test-drb November 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

185 participants
940 discussions

by bill＠chipware.com

Well, I would like to get an IMSAI and I'm thinking about making a bid on Tony's. Problem: What is a reasonable offer on an IMSAI, collector to collector? If we're talking ebay values, forget it. There will also be the additional expense of shipping from Mass. to Maryland. Any opinions welcome. Bill Sudbrink

25 years, 8 months

IMSAI value

by kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com

Good condition, with the IMSAI 8080 CPU card, $500. Kai -----Original Message----- From: Bill Sudbrink [mailto:bill@chipware.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 1998 10:31 AM To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers Subject: IMSAI value Well, I would like to get an IMSAI and I'm thinking about making a bid on Tony's. Problem: What is a reasonable offer on an IMSAI, collector to collector? If we're talking ebay values, forget it. There will also be the additional expense of shipping from Mass. to Maryland. Any opinions welcome. Bill Sudbrink

25 years, 8 months

Apple I Computer For Sale (fwd)

by kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com

Is this the guy I bought the SWTPC 6800 from at the VCF? He said he had an Apple I he was going to auction, and he was talking prices like this. Kai -----Original Message----- From: Bjorn T. Eng [mailto:bjorn@ktb.net] Sent: Monday, November 02, 1998 4:28 PM To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers Subject: Apple I Computer For Sale (fwd) Hi! Anybody else see this one? I wonder what kind of documentation he has to "support" that "The current value of an Apple I computer is $40,000+" Is he referring to the one that was sold for a charity? Bjorn Eng ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 2 Nov 1998 14:05:39 GMT From: David Selinger <dave314x(a)sd.cts.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Apple I Computer For Sale Keywords: Apple 1 Apple I Wozniak Steve Jobs Computer Subject: Apple 1 Computer For Sale - Historic Rare Museum Piece Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Organization: CTS Network Services (CTSNET), San Diego, CA Summary: For Sale (FS) RARE Apple I (Apple 1) 1976 Computer System Keywords: Apple I Apple 1 For Sale Antique Computer vintage computer Wozniak Steve Jobs I am offering for sale to the highest bidder an original 1976 Apple I (Apple 1) Computer System - museum quality (one is in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. - see their web page.) It includes: Main processor board with original chips. User Operations manual with schematic BASIC programming User's manual which came with Apple I Tape interface daughter board BASIC cassette tape Original one-sheet advertisement What it doesn't include (because Apple Computer Co. did not sell this equipment with the computer -- the user supplied it himself): keyboard, and TV. This computer is for display purposes only -- not for actual use as a computer. Though I used it as a working computer in the past, the ravages of time has likely make it inoperative. Important Additional Information: Only 200 were ever made (Steve Wozniak interview, Byte Magazine, December 1984, page A69). Of those 200, many have likely been lost or destroyed, thereby making the surviving computers worth much more because of their increased scarcity. Minimum price for starting the bidding is $25,000.00. The current value of an Apple I computer is $40,000+. Documentation to support this fact will be provided upon request. A color photo to interested parties will also be provided upon request. I am also offering a 10% finder's fee to any person who finds a legitimate buyer with whom I actually consumate the sale. For example, finding a buyer who agrees to buy the computer for $40,000.00 will mean a $4,000.00 finders fee to the person who finds the buyer. This offer of a finder's fee however is valid for only two (2) months and expires on midnight Dec. 31, 1998. Send email bids, or referrals to potential buyers to this email address: dave314x(a)cts.com I reserve the right to reject or accept any and all bids. Dave.

25 years, 8 months

PDP-11/44 boot prompt

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< > board gold fingers so it didn't make proper contact when the board wa < > reinstalled. < < Eh? I can understand why that might introduce a 'deliberate fault' which < you'd have to find, but I can't think of a diagnostic technique where < isolating odd pins of the 11/45 CPU modules would be that useful. It wasn't a repair procedure... it was a call it broken and try to find/fix it class exercise. Sometimes when a bad board was a available they would be used. Allison

