test-drb January 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

145 participants
831 discussions

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 12:05 PM 1/3/98 -0800, Lynn & Mike wrote: >> Two thousand yeare since Bethlehem and still we hear the lie, >> that after years of hopes and fears the best part's when we die. > >Yup, that's what I used to think. I felt sorry for all those poor [...] >have an open mind, all we can do is try) -- will become His followers. This is *definitely* not the list for this nonsense. (Still, I'll note that if you believe that stuff, you shouldn't believe in computers, let alone use them. If you want to continue this off-list, feel free to drop me a private note.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/

26 years, 11 months

operating systems

by higginbo＠netpath.net

The biggest chunk of my collection are games that I no longer have boxes for, etc. Let alone original disks or license agreements. Heck, I think even most of the companies are out of business by now. Anyone remember Datasoft? Epyx? At 06:39 AM 1/6/98 +0300, you wrote: >OK... I've got a Cyrix 200, so give me your games. ;-) (Implying that you >give me the listences, without them "installed" on any other machine) Or, >if you've got some sharware.... -John Higginbotham- -limbo.netpath.net-

26 years, 11 months

operating systems

by photze＠batelco.com.bh

OK... I've got a Cyrix 200, so give me your games. ;-) (Implying that you give me the listences, without them "installed" on any other machine) Or, if you've got some sharware.... -----Original Message----- From: John Higginbotham <higginbo(a)netpath.net> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Monday, January 05, 1998 9:08 PM Subject: Re: operating systems >At 08:48 AM 1/5/98 -0600, you wrote: > >>Two, that today's computers run old software too quickly - that doesn't >>sound like archaic software to me, if it's running directly on today's >>machines and OSes. > >Try loading up Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom! on a Cyrix 200 and see >how well it plays. Same goes for Frogger. :) They run blindingly fast, >making them utterly worthless unless you use one of those slowdown utils, >but most of those only run right on 486s. > > Three, that ancient games don't "hurt" today's >>software market. Doing what? > >Doing what? Being available for "free" (illegally) out there for people to >get to them. The fact that people are still playing them doesn't affect >today's game market at all. It's a whole different ballpark out there these >days. > >>so ... so, you say they should give up on them? A tenth of something is >>still something. > >But repackaging the games and shipping them would up the price to at least >$10.00 a piece, and you would have to come up with a cheap way to make sure >the games ran at original speed on all systems, another few bucks for R&D >right there, so you'll probably end up spending $50.00 for a compilation CD >with maybe 10 games on it, and nothing else. (Can you say "Roberta Williams >Sierra Compilation"?) > >Why not release the games as shareware, with no set ammount defined? People >could pay what the game is worth to them. I think Maxis did that with the >original SimCity. > >>Don't get me wrong and think I'm just flaming you... I agree, I wish > >Oh, not at all. I expected alot more flak from people when I started this >thread, but was suprised at how well the members of the list are taking it. >(so far) > > >- John Higginbotham >- limbo.netpath.net >

26 years, 11 months

Wives and hobbies (was: UNIX questions?)

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

First off, this goes for husbands too, since I'm sure there are women on this list (but I don't pay much attention to irrelevancies like that). At 07:01 PM 1/4/98 -0600, you wrote: >No no no. My wife, who is not at all into computers (still seems to pick >up stuff fast and I don't have to tell her how to do something more than >once usually), LOVES my hobby of collecting computers. [...] >Plus, she knows I won't give her a hard time about collecting Barbies, >books and pets...because she's so understanding about my hobby. Here's a tip: even cheaper than finding an SO with a hobby (I know what Barbies and books can go for!) find a *good*, dedicated teacher. You'll have evenings and weekends all to yourself while he/she does homework, does lesson plans, etc. Of course, there are downsides -- like getting up at 6am to drive her to school to drop off the 12page substitute teacher plans she stayed up all night doing (and to do an hours' worth of work) when she's too sick too go to school. 8^) Of course, if you want understanding *and* free time, find a teacher who collects something. That gets expensive though. (Donald Duck stuff can be even more expensive than Barbies, and there's more of it!) 8^) --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/

26 years, 11 months

Frank Knows his stuff was Re: What is this HP 9000/220?

