org> > Umm, and how rare are VS60s these days? Essentially unobtainium. They were expensive and rare 25 years ago. You'd have better luck finding a VT11 or GT40. At least I KNOW people who have those. I've never known anyone in the 30+ years of dealing with DEC stuff who had a VS60. I've been chasing a copy of SUDS for a while. It existed at Stanford, MIT, and DEC. XKL still uses it. The DEC version will probably be somewhere on the DEC LCG tapes. There are bits of it on the ITS tapes that have been released. I'm sure it's on the ones that haven't. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 31 13:17:28 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:17:28 -0800 Subject: Foonly Message-ID: <45C0EB48.2050503@bitsavers.org> > And, if I did have one, has anyone written an emulator for a VS60? > would it be hard? It's essentially a VT11 on steroids. Hardware rotation/scaling/clipping, extended display list structure. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/graphics/EK-VT48-TM-001_VT48TechRef.pdf VS60 is a VT48 display processor with a display built by Sanders Associates. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 31 13:22:43 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:22:43 -0800 Subject: XKL and SUDS Message-ID: <45C0EC83.1040704@bitsavers.org> >> Anyone know any of the XKL folks? >> >> -brad >> >That might make a lot of sense, I believe that the main reason for doing the >XKL-1 was so that they could continue to use their existing CAD tools. If >this is the case they likely have it working with the X11 software running >on the XKL-1. Which brings up another problem, I don't believe that X11 >will run on any of the emulators, and I'm not aware of any copies of it in >the wild. > >Here is a question, is any of this on the Panda distribution from Mark >Crispin? I don't believe so, but then I've also not had time to boot it. > >BTW, questions of this level would be better answered on alt.sys.pdp10 XKL is a VERY close-lipped operation. You can try contacting Len Bosack. I doubt anyone lower than that would be willing to commit to releasing it. Also, the machine was the TOAD-1. From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jan 31 13:26:54 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:26:54 -0500 Subject: SUDS (was Foonly) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:46:42 EST." Message-ID: <200701311926.l0VJQsm0028857@mwave.heeltoe.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > > Mmmm, SUDS. I'd love to give that a try. Is there a copy of it >floating around? Take a look here: http://www.unlambda.com/download/suds/suds.tar.gz It's a few manuals for SUDS and (I think) an ITS executable. I'm not sure, however, might be tops-20. I can figure it out exactly which machine they came from in a few days. I only had time for a quick search, sorry (work - always in the way of my fun :-) trying to fix some verilog bugs in someone else's code before tomorrow. -brad From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 31 13:26:29 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:26:29 -0500 Subject: Book publishers In-Reply-To: <45C0CDD9.9020302@srv.net> Message-ID: <200701311928.l0VJSg2f050640@keith.ezwind.net> On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:11:53 -0700, Kevin Handy wrote: >Richard A. Cini wrote: >extend that if Micky Mouse, once again, nears the public domain. ... >After that, the rules get more and more complex. Foreign works >can be even more complex, depending on the country it was >published in, and the country you are in. For you stamp collectors out there :) Here is a recent example of the Disney characters being used along with an image of the worlds oldest astronomical computer to shamelessly promote the sale of a collector stamp. http://tinyurl.com/2vtlwt In a last virtual attempt to drift back on topic :) I know a postcard Dealor who has saved computer electronics related postcard packs for years. He would like to know if there are any other Ad card collectors ? Contact me off list. later ... back under my rock :) Bob Bradlee From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 31 13:32:31 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:32:31 +0000 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 31/1/07 18:55, "Richard" wrote: > the time they closed it. Moral of the story? Don't put salesman and > marketing types in charge of a technology company -- they'll just run > it into the ground while they get rich off their stock options. BTDT. It's the reason I now live 250 miles away from home during the week..... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 31 14:17:25 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:17:25 -0600 Subject: Arty computers In-Reply-To: References: <200701310145.l0V1jIbO057126@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45C0F955.5090300@yahoo.co.uk> Mark Tapley wrote: > At 19:45 -0600 1/30/07, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >> I've often thought that you can see the beauty of machinery (including >> computers) on many levels. Most classic computers are not particularly >> beautiful to look at, but there can be beauty in how they're assembled (I >> personally think the HP9816 is an interesting construction), there can be >> beauty in the elkectronic design, or the firmware, or... You just have to >> look for it. > > Agreed, which leads me to NeXT cube as my nomination. Though the > mainboard design is not a particular standout, chassis design, > appearance, and software all appeal strongly to my aesthetics. Hmm, I'll throw the BeBox into the pot... and the de Grafe video presentation system (can't be many computers that used granite in their case construction :-) From ak6dn at mindspring.com Wed Jan 31 14:30:27 2007 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 12:30:27 -0800 Subject: Foonly & SUDS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45C0FC63.7000201@mindspring.com> Richard wrote: > In article <200701311853.l0VIrZBF026966 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, > Brad Parker writes: >> And, if I did have one, has anyone written an emulator for a VS60? >> would it be hard? > > >From what I can tell it was driven by a serial port and in looking > around I thought I saw docs describing the protocol, so if you can get > something that generates the chatter you could stick something on the > other end of that serial line and emulate the output. > > Most stuff from that era also talks Tektronix 4010 and everything > emulates that, whether its physical terminals or terminal emulators. As described in another thread by Al, the VS60 was a VT48 display subsystem using a local 11/34 processor. The VT48 display was BIG (20" or so diameter) and was a vector/stroke display processor with a light pen interface and button box. Too many lines on your schematic and it would start to flicker. As I used it for SUDS at DEC, we ran the VS60 back to a TOPS-10 system via dedicated high speed serial lines (KMC11 IIRC). The VS60 (11/34 + VT48) ran a custom program that implemented the SUDS display subsystem. SUDS actually ran on the PDP-10 (a KL10 running TOPS-10 v7.xx); the VS60 was just a big display terminal. I don't know that I ever heard what the 'S' in 'S.Foonly' was supposed to stand for ... maybe SUDS or Stanford, I guess. From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 31 14:42:10 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:42:10 +0000 Subject: Arty computers In-Reply-To: <45C0F955.5090300@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 31/1/07 20:17, "Jules Richardson" wrote: >> Agreed, which leads me to NeXT cube as my nomination. Though the >> mainboard design is not a particular standout, chassis design, >> appearance, and software all appeal strongly to my aesthetics. > > Hmm, I'll throw the BeBox into the pot... and the de Grafe video presentation > system (can't be many computers that used granite in their case construction > :-) Didn't my post about the BeBox make it to the list? Curse my exim mail server, what's it doing now...... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 31 15:30:33 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:30:33 -0500 Subject: Looking for Intel SDK-51/MCS-51 System Design Kit User's Guide / Assembly Manual / Monitor Listing In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90701181834y37f2724o4f0884baedfc33fa@mail.gmail.com> References: <1e1fc3e90701181834y37f2724o4f0884baedfc33fa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <438B8457-6D6F-499F-90ED-CDFE18EF9195@neurotica.com> On Jan 18, 2007, at 9:34 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > Does anyone have hard copies or scans of these Intel SDK-51/MCS-51 > manuals? > > 121588-002 SDK-51/MCS-51 System Design Kit User's Guide > 121589-002 SDK-51 MCS-51 System Design Kit Assembly Manual > 121590-003 SDK-51 Monitor Listing Manual I believe I have these manuals, or at least the first two, in hardcopy form. I have just moved into a new house and I can't find a damn thing...If you haven't gotten ahold of these already, ping me in a week or two and I'll see if I can find them in the meantime. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 31 16:43:28 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:43:28 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And the answer is.........Rob Willing, Jim's son, selling the PDP-11/70. -- Will From bqt at softjar.se Wed Jan 31 02:29:47 2007 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:29:47 +0100 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701310146.l0V1jIbc057126@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701310146.l0V1jIbc057126@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45C0537B.90806@softjar.se> ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >>> "William Donzelli" wrote: >>> > Jim Willing was one of the pioneers in this computer collecting hobby >>> > (I apply pioneers to those of us that were doing this seriously over >>> > ten years ago - before this list, and before there even was a hobby). >>> >>> Cool! I'm a pioneer, having collected