25 years, 8 months

Help Needed With Sinclair 1000

by franke＠sbs.de

>> I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Solid? Translucent? Seems to me from >> the few Timex models I've seen in action, the video is not so hot. Can be >> tempermental depending what TV it is hooked to. Bad sync (not rock >> stable), noisy and rather unsharp. Cheap design and manufacture all >> around. At least it translated to a cheap price. >> > Well, there's a gray background, with black lettering. The bar(s) are > solid black, and are about 2" wide, and scroll from the top to the bottom. > It does this on every TV I connect it to. The Background should be white - I guess you just have to change brightness and the Bar will also change translucent - almost invisible. The bar is common to all ZX81 and Timex and an is artefact of the generation routine. Maybe the output voltage of the video circuit don't reach a sufficient height. As far as I remember there is an adjustable resistor for that, so you don't have to change all TV sets. >> Bingo. Save your own programs or use commercial ones. There are a few >> programs of the "home accounting" ilk released by Timex Sinclair as >> cassettes. > Hmm.. Cheap design shows through here, too. There's not even a connector to > hook up the "motor remote" on the cassette. You have to turn it on and off > yourself (or have a VSR tape deck). All in all, even though bigger, the > CoCo is about 2k times better (bigger IS better...). Hey, what you want - the ZX81 was just 300 Mark at introduction ! Every other computer just trippled this price (or 10 times, like an Apple //e). And speaking of the Apple: no motor control ! And for the keyboard: there have been plenty of kits, and it should be possible just to assemble some switches as a keyboard. Try a web search. Gruss Hans -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

25 years, 8 months

Amiga drawbacks (was Ancient machines turning on)

by kh240463＠cr10m.staffs.ac.uk

UKers should check out the 50th issue of PC Pro. It has a feature on old computers. I had a quick look and saw mentions of the Osbourne 1 and some other systems. Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: > The apps I have for both MS-DOS and the Amiga tend to be fairly robust and >less crash prone than for systems that have memory protection, I suppose >becuase with memory protection it's easier to write sloppy code that won't >bring down the system [2] so not as much effort is taken in writing solid >code. There is an application currently in development for the "Classic Amiga" line at the moment that promises to bring memory protection to the OS. This is quite an amazing feat when you consider that it is a 3rd party addon and has been thought impossible for years. I just hope it is included in AmigaOS 3.5. John Foust muttered: >I think this is crucial for those who wish to understand why the Amiga >didn't live forever: although it was 32-bit, its architecture had a deep >reliance on wide-open shared memory, preventing it from reaching the >next level of robust behavior. Tricks like "Enforcer" certainly helped >developers write safer code once the 68020 came along, but it was too >little, too late. Indeed. Particularly the lack of Unified Memory Access, restricting the user to a maximum of 2Mb Chip RAM (although UAE somehow allows up to 8Mb chip RAM). It can be improved on by adding a graphics card which will take the strain of the display off the custom chips. Once you begin to add PPC processors the task switching between the two processors, 68k and PPC really begins to reduce performance. D. Peschel spoke unto the masses: >I knew there was a reliance on shared memory, but I didn't know it was that >deep. Are you talking just about the custom hardware? (When the Amiga was >new, Amiga clearly had to work its butt off it get the chips to perform so >well -- making them squeeze through an MMU while doing DMA was obviously not >practical. Do you know if they even had plans to add memory management?) The original Amiga Corp considered using MMU but ( I think RJ Mical stated in an interview) that it would have made multitasking in his words, "a lot hairier." It would have slowed down the Amiga considerably when it was first released. With current technology it is possible to use the MMU to implement third party VMM, as well as Kickstart mappers. Some games and applications also use it. Quake being one of the most notable. >I'm tempted to say that after its initial success, Amiga rested on its lau- >rels and didn't try to improve the hardware for a long time (and they only >sort-of tried to improve the software). I don't know if it's *true*, but >it's *tempting*. Then they got around to the AGA graphics hardware which >is much better, except they were never able to catch all the bugs! Commodore rested on its laurels and the management made some classic mistakes. Cancelling AAA and when it was almost finished and releasing the A4000 being noteable (the A3200 were much better and included DSP as standard). The AGA chipset still ran at 7.14MHz like its predecessors. >Now they want to combine the old architecture with fancy new CPU's and hope- >fully memory management -- good luck but it sounds like a lot of work. >Do you know if they're trying for software compatibility? The latest release of AmigaOS, version 3.5 is due to ship early 1998 and has over twenty developers working on it. This should make a lot of the third party addons standard as part of the OS. Most Amigas nowadays are expanded so much that much of the design is unused. Even on my relatively underpowered A1200, the 68020 is ignored in favour of the 68040 that is present on my accelerator card. The OS upgrade is also going to be quite revolutionary by Amiga standards, requiring a minimum of a 020 processor with 4Mb. Considering that AmigaOS 3.1 could be run on an A500 this is quite a development. Amiga Inc claim that the OS upgrade will be 100% compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 although I have my doubts. They have also stated that AmigaOS 5 that will be released at the end of 1999 will be compatible with AmigaOS 3.5. Whether this actually comes to pass is another matter. >There is another lesson here, I think. It's one reason why adaptation has >been or will be so hard -- ANY decision you make about a system, good or bad, >especially bad, will affect the system for longer than you think. Only recently has Apple finally rid themselves of most of the 68k code in their OS. Until MacOS 8 much of the OS was run under emulation. Regards, Gareth Knight Amiga Interactive Guide http://welcome.to/aig

