At 08:45 AM 11/19/97 +0000, you wrote:
>Found on comp.sys.ti
>
>I have a couple TI99/4As, an expansion box with a disk drive and other
>stuff (very heavy), another disk drive, and some carts that a coworker
>was going to throw away. I live in Gilroy, CA and work in San Jose,
>CA. Anyone interested?
If only I had some way to get to the south bay on a weekday (or time on a
weekend)... Oh well, surely someone will save this...?
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)ricochet.net that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 11:40 AM 11/19/97 -0600, you wrote:
>> >Heck, if I was in somebody else's house I'd probably have my trusty
>> >Leatherman with me.
> ^^^^^^^^^^
>Well, I know it's a LART of some kind... What's a leatherman exactly?
One of the Village People... 8^)
Sorry -- couldn't resist. (Saw them in concert a year or so ago.) Anyway,
a Leatherman is a multi-tool -- pliers with various blades, saws,
screwdrivers, etc that fold into the handle. Whole thing folds up into an
innocuos little rectangle. Kind of a modern-day swiss-army knife.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)ricochet.net that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
> It's going as long as we have newbies comes in, even happens on other
> newsgroups and in our notes on vax at my college. Sheesh!
You mean, there's still another educational institution that uses VAX
Notes as a major means of mass communication?
What's your mailer?
--
Ben Coakley http://www.math.grin.edu/~coakley coakley(a)ac.grin.edu
Station Manager, KDIC 88.5 FM CBEL: Xavier OH
It is good to rock. It is very good to rock wearing a big ass pumpkin on your
head. It is very, very good if that pumpkin is on fire. --Jessica Stern
I'm quite happy with the ten-year-plus-flexibility definition,
as described by Bill Whitson. Remember the sign-on message from
when you first subscribed? (Maybe it changes from time to time?
I'll include the one I got at the end of this.)
He specifically states that the main intent of the ten-year limit
is to avoid "discussion of technical problems with the standard PCs
and Macs, other than the really old stuff". Perfect. No WinDoze
d00dz begging for warez, but talk about fixing up the older critters
is explicitly 100% in-bounds. By the "not-heavy-handed" clause,
talk about the unusual not-yet-ten-year-old machine is okay too.
Unless you are insisting on discussing current PCs and Macs, or
want to be more restrictive, there is nothing that needs adjusting.
(I personally wouldn't mind ruling out all PC/Mac talk, but that's
just me, and I wouldn't actively push for that.)
Can we please drop this now?
Bill.
] NAQ (Never Asked Questions) 0.1
]
] What is it?
]
] This list is for the discussion of Classic Computers -
] primarily for those people who collect and restore
] old machines. It is brand new - no subscribers yet
] so sign up. The collection and restoration of computers
] is becoming a big enough hobby that I felt a need for
] a place to talk about it.
]
] What is a classic computer?
]
] Well that's hard to say but since I created the list I'll
] do it anyway. A classic computer is a machine that has not
] been produced for 10 years or more. It's an arbitrary
] definition but at least uncomplicated.
]
] What are the guidelines?
]
] The list is designed for discussion of collecting, restoring,
] and maintaining old computers. I'm not going to be heavy
] handed with restricting discussion. I'd just like it to be
] clear that the list is not the proper place for discussion
] of technical problems with the standard PCs and Macs (other
] than the really old stuff). Anyone can lurk - if you're
] going to post, just use your own good judgement.
]
] This IS NOT and will NEVER BE a list for discussion of "which
] computer is best?" and anyone who posts the ubiquitous "why
] don't you just go buy a PC you moron" will be immediately
] unsubbed.
]
] Beyond this - have fun! That what keeps us going with these
] old machines.
Are there any archaeologists in the house? Not being one myself,
I wouldn't be too surprised if some archaeological treasures had
been lost forever in the process of some enthusiastic 18th-century
archaeologist applying 18th-century state-of-the-art technology
to the study of some artifact. Maybe some singular fossil got
dissolved in acid in an attempt to determine its chemical
composition, where we could now pop the thing under an electron
microscope and learn about its cell-structure. (Of course, maybe
our electron microscope would do some damage that would prevent
later generations from bringing that thing back to life! Who
knows?) Had that guy just left the thing alone a couple centuries
ago, we might now be able to extract much more knowledge from it.
And/or, if we leave it alone now, it might be much more valuable
after a couple more centuries.
So, which will be more valuable a couple centuries down the road,
another set of used floppies plus easily-readable copies of the
software that was on them, or decayed but pristine floppies? I
think I know which will be rarer. And maybe, just maybe they'll
be able to read them even after the oxide coating has become so
much dust. (Anyone care to speculate on the technology to do that?)
I have the impression that museums generally collect things with
the goal of having them available as needed to extract knowledge
>from them; scientists often take samples, even destructively when
the utility is great. Are we in this group yet? Is there really
any knowledge to be gained from these, that is otherwise unavailable?
If we are pretending to be museums, should we have the same goals?
Personally, I am not a museum; there are only a handful of systems
I am interested in, and I want to keep them running, and even make
new hardware/software for them. But I might think twice about that
if I got a never-used never-even-opened system dropped in my lap.
Maybe I'd contact a real museum.
Enough talk. Back to hacking.
Cheers,
Bill.
At 12:41 11/19/97 +0000, ARD wrote:
>> where I'm at someone's house for dinner, and they say "Oh, BTW, my
>> computer's not working," and I didn't bring a screwdriver and they don't
>> own a #2 Phillips.
>
>And just what are you going to do when you've pulled the cover? Unless
>it's just a board/cable that needs reseating you're going to need some
>test equipment, a soldering iron, etc., anyway. I have _never_ been anywhere
>with that sort of equipment and not had a screwdriver with me.
>
>Heck, if I was in somebody else's house I'd probably have my trusty
>Leatherman with me.
Certainly I take your point, but the context here is one of unrivaled
banality. Your "just a board/cable that needs reseating" covers about 90%
of the "emergencies" of this type that come anywhere near me. Both 5.25
floppies and MFM hard disks have connectors that loosen spontaneously. IDE
"controllers" pop out of their sockets, for some reason. And there was
always the lady who thought her computer "didn't work" because the
connector to the hard disk LED had popped off -- even though that was all
that was wrong.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
At 12:50 AM 11/19/97 GMT, you wrote:
>successful. I agree with Jeff in that the thing that makes most of
>the systems "special" to me is the fact that not everybody could just
>go down to the local Best Buy/Circuit City/Sears store, buy one, plug
>it in, and use it. It took some determination, some ingenuity, and a
I bought my Atari 600XL from Sears, and I would have to say that not
everybody at the time could have put that to use.
btw, the HP3000 has been produced for, what, 20+ years continuously, and
some of the various models are extremely collectible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)ricochet.net that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 08:50 PM 11/17/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Personally I think some of the cooliest designs are the 68k based Atari's.
>The perfect example is my Atari TT030. Couple the case design with TOS,
I had forgotten about the TT... Definitely cool. Don't have one, though.
Didn't they open up pretty easily?
>the ROM based windowed OS, and you've got a cool design. The only down
>sides are TOS's single task nature, and the mouse again.
But multi-tasking is available as an add-on.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)ricochet.net that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