these things for close to 25 years. > > Even longer than me. I started in May 1986 (yes, it'll soon be 21 years > of computer collecting here ;-)) Started playing with a PDP-11/40 in 1982 or 1983 in a computer club at that time. We also had some other very odd hardware that we tried to get working and had fun with. No software, but we had a few peripherials, so we had to write our own monitor just using the front panel. And of course we had all the drawings for the machine. And we were always trying to get someone to donate more stuff to us. And of course, my school at the time used a PDP-11/70, and at nights I was hanging out at the nearby university, where they had a whole bunch of DEC-10 machines on which I could get guest accounts. By 1986 I got my first two PDP-8 systems home. Almost wish I was back in those days. So much fun. And some really odd hardware was still around and possible to get your hands on... I wonder what happened to the VT05 terminals that we managed to get, and that I hacked to get rid of the margin bell... :-) >>> Well, I'm not sure I would call it collecting in the normal sense of the >>> word. I want to keep these machines running, useable, and in use. > > Just like me again. I keep on saying at HPCC that I am not an HP > calculator collector. Yes, I have old HP calculators (handhelds and > desktops), but I use them. I keep them operational, I do program them, I > do use them for calculators. And I don't try to obtain every cosmetic > version (that is, with differnt position of the serial number label, > etc), but I am interested in at least seeing versions with substantially > different internals (like the 2 very different logic boards that were used in the HP80 financial calculator). Still have my HP-41 around, and it's still my all time favourite. I must admit I have collcted some odd hardware for it over the years that I don't really use much though... But it's a rather hacked CX with modules built into it, and some nice stuff around. :-) > No, I am not intersted in having machines on the shelf in original > condition. I want to be able to sue them, investigate them, and so on. We think alike. :-) Johnny From bqt at softjar.se Wed Jan 31 02:38:24 2007 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:38:24 +0100 Subject: Null job light patterns? In-Reply-To: <200701310146.l0V1jIbc057126@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200701310146.l0V1jIbc057126@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45C05580.9090404@softjar.se> "J. Peterson" wrote: >>> I believe some of the -11 operating systems would do "interesting" things >>>with the console lights while they were idle. Could somebody describe the >>>patterns used? > > > I seem to recall RSX had a pattern something like > > 1000000000000001 > 1100000000000011 > 1110000000000111 > 1111000000001111 > 0111100000011110 > 0011110000111100 > 0001111001111000 > 0000111111110000 > ... > with the groups of four "on" lights moving through each other. Correct. > RSTS (c. > 1980) simply rotated half a dozen or so "on" lights. No no no. RSTS/E had a really cool pattern. They had two "snakes" running around across the data and address lights. That was a real trick. Appearantly they pulled that off by having the idle loop actually run in supervisor mode, which wasn't used by RSTS/E at the time, so they could control the address that way. Rumour have it that they had to drop that piece at RSTS/E V9 or if it was V10 when they finally started using supervisor mode more seriously in RSTS/E, but I haven't seen the RSTS/E idle loop since V8 so I couldn't really say. > Others have described > RT11's pattern. I never saw a light pattern on an '11 running Unix - > perhaps they were never idle? Was the concept of the idle-loop lightshow > unique to the PDP-11, or did other systems with data lights implement them? I can't remember any idle pattern when running 2.11BSD on an 11/70 anyway. The machine was idle sometimes, so maybe they just didn't implement anything fun. But I'm not entirely sure my memory is on par here. They might have had a simple rotating pattern on the panel. It's been a few years since I last fired up Unix on a PDP-11. Other machines have probably also done idle patterns, but in the PDP-11 rumour have it that the different OS groups were competing with each other on who could do the coolest idle pattern. I believe most agreed that RSTS/E won. Johnny From a_j_giusti at yahoo.com Wed Jan 31 10:17:48 2007 From: a_j_giusti at yahoo.com (Andrew Giusti) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 08:17:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fwd: Re: Selling Intel 8096/196 Emulators, Message-ID: <772532.8282.qm@web32109.