25 years, 8 months

Help Needed With Sinclair 1000

by franke＠sbs.de

>> Guess what? You don't. The Sinclairs *only* accepted keywords with the >> key combinations! The appropriate keywords should be printed on the >> keyboard. Not until the Spectrum +3 were you finally able to enter >> keywords in longhand. I found this a pretty good way to help beginners in programming - also it was _very_ fast - In fact I programmed an 'editor' Apple II wich used exactly the same way than on the ZX. > O.K. How do I enter programs, then, such as > 10 CLS > 20 PRINT "HELLO"; > 30 GOTO 20 > if I can't enter things such as the "hello"? After entering a keyword that takes parameters, like Print or Go To the Keyword Cursor [K] changes for the Character Cursor [C] and you just enter what ever you want. It will stay this until New Line is pressed. And with some trick you could even use keywords within printed strings so save RAM "LET HERCULES GO TO HELL" is just a 14 Byte string instead of 22 (Send GATES instead of HERCULES will save another 3 Bytes). Just try the folowing program: 10 for i = 1 to 255 20 print chr$(i); 30 next i This worked only because the CPU was interpreting (!) the 'video' memory and took the representation of a byte from the character 'generator' for toggeling the brightnes. If encountering a Basic Token inside the screen buffer the keyword was generated. The Video buffer itself was kind of trickey, since it is only a dynamic buffer - a strem to be interpreted for display - for every line only as much chars as needed where stored with an newline as termination, directly followed by the next line - so an empty screen just consits of 16 newlines. AFAIR Basic Memory was growing from the bottom and screen memory from the top, with variable storage inbetween. this could lees so an out of memory abortion if to much was printed onscreen. The CPU based video display is also the reason for the SLOW and FAST modi - in FAST the CPU uses all HighRes graphics are also possible via assembler subroutiens - just stop the ROM routine and generate your own signal - up to 300x578 interlaced could be possible - just without a structured display memory (witch needs an expansion) the generatable resolution will be more like 200x578. >> 1K computer, video entirely via TTL logic, Z80A at 3.5MHz. RAM expansion >> available; 80x50 (I think) character graphics in B&W. Identical to the >> British Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81, and scads of info are there for the >> taking on the Web. Possible to have 2K (just unsolder the 2114s and put in a 6116), Standard RAM expansion of 16K, but third party modules of 64 and more K, Additional I/O modules, even floppies have been made. The ZX80 is not 100% compatible. Gruss Hans -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

