I found a really neat computer the other day. Its made by a company
called Zendex circa 1980. It's an 8085 multi-bus machine. Inside it has
the processor board, a disk controller, an I/O board, and a parallel
interface daughter-board bolted to the back, but which is connected to the
system bus by way of a ribbon cable. The front panel consists of 8
interrupt and one reset switch.
A very unique system, in that I've never seen one or even heard of the
company before, but nothing special. However, the neat thing about this
computer is that the company that makes it is still around and in fact is
right around the corner from where I work! When I first examined the
computer, it had a label with the company's address: 6680 Sierra Ct in
Dublin, California. I went there a couple days ago and they are in almost
the exact same spot (one address over now). The slogan embossed on their
front window reads "International Manufacturer of Microcomputers Since
1979". I went inside, explained who I was and why I was there, and asked
if there was anyone I could speak to about the system to get information
(and hopefully documentation) on it. I was told to call back as everyone
was in a meeting so I'll be bringing the system by today to bug them.
I finally had a chance to open it up last night. One of the neater things
is that the front panel circuit board has imprinted on it "Made in
Dublin". Now, the reason this is quaint is because, although Dublin is
part of the "Bay Area", its not by any means considered a part of the
"Silicon Valley". So "Made in Dublin" I think is a cute little
acknowledgement of the fact that the company was removed from the main
hi-tech bustle of that era. This particular area where I'm at is not
foreign to significant computer companies as Processor Technology (makers
of the Sol-20) made their headquarters just a mile away in Pleasanton,
California. It's nice discovering that makers of classic computers used
to be right in your backyard. It's even nicer when they're still around
so you can go bug them for information.
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!
Oops! Apologies to those who weren't interested. Although neural nets go back
a long way, they're not classic computers, and I thought this was being sent to
Max, not the list.
On Apr 3, 2:25, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> Subject: Re: Neural Networks
> On Apr 2, 17:33, Max Eskin wrote:
> > Subject: Neural Networks
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
I guess this is a little off-topic, but I'm not exactly sure where to ask
about this... Anyone know anything about the Intellicom Mega-Link four port
buffer? Four buttons and six LED's on the front, a row of eight 256k RAM
chips and three rows of sockets for more RAM, and the three DB-25 and a
36-pin centronics connector on the back. Any ideas on how to hook it up?
I'm gessing there was either a special cable for it(centronics to serial
port) or maybe it was designed to attach to a serial port card or
something...
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In a message dated 98-04-02 13:28:02 EST, you write:
<< > I collect home micros, and I recently acquired a Mac 128K. However, it's
> been quite heavily modified with contemporary third-party add-ons. It's
> been taken up to 1M RAM and it's had a SCSI interface installed. >>
whenever i find a computer that's been modified, i leave it as is. for
example, i have a mac512 with a internal hard disk called a hyperdrive. quite
a clever setup and i also have an apple ][+ with an aftermarket encoder board
which gave autorepeat, macros, type ahead, and all the characters that the //e
could do. i also have a mac IIcx with a 68040 processor board. i keep all
modifications as they themselves are worth as much as the computer itself and
provide personality to the machine.
david
On Apr 2, 17:33, Max Eskin wrote:
> Subject: Neural Networks
> I know we discussed this earlier, so the replies can be private, if
> you wish, but it seems that some people here are familiar with the
> field.
>
> My question is this. My understanding of neural networks is a bunch
> of neurons, all more or less randomly connected, with one output
> and an arbitrary number of inputs; if the sum of the inputs equals
> a certain predetermined level, the neuron sends a pulse on the output,
> to trigger other neurons.
> Could someone please complicate the picture for me?
Sure :-)
What you describe is not quite right; they're not usually totally randomly
interconnected. If there are lots of neurons, they're usually in three layers.
At least, for a "conventional" multilayer network, they are. There are various
methods for adjusting the weights on the perceptron inputs, and propagating
changes backwards through the network, in order to "teach" it. It's a slow
process, involving a lot of repetition, large amounts of test data, and various
formulae to do the back-propagation and also to determine when you've done
enough teaching (which basically means deciding when you've minimised the
errors). If you overteach such networks, the performance can actually decline.
You can also build a single-layer network with just one neuron (they're usually
called perceptrons, BTW). However, single-layer networks are restricted to
distinguishing linearly-separable entities. In other words, if you plotted a
scatter chart with all the possible inputs represented as dots, you could
separate them into two types just by drawing a straight line through the chart.