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I sent this to your other email address, and haven't heard back from you. Are you still interested in selling the ICE? Please let me know your asking price. Regards, Andrew Giusti ____________________________________________________________________________________ 8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time with the Yahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#news From phil at ultimate.com Wed Jan 31 13:42:55 2007 From: phil at ultimate.com (Phil Budne) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:42:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: Foonly Message-ID: <200701311942.l0VJgtnQ028843@ultimate.com> Brad Parker wrote: > ... has anyone written an emulator for a VS60? > would it be hard? Doug Gwyn took my crappy VT11 simulation and extended it to within episilon of passing all the VS60 diagnostics. For a start see: http://www.ultimate.com/phil/xy/ Which shows screen shots of PDP-1 "munching squares" and "spacewar" on a simulated "Type 30" display, one of PDP-11 Lunar Lander... Sources are available thru my CVS server, tho I can't be sure I have checked in Doug's very latest (the vt11.c file in CVS is dated October 2005). We never managed to get it integrated into SIMH distributions, and I don't know off hand the last version of SIMH it did build with. The "display.tar.gz" on the web page is from October 2003(!), and I see there is a source kit named at http://www.ultimate.com/phil/xy/kit2.zip from February 2004. I did a rather "basic" (or "crude" to be less generous) graphics adaptation layer for X11 (polled) and Win32 (starts a seperate thread for message handling). John Dundas contributed an implementation of it for "Carbon" under OSX. There have been several other attempts to add graphics of various sorts to SIMH, including VAXstation style raster display support. John (Dundas) went on to build do PDP-11 front pannel blinklights und switches for SIMH, looks like it's available at: http://dundas-mac.caltech.edu/~dundas/retro/simh/index.html Which says it includes Doug's and my work (in V0.9 or later). But, back to the original topic, I think SUDS needs a PDP-10 (TOPS-20?) system behind it to do the real work. I used to pass the PDP-10 hardware design lab on the way to the Cafeteria at MR-1 (DEC Marlboro(ugh) building one, before the great three letterization that made it into MRO-1). I loved the "rose" program I saw sometimes on the displays, but I don't remember what it looked like anymore... Anyone have the code, or remember what it did? phil From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jan 31 17:09:08 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 15:09:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jan 31, 2007 05:43:28 PM Message-ID: <200701312309.l0VN98Fh006235@onyx.spiritone.com> > And the answer is.........Rob Willing, Jim's son, selling the PDP-11/70. > > -- > Will Suddenly I feel very old, at the realization that one of his sons is old enough to be selling something on eBay. This brings up another question, if his son is selling it, is Jim okay? Zane From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 31 17:09:11 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:09:11 -0500 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <11AF2310-EE6D-482C-845F-8A28BB517DA6@neurotica.com> On Jan 31, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Richard wrote: >> Umm, and how rare are VS60s these days? > > Two years of looking and coming up empty. Bummer. :-( I had a VS100 at one point, probably fifteen years ago, but I've no idea what happened to it. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 31 17:36:16 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:36:16 -0700 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:42:55 -0500. <200701311942.l0VJgtnQ028843@ultimate.com> Message-ID: In article <200701311942.l0VJgtnQ028843 at ultimate.com>, Phil Budne writes: > Brad Parker wrote: > > > ... has anyone written an emulator for a VS60? > > would it be hard? > > Doug Gwyn took my crappy VT11 simulation and extended it to within > episilon of passing all the VS60 diagnostics. Sweet! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 31 17:55:48 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:55:48 +0000 Subject: Foonly In-Reply-To: <11AF2310-EE6D-482C-845F-8A28BB517DA6@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 31/1/07 23:09, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > On Jan 31, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Richard wrote: >>> Umm, and how rare are VS60s these days? >> >> Two years of looking and coming up empty. > > Bummer. :-( I had a VS100 at one point, probably fifteen years > ago, but I've no idea what happened to it. I'm not even going to *begin* thinking about the things I've missed out on saving in the last 30 years, don't get me started; maybe this is the why I'm doing this today..... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 31 18:19:11 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 00:19:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Arty computers (was: Re: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS) In-Reply-To: from "Mark Tapley" at Jan 31, 7 10:00:06 am Message-ID: > (...or "artless" computers. TRS-80 model 1?) You know, for all I have a soft spot for the Model 1 (it was my first real computer), I am inclined to agree with you. There's nothing interesting about the design, neither electroically or mechanically. There's nothing particularly bad about it either (at least not compared to one of its contemporaries), but it's just not interesting... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 31 17:55:25 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:55:25 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701310452.XAA24114@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Jan 30, 7 11:50:57 pm Message-ID: > > > Obviously nobody _wants_ to damage their classic computers. > > No...but it can sure look like it, because it's entirely possible for > person A to want to do something that person B considers `damage'. > Consider an "I just want it to work" person for A and a "must preserve > the original machine" person for B.... This is very true. And it's not clear how far 'A' should go if the original parts are unavailable. Some people will only accept 'genuine' parts (for example TTL chips with 1820-xxxx numbers when repairing HP machines), some will take any identical part (any '7400' no mater who made it),. some will tkae anything that will work (so a 74LS00 would be OK in place of a 7400 in some circuits), and so on. Perosnally, I want the machines to work (non-working boxen have little interest to me other than as puzzles to work out what's wrong with them :-)), and will do anything that doesn't involave major [1] permanent changes. [1] I will drill extra mounting screw holes to fit, say, a transformer of different physical dimensions, but I won't cut large holes in the case or chage the electronic design. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 31 18:30:26 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 00:30:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VS60's In-Reply-To: <45C0E9F4.8030704@bitsavers.org> from "Al Kossow" at Jan 31, 7 11:11:48 am Message-ID: > > > Umm, and how rare are VS60s these days? > > Essentially unobtainium. They were expensive and rare 25 years ago. > > You'd have better luck finding a VT11 or GT40. At least I KNOW people > who have those. I've never known anyone in the 30+ years of dealing > with DEC stuff who had a VS60. I've seen on. Once. And no I didn't get it. It was part of a thing called a 'Gamma-11' which was a controller for some kind of medical imaging system. The hardware was an 11/34 with a VS60, a couple of RL drives (I was asked to sort out the RL11, which I did), and some special interface boards. Curiously, the latter were Qbus, connected up via a DW110B. There was a BA11-K box with a 4-slot Unibus backplane and a 4 slot Qbus backplane it it, linked by the DW11-B. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 31 18:10:02 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 00:10:02 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <45C0537B.90806@softjar.se> from "Johnny Billquist" at Jan 31, 7 09:29:47 am Message-ID: > Still have my HP-41 around, and it's still my all time favourite. I must I've forgotten how many HP41s I currently own (!). About the only major thing I am missing is the 'halfnut' HP41C (yes, it did exist, it's rare because the only way to get one was to send an HP41C in for repair and for HP to replace it with a new machine [1]). I even have an 'Bug 1' HP41C... [1] I am still suprised them made it. The difference between a C and a CV is, of course, the amount of user memory. and in the halfnut versions the RAM is combined with the ROM and the display drivers in a hybrid module. I would have thought it would have been more expensive for HP to do a speecial production run of 'C' hybrid modules to use in service-replacemetn calculators than just to send out a CV when an unrepairable C cam in for repair. And yes, it is a different hybrid module, it's not set by a link on the PCB or anything... Anyway, I like the HP41. I've got quite a few modules, an MLDL box, port extender, HPIL (and plotter, disk drive, tape drive, Thinkjet, etc), and so on. And technical documentation, etc... Mind you, I prefer the HPIL implementation on the HP71B (I have a few of those, the FOrth/Assembler ROM, HP41 translator ROM, the full IDS manuals, etc). > > No, I am not intersted in having machines on the shelf in original > > condition. I want to be able to sue them, investigate them, and so on. > > We think alike. :-) It can't have taken you this long to work that out :-).. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 31 18:25:25 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 00:25:25 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP tape drive PCBs In-Reply-To: <01C74536.46601140@mse-d03> from "M H Stein" at Jan 31, 7 12:49:38 pm Message-ID: > > Cleaning out more junk; found some HP boards, probably > from a tape drive; anybody want 'em for parts? Condition > unknown, one marked defective: > > 07970-62140 series 1144 > 07970-60020 series 1047 > 07970-60040 C-1024-42 > 07970-61021 B-1037-42 A quick comment..... HP assembly part numbers tend to be 2 groups of 5 dgits and the first group is the model number of the device that first used that assembly, padded out with 0's. For example, the data path board in an HP98x0 systm is an 09810-66514, since it was first used in the 9810 calculator. So your boards were used in an HP7970. and maybe other models besides -tony From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 31 19:11:31 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:11:31 -0600 Subject: Arty computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45C13E43.8080101@yahoo.co.uk> Adrian Graham wrote: > On 31/1/07 20:17, "Jules Richardson" wrote: > >>> Agreed, which leads me to NeXT cube as my nomination. Though the >>> mainboard design is not a particular standout, chassis design, >>> appearance, and software all appeal strongly to my aesthetics. >> Hmm, I'll throw the BeBox into the pot... and the de Grafe video presentation >> system (can't be many computers that used granite in their case construction >> :-) > > Didn't my post about the BeBox make it to the list? Curse my exim mail > server, what's it doing now...... Ooops - it may well have done. Having just done the hop across the pond again, I'm playing catch-up on the mailing list - so I'm sort of flicking through the couple-of-hundred-or-so messages that have appeared in the last few days and I may have just missed it :-) Re. BeBox, I hesitated about mentioning it from a styling point of view; architecturally it was definitely interesting, and in so far as I've studied ours the build quality seems good, but the case does kind of shout "PC look-a-like" somewhat :-) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jan 31 19:14:51 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:14:51 -0600 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45C13F0B.7030607@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: > Most companies (SGI) try too hard, cramming the design down your > throat while screaming in your ear (eye) LOOK AT ME! I wonder if it's a question of setting; if I'm stuck in a small room with a modern-ish SGI (or even an office with lots of furniture and colour around) then I know exactly what you mean - but I find their styling a lot more pleasing on the eye when in a large "clinical-looking" datacentre. From pechter at gmail.com Wed Jan 31 19:56:28 2007 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:56:28 -0500 Subject: VS60's In-Reply-To: References: <45C0E9F4.8030704@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Wonder it it was a Siemens box... They had similar scanners with RT11 controlling them. I think they later went to Sun Workstation stuff -- and still later (saw my wife scanned a week ago with a nucliear imager from them) to a WinXP front end. Bill On 1/31/07, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > > > Umm, and how rare are VS60s these days? > > > > Essentially unobtainium. They were expensive and rare 25 years ago. > > > > You'd have better luck finding a VT11 or GT40. At least I KNOW people > > who have those. I've never known anyone in the 30+ years of dealing > > with DEC stuff who had a VS60. > > I've seen on. Once. And no I didn't get it. > > It was part of a thing called a 'Gamma-11' which was a controller for > some kind of medical imaging system. The hardware was an 11/34 with a > VS60, a couple of RL drives (I was asked to sort out the RL11, which I > did), and some special interface boards. Curiously, the latter were Qbus, > connected up via a DW110B. There was a BA11-K box with a 4-slot Unibus > backplane and a 4 slot Qbus backplane it it, linked by the DW11-B. > > -tony > From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 31 20:38:25 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:38:25 -0700 Subject: Arty computers (was: Re: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:19:11 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > (...or "artless" computers. TRS-80 model 1?) > > You know, for all I have a soft spot for the Model 1 (it was my first > real computer), I am inclined to agree with you. There's nothing > interesting about the design, neither electroically or mechanically. > There's nothing particularly bad about it either (at least not compared > to one of its contemporaries), but it's just not interesting... I remember looking at one when it came out -- I had been using a PDP-11/70 running RSTS/E over 300 (sometimes 1800) baud lines. The terminals were either LA-36 or Beehive or Tektronix 4010 depending on what was available at the moment. We all went down to the Radio Shack to check out the Model I. The case felt like *very* cheap plastic, even for RS standards. The keyboard was clunky and while not as bad as the chiclet keyboard on the PET, it still wasn't something I wanted to type on. The lack of lower case was a major turn-off for me. The whole thing just felt dorky. Even now that the collecting bug has hit me, I don't miss this machine :) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 31 20:42:52 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:42:52 -0700 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:10:02 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > Still have my HP-41 around, and it's still my all time favourite. I must > > I've forgotten how many HP41s I currently own (!). About the only major > thing I am missing is the 'halfnut' HP41C [..] I still have my HP41C that I got in my sophomore year of high school when it was introduced. Aside from the occasional desire to have a graphing calculator, the 41C was the last calculator that I needed -- it served me well all through high school (physics, chemistry and math) and through college (EE degree with lots of extra chemistry). I still use it when I have a lot of written down numbers I need to manipulate. Usually around tax time! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 31 21:00:53 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:00:53 -0800 Subject: Arty computers (was: Re: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS) In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <45C0E765.20406.D5170E@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2007 at 19:38, Richard wrote: > We all went down to the Radio Shack to check out the Model I. The > case felt like *very* cheap plastic, even for RS standards. The > keyboard was clunky and while not as bad as the chiclet keyboard on > the PET, it still wasn't something I wanted to type on. The lack of > lower case was a major turn-off for me. The whole thing just felt > dorky. You have no idea HOW dorky the thing looked if you were into S-100 or Multibus systems big-time. As flimsy as the Altair was, the IMSAI box did set a direction. My last S-100 box was a no-blinkin' lights heavy-duty Integrand box with active bus termination and a boat anchor of a linear PSU. The manufacturer even included blueprints (as in real bluelines) with the boxes. Bill Godbout was no slouch either with his boxes. The TRS-80 looked, well, like something you'd buy at Radio Shack. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 31 21:05:19 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:05:19 -0800 Subject: HP tape drive PCBs In-Reply-To: References: <01C74536.46601140@mse-d03> from "M H Stein" at Jan 31, 7 12:49:38 pm, Message-ID: <45C0E86F.27628.D92635@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Feb 2007 at 0:25, Tony Duell wrote: > HP assembly part numbers tend to be 2 groups of 5 dgits and the first > group is the model number of the device that first used that assembly, > padded out with 0's. For example, the data path board in an HP98x0 systm > is an 09810-66514, since it was first used in the 9810 calculator. > > So your boards were used in an HP7970. and maybe other models besides I note that HP is now recycling its model numbers (I suppose that there weren't enough numbers and letters left). The HP 7970 is also the model number of a Pavillion desktop PeeCee. Sigh, Chuck From geneb at simpits.com Wed Jan 31 21:14:16 2007 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:14:16 -0800 Subject: Cromemco Unix? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45C15B08.4050703@simpits.com> Odd Cromemco system: http://cgi.ebay.com/CROMEMCO-SUPER-MICROCOMPUTER-VINTAGE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ56084QQihZ010QQitemZ200074941857QQrdZ1 I've never seen this machine before. I had no idea Cromemco was into Unix. g. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 31 21:24:15 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:24:15 -0700 Subject: Cromemco Unix? In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:14:16 -0800. <45C15B08.4050703@simpits.com> Message-ID: In article <45C15B08.4050703 at simpits.com>, Gene Buckle writes: > Odd Cromemco system: > > http://cgi.ebay.com/CROMEMCO-SUPER-MICROCOMPUTER-VINTAGE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQca tegoryZ56084QQihZ010QQitemZ200074941857QQrdZ1 > > I've never seen this machine before. I had no idea Cromemco was into Unix. List archives say: > ================================================================== > MANUFACTURER > MODEL CPU RAM OS TYPE > YR > ================================================================== > CS200 68010 1MB ?? MINI 86 -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From geneb at simpits.com Wed Jan 31 21:47:41 2007 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 19:47:41 -0800 Subject: Cromemco Unix? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45C162DD.9070907@simpits.com> Richard wrote: > In article <45C15B08.4050703 at simpits.com>, > Gene Buckle writes: > >> Odd Cromemco system: >> >> http://cgi.ebay.com/CROMEMCO-SUPER-MICROCOMPUTER-VINTAGE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQca > tegoryZ56084QQihZ010QQitemZ200074941857QQrdZ1 >> I've never seen this machine before. I had no idea Cromemco was into Unix. > > List archives say: > >> ================================================================== >> MANUFACTURER >> MODEL CPU RAM OS TYPE >> YR >> ================================================================== >> CS200 68010 1MB ?? MINI 86 > Thanks Richard! g. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 31 22:00:55 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:00:55 -0800 Subject: Cromemco Unix? In-Reply-To: <45C162DD.9070907@simpits.com> References: , <45C162DD.9070907@simpits.com> Message-ID: <45C0F577.13302.10C0EDA@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2007 at 19:47, Gene Buckle wrote: > Richard wrote: > > In article <45C15B08.4050703 at simpits.com>, > > Gene Buckle writes: > > > >> Odd Cromemco system: Didn't Cromemco have a *nix-look-kinda-similar called "Cromix"? From vp at drexel.edu Wed Jan 31 22:25:23 2007 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:25:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Book publishers Message-ID: <200702010425.l114PNmu027178@dune.cs.drexel.edu> >It's all in how and who you ask. [...] yes you are right. I was lucky to talk with the right person in BYTE when I asked for permission to put up on the www.series80.org web site the BYTE review of the HP-85. The person was very polite and helpful and I got the permission with a minimum of hassle. **vp From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 31 22:55:16 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:55:16 -0800 Subject: mounting replacement parts / was Re: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS References: Message-ID: <45C172B5.C7D0F4CA@cs.ubc.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > [1] I will drill extra mounting screw holes to fit, say, a transformer of > different physical dimensions, but I won't cut large holes in the case or > chage the electronic design. In situations such as this, and if the equipment is 'worth it', I attempt to make an 'adapter fitting', something that the replacement part will mount to and then itself mount in the old holes/position. Usually, but not necessarily always, this is feasible. In particular, I don't like drilling holes in steel chassis pieces, as one has then opened an edge in the plating where rust/corrosion can start (not such a big concern for aluminum). Of course, if an original replacement part turns up, perhaps from a too-far-gone piece of the the same equipment, the ill-fitting replacement and the adapter can be removed and you're back to 'original' state. From drb at msu.edu Wed Jan 31 23:45:16 2007 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:45:16 -0500 Subject: shipping help, New Jersey Message-ID: <200702010545.l115jHmF031917@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Is there anyone near Fairfield, New Jersey who would be willing to palletize three lowboy computer cabinets and several boxes of docs and media onto two pallets and optionally drive them to a nearby truck freight terminal? I'm willing to compensate for your time. Thanks, De From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 31 23:46:59 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 00:46:59 -0500 Subject: PDP-11/70 in Yates Center, KS In-Reply-To: <200701312309.l0VN98Fh006235@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200701312309.l0VN98Fh006235@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: > Suddenly I feel very old, at the realization that one of his sons is old > enough to be selling something on eBay. I have seen it with other friends. > This brings up another question, if his son is selling it, is Jim okay? I hope so - it would be nice to see if he got back in the game. -- Will From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 31 23:53:20 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:53:20 -0600 Subject: HP 2117f cables needed References: <000d01c7375c$acc24440$0100a8c0@screamer> <45C03E5B.8010509@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <023501c745c5$478d87c0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Tim wrote.... > I need a cable from my 2648A to one of my HP machines. Are you offering? Bob was ;) > I'm also looking for the MUX cable set and external RS-232 set, but Jay's > hording those. :-) I think I only have one spare mux cable set. But yes, I have a few spare of the mux distribution panels, and I am hoarding those :) By the way - haven't seen you on the list for a while. Glad you're still around! Jay From c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com Wed Jan 31 20:13:51 2007 From: c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com (Murray McCullough) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 02:13:51 +0000 Subject: Jules Richardson on arty computers Message-ID: I quite agree some classic computers have an internal beauty but some have an external beauty that is almost art-like. My vote goes to the Coleco ADAM as it's beauty lies both in its internal/external construction. What is deeper than that I'm not sure...! Happy computing! Murray :) From geoffr at zipcon.com Wed Jan 31 21:53:00 2007 From: geoffr at zipcon.com (geoffr at zipcon.com) Date: 31 Jan 2007 19:53:00 -0800 Subject: Cromemco Unix? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1170301980.45c1641cc418c@wwwmail.zipcon.net> doesn't it run CromIX? (which IIRC is a unix alike OS)