25 years, 8 months

CRT decay

by Marty＠itgonline.com

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: CRT decay Author: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu at internet Date: 11/3/98 7:18 AM > < Don't CRT filaments degrade with use? I've seen this on other > < workstation monitors from Sun and HP, typically ones that were used as > It the common characteristic of all valves (tubes) with heated cathodes > that over time emission will decay and gain(brightness) goes away with > it. > < big-ticket item, the local TV repairman had cylindrical devices called > < "boosters" that could be inserted in the circuit between the plug on > < the back of the CRT and the set's CRT socket to extend the life of a > It got back some emission for a while but the overvoltage generally > killed the tube. > < dim picture tube. I don't really know what it did, but I suppose it > < was something like a step-up transformer for the CRT filament voltage. > That was it's exact function. >>There is also a way of 'reanimate' darkened tubes. Since >>the most usual cause is a deformation in the emiting layer >>of >>the cathode, the idea is to 'rebuild' the emiting layer. >>This involves over heating with up to double power (Watt). >>The parameters to be used have to fit the tube. This method >>is also only real usefull for b&w tubes. Depending on the >>kind of tube and usage this will lead to some additional >>500 to 1500 hours of usage. The process can be repeated, >>but not infinite. Since there is no new coating made - just >>a bit mixed up of the existing. The basic why is just that >>thru normal operation the electron emiting will always be >>from >>the same spot(s) and the coating will degenerate over the >>usage. This very same process goes back to the 1920's when thoriated cathodes were 'rejuvenated' by heating the cathode above its normal operating voltage for several minutes to boil up the thorium mixture of the cathode. This wasn't always successful but I have several friends who can attest to getting better performance from old UX-99 triodes of the early 1920's by this process. Marty DISCLAIMER: I am not a master of physics or chemistry nor do I know the exact english terms - I just using the process. Gruss Hans -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK ------ Message Header Follows ------ Received: from lists5.u.washington.edu by smtp.itgonline.com (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.9i(b5) for Windows NT(tm)) id AA-1998Nov03.071846.1767.74913; Tue, 03 Nov 1998 07:18:47 -0500 Received: from host (lists.u.washington.edu [140.142.56.13]) by lists5.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW98.06) with SMTP id EAA25921; Tue, 3 Nov 1998 04:15:52 -0800 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW98.06) with ESMTP id EAA24852 for <classiccmp(a)lists.u.washington.edu>; Tue, 3 Nov 1998 04:15:49 -0800 Received: from ns.sbs.de (ns.sbs.de [194.112.84.17]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.9.1+UW98.09/8.9.1+UW98.09) with ESMTP id EAA02 725 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Tue, 3 Nov 1998 04:15:45 -0800 Received: from mail.fth.sbs.de (mail.fth.sbs.de [192.129.41.35]) by ns.sbs.de (8.8.8/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA17692 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:20:47 +0100 (MET) Received: from marina.fth.sbs.de (marina.fth.sbs.de [192.129.41.2]) by mail.fth.sbs.de (8.8.8/8.8.6) with ESMTP id NAA00721 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:05:07 +0100 (MET) Received: from M23769PP (m23769pp.mch.sbs.de [139.25.241.35]) by marina.fth.sbs.de (8.8.6/8.8.6) with SMTP id NAA25543 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:12:47 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199811031212.NAA25543(a)marina.fth.sbs.de> Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:34:00 +1 Reply-To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu Sender: CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Hans Franke" <franke(a)sbs.de> To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers" <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: CRT decay X-Envelope-Sender-Is: franke(a)sbs.de (at relayer mail.fth.sbs.de) X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 beta -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN

25 years, 8 months

CRT decay

by franke＠sbs.de

> < Don't CRT filaments degrade with use? I've seen this on other > < workstation monitors from Sun and HP, typically ones that were used as > It the common characteristic of all valves (tubes) with heated cathodes > that over time emission will decay and gain(brightness) goes away with > it. > < big-ticket item, the local TV repairman had cylindrical devices called > < "boosters" that could be inserted in the circuit between the plug on > < the back of the CRT and the set's CRT socket to extend the life of a > It got back some emission for a while but the overvoltage generally > killed the tube. > < dim picture tube. I don't really know what it did, but I suppose it > < was something like a step-up transformer for the CRT filament voltage. > That was it's exact function. There is also a way of 'reanimate' darkened tubes. Since the most usual cause is a deformation in the emiting layer of the cathode, the idea is to 'rebuild' the emiting layer. This involves over heating with up to double power (Watt). The parameters to be used have to fit the tube. This method is also only real usefull for b&w tubes. Depending on the kind of tube and usage this will lead to some additional 500 to 1500 hours of usage. The process can be repeated, but not infinite. Since there is no new coating made - just a bit mixed up of the existing. The basic why is just that thru normal operation the electron emiting will always be from the same spot(s) and the coating will degenerate over the usage. DISCLAIMER: I am not a master of physics or chemistry nor do I know the exact english terms - I just using the process. Gruss Hans -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

25 years, 8 months

About VCF 2.0 and system design

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< > Take the case off, and look for a number like 8x-xxx-x on one or more < > chips on the motherboard. The last x may be a letter (probably A) or < > or might not be there at all. Kaypro's part-numbering system was rath < > erratic, it seems. < > < > * 81-240 original (1983? maybe 1982) Kaypro 4 < > 81-232 1983 Kaypro 4 < > * 81-184 1984 Kaypro 4 (a.k.a. Kaypro 4'84) < > 81-292 1984 Kaypro 4 (newest ROM version for this < > # 81-296 Kaypro 4X (with super-high-density floppies) < > 81-146 character ROM < > 81-187 character ROM < > 81-235 character ROM What blows that all to dust is a machine like mine. The box is kaypro-1 (81-021) written all over the outside but, the board is apparently 4-84 and it's equipped with handyman, Advent turbo rom and a 2mb Ramdisk. I tell people it says kaypro-1 (number 1!) and they say two full height drives with slots horizontal but, mine has two half height two sided drives mounted vertical. Apparently it was a 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 Fochevromercysler! Allison PS: Fochevromercysler was one name given to a a mishmash of engine, transmission body, suspension parts that came from Ford, Chevy, Mercury, Chrysler. Seems a friend of mine had no loyalty to any one car.

25 years, 8 months

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test-drb November 1998