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 11:52 PM 1/2/98 -0800, you wrote: >some of the configuration tools) that you will be using an HP terminal >that supports block mode, which (approximately) lets the application Different commands from vt100 block mode of course. Most terminal emulators *don't* include HP terminal emulation. (I've got Walker Richer & Quinn's Reflections, so who cares. Though, there was a program back in the late 80's for the Atari ST that featured HP emulation; wish I'd bought a copy then!) >> What is the shell like? > >The MPE command interpreter...well, I can't speak for the MPE/iX CI. >I haven't used it enough. MPE/iX (newer version for the new CPU models) is pretty much the same as good old MPE, but with some of the extensions MPEX thought up tacked on. >Well, you get EDIT/3000, which is a line-oriented editor that is >suitable for use on all manner of terminals, even the printing ones. Actually, EDIT/3000 isn't suitable for much at all. 8^) Much like MS-DOS's EDLIN. >(e.g. Robelle's QEDIT, which lots of 3000 folks swear by). Some of us actually say our daily prayers to the Robelle Gods. Probably my favorite aspect of MPE is file equations. You can define a name and point it to just about anything, adding on a lot of control and options and stuff. For example, you could say: File Fred = Barney07.bed.rock;rec=-80,,f,ascii;disc=10000 which would mean that whenever you referenced fred (or *fred sometimes) the computer would actually use the file Barney07 in the Bed group of the Rock account (the file structure is a little wierd) and it would have an 80-byte, fixed length, ASCII (not binary) record and a limit of 10000 records in the file. You can also point to printers: File laser;dev=141,1,3 which would mean that "laser" would refer to the device on port 141, have an output priority of 1 (very low) and have 3 copies. (Note: I may have my syntax a little fouled up; that's why I use the online help a lot.) You can even reference yourself: File Me=$StdList;rec=-132,,f,ascii;nocctl which means Me is my stdlist (my screen) which has a 132 byte record (fixed-length, ascii) and doesn't use carriage control. Of course, if you're feeling really non-productive, you can do: File Output = $null 8^) --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/

26 years, 11 months

Frank Knows his stuff was Re: What is this HP 9000/220?

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 09:51 PM 1/2/98 PST, you wrote: >I am brimming with curiosity about the MPE OS: What is it like? > Frank is probably better off answering this than I, but... MPE is a great OS. Been around since the mid-70's, I believe. The HP3000 series of computers is (I think) somewhat comparable to the DEC PDP series. Two things you simply shouldn't be without on a 3000: Qedit and MPEX. Qedit is an incredible editor while MPEX extends the capabilities of the OS. Lots of third party support, very popular in the business side of things (accounting depts., etc.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/

26 years, 11 months

colorizing is evil

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 10:45 PM 1/2/98 +0000, you wrote: >> >get all those pretty colors... (Thank goodness *somebody*'s coloring all >> >those boring old black and white movies! 8^) >> >Oh, coloring those b/w shows and movies ruined it because quality and >appearance looked offish to me. The original NTSC b/w is what is >original format designed for TV's in old days and it looked better Just for the record... That was a *joke* about colorizing movies! It should be illegal, punishable by drawing & quarterign. Movies made in b&w (well, good ones, anyway) made use of the b&w; colorizing kills a lot of what the director worked so hard for. Just did't want anyone thinking I actually *liked* colorized movies... 8^) --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/

26 years, 11 months

Linux???? is it real

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<1. 386 or 486 box with AMI (American Megatrends) BIOS. I've had some Exactly a AMI 386 is what I have. <2. RAM is relatively unimportant BUT if you do not have more than 4 me <you will need to go through a procedure to turn on your swap space BEFO <running the install or it will crash and die. 8meg of ram <3. Do NOT try doing the Linux running out of an MS-DOS directory on yo <first install. I've NEVER done this nor do I suspect it's that pleasan Not being done. <4. Use IDE hard drives until you know enough about doing installs. Th <you can use SCSI more effectively. I was given today a 420meg IDE drive to replace the EDSI unit I had. <5. If your BIOS can deal with the drive, Linux can too...with CERTAIN <exceptions...on some BIOSs you're given the choice of using Normal, Lar <or LBA for block addressing. Sometimes you have to try different <settings to get a Linux install to go. Linux may complain if it thinks <the drive has more than 1024 cylinders but the complaint can, <essentially, be ignored these days. This is experience speaking. 826/16/63 vanilla even to dos! <6. Be prepared to turn off caches...internal and external in the BIOS. <Sometimes, especially on newer kernels like Slackware 3.0, you can't ge <the boot floppy to go because it'll crash out and give you stack dump <type information. Try turning off first the external cache and then th <internal cache if that doesn't work. Not all caches are created equal I'm not getting stackdumps. I'm getting all mannor of boot errors related to the filesystem mountability or RW/RO status. <7. Create TWO partitions with fdisk...the sequence looks like this... I have one bootable 389mb linux and the other 16mb swap. <8. If it's formatting the partitions and freaks out complaining that i <can't write inodes or superblocks and gives you a long list of these <complaints...and you have a drive over 2 gigs in size try creating 3 <partitions...the first two of equal size totalling most of the drive an <the last being your swap. Or try a different block addressibility type <in the BIOS. Not a problem I get fully through the setup. <9. There are usually different boot disk types...IDE only, IDE/SCSI, <SCSI only. Make sure you use the IDE only. It's the easiest. IDE is all I have other than floppy. <10. If you want to install off cdrom and the install won't recognize t <drive...wait for the boot prompt when you boot up and type install <hdX=cdrom where X is a,b,c or d which correspond to what you're used to <as Drive C:, D:, E: or F: If it's an IDE-ATAPI type CD-ROM, it should CDrom is not installed, if it were it's a phillips cm205 (unsupported) and not IDE-atapi. the CDrom is in another box (486powered) and the floppies were made from there. <Finally, if someone REALLY REALLY wants to load Linux on a system and i <willing to follow my instructions, be patient with me, realize that I <have a family to support and will send me some trinket in return (S-100 <cards, Shugart SA-400 drives, etc all work) AND are willing to call ME <long-distance I can probably help you out. Email is probably easier. Humm sa400? I may have one in the pile fairly unused. The problem is nothing works as advertized for a vanilla install. This box is as vanilla as they come. AMI 386DX/33, 128k cache, 8mb ram, connor 420mb IDE, 3.5" 1.44 floppy, serial mouse on com1: modem at com2:, DECPA(DE100) NI, TRIDENT 512k SVGA. Runs dos/win3.1 real well(just to prove the hardware works). It's taken a year to scrounge up all the parts to create this system. Allison

