I'm trying to make a "semi-nano PC" myself...
><3.5"? That's a "standard" off-the-shelf IDE disk, isn't it? 2.5" is
><a standard off-the-shelf laptop IDE drive. 1.8" drives are also
>I'd rather 2.5 or smaller but a really cheap 3.5 is ok.
2.5" drives arn't hard to find. A while back, Data Probe
(http://www.dataprobeintl.com ; sales(a)dataprobeintl.com) had even 500MB
notebook drives for around $50 (used), they were 2.5". They weren't listed
on their website, you'd have to ask them...
And, I'd recommend the Kittyhawks. That, or there's soupossed to be a
re-writable ROM-like 1" square coming out, right now, they've got 20 and 40
MB versions,with 80MB coming soon...
>>The is at most a one up for myself(non commercial design).
Same here.
Ciao,
Tim D. Hotze
<(http://www.dataprobeintl.com ; sales(a)dataprobeintl.com) had even 500MB
<notebook drives for around $50 (used), they were 2.5". They weren't lis
Nice but what would CP/M (rememberthis is 8080/z80) do with 500mb? The
whole of multimple archives fits on a single CDrom! CP/M systems did not
suffer code bloat so smaller devices tend t fill very slowly. Something
under 100mb is more resonable for my project.
<And, I'd recommend the Kittyhawks. That, or there's soupossed to be a
<re-writable ROM-like 1" square coming out, right now, they've got 20 and
????? What are they and approximate cost.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Eve Guerney
Oops, Eve is my daughter! I must learn to make sure the message gets posted
>from the correct account on this machine
I may as well take the chance and add some real demography info.
I'm new to actually collecting old micros, but I have thought about if for a
while! I have my original VIC-20, C64, Amiga500 and now also a beautiful
mint condition TRS80 Model II and an Apple ][+ and a one owner Atari 800. I
got a Coco1 and a CoCo2 this week, consoles only, but I can't get anything
on the TV from them yet so they may be just rubbish.
I'm a mid-40's scientist working in the minerals business in Brisbane,
Australia. I DREAMED of owning a Sorcerer more than anything else in the
world when a postgraduate student (graduate student to you North Americans)
in 1978, then in 1979 a PET would have done me. Money shortage kept me from
actually owning a micro until the VIC-20 dropped to $A299 here in 1982. I
joined the local Commodore Users Group and stayed with them through the C64
and the Amiga days, even becoming President of the group for two years
through the last days of Commodore while our membership finished its
shrinkage from over 1000 (in the late 1980's) to less than 50 now.
Now I am just learning the best ways of picking up and looking after these
marvellous machines. Any other Australians who want to make themselves known
to me are welcome.
>from Phil Guerney
Brisbane, Australia.
I should be more careful what I say.
It's not a clone of an 8800b. I have no idea about the 8800a.
A
-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, March 04, 1998 5:57 PM
Subject: Re: Datanumerics DL8A is here! Have a peek @ ...
>On Wed, 4 Mar 1998, Andrew Davie wrote:
>
>> It arrived 10 minutes ago.
>> I'm so excited, I just put up a quick web page so you can all see it.
>> Its obviously not an IMSAI...? So... anyone know anything about it.
>> Comments appreciated (even "I want it!!")
>
>OK, I want it!! Very cool. It looks a lot like an Altair (from the pix,
>I saw a one-to-one correspondence to Altair toggles). According to Hans
>Pufal's list, it came out the same year as the Altair (1975):
> http://www.digiweb.com/~hansp/ccc/clist3.htm
>
>Any chance it is an Altair in sheep's clothing?
>
>-- Doug
>
>
OK... while we're on off topic, ;-) Is there any way that I could get my
hands on the individual componets for making a "nano PC", prefferably just a
small one?
-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, March 03, 1998 10:35 PM
Subject: Re: Off-charter chatter: nano-PC's
>>On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, Tim Shoppa wrote:
>>
>>> I just received some brochures from my local embedded PC supplier, and
>some
>>> of the miniaturization that's being done is incredible. There's a
>>> company in Germany called JUMPtec which sells a product called the
>>> DIMM-PC; it puts a 33 MHz 80386, 4 Mbytes of RAM, a bootable flash
>>> harddisk and an AMI BIOS, a real time clock, and interfaces for
>>> external IDE drives, floppy drives, printer, 2 COM ports, and keyboard
>>> all on a board that is only 68mm x 40mm (that's 1.57 x 2.68 inches.)
