Well, I scored a Panasonic Senior Partner (IBM-compatible luggable) with a
20meg HD. No matter what the product, I always like what Panasonic
manufactures. The design and (physical) user interface of stuff they
make just works for me.
Anyway, this one came complete with Rogue, Nethack and Mahjong installed.
I just enjoyed a splendid game of Rogue which I haven't played in ages
(made it to Level 8, Warrior with about 2500 gold).
It also had some C code, some unix utils in C:\BIN and a file pertaining
to Apollo workstations. Seems this machine used to be owned by a Unix
hacker for sure.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't blame me...I voted for Satan.
Coming in September...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
[Last web page update: 05/03/98]
If this new Mac has no removeable media, what happens when the hard
drive breaks? How do you re-install the OS? Off the net? Catch-22, OS
isn't running, no TCP/IP stack. Off the USB? OK, then the boot ROM
supports bootable media from the USB? I'm impressed, even PCs don't
support that. And the removeable media of choice for the USB is? No
wait, let me guess, a scanner...you load the OS by scanning in bar codes
which contain the OS binaries. That would be, oh, about 100K pages to
scan in? Or you just send the whole thing back to Apple, and if they
have spares, and they are still in business, they send you back a nice
new pre-installed disk, sans all the software and setup you had on it.
Then you restore off the net, but uh oh, all you have is a 28.8Kb
connection, and 400MB of backup.
Good plan, system administrators will love this machine. No doubt
corporate types will beat down Apple's door to buy it.
Jack Peacock
John Ruschmeyer <jruschme(a)exit109.com> wrote:
>One thing to remember here is that your logic is based on the premise
>that the information still exists.
Yes, of course. I wouldn't begin a quest of begging until I was sure
the item existed. No Holy Grail searches for me. I think there are
several categories of "lost": 1) it's somewhere in the vaults but
we can't find it, 2) it's in the vaults but no I'm too busy to get it,
3) I can't get permission to get it out, 4) I've got it but I don't
want to give it to you, 5) I can't give it you, 6) We'd have to pay a
lawyer to say we can give it to you, etc. down through N) the company
says they don't have it but an engineer we found on the net managed
to save a copy.
I'm more concerned about saving what we can, and getting official
permission to do so, and being able to reproduce it in a more
accessible fashion than it exists now. I can't do anything about
things that don't exist.
Tony Duell wrote:
>Exactly. One problem that PERQ-fanatics have found is just who (out of
>PERQ Logic Systems, Accent Systems, ICL, Varityper, etc) own what?
And perhaps this can help the argument. If a company has completely
lost or disregarded an asset that we can point out that they rightfully
own, perhaps they'll be more friendly if we ask to take care of it
for them. Buy-outs and acquisitions tend to prune away less valuable
(but no less *interesting*) technologies. My Quest involves telling
Lockheed-Martin that they own the Terak. Wish me luck. :-)
Ward Donald Griffiths III <gram(a)cnct.com> wrote:
>"Inventory" tax means that for as long as you hold the merchandise,
>you will continue to be taxed every bloody year unless you bite the
>bullet and throw the stuff away.
In my understanding of accounting, this "tax" doesn't exist. I think
the previous writer doesn't understand why the bean counters want to
get rid of inventory. There are certainly exceptions that rile
the blood of small- and large-L libertarians, but in my experience
in US small business, you are only taxed once. A B.C. wants to
reduce inventory for other reasons - it's money tied up in junk
that's not selling, not gaining interest, and isn't growing in value.
When it comes time to dumpster it, it becomes a write-off loss and
its original cost is probably taken as a deduction of some kind,
which alone makes it valuable to the bottom line.
So, the original poster's notion is correct - the complications of
taxation tends to make companies dump old stuff. It's like property
tax - it forces people to find a way for the land to generate at
least that much cash, which discourages people from buying land and
simply preserving it as-is.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
Well I'll be darned! I read those post wondering what the diference was
between a Z90 and a Zenith Z89 (Which is what I thought is what I had) just
to finally discover that I don't have a Z89 at all. Better change that entry
in the web site.
Now I'm going to have to check all my machines and make sure I have all the
model numbers right :) .
Francois
-------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the Sanctuary at: http://www.pclink.com/fauradon
>Z90). The Z90 was a Zenith Data Systems-branded machine which is Heath
>factory-built. It had a bit different setup than the factory-built or kit
>versions bought from Heath (the H-89). Don't quite know what those
>differences were though, but the H-89 and Z-90 were still very similar.
>On Fri, 8 May 1998, Larry Groebe wrote:
>
>> The EL-8 was Sharp's original portable calculator from 1971 (in Japan in
>> late 1970) and cost $345 back then (for your basic 4-function
>> calculator!) The display is listed in my reference book as a flourescent
>> -type tube display.
>
>That sounds right. The guy I talked to mentioned that it was IC-based,
>not micro-based.
>
>> I don't believe it used the 4004 chip - relatively few calculators
>> actually did use the 4004.
>
>I think it was a deal between Busicom and Intel for a calculator chip that
>produced the 4004 and started the microprocessor revolution, right?
>
>-- Doug
True- although IIRC Busicom didn't actually use the 4004 as things worked
out.
There's a nice webpage devoted to the 4004 at:
http://home1.gte.net/ccourson/4004.htm
--Larry
At 02:14 PM 5/7/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Some of the folks at Motorola are also good about stuff like this. Many
>times I have needed data sheets for some of their more obscure, long
>obsolete chips, and they came thru with free photocopies from some ancient
>databooks.
I dunno how efficient it would be, but perhaps interested parties could
volunteer to format and html-ize old databooks, etc. for companies. They
wouldn't have to do any effort (except provide the source documents) but
then they could post them on their web site and make them available to anyone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/
Found on another list...
<snip>
A talk on the SAGE System (1956-63) will be given at Moffett Field
on Tuesday evening May 19, 5:30-7 PM. SAGE was Semi-Automatic Ground
Environment, embodied as 22 monster computers (250 tons) each with
49,000 vacuum tubes consuming 3 megawatts of power. Parts of the
last SAGE system, decommissioned in 1982, will be behind the speakers.
For details, see www.computerhistory.org/sage.
<snip>
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
<> The electronic one was interesting mainly for its display. It was
<> fluorescent (greenish digits sealed in a long glass tube), but not
<> 7-segment. Instead, there were (I think) nine segments, all of strange
<> curly shapes, which made up digits much easier to read than the angular
<> blocky, 7-segment types. But I can no longer remember how these were
<> arranged, nor even any details like the manufacturer of the calculator
<
<These are called "Nixie Tubes". But don't ask me much more about it. I
<just know what they're called. I have at least one nixie-tube calculato
Not Nixie tubes as they were exactly 12 "segments" 0-9 and a decimal point
on either side. Their color was neon orange from the gas use to fill
them. They were glow discharge rather than fluoresent typically bluish
green. VF diplays were also available in red, yellow, blue, green and
white or combinations. Both technologies are from the "magic eye" tubes
and neon lamps of 30years+ prior.
The biggest difference between nixie from a calculator standpoint was
nixies needed about a 60-80 volt swing to ignite/quench at low current
where VF displays were typically 10-30v.
I have a 40x2x(7x5) dot matrix character display bottle (VF) and several
7 segment claculator displays also VF in raw form. Nixies, my Yasu 355D
frequency counter uses them (purchased new in 1974!) still works.
Allison
