I saw an odd machine in a thrift store today, a machine labelled a PS/1, but it
looked nothing like the PS/1 valuepoints, or any other PC I've ever seen. It
looked like a cross between a PCjr and a soap dish. One 3.5" floppy drive, huge
ugly vents and IBM logo on the front, on the back are ports for mouse,
keyboard, VGA, 2400 bps modem, and parallel printer. It also has a little fan
and some sort of slot cover that fell out. Where is the power switch? Where
does the power connect to?
Just a note that the URL of my pinouts section has changed. Sorry for any
inconvenience, this one will be permanent.
http://www.prinsol.com/~aaron/classiccmp/
I am working to put up the pinouts I've received from Pete and Sam
(actually, Sam's may already be up...) and have also added an "incoming"
directory for people who are feeling philanthropic (and a little bored).
Incoming pinouts can go to:
ftp://ftp.prinsol.com/
user: pinouts
password: pinouts
In addition to pinouts, I'm slowly adding my collection of different
hardware "hacks" and some general repair information. I've been trolling
through the classiccmp archives at Kevin Heydon's page as well and plan to
organize and archive the tons of useful repair info there too, from what
cleaners to use for removing sharpie-written prices on plastic to Tony's
latest AT keyboard repair.
The last thing I plan to add is a single directory with nothing but FAQ's,
for all kinds of machines, concentrated in one place. As some have pointed
out lately, many of the questions that are asked here are easily answered
by the appropriate FAQ; it's just a matter of digging it up. After I get
all the FAQ's I can carry online, I'll tie them to a search script for
convenience.
Aaron
Whilst reading around, I've come across quite a few refrences to the LispM,
or the Lisp Machine. What's a Lisp Machine? Was it a mini? Was it a micro?
Do any still run? Just curious...
-------
There were two lisp machine manufacturers that evolved from an MIT lab,
one was Symbolics (a company in which I owned stock, and for which a
high school buddy worked for several years, and which was based in
Chatsworth California for about 8 years) and Lisp Machines Inc, about
which I know very little except to say that these companies were constantly
at eachothers throats, and who's corporate heads were both former
co-workers at MIT. If you want more details, I can accomodate by asking
this old high school buddy.
As for if any such machines remain, I imagine so, since for one, a Mac
compatible version from Symbolics (an single board micro, plugged into
the Mac backplane/motherboard) was available up to a few years ago
>from Symbolics. The name of the product now escapes me but, when
I recall it, I will post an additional message.
As a side note, the mathematics processor known as Macsyma (the
original product - reverse engineered by Stephen Wolfram to produce
Mathematica) was a lisp based product, and sold by Symbolics. As I
understand, it is really Macsyma that gave birth to Symbolics, for their
lisp machines were originally designed to support Macsyma applications.
William R. Buckley
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike <dogas(a)leading.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, November 30, 1998 1:59 PM
Subject: Re: What's a Lisp Machine?
>>
>>Well, I don't know what other "LISP machines" exist, but a couple
>>
>
>There was a TI Expolorer that was also a Lisp Machine. I used to drool
over
>their ads in Scientific American... alas...
>- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
>
>
>
>
>Well, I don't know what other "LISP machines" exist, but a couple
>
There was a TI Expolorer that was also a Lisp Machine. I used to drool over
their ads in Scientific American... alas...
- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
Foxnhare (who are you anyway? I've seen the address before. You're not
Larry Anderson by any chance are you? :-) ) wrote:
>> From: Doug Spence <ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca>
>> Subject: Re: Replacing 6550s
>
>> (I especially find it cool that they list various part numbers for the
>> connector. :) )
>
> Digikey is the best source for inexpensive PET compatible connectors.
> (1-800-DIGI-KEY) along with a ton of other cool parts.
Many thanks for that. I know where to turn next time I'm looking...
>> I just noticed for the first time (!) that the "PARALLEL USER PORT" has
>> pins labeled "T.V. Video", "T.V. Vertical", and "T.V. Horizontal"! Has
>> anyone actually connectd a TV or external monitor to a PET?
>
> There are plans for a composite video converter using those pins in Nick
> Hampshire's PET Revealed, I think it only works on the older 9" screen
pets
> and not the 12" ones. The reason for it being on the user port was for
deaier
> diagnostic testing.
I thought the video signals were there on later machines too, but I can
well believe it might not work on the 12 inch screen models.
My experience is that Nick Hampshire's circuit doesn't work at all. Using
the same two chips, 4011 and 4066, the correct procedure (sorry. The
procedure that worked when I tried it) is to combine the two syncs with the
4011, invert (I think - not sure about this one) with another 4011 gate,
and use that to gate the video using the 4066. Works a treat. They tried
it at school, too (don't know what circuit tho'), and got a grey background
for the white text. I imagine a series capacitor might help, but I've not
tried it.
Philip.
>> Worse still if you're using an audio CD. The CD player will be
filtering
>> according to what's best for the human ear, not what's best for the
>> computer.
>
> Does this matter? Most tape recorders used back in the day were also
> optimized for use with the human ear, so I would imagine the computers
> that utilized them as storage were designed with that in mind. Kick me
if
> I am wrong but it just seems logical to me that a CD today would work
just
> as well (if not better) than a cassette recorder of yesteryear. Were the
> specialized "data" recorders any different from a standard cassette
> player?
Possibly. But I distinctly recall that when we recorded tapes for sale
using the tape deck from my Sanyo stereo (not on a PET BTW - this was a BBC
micro) we found that Dolby noise reduction had to be disabled for it to
work...
Philip
I've been having troubles getting '5' on the switch regiester of my
PDP-8/L to show up in the memory address. Upon checking to make sure all
the modules were in place, I found that, according to the PDP-8/L Mode
Utilization Sheet in the PDP-8/L Maitenance Manual Vol II, the below
listed cards are missing.
I'm under the impression the M903's are not needed, but what about the
rest of them? Are these cards I need?
A B
15 M162 M119
16 M162 M162
34 M903
35 M903
36 M903
C D
10 M216
11 M113
16 M111
34 M903
35 M903 M903
36 M903 M903
Tom Owad
--
Sysop of Caesarville Online
Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>
Hi! I have yet another Mac question.
When ever I boot, before the Finder comes up, there's about 5 icons In the
lower left-hand corner. I know that one is MS Mail, and the other is for a
network. I'm not sure what the other icons are for. I'd like to get rid of
these programs (extensions?) that are running in the background, since all
they do is eat up memory. I can't access them after Finder opens, and
nothing happens when I click on them before it opens.
Any suggestions?
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
Why, I thought I'd get a few replies about my Terak computer
collection, as described in my intro message on 11/18.
Anyone out there have any experience with these?
- John
www.threedee.com/jcm
