> On the other hand, I had a garage sale last weekend. Not one person
> interested in the piles of Apple, Commodore, Atari stuff. I mean, if you
> guys aren't going to garage sales to buy stuff, you're missing a lot of
> deals. Most of the stuff at the Goodwill has an old garage sale sticker
> on it.
I don't see many garage sales around here. Sometimes I get to radio
rallies (hamfests, I think is the US term). But there is a car boot sale
most Sunday mornings in the summer where I call in on the way home from
church. Sometimes there is good stuff; sometimes there is awful stuff;
last Sunday I saw (in the way of computers) a late model Commodore 64
(which I already have) without a price tag, and next to it a card
advertising a Commodore PET (model unspecified) + disk drive + lots of
disks, working but needs new cable (also unspecified) hence "low" price of
L30 [delete] [delete] 25.
Since I have five PETs already, I didn't bite. But even if it's a fat 40
(which I don't have yet) I'd be reluctant to pay as much as L25 (over $40)
even in full working order, and certainly not without the disk drive cable
(replacement easily obtainable _only_ on the 8032SK AFAIK).
Still, enough moaning. I agree, this sort of sale is always worth a visit
- you never know what interesting little goodies you might find there...
Philip.
Does anyone know where Commodore was actually started? I've seen the
Bronx and Toronto given as the site of the first Commodore shop, but the
Bronx references have been made more recently. Apparently the official
Commodore history at the World of Commodore show in Toronto (forget
which year - 10th anniversary of the show I think, so 1993?) had a picture
of the first little Commodore shop... in Toronto.
Also, does anyone know where Commodore had production facilities in
Canada? I have a VIC-20 with "Made in Canada" stamped on it, and I didn't
realize that Commodore actually _made_ computers here.
As another note of interest, both of my "Made in U.S.A." VIC-20s have
serial numbers starting with "P". The "Made in Canada" VIC has "CC"
instead. Did the letters record what plant the machine was manufactured
or assembled in? CC = Canadian plant, P = Philadelphia or something?
Heck, while I'm at it, does anyone know the exact date (or even the exact
year) that Commodore purchased MOS Technology? I figured it would've been
1976, but I've seen documents referenced as from "Commodore/MOS
Technology, Norristown, PA, 1975".
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
Just on the off chance that there's a different mix of people here now
than when I first enquired some months ago...
Does anyone here have disk drives, CP/M module, or documentation
(especially the tech manual) for the Laser 3000 computer from Video
Technology?
How about the RS232 adapter, or the RGB cable?
Computer Direct also sold these as the "Aplus 3000" (they used a marker to
cover over the "Laser 3000" nameplate for the picture in the ad).
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
One final word on the Panasonic hand-helds...
I should have mentioned that in a couple months when the remaining units
are liberated, they will be up for grabs. I don't want to get anyone's
hopes up, but Mike mentioned that he would see if we could just get them
for free if we pick up the shipping from Canada, since the company didn't
seem interested in making a buck on them anyway. When the time arrives
I'll bring it up.
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Does anyone have a Commodore Plus/4 video cable for sale or trade?
Please e-mail me directly if you do. Thanks.
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Message text written by Sam:
>I should have mentioned that in a couple months when the remaining units
are liberated, they will be up for grabs.<
A suggestion. Why don't you start with the existing list of people who
were willing to pay for the units, and allocate one to each. If there
aren't enough to go around, then delete names in some random manner. If
there are units left over, then take the list of folks who requested more
than one and allocate them to those folks in some sort of random manner,
and so on.
Anybody will take a "freebie", but the folks who committed to make this
deal work ought to have the first shot at them. I'm just sorry the deal
didn't work out as anticipated. And by the way-- if these aren't
new-in-the-box units, I assume they won't be coming with an instruction
manual?
Gil Parrish
107765.1161(a)compuserve.com
Or otherwise stated: What to do when the cost of reviving a rescued
computer is as much as buying one of the same model?
