Steve Jobs is known to hold grudges
>personally against floppies. Did a floppy drive try to kill his
sister?
>Insult his family? Steal his college thesis and claim it as its own?
>
>Whatever grievous harm a floppy drive has done to him in the past,
>it must have been quite bad for him to hold a grudge this long.
One word: "Twiggy". (Lisa 1 floppy)
Kai
| -----Original Message-----
| From: David Wollmann [mailto:dwollmann@ibmhelp.com]
| Sent: Thursday, May 07, 1998 1:40 PM
| To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
| Subject: Re: the new Apple iMac
|
| is/will there be a USB Zip drive?
Nope.
Kind of off the classic subject but...
USB is for sound, keyboards, pointing devices, joysticks, single-user
printers, and low-bandwidth video such as webcam/lowres
videoconferencing/frame capture. USB is a low-speed bus that is already
overwhelmed with all of these duties without dropping a very high bandwidth
storage device on there as well. The last thing you want is for your mouse
to get choppy when you print, for example. The "high speed" version of USB
is only 1.5MBps and Dolby Digital AC-3 DVD audio can take half of that
alone. We are strongly evangelizing against anyone doing fast storage
devices for USB.
IEEE1394/Firewire is the connection of choice for full motion video/editing,
storage devices, workgroup printers, etc.
Kai
OK.. this is very quick, but basically, I want to outline the following
points for making a way for old, no longer profitable hardware/software to
make it available:
Reasons To Change
1) Public relations. People who think that you're giving away info on
products that your company made will have a profound effect on anyone
involved.
2) No longer responsible for the information. You don't have to archive old
data anymore, meaning that you can make information lean and clean. Support
for old products can come from those who now hold the information.
3) Recieve credit for work. You (the company giving information) will get
credit for your work, meaning that if someone thinks that Product A Rev. 1.x
has innovation, then Product B 8.x will, too. Also, it means that you
significantly increase your user base without costly advertising/marketing
campaigns.
Now, here's what I propose needs to happen to get this done:
1) Liscense agreement. This would be similiar to the GPL (in the fact that
it's free, but does not bar anyone from profiting by information.)
2) Central orginazation. Something like GNU, but less proffesional. It
would contain all archives collected, as well as user-made enhancements,
notes or other docs. (For example: Getting a ST 251 to work under
Linux/Windows) Then for support, tech. support reps. could reffer ceretain
products to the orginiaztion and not waste any more time. This would prove
to save companies time and money, especially if it saves training.
3) Petition would need to be made of lots of people (Founding members)
willing to support this idea, weather through time, money, or just a name
giving support.
For the liscense agreement, we need to be as flexible as possible to get
as much information as possible. So we'd have levels, where any information
could be used for commercial purposes (building new drives based on
information), where it could be used for referance (for instance fixing a
drive), or for "small" commercial purposes. (For example, Fredrick's XT
Part Shop could build new Seagate MFM drives/re-sell modified copies of
PC-DOS 1.x, whereas Maxtor couldn't.)
So, this is just a basic list, and I want it to get improved, then when
we're sure we know what we want, finilize it, legalize it, put it on the
web, and propose to hardware/software manufactuers.
Just my 0.02 (with interests, no doubt.)
Tim D. Hotze
>Anyone see the new Apple iMac unveiled today? I like it. Instant
>classic.
Has me excited. Beautiful design, fast G3 processor, really cheap...But
does it have a SCSI port? A floppy drive? Those are two things I can't
make do without.
Tom
I am searching for a source of manuals and any related documentation for
Data General's Advanced Operating System (AOS) and for its MP/OS
operating system. The AOS ran on DGs Eclipse minicomputer. The MP/OS ran
on DGs microprocessor-based MicoNova.
Someone suggested you may be able to help. Can you?
John Conklin
(312) 616-5600
Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com> wrote:
> Was "TERI" the codename for the Apple //c?
Moby. At least that's what I get from this book I got turned onto:
_AppleDesign: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group_, by Paul
Kunkel, photos by Rick English, ISBN 1-888001-25-9, published by
Graphis, 1997.
Mini-review: |<00|_ pictures of computers and concept models and other
things. Emphasis is on industrial design, not technology. The text
is marred by typos and an overall feeling that the author thinks Apple
and those responsible are just too cool for words.
Maybe they are. Or maybe it's just that I've had enough of dealing
with PC-contemptibles with funny disk-drive rails and the like that
I'm not real tolerant of k00l kasewerk any more. They sure are pretty
pictures, though....
-Frank McConnell
I would also recommend that if you come across a company that helps with old
systems like the story about the tape drive, be sure to let the company know
their help is appreciated. hopefully that will still give them an incentive to
continue to offer help.
david
<altering the computer (machine) is that there is a definite distinction
<between the circuitry to drive the logic unit (CPU) and the circuitry
<which defines the stored program (code). So while a masked ROM cannot b
<altered, you can swap out the ROM with a new ROM with a completely
<different set of instructions, while the rest of the circuitry which
<executes the code remains unmodified.
Apply that to the 8048 or other single chip mcu.
<digital computers and not analogue. I think the murky area being argued
<here is strictly pertaining to analog computers since it is indeed a
<series of filters and amplifiers combined to manipulate analog signals.
<digital computer is something quite different, and I think quite easy to
<define.
Thats the point. Many exceedingly simple looking analogue systems
perform what would take a fairly complex digital system to simulate.