26 years, 11 months

I don't believe this ****

by photze＠batelco.com.bh

That's TERRIBLE. I mean 486 parts can even get SOLD AS-IS for a decent sum of money. The whole system goes for a couple hundred. So if they're going to scrap 'em.... but anyway, lots of schools, non-profit orginazations, etc. would love to have decent 386's, and 486's would be better. Sure, you can't play Quake on 'em, but a 386 was designed with 10 years of x86 software in mind. And, as history has proven, it is easy to destroy, as the Romans, Egyptians, Sumerians, and Greeks did, but it is so hard to CREATE and PRESERVE. That's why we must try to save these things. Eventually, when your or my XT is one of the last 60-75, we probably won't be alive, but the future genereations will love seeing a working one. Well, there's my $0.02 on this. Tim D. Hotze -----Original Message----- From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, January 06, 1998 4:51 AM Subject: Re: I don't believe this **** >>At 07:43 AM 1/5/98 -0800, you wrote: >>>Out of curiosity has anyone else with web pages dealing with classic >>>computers been contacted by someone that wants to dispose of your >>>collection as scrap? Talk about insulting! >>> >>> Zane >> >> No, but sounds like a good candidate for a mail bombing! I suppose he >>wants you to ship it to him at your expense, right? > >I wouldn't doubt it. Here is what she had to say, with my original answer, >I guess I should have added that I was also trying to save them from >individuals like she was talking about. > >Initially I just thought she was fronting for someone that dealt in classic >computers, so her reply REALLY PISSED ME OFF! Anything other than 486+ >get's melted down for scrap? I'm sorry, but that includes A LOT of systems >that there are a lot of people that would love to have them. Besides >considering the fact that some of the systems I've got, like the Atari >TT030 go for several hundred dollars. > >>Hi, Zane. >> >>> >Seems u have a lot of equipment, any surplus that you might give away? I >>> >could get a good price for u, if you are interested. >>> >>> Um, No. It's a hobby, and an attempt to preserve a part of our history >>> that is steadily finding it's way into our landfills. >> >>My local dealer supply old comps or household appliance to iron, alloy >>or plastic mills. They melt them down and supply these to manufacturers. >> >>It's recycling. >> >>486-and-above systems get refurbished... >> >>Regards, >>Crystal. > > >| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | >| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | >| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | >+----------------------------------+----------------------------+ >| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | >| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ | >| For the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. | >| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/museum.html | > >

26 years, 11 months

Linux???? is it real

by allisonp＠world.std.com

The idea of using linux as a free OS on aging 386 boxen or as a platform for getting a unix running on older classic platforms has merit. There is one little bug... I've never seen a running linux box nor have I been successful in getting one going. After loading 75 floppies becuase the CDrom I have is not supported I'm more than annoyed and have not found a resource to assist beyond suggesting I'd be better off running microspooge. The latter is insulting and demeaning. On the other hand if someone can prove that working slakware v3.0 really exists I can be swayed. Allison

26 years, 11 months

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test-drb January 1998