To explain, I recently rescued a Mac+ (2.5/40) which was being thrown
out by my employer. When I got it, it would give intermittant Sad Mac
errors. No problem, I figure I can replace the RAM with some surplus
PC SIMMs. This fixes the Sad Macs, but after it heats up it dies with
an "Address Error" bomb. Some board switching points to the motherboard
(more specifically, the ROMs) as being the fault.
Checking around, I see that the most common price for a Mac+ system
board is $15 + shipping. As a last check, I call Intragate
(intramac(a)aol.com), who has had good prices in the past, to find out
their price. It turns our that they won't even quote me a price for
the MB as they can get me an entire Mac+ system for $20.
This has really left me in a quandry as to what to do. I really don't
want to buy *another* one as I already have a working Mac Plus. Besides,
what would I then do with *this one*? I suppose I could keep it for
parts, but that seems a bit of a waste too.
Any suggestions? Anyone with a spare set of Mac+ ROMs?
Thanks in advance... <<<John>>>
P.S. Anybody also know of a source for a LaserWriter Plus logic board, too?
<Would a VS3100/30 work for you? I don't know how you would then
<install on the other machines, though (maybe you know more about
<Ultrix than I do. You're guaranteed to know at least as much as I
<do :-) ).
<
If you have a system running the CD then you can build a system to disk and
netboot and netcopy the system to other machines. Vaxes will mopboot other
vaxes.
Allison
For those interested in the Commodore VIC-20...
For the last two years, I have been working on making a recompilable version
of the VIC-20 Kernel ROM. I started from a scan that I made of a crappy
dot-matrix print-out and have a version that compiles with no errors.
From this, I developed an assembler variable equates "include" file for all
of the VIC-20 RAM and ROM locations. It's a little messy because I preserved
the original address and op-code info to match against the assembler listing.
So, you have to import it into Excel to strip that info out, save it as text,
do some minor double-"double-quote" fixups and re-save it. I have also proven
to myself that the compiland is the same as the ROM image by using a simple
BASIC program to byte-compare the two files (my ROM image and a ROM image from
the Finland Commodore ftp site).
There are two versions of the "inc" file. One for recompiling the Kernel and
one for ML program writers (to avoid double variable declarations).
Right now, I'm working on documenting the code as best as I can. When that's
done (I'm up to location $f400), I'll post it and the "inc" files. I would
then look for you guys/gals to peer-review it and give me your comments. The
finished product can go into our archive. Then, I'll probably work on the
BASIC ROM.
And so it goes...
------------------------
Rich Cini/WUGNET
- ClubWin Charter Member (6)
- MCPS Windows 95/Networking
<From: "Lane, Bruce A" <B.Lane(a)PSS.Boeing.com>
< Gad, I'm beginning to get a REALLY good idea of what searching for
<tough-to-find's can be like!
<
< Here's the story. I have several MicroVAX II's. I need a way -- ANY
<way! -- to boot from a CD-ROM on one or all of them.
< OR (4): A later model of VAXen (maybe a 3500, 4000, or 5000 series)
<that is designed to accomodate SCSI from the get-go, and can boot from a
<CD-ROM.
Or a 3100, or vs2000 they have SCSI.
<As a last-gasp possibility, I do have a functional TK30 tape drive. Any
<chance that, if I copy the Ultrix distribution CD to a CompacTape II
<cartridge, it would be bootable by the MicroVAX?
Not likely if it's a copy. Though you likely can build a tape from the
copy.
<Fellow DEC'ers, I'm getting desperate. Please help me out if you can!
<I've got at least three systems sitting idle and gathering dust because
<I can't boot a CD on them at the moment.
Join the crowd. Of all my time in computers starting back with the PDP-8s
I've had the problem of I have W and the machine can read Y. Right now my
vaxen know only rx50, rx33, or tk50. My PC knows none of those and the
PDP-11 has those and RL02.
allison