If you have more than two types, then more lines. More than two input
criteria, more dimensions (and use planes etc instead of lines). The problem
is, not all of the world is like that. A single layer network can't separate
types if they aren't arranged in an appropriate way -- the simplest
non-linearly-solvable example is the XOR problem: two types, but arranged like
the pattern of 1s and 0s in an XOR truth table:
1 0
0 1
You can't draw a single line that separates the 0s from the 1s; so by
definition they're not linearly seperable. You can easily do this with a
multilayer network, of course.
Then there are Hopfield networks. All the neurons are connected to all the
others in a Hopfield network. The feedback equations get quite interesting.
And Kohonen networks. You don't teach them; they learn. *What* they learn may
take some figuring out...
And binary networks like the one I was working with recently. You should be
able to find some information about that on our Department's web server (and
several other places too).
http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/arch/neural/
Have I confused you yet? :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
I know we discussed this earlier, so the replies can be private, if
you wish, but it seems that some people here are familiar with the
field.
My question is this. My understanding of neural networks is a bunch
of neurons, all more or less randomly connected, with one output
and an arbitrary number of inputs; if the sum of the inputs equals
a certain predetermined level, the neuron sends a pulse on the output,
to trigger other neurons.
Could someone please complicate the picture for me?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
David wrote:
> In a message dated 4/1/98 9:57:30 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> rigdonj(a)intellistar.net writes:
>
> << I have a chance to buy a box full of Radio Shack model 102 portable
> computers. None have been tested and there are no power supplies with them.
> Does anyone know what voltage and polarity the external power connector
> uses? And if there is any kind of self-test built-in? Can anyone give me an
> idea of what these are worth? >>
>
> shoot, i'd love to have another tandy 102! my ac adaptor for my 102 says 6v dc
> at 400 ma
I'd love to have one at all!
Seriously, Joe, if you get a box full, will you be putting some up for
sale?
> according to the little drawing on the adaptor, the inner part of the plug is
> negative. outer part is positive. not sure what they're worth, but i bought
That's all I'd need to know. I am quite used to building PSUs on such a
spec. Or less. (Actually I'd look inside to see whether it needs to be
regulated, but 6V seldom does).
> mine with the accompanying battery operated cassette recorder and owner's
> manual for $25. would love to find the external floppy for it.
The model 100 I've seen for 100 or more UK pounds over here. I don't
know what additional features were in the 102; I also don't think I
could afford L100. But I'd probably pay $50 US including shipping for a
model 102 without power supply.
Philip.
PS I'm back from Taiwan at last. Taiwan really is the most unhackish
place I've been on my travels... But more to the point, I've missed
most of the last 3 weeks on Classiccmp, so I may be ignorant of the
context on some longer-running threads. Please forgive any silly
questions that may arise...
>As one facet of this, we might consider what people would do with
>their old systems, if they even got the *impression* that their
>private information might be read by a new owner. They might
>prefer to totally destroy the machine than to take a risk like
>that.
>
I have had an instance of this recently. At work a tape drive attached to a
PC and which takes the same size casettes as my Sun386i is about to become
redundant. The an accounts clerk in the department concerned has said that
I will not be able to have the _drive_ because it has been used for
confidential data. The fact that the data is on the _tapes_ seems to
reflect on the availability of the drive!
Regards
Pete
I would like hear from anyone that has done any archiving of their
classic computer documents and manuals.
I'm currently using a UMAX 300P that claims a maximum 24 bit color
resolution of 300x600 dpi. I'm scanning into Photoshop4 and saving
in JPEG format. I'm trying to save as much information as I can, so
pages that have any color besides black and white, I'm scanning
at 299 (that's the max for color) dpi in RGB and and everything else in
299 dpi grayscale. I'm averaging, for 8.5 x 11 pages, about 5.3 Mb
for color and 2.1 Mb for grayscale. Just last weekend I burned
my first CD of docs consisting of 26 color pages and 170 B/W
pages for a total of 454 Mb.( I didn't fill the CD bcause I was anxious
to try printing the files at work.)
I printed two of the highest detailed B/W pages (schematics) today
at 400 dpi. The results were disappointing. All of the fine details were
lost. I assume I need to use a higher resolution for printing. I also have
quite a bit of background clutter on the printed page. I'm having no
problems seeing the smallest details when I magnify the pages in
Photoshop.
=========================================
Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com
Senior Software Engineer
Press Start Inc.
Sunnyvale,CA
Curator
Museum of Personal Computing Machinery
http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum
=========================================
Hello. I know that this is semi-off-topic, but does anyone have MS-DOS
mouse drivers for a Serial MS 2.0 mouse? I was trying to run some classic
DOS based software, which requires a mouse, which was not included because
of Windows 95... I tried running it in Windows, I get an error...
Ciao,
Tim D. Hotze
PS-If you could just e-mail them as an attached file to
photze(a)batelco.com.bh ... that would be great.