>>
>>Wow, a keyboard in that form factor is incredible :-) You're right, there
>>are lots of choices in the embedded space. The smallest full-blown PC
>>with built-in display and keyboard that I know of has gotta be the IBM
>>PC-110. For a size comparison of a normal laptop, a PC-110, and IBM's
>>(new?) credit-card computer, see:
>> http://www.kako.com/museum/ibm.html
>>
>>To get even further off-topic, has anybody here written 6805 wristapps for
>>their Timex/Microsoft DataLink watch? Try:
>> http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/7650/
>>
>>-- Doug
>>
>>
>
Re: Sorcerers down Under.
There was a strong user group base down here in the late 70s and early 80s.
I remember having a real hard time deciding between a Sorcerer and an Atari
800. I eventually chose the Atari, with no regrets. But, I seem to
remember the Sorcerer as being fairly common.
Not easy to find now, but a lot of us down under collectors seem to have one
or two (or three, but I won't tease too much).
Cheers
A
-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, March 04, 1998 7:17 PM
Subject: Re: Demography?
>On Mon, 2 Mar 1998, Lawrence Wilkinson wrote:
>
>> I'm a fairly recent arrival to this list. I'm 34, a New Zealander, and
>> I've lived in the UK for almost 4 years.
><...>
>>
>> I started doing various programming work on machines like TRS80 &
>> clones, Sorcerer, including quite a few BIOSes for CP/M, including one
> ^^^^^^^^
>It seems that a lot of you blokes down under have Sorcerers. Were they
>marketed a lot more "down there" than they were in the US? They are not
>very common over here.
>
>Sam Alternate e-mail:
dastar(a)siconic.com
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
>Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer,
Jackass
>
> Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
> See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
>
>
Here's the response from Jim Sciuto, "Gold Recovery Expert". A hint of
promise, I suppose.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 19:34:48 -0500
From: Qs <quiksand(a)tiac.net>
To: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
Subject: Re: Hello
I will visit your web page and keep you in mind, sometimes the historical
value of things do outweigh its scrap value.
Regards,
Jim Sciuto
-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
To: quiksand(a)tiac.net <quiksand(a)tiac.net>
Cc: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Sunday, March 01, 1998 11:36 PM
Subject: Hello
>To: Jim Sciuto, "Gold Recovery Expert"
> http://www.tiac.net/users/quiksand/goldtek.htm
>
>I invite you to take the time to discover the wonderful efforts a group
>of dedicated individuals around the globe are engaged in to preserve
>some of the historically significant vintage computer equipment that you
>may be scrapping for its precious metals. In some cases, the machines
>you are melting down have more historic value than any monetary value
>you may be extracting from their circuits.
>
>I realize this is how you make your living, but I think you will find
>the efforts of these computer preservations at least interesting, if not
>compelling.
>
>Any assistance you can afford us in preserving the more rare artifacts
>of our computer heritage that you come in contact with or possesion of
>would be much appreciated. I invite you to visit the Vintage Computer
>Festival web page:
>
>http://www.siconic.com/vcf
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Sam Ismail
>Vintage Technology Cooperative
>http://www.siconic.com/vcf
>
tony duell:
:>have a feeling that eventually all obsolete computer equipment in
:>britain will gravitate to chez duell...
:I wish.... There are still machines I am looking for - PDP's other
:than the 8 or the 11, a straight-8, more P800 series stuff, etc,
:etc,etc. Oh, and somewhere to put them :-)
well, the schematics for the pdp6 are available, so at a pinch you could
always rebuild one. :>
:> on the other hand, it makes the electronics more difficult, as
:>suddenly you have to design a pll that will reliably lock to
:>about 10 different data rates, rather than just one, not to
:>mention making sure the
:Not that hard. You design it as a synthesiser, of course. Probably
:not that much worse (and similar in design) to the multi-speed
:motor controller.
probably. in fact, it might even be easier, because you don't have to
worry about controlling anything physical. on the other hand, since
you'd need a speed regulator in the disk drive anyway (and iwrc they
tend to be plls) you might as well give that a range of frequencies to
chew on and keep the data transfer stuff simple.
there are arguments either way - about the only thing we would say,
though, is that software is cheaper than hardware in scrap terms, and
whereas commodore was already huge, woz was on a leguminous budget.
