> I seem to remember a certain species of cockroach that was quite fond of
> wire insulation...
I really doubt that, sincd cockroaches eat human food. (Termites, maybe?)
My brother usta work in an abandoned building. His screen went funny, and
he looked down -- a rat large enough to require a driver's license was
gnawing on the cable. (This was over 10 years ago, just to _pretend_ to
keep this on topic).
Having just obtained a 1984 Apricot F1 computer (and a lovely looking
machine they are!) I find I can only get to the ROM boot stage. Onscreen, I
have Aprictot F1, a floppy icon, a chip icon, a hand pointing down, an arrow
pointing up, and thats about it. The arrow and hand are flashing.
When I place disks in the drive, it spins for a bit and places an X and a
number on the screen. Numbers I've seen are 4, 8 and 99. So... any proud
Apricot owners out there who can help me out? I'd love to see this one go.
The keyboard, by the way, is infra red - and working just fine. The mouse
(I don't have one - its shown in the manuals) is actually a handheld
trackball - that is, you spin it with your fingers - and its the size of
mmmh.... well I guess a bread roll is a good approximation. Neat.
I'll do an image of it if there is any interest.
Any help appreciated.
Cheers
Andrew
OK, what if people simply called up the maker of the software, told them how
they got it, etc. and gave them info that they have. Chances are, that
they'll either tell you to do whatever, or they'll be too busy with other
things to care, and just tell you to keep it, etc.
Or, they could tell you just to put it back where you found it, but
you've given it your best.
Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: John Foust <jfoust(a)threedee.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, February 12, 1998 6:56 PM
Subject: Re: disk equals license
>John Higginbotham <higginbo(a)netpath.net> wrote:
>>If I then came across a higher version for that
>>product and it was cheaper if you already owned a previous version (say it
>>takes the older version disk to upgrade to newer, then I'd expect to pay
>>the cheaper price, because it is upgrading the program found on my
original
>>set of install disks, that I rightfully own.
>
>You might hope to pay the lower upgrade price, but Autodesk will surely
>tell you that you have someone else's copy, and without a letter of
transfer,
>they won't sell you an upgrade. Or if the copy had already been upgraded,
>they'll transfer you to their anti-piracy department.
>
>>I look at it this way: If someone throws away the disks, they are giving
up
>>their license to use the product.
>
>Not if they upgraded. It may seem ridiculous of me to pretend for the sake
>of argument that these disks came from a dumpster, but that's in fact the
>way a lot of us collectors get our stuff. :-)
>
>>I'm sure any cold blooded lawyer worth his salt could tear down my logic
>>and send me to the big house for having those disks and running them, but
>>how many would take the time, effort and money to try?
>
>That doesn't sit right with me. I don't think I should be able to
>reproduce someone else's software just because they can't catch me.
>If you have that lawyer's phone number, ask about if there are
>any conditions under which copyright can expire apart from the
>mandated number of years of protection.
>
>To help keep this on-topic, I have tried to persuade the UCSD licensing
>department to allow me to reproduce the Terak version of the P-System.
>They did once grant a right to a TI-99 user group to reproduce a
>P-System cartridge. I didn't have much luck because they didn't
>want to offend the current sole non-exclusive license holder, who
>is trying to sell the P-System as an alternative to Java in set-top
>boxes. Good luck, guys. :-)
>
>- John
>Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
>
Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com> wrote:
>I found a California Access "Bodega Bay". It's an Amiga 500
>expansion chassis!
>Does anyone have any solid technical information on this? Unfortunately
>in all the books and manuals I brought home not one was for this thing.
Sure, I've got all the Amiga developer conference notes and developer
packets from Commodore in the basement, including the rare Janus
(Bridgeboard) programming guide, if you find a Bridgeboard.
Circa 1987, I was technical editor of an Amiga magazine and was once
known as "the father of Amiga journalism." :-) I stopped paying
close attention around 1991, though. There's plenty of info on the
web - just start entering keywords into www.hotbot.com and www.dejanews.com
and you'll find more than you want to know.
>I remember last
>year picking up a California Access 3.5" floppy drive with a DB-25
>connector, and now I know what it went to!
They sold external Amiga floppies that could be used on any model
of Amiga - but its floppy port has 23 pins, not 25.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
<8-Track was such a corporate 'Soap Opera'. I'm a little bit
<surprised that endless loop recording wasn't used much for computer
<data back then.
You missed something then.
EXATRON Stringy floppy (used tiny carts with 1/8" wide tape)
There are at least two that used modified 8track drives. Forgot their
names. I tried 8tr for data, it was ok but the wait even for a 3minutes
loop was painful.
Allison
Re: Early PC kit mfgr?
If I'm not mistaken this sounds like the MITS (Altair 8800) story. An
excellent source of information relating to early pc history can be
found in the book 'Hackers' by Steven Levy, published in 1984. It was
available in paperback (mine is falling apart).
Marty Mintzell
Re: Possible source for parts
Now that the Psychic Hotline so fervently pitched by Dionne Warwick
has filed for bankruptcy (go figure > these were the REAL PSYCHICS,
not those other phony ones) I suppose we should expect to see
infomercials for 'The Gold Recovery Expert' on late night cable. I
can't wait.
Anyway, I don't think this guy is a crook, just another gold digger. I
agree with Zane, don't expect to get any spare parts from this guy
unless you want to pay by the Troy ounce. For a reputable scrap dealer
look under scrap/salvage in your local yellow pages.
Marty Mintzell
<Yes, the head widths are different, but I have always been under the
<impression that using the /f or /f:360 switch with format changes the wri
<current on the drive to adjust for the different coercitivity (sp?) of th
Assuming the drive/controller are correctly configured. My FD55Gs have
three different jumpers for write current, speed and a dual function one.
Of course the media must match the write current/speeds.
The narrower head is a big factor as it is optimized for a narrower
track and the gap dimensions are tuned a bit for that. When I first
encounterd it I could not understand it and then I O'scoped a pair of
drives and the read on a 360k(48tpi) drive data from a track written on
a 96tpi and the data waveforms were terrible. Too much noise from the
periphery of the adjacent track and effectively less than half the
magnetic strength imparted on the read head. Having played seriously
with magnetics the media and head do have to be matched.
This however does not solve the posters question. My cut on that is if
the media was created on a know good 360k drive and it doesn't read right
on a unknown drive, one of them is broken. ;)
Allison
I have encountered a puzzling problem and hope for some insight;
I've been trying to verify my box of DSDD floppy drives (On-topically
>10 years old) so I set up a 386DX-33 (Consider it a perpiperal to
my older systems) After configuring B: to 360KB, I can format/verify
a diskette. When I run Norton DD, (Ver. 6.01, IIRC) it says the disk,
and I assume the drive, is/are fine.
When I run Scandisk (MSDOS 6.22) it says the Media Descriptor Byte
is wrong and warns of dire consequences. It also says the FAT copy is
wrong! I check the Media Descriptor byte, before and after Scandisk
fixes it, and it's always $FD. Does Scandisk have a bug WRT 360KB
disks? I'm tempted to ignore it, but...
_______________
Barry Peterson bmpete(a)swbell.net
Husband to Diane, Father to Doug,
Grandfather to Zoe and Tegan.
