test-drb February 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

147 participants
783 discussions

Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I guess)

by manney＠nwohio.com

<Snip> > The oldest part is toshiba 1.44 I have no idea > how old but I think it was about 5 years old. Hard to find a good > floppy drive that will last that long now. But tell me if there is > one out there that good and costs $40 and I will take it! What's happening to prices? Just returned from a show...Mitsumi FDD's, $16, sound cards $12, speakers $10...cases $18!!! > Only problem with disposeable PC if the makers gives us the >machines > too non-standard and hard to expand n' upgrade ...a la Packard Bell...but now it seems EVERYONE is making purpose-designed motherboards and cases. The best thing about keeping older PC's going (just to keep this on track) is interchangability of parts: P/S, for example. What's gonna happen to us electronically challenged types when the HP Pavilion P/S smokes -- am I going to go, hat in hand, to HP for another -- at their prices?

26 years, 10 months

Found a decent use for a PC...

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<They'd be extremely handy as a diagnostic tool, especially when there's To a point but it also required somethings to work and added things that could break the system. <problem with a video card or memory, and instead of having to count a <bunch of stupid beeps to determine what the error code is, you can just <read it off the front panel. That's what POST-cards do. <Those front panels had value that was overlooked when the modern machine <were ushered in. The altair had some 30 switches and as many leds all costing a bit never mind a board full of logic. It's was an expensive solution to not using Eproms even small ones. Systems like the POLY-88, SOL, SWTP 6800 got along just fine without them. Most minicomputers were dispensing with them by 1970s in favor of rom boots. Allison

26 years, 10 months

Prices & Rants(was: Future Computing Trends. Still is, I gu

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

I apologize for any weird layout, but this IS Lynx...(as always for me) >> Missed my point; I prefer to buy quality one if I can find one and >> that floppy example is what I'm driving at. If I had money... >> Mitsumi and Epson floppy drives are junk. I had too many of those >> fail before year is up and use was not that heavy. Panasonic and few >> Teac is just o. k. but not on my esteemed list. Also those cheapo I had a drive problem once. It was intermittent, and I never could understand what was wrong. Eventually, I swapped the cable and the drive, and it works now. The only FDD I've bought was a 3.5" TEAC for $70 at the world's worst store- CompUSA. It actually has a metal frame! >The one advantage of Teac drives is that you can get the service/repair >manual. I have it for several versions of the FD55 (5.25" drive) and the >FD235 (3.5" drive). It means you can be _sure_ your drive is correctly >aligned. I wouldn't bother if I had to. >What floppy drives would you recomend? Punched card, IBM ,circa 1928. >> more noisy. PSU have cheap parts inside and fan will fail inside. I >> do have bunch of PSU's with failed fans and all of them are sleeve >> bearing type, very doubtful of finding one with ball bearing fans > Once again, I wouldn't bother with such minor details when I run Windows 95. My Fan howls when I boot, then stops after a few minutes. I read an article once on how to replace a PSU fan with a silent external one. >The worst PC-clone part I own is a keyboard. One day when using it, the >manual for my 'scope slipped off the top of a PDP8e that's alongside my PC >and landed on the keyboard. The result was that many keys on the keyboard >failed to work. I spent the next _3 hours_ removing bits of broken SRBP >circuit board and soldering wires all over the place. Amazingly there was >a schematic printed on the box that the keyboard came in (which I'd cut >out and filed), but (I guess) not too suprisingly it was incorrect!. I keep bumping into kb's that have plastic film instead of PCBs. The problem is that sometimes, the film will bend down, and not detect the key, so I have to bash it. (Which I do enough anyway, given my OS) > >And don't get me started on monitors. Is it too much to ask for a monitor Well, now that we have LCDs, it should get better, though LCD can be crap too. Don't have to worry about focus, transformers, etc. But I'm sure that they'll figure out something to screw up. >worse than the 17 year old Barco I happen to have... Out of ten new Performas, about half have darker monitors. We don't know why. It seems that the monitor is the second least reliable part of the computer, after the rest of it :) In old machines, everything was hackable anyway, so that any bugs in hardware or software could be easily fixed by the likes of us. In modern machines, its too complicated to fix anyway, and one would never have the time to fix all of the bugs, and for me, hardware is a minor problem (since it never breaks for me anyway, even when I try) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 10 months

Copying TU-58's?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<The person I've been getting a bunch of DEC stuff off of has a whole pil <of TU-58 tapes that he would like to get transfered over to something he <can read. I'm wondering if there is anyway I can attach the TU58 drive <I've got for my PDP-11/44 to my MicroVAX II and copy these tapes for him VMS does support Tu58 on vax on a serial port(it is a serial device). The real question is whats the target media? RX50, RX33, RX02? If one of those three the 11/44 can do RX02 and if you have a q-buss PDP-11 with a DLV11j or any other serial port at 176500 you can hang the TU58 off that and use RT-11 to do the tansfer. Allison

26 years, 10 months

Found a decent use for a PC...

