How about initial procedures when you get some new treasure
recently saved from the greedy jaws of the salvagers. Things
like: blow out the dirt, check for burnt/obviously damaged
components, frayed or pinched cables, reseat socketed parts and
clean off any corrosion or "purple plague" on the IC pins, power
supply outputs, loose screws dropped in the power supply or
motherboard. And most important of all....make copies of the
schematics and boot disks.
Another idea for the FAQ: if it isn't restorable, at least pull
all the socketed ICs (and put them in static foam) so someone
else might be able to restore one. I keep a big box of old
parts from boards I have tossed.
Jack Peacock
Be careful not jam the (diskette) magazines ;)
>
>[Kamikaze Pilot]
>
>Isn't that what's referred to as Shotgun Debugging?
>-------
>
>
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At 04:34 AM 3/16/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Exactly. All of the useful ideas from AI that became mainstream are no
>longer considered AI. Today, OCR, speach recognition, machine
>translation, and predictive analysis are off-the-shell apps or embedded in
>products like Microsoft Word to help catch your spelling and grammar
>errors.
What was once the stuff of science fiction epics is now mundane?
>
>There are still interesting problems, though. Machines can kick your
>chess-playing butt, but you won't find one nearly coordinated enough to
>hit a baseball and run around a few bases. IMHO, AI researchers have
>overestimated the brainstuff and underestimated the sensor and actuator
>stuff. Here's my theory of how you learn to speak, for example:
>
I have always thought that digital computers would never allow us to
achieve the ultimate goal of replicting a learning organism. Aren't we just
simple conceptual pattern recognition machines? It seems like an analog
computer, capable of integration of raw percepts and conceptualization at
high speeds, could actually learn and become better and faster than man at
thinking and working. If a computer could search a text file for a pattern
using the same method as humans, i.e. looking for a shape as the first
indicator of a match, rather than a discreet chacter pattern, it would be
able to process text much faster than a digital machine.
I think it was Ayn Rand's "Objectivist Epistemology" that got me thinking
along these lines.
>
>-- Doug
>
>
--
David Wollmann |
dwollmann(a)ibmhelp.com | Support for legacy IBM products.
DST ibmhelp.com Technical Support | Data, document and file conversion for
IBM http://www.ibmhelp.com/ | legacy file and media formats.
If you are referring to the Computer museum on Boston Harbor, it's
fine. I have no idea what they would do with anything anyone might
give them, though. They don't have much space...
>
>Spring cleaning is approaching, and the storage bins are overflowing. I
>have a lot of old PC applications, and I'd like to get rid of them, but
>would prefer to see them preserved. Is the Boston museum still in
>operation, and if so are they interested in preserving old PC apps?
>
>I'm hoping that I can find my Microport Unix while I'm at it--I want to
>build one of my old ATs and install it, just for fun.
>
>--
>David Wollmann |
>dwollmann(a)ibmhelp.com | Support for legacy IBM products.
>DST ibmhelp.com Technical Support | Data, document and file conversion
for
>IBM http://www.ibmhelp.com/ | legacy file and media formats.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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On 1998-03-15 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk
:FYI the Extended BASIC interpreter for CP/M-80 and the BASCOM
:Compiler for CP/M-80 were excellent products. Neither were
:bloatware by any standard.
you know, we've heard it mooted that bill gates himself is not a bad
programmer. we've also heard that the last thing he worked on in person
was the software for the kyocera laptops of the mid 80s.
perhaps this is the problem... we have a suspicion that bill gates uses
macs - hence the cash investment ;>
--
Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...
I have a board which came in a job lot from a bankruptcy sale about 10
years ago. I wonder if anyone can identify it. The only writing on it
says 'SYKES' and '9000 MP CONTROLLER'. The most prominent chip is marked
MCS6502. It has rows of small chips indexed along the edge of the board
A..Y down one side and 1..9 along the short edge. It is about 6" X 10"
and has a 12 contact edge connector and two sockets, one of 40 and one of
50 pins either side of the edge connector. There are 3 chips which are
(obviously?) memory as they are labelled D1/FC00, F1/FA00 and K1/FE00.
There is also a 16MHz crystal oscillator.
Any ideas what it might be?
Regards
Pete
I quote the FAQ
2.8 Can I type obscenities about Microsoft in ALL CAPS!?!
(Or, in general, be unreasonable with reagard to advocacy posts?)
Check your anti-MS baggage at the door, please. For that matter, drop
any posts that serve only to perpetuate the holy wars.
Please please guys and gals; Check your anti-MS baggage at the door.
Talk Classic computers.... classic computers.... classic computers.
Furthermore, classic computers... classic computers... get the idea?
A
On 1998-03-15 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk
:Can someone help Bill out? Anyone have a copy of the FAQ lying
:around?
can you make that two copies? we could use one.
--
Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...
On 1998-03-16 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk
:Perhaps
:incredibly, Turing _did_ believe that there was something special
:about the brain (in particular he could/would not rule out ESP) and
:so I don't think he would ever have claimed that a Turing Machine
:could do anything that a human brain could. The TM was designed to
:solve a specific problem in mathematical theory, rather than as a
:theoretical ultimate brain.
no, the brain/intelligence thing came with the "turing *test*" which is
the idea that you could converse with a computer on one terminal, a
human on another, and not be able to reliably identify which was which.
(turing was a complex, fascinating, and very innocent human, and he was
treated despicably by the british government after the second world
war.)
:But now you've got me trying to think of something that an
:analog(ue) computer can do that a digital one can't.
fuzzy logic...? ;>
--
Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...
On 1998-03-16 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk
:You know Bruce, it's offensive unthinking tirades like yours that
:make me want to unsubscribe from this list and throw my classic
:computers in the dumpster just so I would no longer have to count
:myself among your company.
:Please give me an insight as to _your_ life's work so that I may
:call it a steaming pile of horseshit as well.
hey, kai, calm down, everyone has to start somewhere... ;>
seriously, we very much doubt that everyone in microsoft is set upon
filling the world with shite software that slows everything to a dawdle
and destroys competition. however, what peeves us is (a) that microsoft
*have* eliminated competition to a large extent - it's just not healthy!
especially when mr gates has to resort to injecting cash into his most
innovative competitor to keep them in that position (hell, alive!) - and
(b) that microsoft produce software with the emphasis perpetually on
getting people into computers, widening the accessibility of machines,
but not really improving in the way that people who need to use and
develop with computers for a living require. microsoft, even more than
apple these days, produces software "for the rest of us" (inasmuch as
the rest of 'em don't try anything ambitious) but microsoft products
don't include the necessary hooks and extensibility whereby an expert
can get through the easy-features and do things properly with the
minimum of interruption.
if you can carry that message back to the powers that be, we'd all be
very much happier out here. we'd still be worried about the future,
because of the lack of competition, but at least it might not be a
future of unmitigated mediocrity.
--
Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...