:> controller can handle it. to make it practical to decode in
:>software, the apple probably got it right - and let's face it,
:>certainly in later
:Being a hardware hacker, I've never liked the Apple approach to
:doing everything in software, alas...
ah, but we're a software hacker, so we just love it. :> besides, there's
a certain beauty in finding that you can do something with the bare
minimum of hardware.
:There were certainly non-compatible 386 machines - didn't Sequent
:make some? (multi-processor unix boxen..) No, I don't have one -
:yet!
yes, we believe so. there were other non-compatible 386 offerings too,
were there not - eg. sun 386s...? but then it's a lot easier to make a
non-compatible 386, given its somewhat multiplicitous architecture. just
ignore real mode in the design of the hardware and you're away...
protected mode on the 286, though, should have had more made of it. it
was a missed opportunity.
--
Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...
My demographics:
I'm 33 and from Sydney, Australia. I'm a Taswegian by birth, and my first
intro to computers was a gift of a 4 function calculator from my mother when
I was 10. That particular unit (a CASIO) had a problem dividing by 0 - it
tried to!! The display patiently counted from 0 up to... well I never saw
it stop before the batteries gave out. I guess thats what started my prime
interest in computers - the quirky and unusual.
Mixed with a dollop of nostalgia (it's not what it used to be), and you have
me today - a collector of just about anything that calculates and isn't too
big (we're renting). So, slide rules, mechanical calculators, handheld
electronic calculators and recently some of the early home micros and game
machines. That's my collecting field. Our house blows a fuse when I turn
on the dishwasher and the washing machine; there's just no way I'm going to
have a mainframe running here for anything over a couple of milliseconds.
I'm a programmer by nature - having earned my stripes on the console
machines of the mid to late 80s (Nintendo and Super Nintendo, Commodore 64,
etc). Mainly 6502 stuff. I'm now programming what we call Interactive
Multipath Movies - real time rendered 3D movies with which you can interact
and see story changes as you interact. Its quite neat, actually - I just
bought shares in our company.
Anyway, my other passion is lost information. I find the search for missing
information - the gathering together of widely dislocated pieces - somewhat
enjoyable. Why, just today I tracked down the original owner of my Exidy
Sorcerer. I've been known to track down the owner of a slide rule deposited
in a junk store some 20 years ago. He was rather surprised to hear from a
guy from Australia - and unfortunately thought I was a kook!
Well, maybe I am :)
I'm married to a lovely American lady, and we have two rugrats. The kids
just love circular slide rules and my little girl (3yo) begs me to let her
clean my calculators. Which, of course, I do.
I invite you all to visit my web sites, devoted to various parts of my
collecting interests...
Museum of Soviet Calculators (currently a Yahoo! and Netscape Cool LInk)
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/calculator/soviet.html
Slide Rule Trading Post
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/
Weird Computing Machines
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/weird/
I have various other sites, but not related to computing. I'm hoping,
eventually, to move back to Tasmania - the place I grew up and the place my
heart longs for. Of course, my computers and calculators will move with me.
I'm sure the wife and kids will come too :)
My collection consists of the following, and lots of widgets I forget...
Wang calculator (interesting)
Altair 8800b
Kaypro II
Exidy Sorcerers
OSI Challenger
Atari 800
Commodore C64
KIM-1
BBC
Creativision
Soviet Calculators (about a dozen)
HP calculators (nearly, but not quite, the whole set)
Slide rules
and the prize....
a Thatcher Calculator.
I welcome all emails, but warn that due to the large amount of email my
sites generate I'm sometimes less than quick to respond!
Cheers
A
adavie(a)mad.scientist.com
I snarfed this ad off some classified ads web site. Maybe someone in
Southern Cal has a truck handy....
----------------------------------------------------------------------
COMPLETE network system, 1 mainframe, 7 stations,
fast & reliable, great for small business, sacrifice, $350
or trade for ?
(310) 822-4052
$350
--
mor(a)crl.com
http://www.crl.com/~mor/