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

>They'd be extremely handy as a diagnostic tool, especially when there's a >problem with a video card or memory, and instead of having to count a >bunch of stupid beeps to determine what the error code is, you can just >read it off the front panel. > >Those front panels had value that was overlooked when the modern machines >were ushered in. I wouldn't say that! Some of the PS/2s, A popular WYSE 286 machine and so one have had LCD diagnostic panels ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 10 months

front panels

by peacock＠simconv.com

Kai Kaltenbach wrote: >Other front panels... hmm. > >The Ithaca InterSystems DPS-1 had one. > I still have a DPS-1 in (mostly) good shape. Unlike the IMSAI flat toggle switches it had the triangular ones like DEC PDP-15s. Personally I preferred the IMSAI ones (memories of bloody fingers after toggling in a long binary on an Altair front panel with it's knife edged switches). The DPS-1 works but the motherboard connectors are shot...I got it from a plating/foundry company, covered with crud from the sufuric acid vats next to it. Now if anyone has a nice new pristine Morrow 20 slot motherboard to replace the "etched" one... The other nice feature of the DPS-1 was an o-scope trigger mode on the front panel, sort of a poor man's one channel logic analyzer. If I remember correctly, it also knew something about 24-bit addresses.

26 years, 10 months

Computers that have appreciated (RE: Altair price check)

by kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Yowza! [SMTP:yowza@yowza.com] > Besides the Apple 1, does anybody know of a computer system that has > actually appreciated in value? :-) > I assume you mean machines that are worth more than their original purchase price. That would be a pretty short list... notably: - IMSAI 8080 (assuming a base system; a fully configured setup would have cost thousands) - MOSTech KIM-1 (it was so cheap originally it can hardly avoid appreciating since it's a significant historical piece) - Rockwell AIM-65 (ditto) - RCA COSMAC VIP (ditto) If we adjust 1970s dollars to today's rate, not even the Altairs go for more than the purchase price. That leaves only the Apple I in the appreciating column. The only other micro systems (besides the Altair 8800s & Apple I) that fetch significant money, but are nowhere near appreciating from original cost, are: - IBM 5100 - Altair 680 - Processor Technology SOL - Commodore PET (chiclet version) - Apple Lisa - Unproduced prototypes of Atari 8-bit or Commodore equipment Kai

26 years, 10 months

Altair price check

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Regarding the three Altair machines that were recently posted to the net auction at ebay.com - they went from $1525 to $2025. Mind you, these weren't complete systems. The software, extra drives, etc. were auctioned separately. - John Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>

26 years, 10 months

front panels

by peacock＠simconv.com

On Mon, 23 Feb 1998, Sam Ismail Replied: >> I also had one homebrew S-100 with the Wameco front panel, which used hex >> displays for address and data but otherwise was identical to the IMSAI front >> panel. Does anyone remember other front panel S-100 cards besides MITS, >> IMSAI, Ithaca, and Wameco? Wasn't there a Byte-8 sold by Olson Electronics >> for a while that also had a front panel? >Yes, the Byte-8 had a front panel with, I believe, a hex keypad and a two >digit 7-segment LED display. Was that just a display driven from a boot ROM or was it a real front panel, with displays directly driven from the bus, examine/deposit, single step, etc.? Usually a hex keypad meant a simulated front panel (CPU actually running a debug program in the boot ROM). A true front panel needed 16 LEDs or 4 hex digits for address, 8 LEDs or 2 hex digits for data, and at least 8 status LEDs for bus signals (SINP, SOUT, MEMR, INTA, etc.). All the panels I have seen also had an extra 8 LED latched output port and sense switch input port. >From cad at Mon Feb 23 17:06:14 1998 From: cad at (Charles A. Davis) Date: Sun Feb 27 18:32:11 2005 Subject: front panels References: <61AC5C9A4B9CD11181A200805F57CD54D09C92(a)red-msg-44.dns.microsoft.com> Message-ID: <34F200E6.40C2(a)gamewood.net> And then there is the Astral 2000. Full front panel (16 address/data switches, 16 leds) and a 4 digit hex display also. Switches to 'load' address or data, run/step, int. etc. When the machine is running normaly, the hex display is used as a 'clock' This machine uses a MC6800 chip. Chuck -- ----------------------------------------------------------- He, who will not reason, is a bigot; William Drumond, he, who cannot, is a fool; Scottish writer and he, who dares not, is a slave. (1585-1649) While he that does, is a free man! Joseph P. 1955- ----------------------------------------------------------- (be sure to correct the return address when using 'reply') Chuck Davis / Sutherlin Industries FAX # (804) 799-0940 1973 Reeves Mill Road E-Mail -- cad(a)gamewood.net Sutherlin, Virginia 24594 Voice # (804) 799-5803

26 years, 10 months

front panels

by kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com

>Yes, the Byte-8 had a front panel with, I believe, a hex keypad and a two >digit 7-segment LED display. The Byte Systems' BYT-8 didn't have a keypad or LED display, just 24 toggle switches and the usual binary LEDs. The front panel plugs directly into the backplane. > On Mon, 23 Feb 1998, Jack Peacock wrote: > Does anyone remember other front panel S-100 cards besides MITS, > IMSAI, Ithaca, and Wameco? Wasn't there a Byte-8 sold by Olson Electronics > for a while that also had a front panel? Other front panels... hmm. The Ithaca InterSystems DPS-1 had one. Somewhere kicking around I do have another "front panel" card that could hardly have been used as a literal front panel... I believe it was made by Jameco or somesuch. It's a full-and-a-half-length S-100 Z80 single board computer card (it's so long, it couldn't have fit in any case) with several segments of alpha display, and a 24- or 30-key keyboard-style keypad. Kai

26 years, 10 months

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test-drb February 1998