On Sat, 1 Nov 1997 12:43:58 -0500 (EST), kstumpf(a)unusual.on.ca
remarked:
> How many computer collectors does it take to change a light bulb?
> Forty.
^^^^^
Shouldn't that really be a power of two, or maybe some bizarre
permutation of 12, 16, 18, or 36?
And, of course, the punch line:
> One to change the light bulb and thirty-nine to chat about how good
> the old one was.
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA |
| mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | |
| http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum/ | ICBM: N42:21 W71:46 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
I wouldn't be so sure about the military part... their MIS seems to either
have gone to school and got a degree in dentistry or learned on the
Eniac.... corporate will always be faster than military. There is no
"secret operations" that deal with these areas of computers. But maybe a
company like Microsoft or maybe IBM had someone design something
faster..... we'll be at 15ns soon enough anyway. We've gone from 70ns in
late 94 to only 45ns today, and SRAM has become so darn fast.... by the
way, does anyone know about overclocking an 8088 (the 8mhz variety), by
NEC, not Intel?
Hope that this input helps,
Tim D. Hotze
----------
From: jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Help Identifying RAM Chips
Date: Monday, November 03, 1997 3:26 AM
> I disagree with both of you. 300ns is more like the 70's to me. Even
the
> 1982 IBM PC XT had 200ns RAM. A year later adding a third to that figure
> makes no since. But 300ns might be right; as I would KILL for 30ns RAM
in
> a Pentium 233!!!! Even the fastest EDO RAM (Slightly outdated, but still
> recent) is at 50ns; so 30ns makes ZERO sense.
>
Correct, the number 1 is 64k and I bet that is for video use i think
because: I have old machines like this designs usually uses big 24
dip static memory or dynamic 64k in 4 bits form maybe. 300 Could be
static memory more likely than dynamic type which might be 8k x
8bit in a 24 or 26 pin fat package and mostly likely found in video
section. Oh yeah, I'm very sure that was normal configuration for
that CGA video type for that time in 1983's, that should have 2 of
them to make 16k.
Other last 3 chips, they're all 256k x 1bit at 150ns. Note! Change
all 9 chips in a bank to keep reliablity which you might have
experienced having problems suppose if you had just did one chip...
150ns could be 8mhz because 4.77mhz takes exactly 210ns per
instruction in 8088 so IBM used 200ns chips.
Oh, Tim, I would be surprised if military accidently released 15ns in
early 1980's Oh no! :) NOT! The fastest current drams of any kind
was 45ns and mostly used in video cards for no reason where 60ns
would do well...static chips did not hit 30ns mark for nearly 7 years
later, I think.
Troll the hardware guy.
> ----------
> From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: Help Identifying RAM Chips
> Date: Monday, November 03, 1997 5:35 AM
>
> > Your chip #1 is a 64k chip speed of 30ns, chips 2&3 are 256k at 150ns
> speed.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Big nip to save bandwidth...
Yes right, Tim.
At 10.36 04/11/97 +0000, you wrote:
>Which reminds me. Which word lengths have been used by (binary) computers?
>Off the top of my head :
>
>4 (Intel 4004, etc)
>8 (Far too many to list)
>12 (PDP8, PDP12, etc)
..omissis...
>What others?
9 (Texas 99/4, 990/10, TMS 9900)
86 (Intel Docet again)
Riccardo
At 06:13 PM 11/3/97 +0300, you wrote:
>I wouldn't be so sure about the military part... their MIS seems to either
>have gone to school and got a degree in dentistry or learned on the
>Eniac.... corporate will always be faster than military. There is no
>"secret operations" that deal with these areas of computers. But maybe a
Wrong. For a while (in the early 90's) I subscribed to a magazine called
Defense Electronics. The military had things like 50ns RAM available then.
They are way ahead in many areas; they can afford to (or used to be able to,
anyway) throw money at things, and they often got first dibs.
I mean, if you had developed a spiffy new toilet seat, and were going to
sell it for $50 each, but the military guys showed up and said "we'll buy
10,000 of them for $10,000 each, but you can't tell anyone about them", what
would you do?
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
e.tedeschi wrote:
>Yes, the darker colour +2 is really a +2a which Amstrad decided to make
>incompatible with the other Spectrum extensions.
Is his why some (but not all) of my old spectrum 48k software will not load
on this one?
Regards
Pete
#include <std_disclaimer>
> > > Absolutely. The wire in question is between pins CA1 and CB1 on the _same_
> > > slot - the slot the control cart of the UDA50 is in. It's a little loop of
> > > wire, and is quite difficult to find the first time.
> >
> > Okay... I'll give it a shot! But if I foul up, I'm stuck - I don't have
> > a wirewrap tool.
>
> You can always solder a jumper back in place.
Oh, come on, Tony, _please!_
Individual socket pins from various types of connector (including D I
think) fit quite well over these backplane pins. Crimp or solder a
short length of wire to two of these and hey presto! A removable NPG
jumper. NB take care that these don't stick out so far as to foul on
the case...
Philip.
I got the 34, and I just located a UDA50 for it, known working.
Cost me $30.
I plugged it in, and connected the RA81. It's cabled like this:
+----+ +-----+
|1134| | RA81|
+----+ +----|+
1 /-----3/
| |
|----****
| |
+2+
Cable 1 is the cable from the UDA50.
Cable 2 is a normal SDI cable
Cable 3 is attached to the RA81
**** is a 4-port SDI bulkhead plug. I have the UDA going in port 1, the
patch going from port 1 to port 3, and the RA on port 3.
I boot RT11SJ from a RX02 (Because I don't have a DU bootstrap)
and tell it "boot du0:"
The machine sits there. If I look, 2 led's come on the 2nd (terminator
side) uda board, the first 2 closest to the PS. They strobe normally when
the machine starts. They stay that way. If I halt the CPU, the BUS ERR
light comes on. Did I foul up the cabling, or is the UDA or drive toast,
or what?
<The Intel 8088 was 8 bits, the 8086 16; the 80x87, as I recall, are 80
<bits internally (another one for your list, Tony, if coprocessors
Generally there are several parameters instruction word size, largest data
word size, internal bus size and external bus size. Some are archtectually
decided.
The 8088 was 16 bit. What you have is instruction size (8bit!), register
size(16bit) and databus size(8 or 16). the 8088 and 8086 are the identical
processor save for the data bus is 8bits on the 8088 as small systems
economy vs speed measure. The processor assembles the bytes as needed
internally. Advanatage of an 8bit bus is cost and the expense of some
speed. Motorola did that with the 6800x, it was internally 32bit, but
available as 8/16 bit bus and sold as a 16 bit processor.
<I believe that there are some CPU chips now with 64-bit internal buses.
<Any advance on 64?
Alpha early was external 64bit and later external 128bit but the register
structure is 64bit.
<At the other end, do the processors in the AMT DAP count as 1-bit
<machines? Or are they bit-slices of a 32 bit machine? Or a 1024 bit
<machine?
Unknown here.
Allison
< 9 (Texas 99/4, 990/10, TMS 9900)
the ti machines were all 16bit.
< 86 (Intel Docet again)
???? Intel has done 2(bitslice), 4, 8, 16, and 32.
1bit Moto 14500 (actually 1bit data and 4 bit control word)
4bit ti1000, NEC uCOM4, NEC 75xx series, 4004, 4040 all had 4 bit data
paths but the instruction words were 8bit!
22bit Perkin Elmur
60bit CDC
64bit DEC Alpha
Allison
In the past I have seen a _little_ discussion here about how some
companies, such as Tandy (with their CoCo), and other companies should
re-release their old 8-bit computers targeted towards the current kids
community... similar to what v-tech does with their kids computers.
I also heard a comment recently that said there is no way Apple computers
would ever license someone else to produce their computers... I beleive
the discussion was regarding the black case Apples.
Anyway, I recently saw in Christmas Catalog that Tiger Computing is
selling a computer, that takes cartridges only, for about $200. You hook
it to your tv, and most of the available software is original Apple titles
by MECC, a popular Apple educational software developer. It even says in
the description that this little lap-top size unit is licensed from Apple,
and based on Apple //e technology!
Even more, you can buy a cheap 14.4 modem cartridge that allows internet
access. Does anyone have one of these Tigers? Just curious.
Also, still looking for a Laser 50 (Sam Ismail? Bill? etc., etc., and am
curious for more information on my Laser 310 I just picked up. Maybe a
trade straight across?
Well, my $.02 worth,
CORD
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|| Classic computer software and hardware collector ||
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